On the morning of September 7th, 19- year- old Ryan Harris and 40-year-old Stonie Huffman, two Sitka, Alaska residents, took off on their 28-foot boat in search of fish. Two miles into the ocean, their boat began to have some problems. They managed to fix the problems, but decided to head back to shore anyway. However, before they could call for help or grab a life jacket, an eight-foot wave slammed hard against their boat and overturned it, throwing both men into the cold Alaskan waters.
Stranded, they began to look around to see what they could grab onto and saw a couple of the empty fishing boxes from the boat, floating around. Ryan managed to climb inside one. Stonie, however, was not as lucky and managed to only grab onto the lid of the box. Soon, they both started drifting apart.
While Ryan continued to bob up and down in the box, the waves started carrying Stonie away. But as luck would have it, he caught sight of one of the life suits from their boat floating in the ocean and managed to grab it. Though putting it on and hanging onto the lid at the same time was not an easy task, Stonie managed it and then began his long swim back to shore. He ended up on a deserted patch of land about 25 miles northwest of Sitka, where he had to wait until Saturday morning almost 24 hours after the fishing trip began, for rescuers to find him. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Ryan continued to drift around the ocean trying to stay alive and hoping someone would find him. The brave teenager repeated himself over and over again, “I'm Ryan Hunter Harris and I'm not going to die here.” He was sure he would be rescued.
Two hours after his friend was rescued and able to guide the Coast Guard and, 26 hours after the adventure began, Ryan was finally found and brought back to shore. What was amazing was that besides a few scratches, the youngster was in perfect health. Will he ever venture out on a fishing trip again? Only time will tell!
