This is not a fish tale.
Two Australian fishermen rescued a naked man clinging to mangrove branches over crocodile-infested waters – and later discovered that he was a criminal fugitive who fled into the desert and survived by eating snails.
Cam Faust and Kev Joiner were setting up crab traps outside Darwin, Australia’s Northern Territory, on Sunday when they heard the man’s cries for help, the pair told Australian channel 9News.
As the pair approached the boat, they spotted Luke Voskresensky clinging to the mangrove branches, naked, dirty and covered in insect bites, the report said.
“Completely naked, with cuts all over his body, swollen feet, covered in mud,” Faust described the man, who said he said he lived on snails.
Although skeptical, the fishermen decided to help.
“We didn’t believe him at first,” Faust told the BBC. “So we realized that he was wrong and he made a mistake and we thought, like, oh, we better help him.”
The two brought Voskresensky on board the boat, gave him a beer – and a pair of shorts – and brought him to shore, where they called an ambulance.
Faust was going to visit Voskresensky, 40, in the hospital when he learned the truth.
“I was going to visit him at the hospital and my partner is a paramedic, saying, ‘He’s in the hospital with handcuffs, two policemen looking after him,'” Faust told 9News. “So, we were like, maybe we’ll leave this.”
Voskresensky reportedly removed an ankle monitor from location days before his rescue by jumping on bail in an armed robbery case, 9News reported.
The experience gave fishing companions a story to tell at the bar for years to come.
“I don’t think we’re going to get [anything] like that again, ”Joiner told 9News.