Castaway Rescued From Desert Island By TV Crew ‘Hours From Death,’ Stranded Off Australian Coastline

The filming for an episode of Animal Planet’s River Monsters took an unexpected turn when a castaway was rescued from a desert island by the TV crew after host Jeremy Wade spotted a weak and disoriented man on the island’s edge. The castaway was stranded on a remote, uninhabited island of the northern coastline of Australia, on the brink of death by dehydration and starvation when he was rescued, where temperatures regularly soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

“This [island] is a scorched and arid place,” narrates Wade. “The average daily temperature at this time of year is 110 degrees.”

The crew was filming a River Monsters episode entitled “Death Down Under” when the castaway was rescued from the desert island. They spotted the castaway’s cooler before they saw him, and — upon hearing the castaway yelling for help — rescued him with a small boat and immediately began the process of rehydration. The castaway was so desperate to be rescued that he jumped in the ocean to approach their boat, risking deadly encounters with the salt-water crocodiles and sharks which are known to inhabit the oceans off Australia’s northern coast in great numbers.

The dramatic scene of the moment the castaway was rescued from the desert island was captured by the TV crew, to whom he explained that he had been separated from his fishing boat days before being rescued. According to Inside Edition, the castaway, named Tremine, had been searching for prize oysters and “more interesting fish” on Barranyi North Island in the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands, which are inhabited only by a small indigenous group.

“Tremine, a roofer from Borroloola in northern Australia, is an experienced hobby fisherman and often takes short camping or fishing trips. But he didn’t anticipate the conditions that day… he left his boat and took a wrong turn after a couple hours of digging for oysters,” reports Inside Edition of information relayed by Stephen Shearman, a member of the TV crew who rescued the castaway.

The castaway, rescued from the desert island by a startled TV crew — only hours from death — explained to Wade and Shearman that he was unable to venture far from his spot on the uninhabited island due to sunstroke and dehydration. The crew estimated that Tremine had been stranded in this state of decline for 60 hours, rendering him mere hours from death at the time he was rescued, given that the human body can survive only up to 72 hours without water in less scorching conditions.

“In his own words, he was ‘preparing to die,'” said Shearman of the rescued castaway’s words. “He had said his last prayer. He was prepared to die and meet his maker.”

The castaway rescued from the desert island by the TV crew near Australia’s unforgiving northern coastline was, according to Carbonated TV, motivated to a curious new habit by his dalliance with death.

“[The castaway]’s experience has motivated him to start smoking again. Tremine believes that if he had a lighter to use for smoking, he would have been able to use it for cooking when he got stranded and to keep warm by lighting a fire,” reports Carbonated after speaking with Sherman about the rescued castaway.

The episode of Animal Planet’s River Monsters in which the castaway was rescued from the desert island by the TV crew aired earlier this week.

[Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images and via YouTube]