Frantz Lubrin was written off as dead in the 55-foot boat crammed with 468 Haitians desperate to leave their country -- the largest group of refugees ever picked up from a single boat by the Coast Guard, a spokeswoman said.

The Coast Guard crew spotted the 16-year-old when the cutter came alongside the smaller craft, the Merci Jesus. They yelled at the Haitians to pick him up. With barely a pulse and not breathing, the teenager was hoisted onto the Hamilton.

For 15 minutes, two medical workers worked to revive Lubrin and pumped his body with oxygen. Incredibly, the boy's chest began rising and falling on its own.

All the while on Friday, waves of Haitians clambered aboard the Hamilton and other Coast Guard cutters.

More than 10,000 Haitians have fled their homeland in the past two weeks, trying to escape military-backed repression.

On Monday alone, the Coast Guard intercepting 2,628 boat people in 67 boats. Another boat, packed with at least 200 refugees, capsized off the west coast of Haiti early Monday, and two survivors said dozens of people drowned.

Critics say the exodus is prompted by President Clinton's liberalized refugee policy and by intensified economic sanctions to pressure military leaders to give up power seized when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in 1991.

The Clinton administration, faced with waves of boat people, has not ruled out a military invasion to topple Haiti's brutal military leaders.

Haitian migrants are taken for asylum hearings aboard a U.S. ship in Jamaica or at the refugee camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Some will be permitted to stay; many others will not.

"We're being stretched," said Commodore Fred Wilder, leading the 14-cutter Coast Guard fleet from the 378-foot flagship Hamilton.

"It's coming up quicker than I thought. We might be faced with going to our superiors and saying that we can't complete our mission."

Those on the Merci Jesus traveled from throughout Haiti to the southwestern town of Jeremie, where the boat embarked.

Lubrin, from the northern city of Gonaives, had no family on the boat. He hid after his parents were killed by military supporters -- his mother was killed by a machete, and his father was shot. Lubrin's sister fled but wasn't with him.

"It appears as though eight days ago something happened in Gonaives, people were killed by attaches, and the people ran in the hills and later organized to leave," said American interpreter Terry Rex.

A U.S. Coast Guard plane spotted the deep-hulled craft off the Caribbean country during a dawn routine search Friday.

Just after sunrise Friday, the Hamilton picked up four Haitian adults and five children, including one infant, from a small boat that left from Port-au-Prince. Then it got the call for the 55-foot boat with the first estimate of 150 people on board. On the way, the Hamilton came across 10 young men on two other small boats.

At 11:40 a.m., the cutter slowed down near the Merci Jesus, about 45 miles from northern Haiti. The craft was rocking side-to-side and taking on water because of its heavy load. Some Haitians threw bags and clothes overboard to reduce the weight. Many had had no water since they left Haiti, and there was little food on board.

"This is the rest of Haiti," one Coast Guard member said. "They're all in there."

The Hamilton began boarding the Haitians at 12:21 p.m., with two rescue boats going to and from the Merci Jesus. The first group was 11 people, including four naked babies.

When most women and children were off, about 150, the Hamilton pulled up next to the wood craft and lowered the rope ladders. As the cutter neared the smaller boat, the Haitians clapped and sang a Catholic hymn in Creole.

An interpreter in one of the Coast Guard rescue boats spoke through a bullhorn, trying to calm the Haitians. Marines stood at the rail of the cutter, waving wood batons to subdue people pushing to get on board. One Haitian whipped a pair of jeans at others in the boat to get them to sit down. One side of a steel rail on the cutter snapped from the weight of people climbing aboard.

Some of the 20 Coast Guard members removed the Haitians' life jackets, handed out before they left their boat, and escorted them to two makeshift tents on decks at both ends of the vessel. Others gave them food and water.

One Coast Guard crew member passed out from the heat. Two Haitians fractured their hands while trying to climb the ladder. One had fractured his arm after a Haitian military supporter hit him with a baton in April. Many women and children were dehydrated. Some youngsters had eye infections.

"Considering the number of people who are here, they are in pretty good shape," said Lt. Richard Hall, a physician's assistant with the Coast Guard Air Station in Clearwater, who arrived on the Hamilton on Thursday.

Hall and Jim Amster, Hamilton's chief medical officer, worked on 16-year-old Lubrin until he breathed on his own at 5:20 p.m. Eight minutes later, he regained consciousness. Sugar water was pumped intravenously into his left arm.

"He's had a helluva insult to his brain," Hall said. "We don't have anything to monitor his brain."

Lubrin told an interpreter before he passed out that he remembered being on the boat and seeing nightfall at sea. The next thing he recalled was staring up at men in blue uniforms on the deck of the cutter. He wore a shirt and shorts and was barefoot. He told an interpreter that he was very concerned about getting his sandals.

At 5:40 p.m. Friday, all the Haitians from Merci Jesus were in the cutter. They were given water, rice and beans. With the heavy load, the Hamilton slowly made its way to Guantanamo Bay.

Early Saturday morning, the cutter docked. The first off board was Lubrin, who was carried into a waiting ambulance.