Tolyatti fisherman exhausted after 8-hour snowstorm on ice
A dramatic incident occurred the previous day in Stavropolsky District (Samara Oblast). An elderly resident of Tolyatti, who had gone fishing, lost his bearings and spent more than eight hours wandering on the ice of the Zhigulyovskoye Sea. A snowstorm was raging.
«It all started early in the morning in the village of Primorsky, where the pensioner arrived from Tolyatti for ice fishing. Despite his age, he managed to cross the Volga on foot across ice and snowdrifts. However, as he approached the opposite bank near the village of Novodevichye in Shigonsky District (Samara Oblast), a snowstorm hit him. Visibility dropped, and the man became completely lost. In panic, he called his son by phone, who immediately drove to Primorsky and along the way called professional rescuers,» — reported the public page «Okologoroda».
According to rescuers, the operation began at around 16:00. A crew from the Poiskovo-spasatelnaya sluzhba Samarskoy oblasti (Search and Rescue Service of Samara Oblast) on the «Sever» hovercraft scanned about 50 kilometers of water area before finding the fisherman. The search took two hours.
«The fisherman was found on an ice floe near the shore of Novodevichye. Fortunately, the pensioner did not need medical help — he was just very tired and exhausted after the long trek,» — reported the Search and Rescue Service of Samara Oblast.
He was taken back to Primorsky on the hovercraft and handed over to his son. The straight-line distance between the start and end points of the poor fisherman«s route was about 30 kilometers.
Winter fishing, unfortunately, sometimes turns into a deadly dangerous hobby. A recent case in Samara Oblast made headlines — a married couple, fishing enthusiasts, went missing. Their bodies were found at the bottom of a small lake. Details of the tragedy are in our large article.
