A sailor lost at sea 66 days on a capsized sailboat was rescued Thursday after being spotted by a German container ship roughly 200 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
"I was just praying about you because I was afraid that you guys were crying and sad that, you know, I was dead. And I wasn't dead," Louis Jordan, 37, told his father in a phone call upon being rescued,
USA Today reported.
"It’s amazing," Jordan’s mother, Norma Davis, later
told The Associated Press. "It’s been very difficult not knowing anything and I just feel like all of our prayers have come true. They’ve been answered."
It is not yet known just when Jordan's 35-foot sailboat, Angel, capsized, but he said he survived by living on the hull, drinking rainwater, and eating raw fish that he caught.
Around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, the German-flagged ship Houston Express spotted him and brought him aboard. The Coast Guard soon flew a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Elizabeth City to pick him up, and transported him to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia.
Jordan's condition was not immediately known, but video of his transport shows him walking and carrying a backpack. A shoulder injury was also mentioned by Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Krystyn Pecora.
Jordan was reported missing by his family in late January, days after he set sail to do some fishing.
The Coast Guard issued alerts from New Jersey to Miami to be on the lookout for Jordan and his vessel. Additionally, a 10-day search was begun on Feb. 8. The search was ended when a search area could not be established, as Jordan did not file a "float plan," similar to a flight plan for airplanes, to indicate where he was headed.
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