This is an amazing story and absolute miracle.
A fisherman in Brazil survived 11 days after his boat sank by staying afloat on a freezer in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.
From CNN:
The man, Romualdo Macedo Rodrigues, is a fisherman. During a fishing trip in early August that was supposed to last three days, cracks in his boat started filling with water, sinking the vessel off the coast of northern Brazil. He was able to jump inside the floating cooler to stay alive, and a group of fishermen found him 11 days later off the coast of Suriname.
According to Record TV he was treated at a hospital in Suriname and detained by authorities for a few days because he didn't have proper documentation. Now's he's back in Brazil. "I was born again. I thought I wouldn't be telling this story, but I'm back here," he added.
"I was desperate. I thought my end was coming. But thanks God, God gave me one more chance," Rodrigues told Record TV. "I saw it (freezer) wasn't sinking. I jumped (inside it), it fell to one side and kept normal."
The fisherman says he doesn't know how to swim.
God really did give him a chance to live.
He couldn't even swim and he just happened to be able to jump inside the freezer from the boat and stay afloat. For nearly 2 weeks.
"Sharks were surrounding the freezer, but they went away. I thought (I would be attacked). I stayed on the top (of the freezer), I didn't sleep, I didn't sleep. I saw the dawn, the dusk, asking God to send someone to rescue me." Eventually water started to creep inside the freezer, and he says he used his hand to scoop it out. He didn't have food or water.
"I was thinking about my kids, my wife. Every day I was thinking about my mother, my father, all my family. It gave me strength and hope … but at the moment I thought there was no other way," he told Record TV.
He stayed alive on nothing but thoughts of his family and prayers to the Lord above.
Sharks could have eaten him, the freezer could have sunk. But the Lord graciously answered his prayers.
Rodrigues didn't even have any food or water.
He survived off hope in a hopeless situation. 11 long days before he happened to be rescued.
When the fishermen arrived, he said: "I heard a noise, and there was a boat on top of the freezer. Only they thought there was no one there. Then they slowly pulled over, my vision was already fading, then I said, ‘My God, the boat.' I raised my arms and asked for help." Rodrigues was thankful to survive.
"That freezer was God in my life. The only thing I had was the freezer. It was a miracle."
Truly a miraculous event.
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