Siblings Survive 14 Hours in Ocean

US vacationers in St. Lucia survive sinking of boat
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 25, 2013 6:37 PM CDT
Siblings Survive 14 Hours in Ocean
This 2009 photo shows siblings Dan and Kate Suski.   ((AP Photo/Courtesy of Dan Suski))

The AP recounts a tale that falls easily into the vacations-from-hell category for two US siblings visiting the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Dan Suski, 30, and Kate Suski, 39, were out at sea earlier this week on a chartered fishing boat when its electrical system conked out. As the boat took on water, the siblings jumped overboard with the captain and first mate and watched as the boat sank. The Suskis decided to swim for land, and they made it, barely—but only after somewhere between 12 to 14 hours.

Even then, they had to spend the night unsheltered, then hike through thick brush until they finally found another human. The captain and first mate, meanwhile, were rescued after spending nearly 24 hours in the water. "There's this very real understanding that the situation is dire," says Kate Suski, a Seattle architect. "You come face-to-face with understanding your own mortality. ... We both processed the possible ways we might die. Would we drown? Be eaten by a shark?" They're still in St. Lucia, recuperating from severe tendonitis in their ankles from all that swimming, but they fly back to the US on Saturday. (More strange stuff stories.)

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