Bahamas: Men Rescued After Eight Days Adrift

Two men from the Bahamas have been rescued in the Gulf Stream eight days after their boat capsized during a fishing trip.

The pair, in their late fifties, were spotted clinging to the hull by a passing freighter which alerted the US Coast Guard.

It dispatched a rescue helicopter from Air Station Miami which had just finished a training exercise.

The men were found two hours later, 30 miles off shore between Boca Raton and West Palm Beach.

Coast Guard rescue swimmer Kyle Stallings was lowered on to the overturned boat, where he found them in a desperate state - soaked to the bone, sunburned and shaking uncontrollably.

"They were really exposed and really deteriorating quickly,' Mr Stallings told The Sun Sentinel newspaper.

"They were both in tears. You could tell they were on their last straw of hope."

The two men said they were so thirsty they had drunk seawater, even though it can speed up dehydration.

Helicopter pilot Jerod Glover told The Sentinel: 'It's the first time I've done a rescue where it's like something you see on TV, where people (are) saying (they) shouldn't be alive."

He added: "Timing was huge in this. If the freighter hadn't seen them they would have been riding that Gulf Stream up to the north.

"They had nothing to hold onto; they were just lying flat and hoping they didn't slide off."

The men, who were not wearing life jackets, were winched on board the helicopter and taken to the Delray Medical Centre for treatment.