Uruguayan Man, Missing in Andes Found

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Uruguayan Man, Missing in Andes Found

Postby Overlandman » Mon 09 Sep, 2013 11:08 am

From ABC News
No sign of a Mars Bar :)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/m ... es/4944870

A 58-year-old Uruguayan man who disappeared four months ago in the remote Andes Mountains has been found alive, after spending a brutal winter eating rats and raisins to survive.
Local media reported that Raul Fernando Gomez Circunegui got lost in May as he was trying to cross the mountains from Chile to Argentina on foot because his motorcycle broke down.
Argentine officials from the north-western province of San Juan stumbled upon Mr Gomez Circunegui in a shelter 2,840 metres above sea level when they travelled there to record snow levels.
"The truth is that this is a miracle. We still can't believe it," San Juan governor Jose Luis Gioja told the local Diario de Cuyo newspaper.
"We let him talk to his wife, his mother and his daughter... I asked him: 'Are you a believer?' He told me, 'no, but now I am'."
Sugar, raisins, rats and the shelter's leftover supplies kept Mr Gomez Circunegui alive through the Southern Hemisphere's winter.
He lost 20 kilos during the ordeal and was dehydrated.
A doctor who examined Mr Gomez Circunegui was surprised by the man's resilience, according to Uruguayan newspaper El Pais.
"He's a patient with high blood pressure, a history of smoking and signs of undernourishment," the doctor was quoted as saying.
But "he's going to be fine and in a few days we're going to discharge him."
Mr Gomez Circunegui's ordeal echoes the famous story from 1972 when a plane, carrying a Uruguayan rugby team to Chile, crashed in the Andes.

The flight had 45 people on board, more than a quarter of whom were killed in the crash, with the others quickly succumbing to the cold and their injuries.

A further eight people died in an avalanche before 16 survivors were rescued on December 23 - more than two months after the crash.

It later emerged that some of the survivors sustained themselves by eating the bodies of the deceased.
Whatever, Wherever, Whenever
Overlandman
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