Two Burmese fishermen survived almost a month floating in a large esky after their small wooden boat sank in the Torres Strait two days before Christmas. The survivors, who are in their 20s, are recovering in the Thursday Island Hospital, off the tip of Cape York Peninsula.
The men, dehydrated and exhausted, were spotted on last week end by a routine border patrol and were subseqyuently plucked from the ocean by an Emergency Management Queensland helicopter flown by pilot Terry Gadenne.
“When we winched down the rescue crewman into the water, the guy in the esky leapt out,” Mr Gadenne told Seven.
“He was desperately keen to get on and pulled him (the rescuer) down into the water, so he was pretty keen to get away from the ocean.
“When they got up (into the helicopter) they gulped two litres of water each within seconds.”
The men said 18 other people were on board a 10-metre wooden fishing vessel when the boat sank, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins said. “They said when it sank they all went into the water and they didn’t have any floatation device,” she said.”It’s remarkable that they survived, and that they were spotted by Coastwatch who were on a routine flight over the Torres Strait.
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