The coronavirus has almost half the world’s population confined to their homes without leaving. However, not all countries enact the same measures and while in Spain can not leave rather than necessities efforts in places like France or the United Kingdom itself is allowed to do sports to the outdoors each day.
In the United States, the country most affected by the pandemic, the rules are dictated by each state, which has led to a war between Donald Trump, a supporter of reopening the economy as soon as possible, and some governors who want to maintain a strict quarantine for as long as necessary.
And although most states recommend staying at home as long as possible to avoid infections, the truth is that going out to play sports is something allowed in almost the entire country. That’s what a 36-year-old teacher who lives in the Queens neighbourhood of New York did and decided to go out with his kayak to exercise.
Rescued by the police
The teacher’s intention was to reach Ruffle Bar, a small island in the middle of the Jamaica Bay area, about 3 kilometres from the coast. However, when he was close to his goal, the weather changed radically and waves began to rise that capsized his boat, so he had to swim to shore with his mobile phone damaged by the water.
As he explained to CBS, after doing a lot of laps around the sand he found a lighter that “worked miraculously”, so he made a small fire and took the opportunity to write the word ‘HELP’ on the sand. However, the hours passed and no one came to the island to pick him up.
The man, who wants to remain anonymous, realized that “it was likely to spend the night there.” He even came to see himself as in a scene from Tom Hanks’ famous movie ‘Cast Away’, although in his case he was barely 3 kilometers from civilization. First he decided to try to build a raft with some branches that he found in the sand, but it was not necessary.
Shortly before dawn, a helicopter reached the island and landed next to it: “The guy landed and said, are you coming with us?” The professor explains that they were two young men who “had moved from the state of Illinois to New York to deal with the situation caused by the covid-19, so I was a little embarrassed to hoard those resources … But they were all very nice to me and I’m glad I got out of there.”