Panama hotel worker rescued after month adrift at sea

Retelling Mr Vasquez’s extraordinary story, Captain Espinosa said the three
friends were returning to their home town of Rio Hato on the south coast of
Panama on February 24 in their boat, “Fifty Cents,” when its motor
failed.

It was approaching dusk, but the group could see land and so were not unduly
concerned. They had a large jug of water with them, and had caught a lot of
fish, some of which they grilled on the boat during their first few days
adrift.

Panama’s
coastguard launched a search, but as the days passed, the fish became rotten
and the men were forced to throw them overboard and live off what they could
catch in their net.

Captain Espinosa said: “The spirits of the survivors began to wane with
the passing of days.” After two weeks, Mr Vasquez told his rescuers,
his friend Oropeces Betancourt, 24, stopped eating and drinking. He died on
March 10, and Mr Vasquez said he threw his body overboard three days later
because it had begun to decompose.

Sixteen-year-old Fernando Osorio died on March 15, apparently of dehydration,
sunburn and heat stroke, and Vasquez was again forced to his push body into
the sea after three days.

Out of water, and with unrelentingly sunny skies, Mr Vasquez assumed he would
himself perish when, the next day, he skies opened.

Captain Espinosa said: “When he was nearly dead, on March 19, it rained,
and Vasquez was able to fill up with four gallons of water.” The
18-year-old was reduced to eating raw fish when, on March 25, he was spotted
by fishermen on a skiff which had sailed from the Duarte V ship.

Following his rescue, he asked to make two phone calls – the first to his
mother, and the second to the boss at his hotel to explain why he had failed
to turn up to work.

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