Over the weekend an amazing report came out of that of 4 kids left on their own after a deadly plane crash…and they survived 40 days in the unforgiving Amazon……

“Miracle, miracle, miracle” is how a Colombian general involved in the search for four missing siblings described their survival over 40 days in the Amazon jungle. The Indigenous children, ages 1 to 13, were found Friday by searchers hunting for them ever since their small plane crashed on May 1, killing their mother and two pilots. So how did they survive? Three factors helped: flour from the plane wreckage, fruit and seeds from the jungle, and having an extraordinarily capable 13-year-old leading them.

• The children’s grandfather told reporters they found cassava flour, or farina, in the wreckage, reports the Guardian. “After the farina ran out, they began to eat seeds,” said Fidencio Valencia.
• “There’s a fruit, similar to passionfruit, called avichure,” said Edwin Paki, an Indigenous leader who helped in the search. “They were looking for seeds to eat from an avichure tree about a (mile and a half) from the site of the plane crash.” A key factor in their favor: “The jungle was in harvest,” says the head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare.
• The children are dehydrated and have “nutritional deficiencies,” but appear to have no major injuries, per the BBC. “In general the children, the boy and the girls are in an acceptable state … (and) they are out of danger,” says defense minister Ivan Velasquez, who credited 13-year-old Lesly for keeping them alive. “It is thanks to her, her value and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle.”
• Their grandmother, Fatima Valencia, told reporters the eldest girl was used to looking after her younger siblings while their mother worked. The baby turned 1 in the jungle and another sibling turned 5, per the BBC. The other sibling is 9 years old.

After I wrote this draft more details have

come out…..

More details of the 40 days that four indigenous children survived in the Amazon jungle are coming out, and one is particularly heartbreaking. After their single-engine propeller plane plane crashed in Colombia on May 1, the children’s mother survived for about four days. That’s according to the father of two of the children, who says the eldest child—a 13-year-old girl given much of the credit for keeping her siblings, a 9-year-old, a 4-year-old, and an 11-month-old who turned one during the ordeal, alive—told him so, the Guardian reports. “Before she died, she said to them: ‘Maybe you should go,'” to increase their chances of being rescued, he said, per the AP.

 

The children’s aunt says they are dehydrated and have bug bites; their uncle says the children told him they hid in tree trunks for protection from the mosquitoes as well as snakes and other animals in the jungle. By the time they were rescued, “the minor children were already very weak,” says the leader of the search effort. “They were only strong enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle.” They are now being rehydrated before they can eat much food, and are expected to be hospitalized at least two weeks.

What’s still not clear is why they weren’t found earlier despite search teams reportedly passing as close as 66 feet away from them on multiple occasions, but relatives say they may have been scared of the uniformed search party and barking dogs and tried to remain hidden. One dog involved in the rescue effort, though, is thought to have spent some time with the children and to have left tracks that helped rescuers find them, but he himself has not yet been found. The oldest child reportedly told rescuers “a dog who was lost, that didn’t know where to go, … accompanied us for a while.”

An amazing story….this young lady should get recognition worldwide for her accomplishment….she was brave, resourceful and driven…..

Whatever this young lady wants she should get it all….

I cannot see many young people these days that could pull off this feat of survival.

Do you?

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