New Delhi: A Brazilian fisherman reportedly survived for 11 days in the Atlantic Ocean by floating inside a freezer. The man, identified as Romualdo Macedo Rodrigues, set out in August for a fishing trip that was meant to last three days but then found his vessel sinking.

According to reports, during a fishing trip in early August that was supposed to last three days, cracks in his boat started filling with water, sinking the vessel off the coast of northern Brazil.

He was able to jump inside the floating cooler to stay alive, and a group of fishermen found him 11 days later off the coast of Suriname.

According to Record TV, a Brazilian broadcaster, he was treated at a hospital in Suriname and detained by authorities for a few days because he didn’t have proper documentation. Now’s he’s back in Brazil. “I was born again. I thought I wouldn’t be telling this story, but I’m back here,” he added.

Rodrigues reportedly didn’t know how to swim, but jumped inside the floating freezer from his boat and was rescued by other fishermen off the coast of Suriname 11 days later, 280 miles away from where he sank.

“That freezer was God in my life. The only thing I had was the freezer. It was a miracle,” Rodrigues told Record TV. “I was desperate. I thought my end was coming. But thank God, God gave me one more chance.”

Describing the moment where he escaped the sinking boat, he said: “I saw [the freezer] wasn’t sinking. I jumped, it fell to one side and kept normal… I was born again. I thought I wouldn’t be telling this story, but I’m back here.”

During the ordeal, Rodrigues had no food or water. At one point, he said, sharks circled the impromptu survival raft, before departing.

“ I didn’t sleep, I didn’t sleep. I saw the dawn, the dusk, asking God to send someone to rescue me,” he said.

“I was thinking about my kids, my wife. Every day I was thinking about my mother, my father, all my family. It gave me strength and hope … but at the moment I thought there was no other way,” he told Record TV.

Rodrigues said that he lost around 11lbs of weight, while his eyes were damaged by the sun and wind and his body was highly dehydrated.

“I was thinking about my kids, my wife,” he said. “Every day I was thinking about my mother, my father, all my family. It gave me strength and hope… but at the moment I thought there was no other way.”

“That freezer was God in my life. The only thing I had was the freezer. It was a miracle.”