An Indonesian teen spent 49 days adrift at sea on a floating fish trap with barely anything else but a bible to keep him going until he was rescued and reunited with his family earlier this month.
Aldi Novel Adilang, a 19-year-old lamp keeper, was working on the floating fish trap, known as a rompong, during a storm when the heavy winds snapped the lines keeping him tethered in place, The Guardian reported.
While he floated across the Pacific Ocean, more than 10 ships passed by but none of them stopped to rescue Adilang.
The teen had limited food and water supplies and did his best to survive.
“After he ran out of the cooking gas, he burned the rompong’s wooden fences to make a fire for cooking. He drank by sipping water from his clothes that had been wetted by sea water,” said the Indonesian consul general in Osaka, Mirza Nurhidayat, according to the Jakarta Post.
Adilang thought he was going to die, and reportedly considered suicide, but instead he drew strength from the bible his parents had given him.
In late August, Adilang was finally picked up after he was able to send a radio frequency to a tanker from a small frequency radio a friend had given him, but it was not an easy rescue.
The tanker, named the Arpeggio, was unable to reach Adilang due to high seas and strong winds, The Straits Times reported.
The ship threw him a rope but it did not reach Adilang, who was weak from surviving so long out at sea.
Desperate, the teen risked it by jumping into the ocean.
“Aldi then decided to jump into the sea to grab the rope, while the waves and wind rocked him,” said another diplomat of the consulate in Osaka, Fajar Firdaus.
The ship's crew managed to catch Adilang’s hand and pull him to safety. He was taken to Japan for treatment and later reunited with his family.
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