plane crash
How the kids survived 40 days in the jungle
Soldiers and indigenous men take care of four siblings missing after plane crash. photo
© –/Colombia’s Armed Forces Press Office/dpa
Gradually it becomes clear how the four children were able to survive 40 days in the rainforest. Two factors were evidently decisive.
The story of the four rescued children borders on a miracle in two respects: First, all siblings aged between 11 months and 13 years survived the plane crash that killed their mother, the pilot and another adult. And then they survive 40 days in the dense Colombian rainforest. According to one doctor, two factors were critical to survival: that the children had adequate water and that they knew the jungle.
How did the children feed themselves?
The most important thing is sufficient liquid, said the pediatrician Clemencia Mayorga of the newspaper “El Tiempo”. “A lack of water puts children in a dangerous situation very quickly, in just a few hours,” emphasizes the former president of the Bogotá Society of Pediatrics. “So we can assume that they always had water available for 40 days.” It probably helped that it rained extensively during the time.
According to one report, the children initially consumed a supply of three kilograms of cassava flour from the plane. “In the days after the crash, they ate the flour they took with them,” CNN quoted military spokesman Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez Suárez as saying. At some point they ran out of supplies.
The children then ate seeds, the AP news agency quoted Uncle Fidencio Valencia as saying. Astrid Cáceres, director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF), said the children also ate fruits from the jungle. This could include wild passion fruit or mangoes.
What is the importance of the older children?
The two older sisters probably played a key role: 13-year-old Lesly and 9-year-old Soleiny took care of the two younger ones: Tien was four years old when the crash happened, Cristin just eleven months – both had their birthdays during the time in the rainforest. It was important to ensure that the children always stayed together in the dense vegetation.
“I think it’s very important to highlight the abilities of the two older children to take care of the younger ones,” emphasizes pediatrician Mayorga. “It is very clear to me that it was the older children who saved the lives of the younger ones, particularly the 11-month-old.”
The siblings knew the rainforest from an early age
It was also crucial that the children, who belong to the indigenous Witoto (Uitoto) ethnic group, were familiar with the rainforest from an early age. “The children’s survival is a testament to the knowledge and connection to the natural environment that is taught and learned in the womb and practiced from an early age,” wrote the indigenous organization OPIAC on Twitter.
The ecologist Carlos Peres from the English University of East Anglia, who is familiar with the Amazon region, also believes this. “Four western children of that age would have died,” he told the Washington Post. Indigenous children learned early on how to find food and avoid dangerous animals such as snakes or big cats. In some communities in the region, children are learning to climb trees as young as one, Peres said.
The researcher adds: “What I lament more than anything else is that the knowledge that saved these children in this particular case is rapidly disappearing in the Amazon.”