ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A 19-year-old fisherman is recovering from an encounter with a sea lion that leaped out of the water, grabbed him as he worked on his grandfather's docked boat and pulled him into the harbor at King Cove.
"It happened so fast, I forgot what I was doing," said Ray Dushkin Jr., who was not seriously injured in the abduction Tuesday.
Dushkin spent a few moments beneath the water's surface before the hefty animal let go. Dushkin's left buttock sports an inch-and-a-half scrape, but no bite mark, he said. His coveralls were torn through, as were the pants worn beneath them.
About 4:30 p.m., Ray Dushkin Sr. was standing on the top of the bridge and asked his son to hand him the hatch. Young Dushkin was standing two feet from the edge of the boat. Several sea lions were in the area.
"The sea lion was just swimming around the boat like they do always when the boats are delivering fish," Ray Sr. said. And just like that, the creature -- estimated about 12 feet long and between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds -- leaped a half dozen or more feet out of the water and grabbed his son.
"He went over like a rag doll," the father told the Anchorage Daily News. "The only thing I was thinking is, that sea lion was taking off with my boy, and I'll never see him again."
Then the sea lion let the young man go. Ray Sr. helped Ray Jr. climb aboard the boat.
The younger Dushkin was examined at the local clinic and given antibiotics