Nearly three days on the hull of an overturned Bering Sea fishing vessel, and a 15-year-old Alaska boy was still breathing when U.S. Coast Guard aircrews found him Monday, about 4 miles east of remote St. Lawrence Island. He was one of three aboard. His 16-year-old brother and their 39-year-old cousin did not survive.
The vessel last seen departing Savoonga, Alaska, on Friday for St. Lawrence Island missed its scheduled return early Sunday morning. St. Lawrence Island sits roughly 100 miles west of mainland Alaska and about 40 miles from Russia's Chukchi Peninsula. The boy was found with chattering teeth and showing symptoms of hypothermia. The fishing vessel Northwest Explorer rescued him after Coast Guard aircrews dropped a life raft and coordinated his recovery. The bodies of the two deceased were also recovered.
Search and rescue
The operation drew in the Coast Guard, the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, the Alaska Air National Guard, Alaska State Troopers, and local authorities, with multiple planes and helicopters deployed before the rescue concluded Monday. The Coast Guard announced the outcome publicly on Wednesday.
Lt. Cmdr. Jonathon Resch, the Coast Guard pilot who located the teen, told ABC News his team was "elated." The find came down to positioning: he said he had "just happen[ed] to be looking out the window at the right angle of sun" when he spotted the raft. His read of the survival odds was blunt. "People don't survive those scenarios," Resch told ABC News. "People don't flip boats and survive nights."
Coast Guard Arctic District commander Rear Adm. Bob Little described the loss of the two mariners as "tragic" and credited the multi-agency effort. "We are grateful for the incredible efforts of the motor vessel Northwest Explorer, [plus] federal, state, village first responders and mission partners who assisted in the effort that resulted in a life saved," Little said in a statement.
Video of the rescue shows the boy in a bright yellow jacket, kneeling on the overturned skiff, as the Northwest Explorer's crew threw a line, hauled the hull alongside, and lifted him into a rescue basket.
His mother monitored the rescue over radio Monday while other family members gathered around a speakerphone. A family member told the Associated Press: "We all cried and jumped for joy when the captain announced on the radio, 'We found a kid, he's alive, he's alive.'" The same family member recalled what came next: "Then we asked, 'Where's the rest of them?'"