A Russian man who survived 66 days adrift at sea in a small inflatable boat spoke from his hospital bed about his harrowing ordeal. Mikhail Pichugin, 46, was rescued by a fishing boat on Monday off the coast of the far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, more than two months after he set out on a boat trip with his brother and 15-year-old nephew, both of whom tragically died during the journey.
Upon being taken to a hospital in Magadan, Pichugin was well enough to provide journalists with a brief account of his experience. Looking pale with red-rimmed eyes but not emaciated, he recounted how he managed to survive in the Sea of Okhotsk.
“With God’s help, how else? If a boat called Angel saved me,” he said, smiling as he referred to the fishing boat that rescued him. Pichugin mentioned that he collected rainwater to drink and credited a sleeping bag filled with camel hair for keeping him warm. “It’s wet, it doesn’t get dry, but you crawl under it, you wriggle around a bit and you get warm,” he explained.
Motivated by thoughts of his family, he stated, “I had no choice. I have my mother at home, my daughter.” Magadan’s deputy governor, Tatiana Savchenko, reported that Pichugin’s condition was “satisfactory” and announced that the administration would cover his flight home and expenses for relatives to visit him.
Pichugin hails from Ulan-Ude in Siberia but was working on the far eastern island of Sakhalin as a driver before the ill-fated trip.