A Russian man was rescued this week after spending 67 days adrift on a tiny inflatable boat in the Sea of Okhotsk, authorities said on Tuesday.
Russia’s Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor’s Office and Russian media say the man was rescued on Monday when a fishing vessel spotted a small inflatable boat drifting off the coast of Kamchatka. The motorless vessel was found about 600 miles from where the survivor, listed in Russian state media as 46-year-old Mikhail Pichugin, and two family members had sailed in early August.
Video of the rescue operation released by Russia’s Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor’s Office shows an emaciated man screaming for help as the lights of a fishing vessel fall on his small boat bobbing in the waves.
As the crew pulled him aboard to safety, he told rescuers: “I have no strength left.”
Watch the video of the dramatic rescue here: :
A Russian rescued after more than two months of drifting
Russian rescue teams have found a man whose boat had been adrift at sea for 67 days. His brother and nephew died on board when they got lost.
Over two months of loss
Pichugin, along with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew, set out on a whale-watching expedition in late summer, taking with them a small amount of food rations and water. When he was rescued, the remains of Pichugin’s companions were found tied to a small boat. Local Russian media cite exposure and starvation as the likely causes of death.
According to Russian reports, the boat’s engine was still running when the three set sail from Cape Perov on August 9 towards the island of Sakhalin, but it failed some time later, causing the boat to drift in a sea considered the coldest in East Asia. The first rescue attempt initiated at that time ended in failure.
The Russian newspaper Izvestia published a video interview with Pichugin recovering in hospital, in which he explained that to survive he drank rainwater and slept in a warm woolen sleeping bag. News outlets also attributed Pichugin’s survival to his weight, claiming that he had lost half his body weight by the time he was found, and at the time of his discovery he weighed only about 50 pounds.
The prosecutor’s office will investigate the circumstances of the death of the other two men on board.