The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday rescued a man who had seemingly done the impossible: he survived for hours in the Gulf of Mexico with nothing but a life jacket and a cooler to cling to.
The agency posted a video of a Coast Guard crew member dropping from a helicopter about 30 miles off Longboat Key to grab the man from choppy seas and lift him to safety.
The man, the captain of a fishing vessel, had lost contact with the Coast Guard around 7 p.m. on Wednesday as the storm worsened. He wasn’t found until 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.
He managed to stay alive despite winds as fast as 90 miles per hour and waves as high as 20 to 25 feet through the night, said Lt. Cmdr. Dana Grady, the St. Petersburg command center chief of the U.S. Coast Guard.
“This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” he said in a statement. The rescued captain, who was not identified, was taken to Tampa General Hospital to receive medical care.
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