Boy, 15, Spent Days on Capsized Boat Praying for Rescue

A teenager clung to an overturned boat in the Bering Sea for days, praying he'd be spotted. The Coast Guard says the 15-year-old, identified by family as Parker, was found Monday kneeling atop his family's 18-foot fishing vessel, which had flipped east of Alaska's St. Lawrence Island on Friday night after its motor became tangled in a fishing line and bad weather rolled in, NBC News reports. His brother Sidney and a cousin died in the incident, according to another brother, Darren Toolie-Noongwook, who says Sidney had been racing to grab Parker a life jacket when the boat capsized and the fishing line pulled him under the ship. The cousin, Toolie-Noongwook says, panicked during the second night and leapt into the water, drowning within feet of the hull.

The boat, which departed Friday to fish for halibut, was reported overdue on Sunday. After the Coast Guard spotted the vessel Monday morning, a Coast Guard aircraft dropped flares to guide the nearby research ship Northwest Explorer, whose crew spotted him about eight miles from his last known position. Captain Adam White says the seven scientists and six crew members on board cheered when they spotted Parker. "We were lucky enough, because the kid was so tough, so strong that that he was able to grab a hold of a heaving line that we threw to him," White says. "And he was able to hold on while we sort of reeled him in. And I just, like, can't believe how tough this kid is."

White says the teen was "moderately" hypothermic. Toolie-Noongwook says Parker, who went on the fishing trip to earn money to get his hair permed, is now at home recovering. "In middle of the night, waves hitting him, he was kneeling and praying. That's all he was doing was praying. He believed that he was gonna make it. That's how he got through it," Toolie-Noongwook tells KTUU. "He's 15. He's our baby brother. He's just a baby. But he had faith. That's how he made it through."

• He says people in their village and others along the coast fired guns into the ocean to honor the two who died. "And then the next thing we know, Nome is doing it and then Teller's doing it, and then Shishmaref's doing it, and then Nunam Iqua's doing it," he says.