Most travelers sometimes can’t even imagine how death breathes in their face in the middle of nowhere. And for some, it has become a terrible reality. We have already written about a British journalist who spent four days in the desert with a broken pelvis and survived by drinking her own urine. She is not the only one who had to fight death one-on-one without hope of salvation. From amputating limbs to eating snakes, lizards and frogs: these survival stories will make you shudder.
Thrillers about survival in the wild seem to viewers to be something distant and unreal. However, some travelers had to feel the chill of death on their own skin when they found themselves in remote places with no hope of salvation. Nevertheless, they managed to overcome fear, difficulties and pain and turn around on the threshold of the next world towards life.
Amputation of one’s own hand with a pocket knife
Danny Boyle’s film 127 Hours seems like fiction, but the terrible story of a man who fell into a canyon, got stuck between boulders and had to cut off his arm is based on real events.
Rock climber Aron Ralston went alone to conquer Blue John Canyon in southeastern Utah in 2003. Suddenly, his right arm was crushed by a huge boulder. The man could not release her for six days.
The traveler did not tell anyone exactly where he was going. He took with him only a liter of water, two sandwiches and a few chocolates. After Aron rationally distributed water and drank his own urine for several days, the man realized that he had only one way out — to cut off his hand. But his small pocket knife couldn’t cut the bone.
Preparing to die, Aron carved his name, date of birth and estimated date of death on a stone and recorded a farewell video on a camera that he took with him on a hike. The American began to hallucinate: he saw himself playing with a small child, losing part of his right arm. This vision gave him the strength to break a limb. So he was able to free himself from under the boulder.
The climber got out of the canyon and walked 11 km until he met people.
Gasoline for disinfection of wounds with larvae
Juliana Koepke was sure that the final moments of her life had come when their plane was tossed up and down in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm. She looked at her mother, who was sitting next to her, and heard her last words: “That’s it. It’s over.”
In 1971, the girl became the only survivor of the plane crash of LANSA Flight 508, in which 91 people died. The plane crashed in the middle of the Amazon jungle, and Juliana fell to the ground from an altitude of 2,800 m. She was strapped into the seat, and that softened the blow.
The injured passenger wandered in the jungle for 11 days and drank water from springs. Suffering from hallucinations, the girl went out to a shack, near which she found an old outboard motor and a liter of gasoline. The girl remembered how their dog had a similar infection and her father poured kerosene on her. She used fuel to disinfect the wound on her right arm, which had already got maggots. Julia then extracted about 30 worms from the wound.
Soon the girl was rescued by people who were passing nearby.
71 days on a diet of frogs, snakes and lizards
In 2006, Ricky Megi went through real hell, spending 71 days in the Australian deserts. The man gave contradictory information about how he got there. At first, he said that his car had broken down. Then the traveler changed the version, saying that his car was stolen by an armed gang.
However, he actually spent so much time in the wilderness. The doctor who examined the Australian after the rescue confirmed that the patient was in extreme conditions.
Ricky fought for life in the Tanami Desert, where the air temperature reaches 40 °C during the day, and at night the body is permeated by cold. The Australian was able to survive by feeding on small animals — frogs, lizards and snakes. He drank rainwater, which he sometimes managed to collect.
The man was accidentally spotted and rescued near Catherine. He was then sent to a hospital in Darwin.
Fighting a jaguar and monkeys for lunch
Like Juliana Koepke, Israeli traveler Yossi Ginsberg felt firsthand how cruel the jungle can be. In 1981, he roamed the impenetrable rainforests of Bolivia for three weeks.
His incredible story of survival became the basis for the plot of the psychological thriller “Jungle”, which starred Daniel Radcliffe in 2017.
The Israeli came to Bolivia. In La Paz, he met an Austrian, Karl Ruprechter, who convinced Yossi to join him and two other comrades and go hiking in the thicket of the South American rainforest.
After spending several days hiking, the travelers got lost. They suffered from hunger and fatigue. Ginsberg said that he ate monkeys to survive. The group wandered in the jungle for about two weeks, then the men split up. Yossi and photographer Kevin decided to continue their journey on a makeshift raft. The structure soon broke into splinters, and the men were caught in a strong current that scattered them in different directions.
The traveler had to fight off a wild boar and suffer from termite bites. On the sixth night of his independent stay in the jungle, he was attacked by a hungry jaguar. The man did not have a weapon, so he used mosquito spray and a lighter to make a fire flare. Thus, he managed to drive away the wildcat.
Soon Yossi began to hallucinate. He imagined a companion who seemed to be walking next to him. The skin on his legs had been stripped to the bone, and the flesh hung in chunks.
The Israeli was rescued after his companion, Kevin, reached the settlement, took help and returned in search of Yossi. The other comrades, Marcus and Carl, were never found.
76 days on the waves with sharks
It’s scary to get lost on land, but it’s even worse to be in open water. American navigator Stephen Callahan spent 76 days alone in the midst of raging waves, fighting off sharks attacking him.
In 1981, Stephen set sail across the Atlantic Ocean on a 6.5-meter-long boat. The journey from Rhode Island went well, but the journey from the Canary Islands towards Antigua turned into a dangerous drift.
The navigator’s boat came across an unknown object during a severe storm and began to sink due to damage. Steven jumped into an inflatable raft designed for six people and began to drift on the raging waves. Fortunately, he managed to get a sleeping bag and basic necessities out of the water before the boat went down.
Drifting in the open ocean for many days, the man survived by fishing with a harpoon and collecting rainwater. Once he broke through the raft, but was able to keep it afloat, having managed to make a patch. All the time, the traveler was surrounded by hungry sharks.
Despite the fact that Stephen used signal lights and even saw ships on the horizon, no one saved him. By chance, the man was noticed by fishermen from Guadeloupe and brought the navigator to land. It happened on the 76th day of the trip.
Instant noodles on a hot car roof in the Grand Canyon
In 2017, student Amber Van Heck spent five days in the rugged terrain of the Grand Canyon. She got stuck there on the way from Arizona to Texas: the car ran out of gas. Having overcome her panic, the girl used all her knowledge to survive in the desert, waiting for salvation.
The American woman divided her food supplies for 23 days. She ate nuts, seeds, dried fruits and cooked noodles on the hot roof of the car at the hottest time of the day. In addition, Amber laid out three-meter words SOS and HELP from stones on the ground, and at night she turned on a lantern, directing its beam into the sky.
Five days later, the student decided to abandon the car and walked more than 17 km to catch the telephone network. The girl left notes for rescuers near the car. An air ambulance accidentally discovered Amber and evacuated her from the desert.
Frozen vodka and cookies
Another group found themselves in the middle of the Australian wilds and crazy heat last November. Tamra McBeath-Riley, Claire Hawkridge and Hu Teng were wandering in the wilderness after their car got stuck near the bed of the Hugh River in the Northern Territory. Only two of them were able to return alive.
Three days later, the travelers decided to split up in order to find help as soon as possible. Tamra was the first to be found, who stayed near the car with her dog Raya, afraid to go further with the animal. In the heat of the day, they hid under the car, and at night they slept in it.
Tamra had used up all her supplies of water, biscuits, instant noodles and frozen vodka. Then she walked 1.6 km with the dog and came across a pit with water. The woman boiled it and strained it through her shirt so that it could be drunk.
Claire and Hu took a GPS navigator and compass with them. They walked 19 km towards the nearest road and then split up. Hu was found two days after Tamra, and Claire, unfortunately, died.
Stories about survival in extreme conditions happen in our time. Five travelers found themselves in wild self-isolation on a remote island in Myanmar. They can’t get out of there because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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