Alerted by a fellow searcher who saw what he assumed were two bodies on the ledge, the leader of the rescue team, Madhab Basnet, carefully made his way to the site, using a handmade ladder the rescuers had quickly fashioned. When he reached the ledge, he was shocked when one of the two, an emaciated and badly weakened young man, spoke to him. He said that his girlfriend, Liu Chen Chi, 19, had died three days before.... Ms. Liu appeared to have died of starvation....
After becoming disoriented in a snowstorm, they tried to follow the path of a river, in hopes that it would lead them to a settlement.... As they made their way along the river, they slid into a ravine and became stuck on the ledge, where they took shelter in a cave. They remained there for more than six weeks. On either side of the ledge were steep rock faces, so they could not move up or down, and snow was falling outside, Mr. Liang told the rescuers. After 10 days, their food ran out, he said.
May 3, 2017
"He said his girlfriend was in a lot of pain and grief. He said he ate salt and water and that’s how he survived."
Said Liang Sheng-Yueh, saved, in Nepal, after 47 days.
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21 comments:
Survi?
Is that tag only for when half the people survive?
Texas Monthly writer Laurence Gonzales has written two outstanding books on what it takes to survive under conditions of extreme hardship..."Deep Survival" and "Surviving Survival."
Here is a summary...
1 Accept the reality of your situation. See opportunity, even good, in your situation.
2 Stay calm. Use humor. Use fear to focus.
3 Think. Analyze. Plan. Get organized. Set up small, manageable tasks.
4 Take correct decisive action. Be bold and cautious.
5 Celebrate your successes.
6 Count your blessings.
7 Play. Use the deeper activities of the intellect to stimulate, calm, and entertain the mind.
8 See the beauty.
9 Believe that you will succeed. Make no more mistakes. Be very careful. Do your very best. Know that you will prevail if you do those things.
10 Surrender. And put away the pain.
11 Do whatever is necessary.
12 NEVER GIVE UP. Let nothing break your spirit. There is always one more thing you can do.
"Survi?
Is that tag only for when half the people survive?"
That's sad.
I'm still expecting tags to autocomplete as I write them, the way they used to. It's taking forever for me to get used to the way they don't anymore.
St. George said...
11 Do whatever is necessary.
Was the girlfriend gnawed to the bone when the rescuers found them? If not, the guy was hardly trying.
I first thought this article was about Venezuelans enjoying Communism. Food is the first luxory to go, but only because The Kulaks.
Skip the salt (in a cold climate). Or save it for wounds.
Interesting account. I have read Gonzales' book, "Deep Survival", as well but I have to wonder: How do we know if those who didn't survive had employed those measures?
Maggots may have helped save his life. He must have had a foot wound and they would have eaten the decayed tissue, perhaps preventing gangrene.
They should've hibernated until the salmon returned to the mountain.
"Alerted by a fellow searcher who saw what he assumed were two bodies on the ledge, the leader of the rescue team, Madhab Basnet, carefully made his way to the site, using a handmade ladder the rescuers had quickly fashioned."
This for what he thought were two corpses. Wow.
You need far less survival skills if you favor stamp collecting over mountain climbing for your leisure time.
You need far less survival skills if you favor stamp collecting over mountain climbing for your leisure time.
But, William--there is the exhilaration factor. Does a philatelist get that? [Maybe so. I've never been one].
Blogger William said...
You need far less survival skills if you favor stamp collecting over mountain climbing for your leisure time.
5/3/17, 10:01 AM
...that was...cold...
David said...
This for what he thought were two corpses. Wow.
There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do...
Over the many years I've been reading this blog, I've noticed that Ann likes to blog about articles like this -- people surviving (or not) extreme conditions. The articles are compulsively readable, but why that's so is not always apparent. I suppose the attraction is that, for those of us who aren't put to (and certainly not looking for) that test, we want to understand how the experience of unexpected survival (the real thing, not the TV show) impacts what comes next in life. In standard Christian theology, baptism is a form of rebirth after death, and these survival experiences are sometimes described in tbose terms (baptism by fire, etc.). Being given a second chance at life surely ought to cause some serious rethinking about the purpose and meaning of that chance. But does it?
Being given a second chance at life surely ought to cause some serious rethinking about the purpose and meaning of that chance. But does it?
So, do you think this guy will take up stamp collecting?
I've never understood why people would deliberately place themselves in such dangerous circumstances for no good reason.
I consider "fun" and "adventure" to be "no good reason."
Richard--
The answer to your question is "Yes."
"Noticing the stars, the beauty of the sky is a significant sign of strength. Becoming convinced of survival often occurs after a spiritual experience of the beauty of the world," as one of the Gonzales books says.
Here is Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist who survived four death camps, and wrote "Man's Search for Meaning." The key is finding meaning and purpose which then drives action....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlC2OdnhIiQ
And the meaning/purpose is found in being concerned with something outside one's self.
NYTimes linked to a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeWula9YB2s
He looks better than I expected he would.
After she died, he could have ate her.
It's been done before. Survival means people can be meat.
Alas, he probably didn't have a knife to strip the meat from her body and make jerkey.
"So, do you think this guy will take up stamp collecting?"
After that experience? Absolutely.
(Okay, I don't really think he will take up that specific hobby; it is too specific to think so. Nor do I think the odds are in favor of his taking up a nice, quiet, safe hobby of that type. But I do think there are people who say, "Wow! I almost died. Enough of that!" and decide to stick to more prosaic activities.)
Re: But, William--there is the exhilaration factor. Does a philatelist get that?
Stamps exhilaration factor, found.
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