A 15-year-old boy from Alaska was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after being stranded on an overturned fishing boat in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea for nearly three days.
The boy was found alive, with symptoms of hypothermia, about 4 miles east of St. Lawrence Island, a remote island in the Bering Sea roughly 100 miles west of mainland Alaska and about 40 miles from Russia's Chukchi Peninsula. He was the lone survivor of the fishing vessel, which had departed Savoonga for St. Lawrence Island on Friday and was scheduled to return early Sunday morning.
The boy's 16-year-old brother and 39-year-old cousin perished in the incident. The Coast Guard, along with other agencies including the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, the Alaska Air National Guard, and local authorities, launched a search and rescue operation after the vessel failed to return on time.
The rescue effort involved multiple planes and helicopters, and it was a Coast Guard aircrew that finally spotted the boy on the overturned boat. The boy was rescued by the motor vessel Northwest Explorer, which was able to pull him into a rescue basket.
The Coast Guard's Arctic District commander, Rear Adm. Bob Little, described the loss of the two mariners as "tragic" and expressed gratitude for the efforts of all those involved in the rescue operation. The boy's mother was listening to a radio transmission of the rescue on Monday, and she and other family members were overjoyed to hear that their son was alive.
NTC Report coverage is based on reporting from the original publisher.
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