Sep 3, 2015 1 min read

DETROIT (AP) – The lone survivor of a 1966 Great Lakes shipwreck died of cancer. Dennis Hale was 75.

Barb Hale told the Detroit Free Press her husband died Wednesday in Ashtabula, Ohio. She said he was an “inspiration to many.”

In November 1966, Hale was among 29 crew members on the Daniel J. Morrell, a freighter that broke in two during severe weather on Lake Huron, off Port Hope, Mich.

Hale and three other men climbed into a raft. He was rescued after 38 hours but the others froze to death.

Hale was in Detroit in March at a film festival sponsored by the Free Press. He was featured in a documentary about shipwrecks.

Hale would often say that his survival gives “people a little hope in life.”