Australian Couple Survive for 3 Days on Paddleboard After Wind Carried Them Out to Sea

An Australian couple spent three days stranded at sea aboard a paddleboard with no food or water after they were carried away from the shoreline.

The pair were eventually rescued by a father-son fishing duo named Denis and Lorne Benussi. The latter told The Guardian that during a recreational fishing trip, he had heard screams coming from the ocean during a rainstorm on Monday evening off the coast of Curtis Island. Lorne said he saw a man and woman just treading water, and boated over to them.

“They just collapsed, they could hardly move. They were just absolutely buggered, the pair of them,” Lorne said after rescuing them.

The couple, who have not been named but were identified as being in their 40s from Brisbane, spent the night with the Benussis on their boat to recover and told them the next morning that they had aimed to paddleboard on Saturday off the coast of North West Island. Things went awry when they got caught in a strong tide and were brushed away from shore with no lifejackets, food or water. They lost their paddleboard shortly before being rescued.

The couple was among 25 passengers who traveled by boat from Gladstone to North West on Saturday, with the Curtis Ferry Services’ owner Adam Balkin telling The Guardian tourists often take the trip to partake in a “wilderness experience.”

“The easiest way to explain it is it’s a wilderness experience,” Balkin said of the island. “There’s no fires, no generators. You either gotta have battery-powered fridges or gas cooker here and bring your own water.”

“If they had floated the other way it would’ve been a whole different story,” Benussi continued, noting they had luckily drifted towards the coast. “The bloke, he must have drunk a bit of saltwater. He was sort of cramping and very broken. I gave them cordial, trying to get their sugars up … they were up and down all night trying to get water.”

Lorne Benussi went on to say that he phoned in first responders once he got a cell signal, with the Queensland Ambulance Authority confirming to The Guardian that “two patients were transported to Capricorn Coast hospital in a stable condition” after being found in the ocean “reportedly adrift for three days.

They added in a statement to The Times that the couple was suffering from shock and exhaustion but were in stable condition. Lorne Benussi said it’s a miracle they survived.

“If you were just floating in the water with no lifejacket or nothing on and you make it more than 36 hours, you got to buy some lotto tickets,” Benussi concluded.