While looking for a good place to snowboard, Le Maque lost his way and ended up in the wilderness at the back of the mountain. Le Marque, who had expected to just be out for a couple of hours, had no food , very fwe supplies, and his cellphone battery was dead. All he had ws seemingly useless MP3 player. One he realized he was lost, he decided to keep moving. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong direction and, over the next few days, moved farther and farther away from safety and rescue. Knowing taht eating snow lower body temperature, Le Marque ate only tree bark and pine seeds.
After a few days Le Marque had an ideas that may have saved his life. He turned the radio on hid MP3 player into a kind of compass. He noticed that whenever he pointed the player in a certain direction and started walking towards safety and, ultimately,rescue.
For days, Le Marque struggled through hunger, freezing temperatures, and 12-foot(4-meter) deep snow. By the eighth day, Le Marque was so waek and his legs were so frostbitten that he cloud no longer walk or even stand. He was in such bad condition that he began hallucinating that his situation was just a video game. He recalls thinking, "The game is over. Let's reset it. I give up" Le Marque was at the point of exhaustion and death when he was found by rescuers in a heliocopter. Although he lost his legs to frostbite, Le Marque's survival experience left him with more of an appetite for life than ever before . After being fitted with artificial limbs, he vowed to go snowboatdling again. Only in the future, he plans to be much better prepared.
Occasionally, some owe their survival not to struggle, but to simple luck. Take the startling case of Missutaka Uchikoshi. One ice-cold October day in 2006, Uchikoshi had been at a party on a mountain in western Japan. After wandering off into a field on his own, Uchikoshi tripped, hit his head, and was knocked unconscious. As Uchikoshi remembers,"I was in field and I felt very comfartable . That's my last memory." He remained unconscious in almost-freezing temperature without food or water for more than thee weeks.
When he was found in the freezing field 24 days after his fall, he did not seem to be breathing and had no detectable pulse. His body temperature was nearly 30 degrees below normal, and his organs had nearly shut down. Doctors assumed he was dead. Yet something incredible happened while he was at Kobe City General Hospital; He woke up! Even more incredibly, Uchikoshi, who was treated for severe hypothermia and blood loss, made a full recovery. Doctors believe that Uchikoshi's
Body went into a state similar to hibernation. In hibernation, the body temperature of an animal is lowered and its breathing and heart rate slow down. Hibernation reduces thez need for food and protects animals from damage to the brain and other organs.
Stories like these remind us that even when we are in situation that seems impossible, we should never give up hope. After all, there is always a chance that you will succeed--against the odds!