After being lost at sea for 67 days, a man was discovered alive in a small boat alongside the corpses of his brother and 15-year-old nephew.
Officials said on Tuesday that a Russian man was saved in the rough waters of the Sea of Okhotsk after living over two months in a small inflatable boat with a broken engine, while unfortunately, his brother and nephew did not survive.
The man was saved on Monday by a fishing boat near the Kamchatka Peninsula, according to the prosecutor’s office in the far east of Russia.
Although the survivor was not named, Russian news reports revealed him to be Mikhail Pichugin, a 46-year-old man who embarked on a trip in early August to observe whales in the Sea of Okhotsk with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew. According to reports, their bodies were discovered on the boat during the rescue of Pichugin by the Angel fishing vessel.
According to media sources, the trio journeyed to the Shantar Islands near the northwest coast of the Sea of Okhotsk at the beginning of August. They disappeared while returning to Sakhalin Island on Aug. 9. The men were not found despite family members contacting authorities and initiating a rescue operation.
The man’s spouse informed RIA Novosti that the three of them carried sufficient provisions for approximately fourteen days, including warm clothing, life vests, flares, and around five gallons of water. Their boat engine seemed to have malfunctioned, causing them to drift aimlessly.
News reports stated that Pichugin was discovered weighing around 110 pounds, having dropped half of his original body weight.
He didn’t immediately explain how he had survived in the Sea of Okhotsk, the coldest sea in East Asia infamous for its fierce storms, or how his brother and nephew had perished. It has been reported that the local prosecutor’s office initiated a preliminary criminal investigation into the deaths.
According to Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, the fishing crew mistook the small inflatable boat on their radar for a buoy or debris, but were surprised to see Pichugin when they shone a spotlight on it.
He did not immediately explain how he survived in the Sea of Okhotsk, which is the coldest sea in East Asia and is infamous for its gales, and how his brother and nephew perished. Reports said that the crew of the ship that saved Pichugin discovered their corpses fastened to the vessel in order to avoid them being carried off by the ocean.
When Pichugin was found, his boat was floating approximately 11 nautical miles away from the coast of Kamchatka, around 540 nautical miles from where they started on the opposite side of the Sea of Okhotsk.
A video posted by the district attorney’s office depicted a skinny man in a life vest urgently calling out “come over here!” while the team endeavored to rescue him.
Pichugin expressed his lack of remaining energy as he was brought to safety.
Pichugin was quickly taken to the emergency department at the Magadan hospital. Yuri Lednev, the head doctor, informed the press that he was experiencing dehydration and hypothermia but his condition was stable.
According to RIA Novosti, Alexei Arykov, the owner of the fishing boat that discovered the survivor, described him as “seriously ill, emaciated, but alert.”
The vessel arrived at the port in the far eastern city of Magadan around 0830 GMT and the person who survived was taken off on a stretcher, as stated by the news agency.
Yekaterina, the survivor’s spouse, expressed to RIA Novosti that the situation was miraculous, mentioning that the men had brought along sufficient food and water for just a 14-day supply.
An expert interviewed by RIA Novosti mentioned that four Soviet soldiers in 1960 managed to live for 49 days on a small boat lost in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued by the U.S. aircraft carrier Keersarge.
Prosecutors initiated an inquiry into the incident for breaking safety regulations, which led to fatalities.
A sailor from Australia reported that he lived through over two months lost at sea with his dog last year. Tim Shaddock, aged 51, along with his dog Bella, was sailing from Mexico to French Polynesia when their boat and its electronics system were damaged by rough seas, leaving them stranded and isolated from the rest of the world.
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