‘I punched him in the face and jabbed him in the eyes’: Fisherman tells how he fought off sharks as boat sank
Two fishermen fought off sharks after their boat sank off the Louisiana coast while a third swam to search for help.
The swimmer, Phong Le, managed to find a phone signal and sent a Google map of his location just before his battery died, he told ABC News.
The trio were stranded at sea for 28 hours in shark-infected waters before being rescued.
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Fishing boat crew rescued after shark attack
Luan Nguyen said he and his friends had been in the water since around 10am on Saturday and the predators showed up on Sunday morning. He said one bit the front of his life jacket.
“I punched him in the face. And I think that’s where I caught… these injuries on my hand. I took my two thumbs and jabbed him in the eyes, and he took off,” he said.
The third man was identified as Son Nguyen.
When the group’s 24ft-long (7.3-metre) boat sunk, they were left with no radio in an area without phone service.
“We made a distress call on the VHF radio to the Coast Guard and let them know that we’d taken on water,” Mr Le told ABC. “And not even seconds after that, the boat was nearly halfway in the water.”
They tied two cool boxes together as a makeshift float and one held water and fruit, Mr Nguyen said.
Mr Le said he swam off for help on Sunday and after swimming for what felt like miles, he found a signal on his phone and texted his Google map location to a friend.
“I see him trying to reply to me. And the phone cut off – I ran out of battery,” Mr Le said.
A fisherman’s wife reported them missing around 10pm on Saturday, said Lieutenant Commander Kevin Keefe, rescue coordinator for Sector New Orleans.
One of the men’s life jackets was torn in a shark attack. Pic: US Coast Guard Heartland/Facebook
The woman did not know the launch point and he said it took around 3.5 hours to find their vehicle in Venice, near Louisiana’s southeastern tip, so crews would know the best areas to search when dawn broke.
Coast Guard boats, planes and a helicopter had spent fruitless hours searching an area larger than Rhode Island before the Google Maps screenshot arrived.
Using coastal contours, the command centre was able to figure out where it was, said Mr Keefe.
The two men were hoisted onto a helicopter. Pic: US Coast Guard Heartland/Facebook
The Coast Guard said the two men were found around 25 miles off Empire, a small community located along the last narrow strip of the Mississippi Delta, southeast of New Orleans.
Mr Le was rescued first.
Even as the two other men were pulled from the water and lifted into a helicopter they were being circled and harassed by four blacktip sharks measuring around 4-6ft (1.2-1.8m) long, said Andrew Stone, who was in the Coast Guard boat crew that rescued the exhausted pair.
“They were too tired to even be panicking,” he said.
All three fishermen went home on Tuesday, the Coast Guard said.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
Read more from Sky News:
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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