[imagesource: CEN]

Brazillian fisherman, Romualdo Macedo Rodrigues underwent quite the ordeal last month after his boat sank in the Atlantic Ocean.

The 44-year-old reportedly survived 11 days out at sea, without food and water, thanks to a floating freezer, which he had made his home until a passing boat found him.

Per Metro, Rodrigues was in a seven-metre-long wooden boat travelling from Oiapoque, in Amapa state, northern Brazil all the way to Ilet la Mere, an island off the coast of French Guiana. The plan was to spend a few days fishing at the end of July and early August.

Then disaster struck: his boat started taking in too much water and promptly sank.

Rodrigues, who doesn’t know how to swim, saw the freezer and hopped in as a way to stay afloat, reported ABC Chicago:

“I was desperate. I thought my end was coming. But thanks God, God gave me one more chance,” Rodrigues [said].

“I saw [the freezer] wasn’t sinking. I jumped [inside it]. It fell to one side and kept normal.”

His ordeal quickly worsened:

“Sharks were surrounding the freezer, but they went away. I thought (I would be attacked). I stayed on the top (of the freezer), I didn’t sleep, I didn’t sleep. I saw the dawn, the dusk, asking God to send someone to rescue me.”

Eventually water started to creep inside the freezer, and he says he used his hand to scoop it out. He didn’t have food or water.

Image: CEN

“I was thinking about my kids, my wife. Every day I was thinking about my mother, my father, all my family. It gave me strength and hope … but at the moment I thought there was no other way,” he [said].

What troubled him most was the thirst. By the time he was spotted off the coast of Suriname by the group of fishermen who saved him, he was well and truly dehydrated, disorientated, and plagued by sunstroke and sun sores.

Video footage recorded on August 11 shows the incredible moment Romualdo was rescued:

He told local media that “this fridge, for me, was God. A miracle”:

“I heard a noise and there was a boat above the freezer,” he added.

“Except they thought there was no one there. Then they slowly got closer, my vision was fading, and then I said, ‘My God, the boat.’ I raised my arms and asked for help.”

Police officer Luis Carlos Porto said that despite being incredibly thin and debilitated, he was in “very good spirits”.

You would think the poor man was at the end of his struggle at this point, but he was then arrested by police in Suriname for not having the right documents.

He reportedly spent 16 days in custody before finally flying home.

[sources:metro&abc7chicago]