Not everyone can survive four months being left alone in the Andes Mountains, but a 58-year-old Uruguayan man did just that. He spent a brutal winter surviving on rats and raisins.
Raul Fernando Gomez got lost in the Andes in May as he was trying to cross the mountains from Chile to Argentina on foot after his motorcycle broke down, ABC reports.
Gomez Circunegui was found by Argentine officials who came across him in a shelter roughly more than 9,000 feet above sea level. They were in the area 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'."
Gomez Circunegui survived the winter in the Southwestern Hemisphere by eating sugar, raisins, rats and using leftover supplies in the shelter. He lost about 44 pounds during the ordeal and he was found dehydrated.
A doctor who examined the man was surprised that he was so resilient and was able to survive the ordeal.
"He's a patient with high blood pressure, a history of smoking and signs of undernourishment," the doctor told the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais. Despite his condition, "he's going to be fine and in a few days we're going to discharge him," the doctor added.
Gomez Circunegui's ordeal is similar to a story in which a plane, carrying a Uruguayan rugby team to Chile, crashed in the Andes in 1972. The plane was carrying 45 people. More than a quarter died in the crash while others died from the cold and due to injuries. Another eight people died in an Avalanche. There were 16 people who were rescued more than two months after the plane crashed. The survivors had lived through the ordeal by eating the bodies of those who died.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
