By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-20 19:14:01 | Updated at 2025-04-05 06:48:29
2 weeks ago
A pair of shivering 16-year-old girls stranded on a tiny paddleboard were plucked from the sea after more than 16 hours adrift off the Florida coast.
The harrowing ordeal for the two teens ended Tuesday when volunteers found them clinging to the flimsy craft — cold and frightened but safe, Fox affiliate WOFL-TV News reported.
The girls were seen paddling toward Cedar Key from Alsena Otie on a black and white board around 4 p.m. on Monday before they were blown out to sea, according to the Levy County Sheriff’s Office.
They were reported missing, prompting a search of the waters — until they were finally found on Tuesday afternoon near the coast of Porpoise Point, about 14 miles away from where they started.
“The girls have been located,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. “Cold but otherwise healthy!”
The heroes who rescued the girls — identified as Will Pauling, Alex Jeffries and Russell Coon — said the two teens were “cold, cut and dehydrated,” WOFL said.
“They were holding on to each other, shivering, their feet and hands were pretty cut up,” Pauling told the outlet. “The girls even said they had a few helicopters fly over with spotlights and they got missed by just a few feet with those spotlights throughout the night.”
According to Jeffries, the stranded teens looked like “a speck” when they first spotted them.
He said they turned the boat towards them and “they just started flailing.”
Scott Tummond, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said the girls will be just fine.
“They weathered the storm on probably the most ill-equipped watercraft out there,” Tummond said. “Strong girls. Their resilience is amazing.”
