congenitaldisease: 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke was a German high school student studying in Lima; s
congenitaldisease: 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke was a German high school student studying in Lima; she dreamed of becoming a zoologist like her parents. On the 24th of December, 1971, Juliane and her mother, Maria, boarded a flight in Lima to fly to Pucallpa to meet her father. During the flight, the airplane was struck by lightening and obliterated mid-air. The airplane plummeted to the ground, killing all 91 on board except for Juliane who fell to Earth still strapped to her seat. She suffered a broken collarbone, a laceration to her arm and a swollen eye. Juliane landed in the dangerous Amazon forest. Over the forthcoming 11 days, Juliane used her knowledge to survive. She located a small stream and waded through the water deducing it would eventually lead to civilisation. She received numerous insect bites which subsequently became infected. She came across a boat and took the gasoline from the fuel tank to pour over her wounds to get rid of the maggots in her wounds. “I remember having seen my father when he cured a dog of worms in the jungle with gasoline,” she recalled. Juliane decided to stay with the boat hoping somebody would arrive and rescue her. Eventually, three lumbermen arrived. They took Juliane to the lumber station which was a seven hour canoe trip away and from there she was airlifted to hospital. Following the ordeal, Juliana had numerous nightmares about the death of her mother. She went on receive a doctorate from Ludwig-Maximilian University and subsequently returned to Peru to conduct her research in mammalogy. In 2011, she wrote a biography on her experiences. -- source link