Lone Survivor Of Missing Boat Rescued After Over 2 Months At Sea

Kamchatka, Russia, which borders the Sea of Okhotsk Photo: Guo Feizhou/Xinhua (Getty Images)

The temperature may be dropping here in New York, but it doesn’t compare to the freezing cold of the Sea of Okhotsk — the Russian waterway in which Mikhail Pichugin spent over two months adrift before his rescue this week.

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Pichugin set out on a catamaran with his brother and teenage nephew on August 9, and the trio quickly lost contact with shore. The boat remained lost until the night of October 14, when a fishing boat spotted the small boat and alerted rescuers, who found only Pichugin left alive. CNN has the details, per Russian outlet RIA Novosti:

Pichugin will be taken to a hospital for medical treatment in the town of Magadan, in Russia’s far east, RIA reported.

He is “in serious condition, emaciated, but conscious,” the director of the fishing company that stumbled upon the adrift boat told RIA.

While RIA Novosti’s credibility may be up for debate, given the outlet’s love of articles about how Russia is totally winning the war in Ukraine and its AI-generated images on pieces justifying the nation’s expansionism (plus a weird number of web ads for Solitaire) this sort of local human interest story is more likely to be true than anything on a national scale. It also features a tidbit from Pichugin’s wife, claiming the man’s weight was the reason for his survival — at 220 pounds, he could outlast the others once their food ran out.

So, if you’re planning a boat trip into freezing waters this winter, eat a few burgers before you go. With any luck, you won’t need them, but should the worst come to pass they might just help you ride out until rescue.