Two brothers who went missing on Sparrow Lake, north of Orillia, Ont. on Monday night have been found safe and sound.
Paul and Peter Peori, 62-year-old twin brothers from Kitchener and Cambridge, were last seen in a small, open boat late Monday morning.
Paul says “We went out fishing near the shoreline here, we only had an electric motor,” and when that motor failed, the current carried them away.
Police were called shortly after 8 p.m. by family members when the pair failed to return for dinner at the resort where they were staying.
The current had actually taken the men several kilometres away, from the southwest to the north shore of the Severn Township lake.
Once on shore they say they started a fire and saw other boaters in the water and the OPP helicopter that was searching for them. But the pair wasn’t spotted.
They were lost, cold, wet, hungry and had no way to communicate.
Paul says “It was starting to get dark and my brother, who’s diabetic, I was concerned about him. He left his insulin back home.”
Peter adds “In the back of your head you know what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to get food into you, you’ve got to get your insulin into you and it wasn’t looking good.”
So the men broke in an area cottage to try to stay warm and find some food, unfortunately there was no phone.
“We treated their place with respect,” Paul says, “we’ll sleep in the chair, only take what we need…they had some orange juice, which helped [Peter].”
Peter says they felt guilty about going in, but they were so cold and tired they were convinced they would freeze if they stayed outdoors.
OPP say that besides having a little luck, they also did the right things to survive, telling family about their plans and wearing life jackets.
They were found safe Tuesday morning by a civilian volunteer helping with the search and the pair say they were ecstatic to be back on dry land.
Police are thanking all those who assisted with the search for their efforts.
And while they’re not afraid to go fishing again, Paul says he won’t forget his cell phone next time, “but I don’t think the wife’s going to let me go back out.”
