Incredible moment missing fisherman is found after 6 MONTHS lost in -39C arctic tundra where he survived on tree bark
THIS is the incredible moment a missing fisherman is found after spending six months stranded in -39C conditions in the Arctic tundra.
The exhausted 70-year-old pensioner had been surviving on tree bark and fish stocks for his final few weeks before being reunited with his family.
The lost angler, who remains unnamed, was miraculously rescued after going on a fishing trip almost six months ago, setting out on his boat into the wild’s of Chukotka – Russia’s most easterly region.
Shortly after leaving his village of Ust-Belaya, however, the river froze over and left him stranded almost 100 miles away.
In order to survive, he took refuge in an unheated hunter’s shack in the basin of the Anadyr River, where temperatures plummet to -39C in winter.
But despite feasting on fish and tree bark and lighting fires to keep warm, the pensioner was just “three or four days” away from death when he was found, according to reports.
According to fellow villagers, the pensioner had a snowmobile in a gully on the river bank that he planned to use to return to Ust-Belaya, local media report.
“He started to go about his business on a snowmobile and ran out of gas,” one person told police.
The angler was then too scared to try and walk home for fear of “freezing on the way”.
His wife did not immediately contact the police because her husband had made long fishing trips before, but she got worried when he didn’t return for Christmas.
Police then organised an immediate search, with footage showing the moment officers discovered him almost 100 miles away from his home.
The man appears unable to answer any questions, with one rescuer asking him: “I’m saying how is your health? All normal?”
The fisherman nodded, before the rescuer responds: “Then get your things together and let’s go.”
Finally back at home, he is seen with a mug of tea, and tells the rescuer: “If you didn’t arrive in three or four days, I wouldn’t have lasted.”
His wife says: “Thank you so much for rescuing my husband, that you responded quickly… Huge thanks.
“May God grant you health.”
Major-General Irina Volk of the Russian Interior Ministry said: “My [police] colleagues from the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug rescued a man who had not returned home for more than five months and did not get in touch.
“The alarm was sounded by his wife, who turned to the local police commissioner Eduard Badaev in Ust-Belaya.
“’Isn’t it too late?’ many will ask. It turns out not.”
The pensioner, who is a renowned nature lover of the North and an avid fisherman, said he will go fishing again soon.