Coastguard rescue teenager from North Pacific after boat sinks
A man spent more than 24 hours in a fish box in the North Pacific Ocean after the 28ft fishing boat he was on sank. Ryan Harris, a 19-year-old fisherman, was rescued from freezing cold water on Saturday 8th September from a 4ft square storage box. Fellow crew member, Stonie Huffman, was found on a beach the next morning, having managed to put on a survival suit and lay on a large plastic lid he found among the wreckage.
The boat had a mechanical failure, which the men managed to fix at sea, but by the time they were back up and running, the weather had turned and a huge wave engulfed the boat. According to Harris, the boat wasswamped before they could call a mayday.
Harris told the Daily Sitka Sentinel that he never thought he was going to die, and kept his spirits high by singing ‘Row row row the boat’ and ‘Rudolf the red nosed
Reindeer’.
He said, “The worst thing was worrying about Stonie and if he was okay.”
Both men survived with no lasting injuries, with Harris just having blisters on his hands from holding on to the box and a cut on his face fromwhen he was rescued by a lifeboat.
