Coast Guard Rescues Boat Captain Floating On A Cooler 30 Miles Offshore After Hurricane Milton

Not where you want to find yourself after a hurricane. Hurricane Milton recently ripped through Florida, making landfall on the Gulf Coast near Tampa as a category 3 storm on Wednesday. Of course the state is still working to assess the damage, but one of the viral stars of the storm was "Lieutenant Dan," a Tampa man who rode out the storm in a sailboat in Tampa Bay. Despite officials pleading for Lieutenant Dan, whose real name is Joseph Malinowski, to evacuate and seek safety, the ultimate Florida Man was unphased by the storm and did indeed end up riding it out in the boat he calls home. And ironically, Lieutenant Dan somehow made it through the storm safer than one boat captain who found himself 30 miles offshore - without his boat. As it turns out, this wasn't the first time this week the man had been rescued. According to WFLA , the captain and a crewman had previously been airlifted from a boat about 20 miles off the coast of St. Petersburg. But early on Wednesday, with the hurricane barreling towards the state, he decided to go back to try to bring the boat back to shore. Spoiler alert, that wasn't a great idea. The owner of the boat called the Coast Guard on Wednesday when the captain didn't return, and officials were able to make contact with the vessel. The captain reported that the boat had become disabled after the rudder got stuck in a line. But by that point, the storm was too close, and the Coast Guard just instructed him to put on a life jacket while he waited to be rescued. Unfortunately they lost radio contact with the captain before the hurricane hit. But yesterday, while searching the area, the Coast Guard found the man floating 30 miles off the Florida coast - not on a boat, but on a cooler. Video shared by the Coast Guard shows the rescue, with the man desperately clinging to the cooler as rescuers dropped down from a helicopter to bring him to safety. https://twitter.com/USCGSoutheast/status/1844466002584842667 The Coast Guard credits the cooler, along with his life jacket and locator beacon, for the captain's survival. It's estimated that he experienced 75-90 mph winds and 20-25 foot seas while floating in the middle of the hurricane. Pretty wild, but luckily they were able to find him and bring him to safety. And I need to know what kind of cooler that is - and what it was filled with.