A 15-year-old boy from a tiny Siberian Yupik village on America’s western edge survived days in the Bering Sea by kneeling on the hull of an overturned 18-foot skiff, praying through the night, with no food and no water, as the boat drifted in 50-degree water just miles from Russian waters.
Derek Parker Aghnaanga was pulled off that hull Monday morning by the crew of a fishing vessel after a U.S. Coast Guard aircrew spotted him about four miles east of St. Lawrence Island. His older brother and their cousin did not make it, Alaska News Source reported.
The three left Savoonga, a village of roughly 800 people on the north coast of St. Lawrence Island, on Friday, September 4, to fish for halibut. They were expected back around 3 a.m. Sunday. They never returned.
Family members later said a fishing line fouled the motor. The weather turned. The skiff flipped. Sidney Kulowiyi, 35, the boat’s captain and the boy’s older brother, was pulled under and drowned.
Parker and their cousin, Barton Rookok, 34, climbed onto the overturned hull. The cousin held on through one night. Then, according to the family, he panicked, went into the water, and was gone. Parker was left alone.
His mother, Vina Kulowiyi, wrote that her son “was never afraid the whole time” and “lived on prayer with no food and water.”
A relative, Darren Toolie-Noongwook, told Alaska’s News Source the boy spent the night kneeling and praying as waves hit the hull.
WATCH:
ALERT: 15-year-old boy stranded on an overturned boat with his older brother and cousin, who were found deceased underneath the boat, found after nearly 5 days.
Adam White, the captain of the Northwest Explorer, spotted the boy in the frigid water, about 50°, who had overturned… pic.twitter.com/vCGQXmszk8
— E X X ➠A L E R T S (@ExxAlerts) September 10, 2026
More from the news outlet:
Toolie-Noongwook said his brother is recovering at home now.
“The boat flipped Friday around 8:03 p.m. That was when my brother passed, our older one. That was when he drowned around 8:03 p.m.,” Toolie-Noongwook said. “He and the other crew member [the cousin] and my brother, Parker, they climbed onto the top. Those two spent the first night together. They were doing good and then the next night the other crew member, he freaked out and he jumped off. So he drowned.”
[…]
Toolie-Noongwook said a fishing line had gotten tangled in the motor and caused the skiff to flip. Sidney, he says, got caught in the line and pulled under the ship.
[…]
Toolie-Noongwook described what his brother went through to survive.
“In middle of the night, waves hitting him, he was kneeling and praying,” Toolie-Noongwook said. “That’s all he was doing was praying. He believed that he was gonna make it. That’s how he got through it. I don’t know if news anchors can say that, but that’s how it happened. I don’t want that to be left out. That he was praying and believing that he was gonna make it. He’s 15. He’s our baby brother. He’s just a baby. But he had faith. That’s how he made it through.”
This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.
