“Kind Of Miracle”: Russian Man Survives 2 Months Adrift At Sea

A Russian man was found alive after drifting for two months on an inflatable boat while another man and a teenage boy died, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The two men and a 15-year-old set off to the Island of Sakhalin from the far eastern Khabarovsk region on August 9, transport prosecutors said.

“After a time, communication with them was lost, their boat’s location remained unknown,” they said.

“On October 14 around 10:00 pm, the boat was discovered as it passed a fishing boat… Two people died, one remained alive, he is receiving medical help,” prosecutors said.

The dinghy was found in the Sea of Okhotsk, around 1,000 kilometres (670 miles) from its starting point.

Prosecutors published a video showing the bearded survivor in a life jacket shouting at the fishermen: “I don’t have much strength” but managing to catch a rope.

The survivor was named by RIA Novosti news agency as Mikhail Pichugin, while his brother Sergei, 49, and nephew Ilya, 15, died. Their bodies were on the boat.

Russian rescuers had mounted a search using helicopters and a plane for the men a few days after they disappeared, suspecting the boat had been carried by currents towards Kamchatka.

Alexei Arykov, the owner of the fishing boat that found the survivor said he was “in a serious condition, thin, but conscious,” RIA Novosti reported.

The boat docked around 0830 GMT in the far eastern city of Magadan and the survivor was carried off on a stretcher, the news agency reported.

The survivor’s wife Yekaterina told RIA Novosti: “It’s a kind of miracle”, adding that the men had taken enough food and water to last only two weeks.

She said her husband’s weight could have helped save him, as “he weighed around 100 kilograms” (220 pounds). Russian television reported he lost 50 kilograms.

The brothers were from Ulan-Ude in Siberia but Mikhail Pichugin was working on Sakhalin as a driver.

He had invited his brother and nephew to visit and they planned a sea trip to see whales, Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported, citing relatives.

An expert questioned by RIA Novosti recalled that in 1960, four Soviet soldiers survived 49 days adrift on a small boat in the Pacific Ocean that was found by the US aircraft carrier Keersarge.