Amazon plane crash! Kids were found after 40 days.
How four children survived 40 days in the Amazon jungle
The eldest of four children who survived an aircraft crash in the Amazon rainforest has been commended for her “heroic role” in keeping her siblings alive throughout the experience, their grandpa said, as search efforts focus to recovering Wilson, a missing search and rescue dog who kept them company.
The Mucutuy children, aged 1 to 13, lived in the impenetrable forest for more than a month after their aircraft crashed on May 1 — killing their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia as well as the pilot and another passenger.
In recordings published online by the Colombian Defense Ministry, the children’s grandpa Narciso Mucutuy explained how 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy cared for her younger siblings throughout the harrowing incident.
“When she looked and saw that her mother was dead, she saw the foot of her youngest sister and she pulled them out,” he claimed.
“The baby Cristin survived because of her older sister feeding her slowly from the bottle until the bottle ran out,” he claimed, adding that she had also given the infant water.
The youngsters, who included Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, and Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, survived by eating farina - a coarse cassava flour typically utilized by indigenous communities in the Amazon area, authorities said Saturday.
They linked the children’s survival abilities to their indigenous origin. “Their learning from indigenous families and their learning of living in the jungle has saved them,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro remarked.
The youngsters had first stayed around the accident site for four days, expecting to be rescued, their grandpa claimed, but then they moved and left signs at sites where they slept, hoping that someone would find them.
Mucutuy stated Lesly informed him she had no clue where they were headed and soon couldn’t go any farther. At that time, the youngsters decided to wait “for the miracle which finally happened,” he added.
Manuel Ranoque, who is father to the two youngest Mucutuy children, had been aiding in search activities.
Ranoque claims he was one of the last 16 individuals left hunting for the children after most of the rescue teams were called off.
He told CNN that as the kids were recovered, “we started to see thunder and lightning bolts. We departed at the correct time, fifteen minutes later and the helicopter could not have carried us,” he said.
During their journey, the youngsters had observed activity in the bush but they “hid when they saw helicopters or people from the community or members of the military because they thought they could be punished.”
At one time, the youngsters saw Wilson, a Special Forces search dog who “became their faithful friend and accompanied them on several occasions,” their grandpa claimed.
Wilson, a Belgian Shepherd, went missing during the search activities and was last seen on May 18, according to authorities. The youngsters “spent three or four days with Wilson and said that they (found) him quite skinny,” said Colombian military spokesman Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez Suárez.
Finding him is now the Colombian army’s major aim.
‘We have a phrase ‘We never leave an element behind,’ much less the four children, we would not leave Wilson. But we are also cognizant of how difficult it is to discover him in the depths of a hostile but blessed jungle,” said Suárez.
Colombian General Helder Giraldo stated Tuesday that the effort to locate Wilson would continue in place until the dog is found. “We have about 70 commandos looking for him right now,” he added.
All four youngsters are presently recuperating in hospital in Bogota after being evacuated there by air ambulance on Saturday.
Their abduction triggered a large military-led search effort that saw more than 100 Colombian special forces personnel and over 70 indigenous scouts exploring the jungle.
Hopes for their survival dwindled as the weeks passed on but the four were ultimately located in an area devoid of trees.
Doctors anticipate the youngsters to stay in hospital for monitoring for up to three weeks.
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