A couple of recent disaster survival headlines leave me musing on something most of us rarely think about: How long can a person really last, surviving without food or water? The answer to that question is more complicated than you might think…
Elvis François, 47, survived 24 days on Ketchup and bouillon cubes…
The Naked Planet
Anyone else out there remember the old (very old) radio and TV series’ The Naked City? The stock closing went something like: “There are 8 million stories in The Naked City. This has been one of them…” The city was New York (in the 50s and 60s), and the ‘8 million’ referred to its then-population.
It was an ‘anthology’ style drama with no set cast from week to week. Instead, it featured guest ‘stars’ and well-known actors form movies, Broadway and other TV shows in the lead roles.
“Eight billion stories on the naked Planet…”
… Refers to the kind of tabloid-appeal tale that folks in the newspaper business call ‘Man Bites Dog’. And the two stories I’m referring to today seem to fall into that category.
‘Man survives 24 days adrift […] eating little more than ketchup’
This is supposed to be some sort of miracle. Maybe it was the soup bouillon cubes and garlic powder he also found in the vessel’s pantry that did the trick. Nevertheless, Elvis François, 47, was found 120 nautical miles northwest of Puerto Bolíva, Colombia, after being adrift for just over 3 weeks.
François told CNN his boat was blown away from land while he was making repairs near the Dutch sector of the island of Ste. Maarten one late December day.
“Twenty four days – no land, nobody to talk to. Don’t know what to do, don’t know where you are. It was rough,” François told rescuers. “At a certain time, I lose hope. I think about my family.”
“I had no food. It was just a bottle of ketchup that was on the boat, garlic powder and Maggi [stock cubes] so I mixed it [all] up with some water,” he explained.
‘Brothers survive on protein powder, urine after Turkish quake’
Another miracle? The two, described as body builders in a The New York Times story, were trapped under hundreds of tonnes of rubble in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, after the 7.8 intensity quake there earlier this year. Abdulbaki Yeninar, 21, and his brother Muhammed Enes Yeninar, 17, said they mixed the powder up in their own urine.
Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s director for Europe, said in a news briefing on Tuesday. “Some 26 million people across both countries need humanitarian assistance. […] There are also growing concerns over emerging health issues linked to the cold weather, hygiene and sanitation, and the spread of infectious diseases — with vulnerable people especially at risk.”
I can see how eating the protein powder would enhance their ability to survive longer than expected. It’s pure, concentrated nutrition.
But, if there are, “growing concerns over emerging health issues linked to […] hygiene,” one asks why did the guys dare to drink their own urine?
Water more important than food
The truth is, you can last a lot longer without food than you can without water.
All the most-trusted medical authorities agree you can survive only a few days without water, but you can last for two weeks or more without food.
“You see a lot of different scenarios where we’ve had some really miraculous saves. And people have survived under horrible conditions,” says Dr. Christopher Colwell, an emergency medicine specialist at the University of California at San Francisco. “They tend to be younger people” – like our two bodybuilders – “and have been fortunate enough to find either a pocket in the rubble or some way to access needed elements like air and water.”
“People with traumatic injuries, including crush injuries and limb amputations, face the most critical survival window,” says Dr. George Chiampas, an emergency medicine specialist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg Medical School.
Mental state can also affect survival, Chiampas notes. And it’s critical that trapped victims never give up hope.
From my own experience, I can attest that there’s no better way to determine if you have claustrophobia than to be trapped in a small space for even an an hour or two.
So… What about the urine thing?
One of the first things they teach new military recruits about survival is, you can safely drink your own urine (see photo-top of page) if you have to. As the doctor told me when I was recovering from some deep abdominal surgery about 10 years ago, and was concerned about the catheter leaking: “Your urine is sterile – to you.” No worries about contact with skin or germs getting in your eyes or on other critical surfaces.
But I still consider it a last resort. The ultimate test of one’s strength of character and fear threshold.
All things considered…
I can’t endorse the two recent news stories we’ve examined today as miracles – or even headline-worthy. But I do regard the survivors as heroes in their own rights. And we should regard them as living examples of what we can all achieve when worst comes to worst…
~ Maggie J.