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A 15-year-old boy gripped the top of a capsized skiff in Alaska’s frigid Bering Sea for roughly two days before being rescued by a fishing vessel.
His older brother and a cousin, who had gone fishing with him, did not survive.
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The boy and his cousin held on to the overturned skiff for a while before the cousin slipped into the water, the teen told one of the rescuers.
The bodies of the two were found after the teen was hoisted to safety near St. Lawrence Island — a remote Alaskan island that’s closer to Russia than it is to the United States.
The captain of the fishing boat, The Northwest Explorer, said the boy clung to the skiff through darkness and water temperatures around 10 C.
“That’s one tough kid,” Adam White told KTUU-TV in Anchorage.
“Through the teeth chattering, he had mentioned that his brother was still under the skiff,” White said. “And then he said that, in the previous night, before our rescue, that his cousin had slipped away.”
U.S. Coast Guard planes and helicopters began searching for the skiff Monday morning after family members reported the three missing the night before.
The group left the village of Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island on Friday and planned to return early Sunday, the Coast Guard said.
Halibut fishing is a part of the culture and important to survival in the village where there are about 800 residents and jobs are hard to come by, said Collen Walker, an aunt of the two brothers. Residents often share their catch with family and neighbours, she said.
“That’s how we do it in our community. We take care of one another,” she said Friday. “We still live a traditional way of life even if the world is changing.”
Derek Parker Aghnaanga, the teen rescued, often went fishing with his 35-year-old brother, Sidney Kulowiyi, and looked to him as a father figure ever since their own father died when they were younger, Walker said.
She described Kulowiyi, a commercial fishing captain, as a humble and loving “provider for people in the village.” She didn’t want to release the name of their cousin who died, saying he also came from Savoonga.
Their skiff capsized Saturday night far out in the ocean, she was told.
The Coast Guard said one of its aircrews spotted the boy Monday morning and deployed a raft and supplies before contacting The Northwest Explorer.
Aghnaanga’s mother was listening to a radio transmission of the rescue Monday while other family members huddled around a speakerphone, Walker said.
“We all cried and jumped for joy when the captain announced on the radio, ‘We found a kid, he’s alive, he’s alive,’” she said. “Then we asked, ‘Where’s the rest of them?’”
Video of the rescue shows Aghnaanga in a bright yellow jacket kneeling atop the overturned skiff. The boat’s crew tosses him a line, tugging the skiff closer until they can pull him into a rescue basket.
He was experiencing symptoms of hypothermia when he got onto the boat, the Coast Guard said.
The fishing boat crew warmed him with blankets and hot packs, its captain said.
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