A 46-year-old Russian man was recently rescued after spending 67 days drifting through the icy waters of the Russian Far East in an inflatable raft.
On August 9, Mikhail Pichugin, his 49-year-old brother Sergey, and his 15-year-old nephew Ilya set out for Sakhalin Island from the far eastern Khabarovsk region in an inflatable raft. A few days later, their families announced their disappearance, and a search and rescue operation was mounted using planes and helicopters. All efforts to locate the inflatable boat failed, and with each passing day, hopes of finding any of the three men alive faded. By September, the chances of finding the boat had plummeted towards zero, but on Monday, October 14, the inflatable boat was spotted in the Sea of Okhotsk, about 1,000km (670 miles) from where it had set off 67 days prior. Miraculously, one of the three men was still alive.
Mikhail Pichugin owes his life to chance, as the boat he had drifted on for 67 days was spotted by a fishing boat at around 10:00 pm. The 46-year-old barely had enough strength to speak and struggled to catch a rope thrown by the fishing boat crew. But he was still breathing, which in itself was nothing short of miraculous considering the situation.
Unfortunately, Pichugin’s brother and nephew were not as lucky… After going adrift in the freezing waters of the Russian Far East, the three men survived on dried noodles, peas and water. The 15-year-old Ilya was the first to perish in September, after which the two brothers spent about three weeks together on the boat, during which time they developed bed sores from sitting on one side for too long. At one point, Sergey tried washing his wounds and fell into the icy water. Mikhail rescued him, but his older brother didn’t last too long after that.
As the lone survivor, Mikhail Pichugin tied both his brother’s and his nephew’s bodies to the boat so they didn’t get pushed overboard by waves and hung their jackets on the side of the boat to attract the attention of any passing ship or plane flying overhead.
No one knows exactly how the 46-year-old Russian man managed to survive so long in the middle of the freezing ocean, but his wife told reporters that she believes his weight might have had something to do with it. Pichugin was reportedly around 100 kilograms (220 pounds) before he set out on this tragic boar trip, but weighed only 50 kilograms (110 pounds) when he was carried off the boat by rescuers. The three men had reportedly only brought enough food and water for two weeks.
Russian media reported that Pichugin was in a “more or less stable” condition, as he was still in shock and most likely suffered from hypothermia. He now risks being charged with breaches of safety rules and could spend up to seven years in prison.
