Two Teens Lost at Sea for 7 Days Were ‘So Hungry’ They Ate 100 Jellyfish, Were ‘Clinging to Each Other’ for Warmth

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• In 2005, two high school students set out fishing one day and got lost at sea.

• Troy Driscoll, then 15, and his best friend Josh Long, 17, were lost for seven days, surviving on jellyfish and rainwater, before being rescued.

• PEOPLE spoke to children as they gave up on this harrowing experience in the same year

It was a pretty typical Sunday morning for 15-year-old Troy Driscoll and his best friend, 17-year-old Josh Long; Two high school students from North Charleston, S.C., took a 18-foot boat out on the ocean for a day of fishing.

But the weather on April 24, 2005 was uncharacteristic, and within minutes they were both swept so far away by a tide that it would be days before they were heard from.

Speaking to PEOPLE in May 2005, Josh recalled: “We wanted to put the boat between the beach and the sandbank, but we weren’t out for 20 minutes when the tide pulled us out.”

“We tried to lower the anchor, but it didn’t hold. We drifted further and further away,” he said. “Hours passed. We tried to let people down, but no one saw us. The last thing I saw were the towers directing the cargo ships off the coast. We couldn’t see anything in the darkness. The next morning, there was no land in sight. All we could do was pray.”

Josh had left his cell phone in his truck parked at the dock and didn’t have a radio or emergency equipment. Since there was no way to call home or ask for help, the worried parents called the Coast Guard until 10 p.m.

The Coast Guard began a search of the ocean with the help of boats, helicopters, planes and recreational boaters.

Less than three days after the boys set out, there was still no sign of them, and the rescue mission turned into a rescue operation as the parents expected the worst.

Meanwhile, the children on the boat were still alive but in dire need of food, water and emergency care.

Josh said they were “soaked, clinging to each other, trying to stay warm,” making it impossible to sleep.

“It was so hot during the day, we dived a few times to cool off. But then the sharks came and we didn’t go in the water anymore,” Troy told PEOPLE.

Josh said the duo got so far from shore that the water became crystal clear and looked like thirst-quenching “blue Gatorade.”

“Troy begged me, ‘Please let me drink some.’ I said, ‘If you drink, you’ll die,'” he recalled.

“Then one day it started to drizzle. I opened my mouth wide to catch the drops, but it didn’t rain enough. I started licking the water off the deck,” Josh added.

At one point, the two began experiencing delirium, and Troy explained that Josh “woke up screaming that we were at the store and had to get some Mountain Dew.” And I said, ‘Brother, we’re in the middle of the water and there’s no Mountain Dew.’ “

“I was so hungry I ate jellyfish and waited all night to see if it would kill me. It didn’t,” added Troy. “They’re slimy, squirty things, but I ate about 100 of them.”

“Troy was so hungry he wanted to cut off his finger and eat it,” Josh recalled. “At one point he said, ‘Please help me get out of here or kill me.’ I said, ‘I can’t do this.'”

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Their nightmare would end on Saturday, April 30, 2005, seven days after they set out, when two fishermen discovered the boys adrift seven miles from the Cape of Fear, 110 miles from where they started.

Seventy-year-old fisherman Ben Degutis told PEOPLE at the time: “I didn’t know what it was at first. As we got closer, I heard people waving and oh my god mackerel, there were two young men in this little boat. One of them said, ‘Thank God!’ he shouted. “

The young people, who were hospitalized after being rescued, determined that Josh had lost 30 kilos. Troy, meanwhile, would remain in the hospital for three days with second-degree burns to his face and feet.

Troy’s father told PEOPLE that being reunited with his son was “like being born again.”

“The joy in my heart was so great,” he said.

While the two were stranded at sea, Josh said they planned to meet for a celebratory ice cream once their recovery was complete.

“While we were there, we dreamed of the biggest ice cream you could ever imagine – the best ice cream. Troy and I are going to meet at an ice cream parlor and eat that ice cream.”

Read the original article People