Bolivia plane crash victim drank urine to stay alive

Sole survivor tells of three-day ordeal eating insects while awaiting rescue The sole survivor of a plane crash in Bolivia stayed alive for nearly three days by eating insects, drinking his own urine and painting an arrow on the ground with his blood to show rescuers his location. In an interview with a Bolivian newspaper, Minor Vidal said he survived for 62 hours by using skills he had learned as a boy scout. He filtered urine and lagoon water through his clothes to make it drinkable and then found an open space where he waited. Vidal was on an Aerocon flight between the Bolivian cities of Santa Cruz and Trinidad when the plane went down on Tuesday night. The salesman, 35, was trapped in the wreckage and suffered serious head and rib injuries. “The plane crashed in the night, there was fire and the smell of gasoline,” he told La Razon newspaper. “At first when nothing could be seen, I heard shouts, but afterward, everything fell silent. That moment was horrible.” The other eight people on the plane died in the crash. After crawling out of the wreckage on Wednesday Vidal drew the arrow with his blood. He also left his shirt as a sign for his rescuers. He was found on Friday. Rescuers said when they only found eight bodies in the wreckage they kept searching deeper into the forest. Naval Captain David Bustos, who led the rescue operation, told Reuters: “From several kilometres away, we saw a man on the riverbank signalling to us. “When we got closer, he knelt down and thanked God. “He said he’d been trapped in the plane for more than 15 hours and that when he finally escaped he began to walk and survived by drinking his own urine and water from a lagoon.” Bolivia Plane crashes guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 11, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.