Jungle Survival - By Dhriya Ghosh

It was a long awaited trip. Joanne was looking forward to reuniting with her hardworking father who had gone on a mission to recover the Amazon endangered species. She was seventeen and had just graduated.

Joanne and her mother were going to the outskirts of the Amazon forest to meet with her father and then go to the Bahamas with her family. But it was the holiday season and most airlines were full except for the LANSA airline which already had a bad reputation with two plane crashes. But they still booked the tickets considering nothing to happen as it was a short, one hour flight.

The day of the trip arrived. Everything was fine until suddenly, a raging storm arose, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Then a bolt of thunder hit the plane. The plane crashed down, hitting the ground with a thud and killing all inside, except for Joanne. All bruised and exhausted, the poor soul was lying unconscious among the dead, not knowing the adventures she would endure later.

 After a day of being knocked out, Joanne woke up, and immediately felt the bruises and cuts on her body. She looked around, and saw a crashed plane that tore through the earth. She yelled out for her mother many times, but there was no answer, and she knew she was the only one left. Though Joanne’s bones were fractured and there were multiple bruises and cuts throughout her body, she was determined to live.

For the next week and a half, she was to go through nature’s obstacles. She was hungry and thus began looking for fruits. She found an apple tree with a few ripe apples and an orange tree. The next two days were spent eating them. These fruits were juicy, but Joanne’s thirst was not quenched. On the fourth day of her adventure, she suddenly heard the sound of rushing water. She followed the sound and saw a fountain with a small lake. She had found fresh water! The girl filled up her bottles and caskets with all the water she could collect.

Joanne then remembered that once her father had told her that if there was freshwater in forests, there was a high chance of a civilization nearby. The girl followed the trail of water, but to her disappointment, there was no trace of human steps anywhere in the place. The girl continued living within nature for six more days until she finally saw a boat floating on a river in the forest. The girl was overjoyed, and though she did not know how to row a boat at all, she was able to somehow push the boat to the other end. There, she found herself walking on a stone-carved path, until she reached an empty hut with just a few loaves of bread on a plate and a can of petrol. Now, Joanne’s deepest cut was hurting very badly. There was a high chance of severe infections, and worms were inside it. Then she remembered the time when her dad took out a worm from her dog’s cut by using petrol. She poured the petrol over the cut, and though it hurt immensely as the worms were trying to get deeper into her flesh, she managed to pull them out. Then the girl gobbled down the bread and went into a deep sleep. Soon, a pair of lumberjacks found her and gave her food and water and also took her to the mainland where she recovered at a hospital.

She finally met her father and told him the horrific tragedy that took place.

 

-       Inspired by a true story