TRUE SURVIVAL STORIES

A Five years ago two teenagers were lost at sea without food and fresh water for six days. They were rescued more than 160 kilometres away from where they started. When they were found, they were clinging to their small sailboat called Sunfish. The boys were sunburnt, dehydrated and exhausted. It was a windy day when Henry Drisscoll and Josh Kelly set out with their small, worn-out boats. Although the coastguards warned them not to go, they didn’t listen. They knew it wouldn’t be easy, but they wanted to have some excitement. Unfortunately it didn’t take them too long to realise that they were in trouble. They tried to swim back to the shore, pulling the boat along with them. They lost their tools and couldn’t even catch any fish. As the days were passing, their hopes began to fade. The coastguard knew they were missing, but the boys were outside the area where the coastguard were looking for them. The boys waved their paddles and shouted every time they saw a boat, but nobody heard them. At last, when they were about to give up, they spotted one fishing boat. This time someone heard them. The boys remembered very little about their rescue, but they remember that their rescuers asked what they wanted to do with Sunfish. ‘We told them we didn’t want to see it again,’ Josh said.

B Joe Simpson and Simon Yates successfully climbed to the top of a mountain in Peru. They both had a lot of climbing experience, but they didn’t consider the changing weather. So, when snowstorms suddenly started and conditions became dangerous, the two men roped themselves together and began to climb down. Then, a terrible thing happened. Simpson fell and broke his leg. They decided that Yates would lower Simpson on the rope, and when he was safe, Yates would climb down after him. Unfortunately, their plan failed. At night the snowstorm became very intense and when Yates lowered Simpson he accidentally left him hanging in mid-air. It was impossible to communicate with each other. Yates knew that the only way was to cut the rope, or they were going to die. When Yates cut the rope, Simpson fell on ice. It was very dark and cold. His only wish was to find Yates. Simpson decided to use the rest of the rope. ‘I had to do something,’ he said later. ‘I could crawl and climb until I could escape from this grave.’ Hours later, he was able to move. In spite of his broken leg, he forced himself to crawl down the mountain by telling himself, ‘Move! Move!’ Finally, he found Yates and together they arrived at their camping area. They are both grateful that neither one died.