The Amazon Survivor - Juliane Koepcke..
Juliane Koepcke...
When the airliner broke up in mid-air, she survived after plummeting about 10,000 feet while still strapped to her seat, before crashing through the rain forest canopy and coming to rest on the forest floor. She and her mother, ornithologist Maria Koepcke, were traveling to meet with her father, biologist Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, who was working in the city of Pucallpa. she fell to earth still strapped into her seat. She survived the fall with only a broken collarbone, a gash to her right arm, and her right eye swollen shut."I was definitely strapped in the airplane seat when I fell," she said later. "It must have turned and buffered the crash, otherwise I wouldn't have survived."
Her first priority was to find her mother, who had been seated next to her, but her search was unsuccessful. She later found out her mother had initially survived the crash, but died from her injuries several days later.
Julian Margaret Koepcke is a German-Peruvian biologist who was the only survivor of 92 passengers and crew in the crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest.
The commercial airliner was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm and broke up in mid-air, disintegrating .
When the airliner broke up in mid-air, she survived after plummeting about 10,000 feet while still strapped to her seat, before crashing through the rain forest canopy and coming to rest on the forest floor. She and her mother, ornithologist Maria Koepcke, were traveling to meet with her father, biologist Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, who was working in the city of Pucallpa. she fell to earth still strapped into her seat. She survived the fall with only a broken collarbone, a gash to her right arm, and her right eye swollen shut."I was definitely strapped in the airplane seat when I fell," she said later. "It must have turned and buffered the crash, otherwise I wouldn't have survived."
Her first priority was to find her mother, who had been seated next to her, but her search was unsuccessful. She later found out her mother had initially survived the crash, but died from her injuries several days later.
Koepcke found some sweets which were to become her only food. After looking for her mother and other passengers, she was able to locate a small stream. She waded through knee-high water downstream from her landing site, relying on the survival principle her father had taught her, that tracking downstream should eventually lead to civilization The stream provided clean water and a natural path through the dense rainforest vegetation.
During the trip, Koepcke could not sleep at night because of insect bites, which became infected. After nine days, several spent floating downstream, she found a boat moored near a shelter,where she found the boat's motor and fuel tank. Relying again on her father's advice, Koepcke poured gasoline on her wounds, which succeeded in removing thirty-five maggots from one arm,then waited until rescuers arrived.
She later recounted her necessary efforts that day: "I remember having seen my father when he cured a dog of worms in the jungle with gasoline. I got some gasoline and poured it on myself. I counted the worms when they started to slip out. There were 35 on my arm. I remained there but I wanted to leave. I didn't want to take the boat because I didn't want to steal it."
Hours later, the lumbermen who used the shelter arrived and tended to her injuries and bug infestations. The next morning they took her via a seven-hour canoe ride down river to a lumber station in the Tournavista District. With the help of a local pilot, she was airlifted to a hospital – and her waiting father – in Pucallpa.
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