A 19-year-old Indonesian man survived 49 days adrift at sea in a fishing hut before getting rescued by a Panamanian-flagged vessel and was brought home.
Aldi Novel Adilang, from Sulawesi, worked as a lamp keeper on a floating fish trap, known locally as rompong, reports The Guardian. The teenager was employed to light the rompong’s lamps, which are designed to attract the fish, a job he had been doing since age 16. The small, floating wooden hut was anchored to the seabed by a long rope and suspended by bouys, but in mid-July, heavy winds snapped its moorings and sent Adilang adrift into the ocean.
The teenager had few supplies, and survived by catching fish and cooking them by burning wood from his hut, stretching out one week’s supplies into seven. He drank seawater through his clothes to minimize his salt intake, reports The Guardian. Adilang told local news portal TribunManado that he thought he “was going to die out there.”
He is now reportedly in good health.
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