Cuban windsurfs to Florida in desperate search of medical treatment

A Cuban man rescued off the Florida Keys by the US Coastguard has been identified as a cancer patient who fled Cuba on a wind surfboard in search of life-saving medical care.

The 48-year-old has been identified by family in local news outlets as diving instructor Elian Lopez, who is undergoing treatment for colon cancer. He made the perilous journey across the Florida Straits on a wind surfboard, despite having a colostomy bag.

Lopez, who reportedly began his journey from Cuba on Tuesday, was spotted by a Coast Guard patrol boat around 15 miles south of Islamorada on Wednesday in adverse conditions, with fierce currents and winds of 25mph.

The moment Lopez was rescued. Photo courtesy of US Coast Guard

Pictures shared by the Coast Guard show the windsurfer as he floated toward the Florida coast. Lopez was wearing a lifejacket, had a GPS and mobile phones when he was discovered, according to a tweet released by the Coast Guard.

“He was showing symptoms of dehydration, fatigue; he was very weak,” USCG Petty Officer Martin McAdams told Miami news outlet WSVN.

Dunia Rodriguez, the windsurfer’s cousin, adds that Lopez has family in Miami, but they had no idea he was coming.

“He basically left, and only his wife and his daughter knew about it, and they expected him to arrive before night of the next day,” she said. “He had the expectation that he was going to make it.”

Lopez, a windsurf instructor and diving instructor, pictured before his ordeal. Photo courtesy of Alaydin Cabrera/Facebook

Rodriguez explains that Lopez sent his wife a text as conditions deteriorated. “Letting her know that he was very desperate, and basically, she just thought that he was going to die,” she says.

It’s likely that Lopez’s phone and GPS saved his life, McAdams tells WSVN. “That’s what helped us locate him, because if he hadn’t been able to give us that GPS position, it’s a lot more difficult to find a person in the water,” he says.

Rodriguez says Lopez needs to continue his cancer treatment with medications that are not available in Cuba.

Lopez’s family have started a petition on Change.org to help prevent his deportation, which is rapidly approaching 1,000 signatures.

“He suffers from cancer and urgently requires medication, being one of the reasons why he risked his life desperately,” Dunia Rodriguez, Lopez’s cousin, writes in Spanish on the petition, adding the “totalitarian system” in the communist island is “dragging Cubans through the worst misery.”