15 Year Old Boy Survived

A fifteen year old boy survived for three days floating on the underside of a boat in early September after it capsized off the coast of Alaska.

On September 4th, 15-year-old Derek Parker Aghnaanga set sail with his older brother, Sidney Kulowiyi, 35, and their cousin, Barton Rookok, 34, to go fishing. They were set to return on September 6, at 3am. When they didn’t return, they located the boat, 160 miles from shore of mainland Alaska, and only four miles from the coast of St. Lawrence, where they departed.

Their routine trip turned into chaos when their heavy duty fishing line got caught in the propeller. This caused the engine to lock and pull the back of the boat into the water. The boat flipped. Sidney, Derek's older brother, was getting Derek a life jacket when the boat flipped causing him to get stuck under the hull. 

Derek and Barton were able to climb on the top of the hull. The two held on to each other in the freezing temperatures with freezing water being sprayed at them. After a day and a half of fighting the severe cold Barton lost his battle with hypothermia and slipped away.

After losing his cousin and brother Derek wouldn’t give up. He held on to the hull of the boat with his bare hands, and wouldn’t let go for another day and a half until help finally arrived.

When help finally arrived it came from above, when a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircrew spotted the tiny overturned 18 foot boat in the vast ocean. Since the plane couldn’t land, the aircrew coordinated with a nearby commercial vessel called the Northwest Explorer. This boat rushed to the scene and pulled Derek out of the freezing water and covered him with blankets. 

After a grueling 62-hour battle with the cold, Derek was severely hypothermic and his hands were raw and swollen from clinging to the boat, but he survived. 

“I would cry. I would take people's clothes to try to stay as warm as I could,” said sophomore Aviva Fung who was asked what she would do if she were in this position. 

This trip was not for their enjoyment, these three were fishing to provide food for their community members that can’t access or afford meat. Derek's mother, Vina Kulowiyi said, “My boys were born and raised to be providers. A tradition that is passed on. We hunt and provide for families and share the community.”

“He lived on prayer with no food and water,” Kulowiyi said reflecting on her son’s days stranded at sea. “He sat there praying the whole time; he is a survivor.” The initial relief of his rescue was quickly cut short by a painful reality. Online, Kulowiyi posted that when the Captain of the Northwest Explorer announced over the radio that he was found, “we all cried and jumped for joy…Then we asked, ‘Where’s the rest of them?’”