His neighbor, Jostein Jorgensen, said he was roused at around 5 a.m. by the sound of a ship heading at full speed toward land and immediately ran to Helberg's house. The massive vessel reportedly caused damage to a heating pipe in Helberg's cabin, TV2 reported, but the homeowner said he considered himself lucky.

The helmsman of a huge container ship that ran aground in Norway just a stone's throw away from a cabin as its owner slept was probably asleep as well at the time of the accident, Norwegian media reported Friday.

A retiree living along a Norwegian fjord woke up on Thursday morning because his neighbor was pounding on his door, telling him to look outside. The ship just missed his house.