In early August, Mikhail Pichugin, 46, set off in a small inflatable boat to watch whales in the stormy Sea of Okhotsk with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew. They went missing after departing from Cape Perovsky bound for Sakhalin Island in the Khabarovsk region on August 9. After being reported missing, a rescue effort was launched but failed to locate the boat.

Sixty-seven days later, when the crew of the fishing vessel spotted the inflatable on their radar, only Mikhail Pichugin had survived. The boat was drifting about 11 nautical miles off Kamchatka’s shore, about 1,000 kilometers (about 540 nautical miles) from their departure point on the other side of the Sea of Okhotsk.

A video released by the prosecutor’s office showed an emaciated man in a life jacket desperately shouting “come here!” and the crew working to pull him back to safety.

“I have no strength left,” Pichugin said as he was taken to safety.

Prosecutors said that they launched an investigation into the incident on charges of violation of safety rules that resulted in deaths.

AP reports that Pichugin was rushed to an emergency care unit at the Magadan hospital. Chief doctor Yuri Lednev told reporters that he was suffering from dehydration and hypothermia but was in stable condition.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday from his hospital bed, Pichugin described how the boat’s engine broke down and then one of the oars broke, making the boat uncontrollable.

He didn’t immediately say how he managed to survive in the Sea of Okhotsk, the coldest sea in East Asia and known for its gales, and how his brother and nephew died. The crew of the ship that rescued Pichugin found their bodies tied to the boat to prevent them from being washed away by the sea, news reports said.

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.