The US Coast Guard rescued three Cuban nationals who were stranded on a desert island in the Bahamas for over a month Tuesday. The two men and a woman survived by eating shellfish and rats, a Coast Guard official told a Florida news channel.
A Coast Guard surveillance plane spotted the shipwrecked men on a routine patrol Monday, the agency said in a statement. “They saw some unusual flags there, a few different colors, so they saw some orange,” Lieutenant Justin Dougherty told WPLG-TV. “They went back to check it out, and they saw three people give them a signal.”
Aircraft commander Mike Allert told the station the trio ate shellfish and rats to survive and that they set up a large cross on Anguilla Cay, Bahamas. The Coast Guard has released a photo of the makeshift shelter the shipwrecked people used.
Lieutenant Riley Beecher of the Coast Guard
The Cubans said they were on the island for 33 days, the coast guard said. Their boat capsized and they swam to the atoll, Dougherty told WPLG-TV.
The flight crew of the surveillance plane dropped food, water and a radio to the shipwrecked, the Coast Guard said. A helicopter crew later hauled them off the island and took them to a hospital in Key West, Florida.
“Our rescue swimmer found that they were fatigued and dehydrated and showed clear signs that they were just in the elements for the long time they were there,” Allert told WPLG-TV. The coast guard said they were not injured.
The Coast Guard will arrive on Wednesday morning said on Twitter the US Border Patrol took custody of the Cubans from the hospital and they were transferred to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Petty Officer First Class Coast Guard Nicole Santaretti
It was not immediately clear whether the Cubans were lost fishermen or were trying to migrate to another country, Petty Officer Second Class Brandon Murray told Sun Sentinel in South Florida.