15-Year-Old Boy Survives Days On Capsized Boat In Alaska. Brother, Cousin Die

A 15-year-old boy has been rescued after spending days stranded on top of a capsized fishing boat in the freezing waters of Alaska's Bering Sea.

The boy, identified by his family as Derek Parker Aghnaanga from Savoonga, was the only survivor after the boat overturned. His older brother and cousin died in the incident, according to BBC.

The three had left St Lawrence Island, a remote Alaskan island closer to Russia than it is to the United States, on Friday, September 4, on an 18-foot fishing boat. They were expected to return by Sunday afternoon. When the boat failed to come back, the US Coast Guard launched a search operation.

The boat had left Savoonga on Friday and was expected back by early Sunday. On Monday morning, a Coast Guard aircraft spotted the teenager sitting on top of the overturned boat. The Coast Guard then asked the crew of the Northwest Explorer, a fishing vessel carrying 13 people, to rescue him.

A nearby fishing vessel then reached the teenager and pulled him to safety. The rescuers also recovered the bodies of his older brother and cousin.

The teenager was showing signs of hypothermia when he was rescued. The captain of the vessel that found him, Adam White, told local news outlet KTUU-TV that Aghnaanga had held on to the boat through the night. The water temperature was around 10 degrees Celsius.

The crew pulled the boy onto the Northwest Explorer and kept talking to him while trying to warm him up. He was later taken towards Nome so he could be reunited with his family. "That's one tough kid," White said.

The captain said the boy told him that his brother was still trapped under the boat. He also said Aghnaanga's cousin had slipped away into the water the night before he was rescued.  

"Through the teeth chattering, he had mentioned that his brother was still under the skiff," White said. "And then he said that, in the previous night, before our rescue, that his cousin had slipped away."

15-yo boy RESCUED after DAYS ADRIFT near Alaska — NYT

A Coast Guard plane spotted Derek on Monday, clinging to an overturned boat for days after his brother and cousin died

Suffering from hypothermia and too weak to swim, he was pulled aboard a fishing boat pic.twitter.com/hPK8QRhTHY

— RT Intl (@RT_on_X) September 11, 2026

The two dead boaters were later identified as 35-year-old Sidney Kulowiyi and 34-year-old Barton Rookok.

According to Aghnaanga's mother, Vina Kulowiyi, the fishing boat capsized on Saturday, leaving her son without food or water for two days. Kulowiyi said her sons had gone fishing to provide food for people in their community who do not always have access to meat at local stores.

The family lives in Savoonga, a village of about 800 people on St Lawrence Island. The community is mainly home to Siberian Yupik people, and both English and St Lawrence Island Yupik are widely spoken there. Kulowiyi said fishing and sharing food with the community is a tradition in their family.

"My boys were born and raised to be providers," she wrote on Facebook, according to the BBC.

Describing him as "my survivor", Kulowiyi said he remained calm during his ordeal and spent the time praying. "His story is amazing. He was never afraid the whole time," she wrote. The teenager's mother has said that her son is now recovering at home.