- A man was stranded on an isolated Bahamas island for three days after his sailboat became disabled.
- The US Coast Guard rescued him on Friday, it said in a news release.
- They said that they would not have spotted the man without him firing red flares from his vessel.
A man who was stranded for three days on an isolated Bahamas island was rescued Friday after he fired flares from his sailboat, the US Coast Guard said in a news release.
The Coast Guard received an alert from its aircrew of a "disabled sailboat firing flares near Cay Sal," officials said in the news release.
Cay Sal is a tiny island which no longer has anybody living on it. It is Bahamian territory, but is closer to Cuba and Florida than any of the major Bahamas islands.
The US Coast Guard has an agreement with The Bahamas to regularly fly over Cay Sal to look for people potentially stranded there, according to the Florida Keys News.
In this instance, the Coast Guard dropped supplies to the man after spotting him, including food, water, and a radio to establish communication, officials said in the news release.
The man told the crew that he had been stranded for three days after his vessel became disabled, the Coast Guard said. The agency didn't specify what went wrong.
A crew later retrieved him from the island, transferring him to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force in "good health," officials said, per the news release.
"We're proud to have saved this man's life. This case serves as a perfect example of why you must have the proper safety equipment on your vessel," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Dev Craig, a Coast Guard official, in the news release.
"Without seeing the flare, the case may not have had a successful outcome," Craig added.
In the past, the US Coast Guard has come across migrant vessels in the vicinity of Cay Sal. People from Haiti and Cuba have on occasion become stranded there trying to make it to the US.