Lost at sea in a small boat, 16 people cheated death with a mother's milk.

Their throats were so dry that some could only spit blood. They could barely talk. That's when one passenger on the journey to Puerto Rico, Faustina Mercedes--now called "Little Angel of the Sea"--gave a unique gift. She shared the breast milk once reserved for her 1-year-old daughter back home.

The eight men and seven women took turns suckling for just seconds a day, the small gulps coating their throats, wetting their dry lips. Finally, the currents pushed them back to shore on the 12th day. To feed herself, she had her sister Elena Mercedes suck on her breast then pass the milk on to her by mouth.

"That was God who put that idea in my head, and he just worked through me," Mercedes, 31, said while trying to calm her feverish daughter. She hasn't been able to breastfeed since the ordeal, but her gesture kept the 16 from dying.

Throngs of Dominicans end up lost at sea trying to travel about 100 miles across the shark-infested Mona Passage to a better life in Puerto Rico. The same week this group made it back to shore another rickety boat heading to Puerto Rico sank. About 45 people are believed to have drowned.

Mercedes' group left Jan. 3 from a beach near this sleepy town. After paying $125 to $250--about two months' salary in a minimum-wage job--the passengers got on the 24-foot handmade boat. They soon realized their compass was broken.

So in the area where the rough currents of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea clash, they were lost. Food and water were gone in three days. So was gasoline. With every hour, dehydration worsened. The weakest lay on the bottom of the boat, almost delirious.

On the fifth day, after praying, Mercedes told her sister to try her milk. Then the sister fed Mercedes by mouth. The sisters started feeling better immediately, so Mercedes offered milk to all.

"At that point, there was nothing more than prayer and my sister's breast," said Elena Mercedes, 24. Passenger Roberto Rodriguez, 35, used the edge of a nail clipper to cut an apple they found floating in the ocean into 16 pieces. The group also ate a half-rotten orange the choppy seas pushed toward them.

Waving to the many cruise and cargo ships they saw as they floated aimlessly proved pointless.

"The only thing we thought about was staying alive," said Rodriguez, who hoped to find a job in Puerto Rico. "And we were not ashamed to accept [Faustina's] gift to us."

Santa Demorizzi, 24, hugged the person next to her to stop shivering at night. On the 11th day, she spotted a shark. Then she spotted what appeared to be land. With a makeshift sail and the currents, they got closer. At dawn on the 12th day, they pulled some wood from the sides of the boat and started rowing. The waves gave them the final push onto the beach--back in the Dominican Republic.

Most of the passengers spent three days in the hospital.

Since a new government took over in August and instituted austerity measures, the smuggling trade is on the rise.

Since Oct. 1, the U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended 1,288 Dominicans trying to enter Puerto Rico illegally on these trips. The U.S. Coast Guard has stopped 303 more on the high seas and returned them to their homeland.

Acknowledging the problem, Dominican President Hipolito Mejia put together a "social package" to provide more housing, food and education to the poor. But just last week, he is reported to have admitted to the U.S. Southern Command that he doesn't have the resources to stop the illegal flow of people to Puerto Rico.