Bahamas fisherman lost everything in hurricane, including his wife

(CNN) – A Hurricane Dorian survivor is giving a dramatic account of what happened after the storm trapped him inside of his home.

Howard Armstrong says his wife drowned right in front of his eyes after the water gushed in, and that it was sheer luck that he stayed alive.

“It came over the roof, I would imagine 21 feet at least, we were doing all right until the water kept coming up and all the appliances were going around the house like a washing machine,” Armstrong recalled. “That’s probably when I was hit by something in there. And my poor little wife got hypothermia and she was standing on top of the kitchen cabinets until they disintegrated and then she just drowned on me.”

Armstrong said he got out of his house after his wife drowned and swam to his 40-foot boat.

“I had no tools to chop a hole in the roof in the ceiling, so I saw my boat was there and I swam, I took a chance and I swam out to it,” he said.

But his nightmare didn’t end there.

After swimming to his boat, Armstrong heard his neighbor screaming and went to check on her home. When he looked inside, he saw her dead body.

He told CNN he now wants to recover his wife’s remains.