Boat captain rescued, attached to cooler in Gulf of Mexico after Storm Milton

MIAMI, United States (AFP) – The captain of a fishing boat who was tied to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida after Hurricane Milton has been rescued, the US Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued the captain Thursday about 30 miles (48 kilometers) off Longboat Key and took him to a hospital in Tampa for treatment, the military branch said in a statement.

“This man experienced a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” Dana Grady, chief of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Command Center in St., said in a statement. Petersburg.

“To understand the severity of hurricane conditions, we estimate sustained winds of approximately 70-80 mph (120-145 km/h) for an extended period of time, including overnight,” Grady said.

“He survived thanks to a life jacket, an emergency position indicating a locator beacon and a cooler.”

The man was the captain of a fishing vessel that broke down on Monday off the Gulf of Mexico in Florida.

He and a crew member were rescued by a Coast Guard aircraft crew, and the boat was left at sea until rescue efforts could be made.

But early Wednesday morning, the captain returned to the damaged ship to attempt repairs, and the boat’s owner reported him missing as a terrible storm approached.

The captain, who contacted by radio, told the Coast Guard that the rudder had been damaged while returning to port and had been stranded.

Authorities lost contact with it later that day, just hours before Milton made landfall as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 hurricane.

About 19 hours later, wearing a life jacket and clinging to a cooler, the captain was rescued Thursday by a Coast Guard helicopter crew – for the second time this week.