Briton stuck in leech-f illed jungle ate raw fish to survive
A BrITISH conservationist has told how she survived five days stranded in the Mexican jungle by eating peanuts and raw fish.
rachel Bradley was one of a group of four exploring the Yucatan Peninsula by river when they lost the canoes containing their GPS system, communication equipment, food and medical supplies.
After leaving the river and heading into the jungle with their remaining food – just one bag of M&Ms and some caramelised peanuts – they spent five days fighting to survive before they were eventually rescued.
The group described their ordeal as being like a ‘horror film’, as they wandered through the jungle, sleeping in trees and swallowing raw fish whole to fend off starvation.
Miss Bradley, 31, from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, was working for Ninth Wave Global, an environmental consultancy operating in remote areas.
She told how the team – which included fellow Briton Mike Burgess, 52, of Plymouth – got lost while exploring the area due to unexpected rapids and a ‘labyrinth’ of swamps and waterfalls created by heavy rain.
Having hurtled over several waterfalls in their canoes – emerging each time covered in water-dwelling leeches – the group found themselves pushed further and further into the 7,340 square mile jungle.
Miss Bradley said: ‘The water just kept flowing faster and faster. But at this point it was too late to go back.’
When two of their four boats flipped over and were lost, their food, first aid equipment and GPS navigation system also vanished. The team then swam and climbed their way through the jungle before finding a mangrove they decided to stay in.
Expedition leader Jon Bonfiglio, 42, from Gibraltar, was forced to spend the entire five days in just his underwear having stripped off to help another member of the group when their boat capsized. Without basic supplies, the group, which also included a 24year-old Mexican man, were forced to drink dirty river water and sleep in trees.
Miss Bradley said: ‘We thought the safest place was just staying put and hoping someone could find us. For the next two days and two nights we stayed in this tree and explored a few different exit routes, walking to the other side of the palm field and swimming up and down stream.
‘We had a bag of M&Ms which we shared on the first evening and then we rationed a bag of caramelised peanuts I had – five each per sitting.’ However, their meagre supplies soon ran out.
‘By day three, my colleagues had started testing a local fruit they recognised and had caught some small fish using my mosquito
‘It was like a horror film’
net,’ said Miss Bradley. ‘They cut the heads off and swallowed them whole.’
She added: ‘Throughout it all there was that feeling of “what if nobody comes?” I just kept feeling guilty for my family in Stockton in case I didn’t come back.’
After five days they were discovered on October 23 by a passing Mexican man named Juan de Dios – or ‘John of the Gods’ – who took them to safety at the nearest home. Miss Bradley suffered cuts all over her legs from the palm leaves and an eye infection.
Mr Bonfiglio said they had spoken to locals about what to expect before setting out, saying: ‘We were not naive idiots going over a cliff edge. We talked to them about the river, but people told us there was only one waterfall, even the local people didn’t know of all the waterfalls or the perils.’
He added: ‘It was like all the best horror films, it started beautifully, the river was meant to be placid and gentle, no one mentioned the rapids and waterfall.’
The experience has not put Miss Bradley off exploring. She said: ‘At the time I thought it would, but in the morning I start two weeks on the Usumacinta river [also in Mexico].’