A surfer lost at sea has miraculously been found alive.
Australian authorities confirmed July 10 that a 19-year-old man, identified by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as Wooli resident Darcy Deefholts, was located on a small island eight miles from the coast, one day after going missing.
According to a statement from officials, the teen left his house July 9 on a bike, heading toward the city’s beach. When he didn’t return that evening, his concerned family members contacted authorities, which prompted a search of the area.
“Following a land and water search around Wooli Beach including local police, PolAir, Marine Area Command and Marine Rescue, the man was located safe today,” the authorities said in the statement, “on a small island off Wooli.”
The teen’s father, Terry Deefholts, told the ABC that he could not believe his son had survived.
“It's kind of surreal,” Terry said. “I was at the point of thinking the absolute worst. I didn’t give up but, jeez, I was close. It’s a one in a million. Who survives this?”
A spokesperson for Northern NSW Local Health District hospital said in a statement to the ABC that Darcy was stable at their facilities and “in good spirits and being supported by family.”
The ABC reported that Darcy had left his phone and smart watch at his residence when he left on his bicycle July 9. His bike, along with his clothes, were found at a local spot called One Tree, per the outlet, and his family posited that he had taken his surfboard with him to go surfing.
In the hours that Darcy was missing, the Wooli community came together to locate the teenager.
“It was really heartwarming to see how many community members jumped to the call,” rescue skipper Matthew McLennan told ABC. “It's rare that we ever get to participate in a search with an outcome such as this.”
E! News has reached out to authorities regarding Darcy being found but has not yet heard back.
Keep reading for more scary at sea occurrences…
Lake Tahoe Boat Capsizing
In June 2025, a boat crash in Lake Tahoe took the lives of eight individuals, making it the deadliest sea tragedy in California since 2019. The victims included Doordash executive Josh Pickles, as well as his parents Terry Pickles and Paula Bozinovic, and his uncle Peter Bayes, the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office Coroner's Division confirmed to ABC 7 San Francisco at the time.
The family had been celebrating the 71st birthday of Pickles’ mother, a rep for the family told the outlet. Timothy O'Leary, James Guck, Theresa Giullari, and Stephen Lindsay were also killed in the crash. There were only two survivors.
Red Sea Tourist Disaster
A tourist submarine carrying 45 people crashed off in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt in March 2025, killing six Russian tourists, the Egyptian governorate office confirmed to NBC News at the time. Of the 39 people who survived, local officials told the Associated Press that nine were injured, while the remaining 30 were returned to their hotels.
The vessel that crashed was owned by Sinbad Submarines, a tourist agency that offers recreational tours 25 meters below the sea surface for $70 per person. In a statement to Daily News Egypt following the crash, the company said of the six victims, “We sadly join the deceased families in mourning them with profound grief.”
Faster Pussycat Member Taime Downe's Fiancée’s Fatal Cruise Ship Fall
Kimberly Burch, the fiancée of Faster Pussycat member Taime Downe, fell from a Royal Carribean ‘80s-themed cruise ship off the coast of Miami in March 2025, her mother Carnell Burch confirmed to TMZ at the time.
In an interview two months later, Downe alleged that his fiancée’s death was “alcohol and prescription related.”
“It’s a rollercoaster,” Downe told SiriusXM's Trunk Nation with Eddie Trunk in May 2025 of his grieving process. “I'm hanging in there. I'm just taking it a day at a time."
Sicily Superyacht Sinking
Amid a freak storm in August 2024, a superyacht off the coast of Sicily containing 10 crew members as well as 12 passengers sank. The six victims of the catastrophe included tech CEO Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, New York-based attorney Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda, as well as Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy.
Officials later determined that the accident was caused by a “waterspout,” or a tornado that can occur at sea. Salvo Cocina, the head of Sicily's civil protection agency, told NBC News at the time of the crash that the boat was “in the wrong place at the wrong time."
One of the lone survivors of the tragedy Charlotte Golunski—whose young daughter and partner also survived—described the storm to La Repubblica as feeling like “the end of the world.”
Titan Submersible Implosion
In June 2023, the disappearance of OceanGate’s Titan submersible, a deep-sea vessel designed to take tourists to the crash site of the Titanic, dominated the news cycle. After a four-day search—during which a tally was kept of the sub’s 96-hour oxygen supply—it was determined that the seacraft had imploded on itself, killing all five of the passengers.
The perished vessel carried OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British businessman Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood as well as Titanic researcher Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Less than a month after the implosion, OceanGate completely shut down its operations. In Implosion: Titanic Sub Disaster, a documentary released nearly two years after the tragedy, events that led to the crash, including a lack of attention to safety protocols by OceanGate, were examined. Additionally, footage from what the Coast Guard believes was the moment of the implosion was released.
In the clip, Rush’s wife Wendy Rush—a director for the submersible tourism company—who was monitoring the voyage from the OceanGate offices, noticed a loud crash as the submersible was set to hit 3,300 meters below sea level. Addressing her colleague Gary Foss, she said, “What was that bang?”
Naya Rivera’s Drowning
While on a boat trip on California's Lake Piru with her young son Josey, the Glee star disappeared, launching a lengthy investigation after authorities found her son alone on the boat in the middle of the lake July 8, 2020.
After five days of searching Ventura County Sheriff's department confirmed that Rivera’s body was found in the lake, floating at its surface. Rivera’s son—whom Rivera shared with ex Ryan Dorsey—shared amid the investigation that the pair had gone swimming in the lake that day and he remembered being helped back into the boat by his mom.
“There are a lot of currents on the lake that appear particularly in the afternoon,” Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub confirmed at a 2020 press conference. “We believe it was mid-afternoon when she disappeared, the idea perhaps being that the boat started drifting, it was unanchored, and that she mustered enough energy to get her son back onto the boat, but not enough to save herself."