This is no fish tale.
Two Australian anglers rescued a naked man clinging to mangrove branches over crocodile-infested waters — and later learned he was a criminal fugitive who fled into the wilderness and survived by eating snails.
Cam Faust and Kev Joiner were laying crab traps outside Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory on Sunday when they heard the man’s cries for help, the pair told Aussie outlet 9News.
As the duo navigated their boat closer, they spied Luke Voskresensky grasping to mangrove branches, naked, filthy and covered in insect bites, the report said.
“Completely naked, cuts all over him, swollen feet, covered in mud,” Faust described the man, who they said told them that he’d been living off of snails.
Though skeptical, the fishermen decided to help.
“We didn’t believe him at first,” Faust told the BBC. “Then we realized he was in a bad way and done himself a mischief and were like oh, we better help him.”
The pair brought Voskresensky aboard their boat, gave him a beer — and a pair of shorts — and brought him to shore, where they called him an ambulance.
Faust was going to visit Voskresensky, 40, in the hospital when he learned the truth.
Kev Joiner and Cam Faust found and rescued a fugitive hiding out in a swamp while crabbing in Darwin, Australia. 9News“I was going to go visit him in hospital and my partner’s a paramedic saying, ‘He’s in hospital with handcuffs on, two cops babysitting him,'” Faust told 9News. “So we were like oh, maybe we’ll leave it.”
Voskresensky allegedly removed a location-tracking ankle monitor days prior to his rescue in jumping bail on an armed robbery case, 9News reported.
The experience gave the fishing buddies a story to tell at the bar for years to come.
“I don’t think we’ll ever catch [anything] like that again,” Joiner told 9News.
