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Stranded Fisherman Rescued After 24 Hours Floating On Arctic Ice Floe

Stranded Fisherman Rescued After 24 Hours Floating On Arctic Ice Floe

They were rescued by a Russian icebreaker ship

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

Two fisherman have been rescued after an unfortunate accident left them stranded on a piece of ice drifting untethered around the Arctic seas surrounding Russia.

Here's the moment they were discovered.

The 'miraculous' rescue no doubt saved the lives of the two fisherman, as they were rescued by an icebreaker ship that was part of a huge search and rescue mission.

The two were riding on a snowmobile across the frozen wastelands of northern Siberia when the machine fell through an ice chasm.

Fortunately, the pair were able to get themselves onto a large ice floe, but were then left stranded and completely at the mercy of the elements.

They floated on the piece of ice for 24 hours, and were subjected to temperatures that got down to around minus 33C, according to reports in local media.

East2West News

The men managed to get out an SOS signal, but it was unable to pinpoint their exact location, which meant that the people who were looking for them had to cover a wide area.

In fact, the search party covered an area twice the size of Wales to hunt down the stricken fishermen.

Eventually, the icebreaker ship Alexander Sannikov showed up, and not a moment too soon.

Gazprom Left, which owns the ship, said: "Their chances of rescue were next to negligible.

"The area of the Gulf of Ob is 44,500 square kilometres (17,182 square miles) which is 18 cities the size of Moscow.

"The floating ice they were on could have cracked under their feet at any moment."

East2West News

The fragility of the ice also proved a problem for the rescuers. The ship - which isn't called an icebreaker for nothing - had to move extremely carefully through the waters to ensure that the ice floe that the two were clinging onto didn't break up and plunge them into the freezing cold waters.

Mercifully, the two men were found and the ice didn't crack, so this story has a happy ending, after all.

The company responsible for the rescuing ship continued: "At night the crew found them on this giant expanse of ice and lifted them aboard.

"They had a change of warm clothing and food."

East2West News

Imagine how nice that must have felt to get a change of clothes and a warm bowl of something to eat?

The ship's on-board medics then examined the men - who were not named - and airlifted them back to dry land today.

The fisherman were from the Arctic settlement of Antipayuta in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region.

Featured Image Credit: East2West News

Topics: World News, Weird, Russia