[HN Gopher] Four children found alive in Amazon 40 days after pl...
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       Four children found alive in Amazon 40 days after plane crash
        
       Author : sjcsjc
       Score  : 215 points
       Date   : 2023-06-10 12:46 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | Solvency wrote:
       | I was vaguely tracking this through Reddit for a while, and I
       | thought the consensus was that they falsely claimed they found
       | the children and it turned out to be a big political lie. Glad to
       | hear it finally happened.
        
         | jeromegv wrote:
         | Who's they? Surely if politicians claimed they found them, I'd
         | be in the news?
        
           | flashback2199 wrote:
           | From reading this article, it sounded like they found the
           | general area where they were, but it took a while to actually
           | find them because they kept moving
        
             | chrisbrandow wrote:
             | If true, this is a great demonstration of the advice to
             | stay put when lost in the wilderness.
        
           | meowzor wrote:
           | They had claimed they were found before this, but they
           | retracted it. This time they did find them.
           | 
           | Edit: I believe the president is the one that tweeted it the
           | first time, and he retracted.
        
           | Kalkaline wrote:
           | "The president came under criticism last month when a tweet
           | published on his account mistakenly announced that the
           | children had been found.
           | 
           | He erased the tweet the next day saying that the information
           | - which his office had been given by Colombia's child welfare
           | agency - could not be confirmed." quote from the article this
           | thread is about.
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | There's another article linked at the bottom of that article
         | that talks about how the president had mistakenly claimed
         | they'd been found a month ago, and had to retract it. Maybe
         | that's what you're remembering.
        
       | 11235813213455 wrote:
       | There's much food around in a forest, from fruit, insects,
       | plants. What's important is to figure which one are edible, and
       | avoid injuries
        
       | therealdrag0 wrote:
       | > The bodies of the three adults were found at the crash site by
       | the army, but it appeared that the children had escaped the
       | wreckage and wandered into the rainforest to find help.
       | 
       | PSA I'm no expert but as a kid I was taught to stay where you
       | were if you got lost. And this seems to demonstrate that.
        
       | kramerger wrote:
       | Finally since good news :)
       | 
       | Surprised that a 13 years old was able to take care of 3 small
       | children in a jungle full of snakes and jaguars for 40 days. How
       | was he able to keep the toddler alive? What do you feed someone
       | that young in a jungle??
        
         | jlg23 wrote:
         | > She said the eldest of the four siblings was used to looking
         | after the other three when their mother was at work, and that
         | this helped them survive in the jungle.
         | 
         | > "She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the
         | bush, they know what they must consume," Ms Valencia said in
         | footage obtained by EVN.
        
         | sveme wrote:
         | SHE. The two elder sisters kept the two younger ones alive.
         | They knew what to eat in the jungle and used some of the
         | randomly dropped emergency kits.
        
           | alienfromearth wrote:
           | [flagged]
        
         | smallerfish wrote:
         | > Surprised that a 13 years old was able to take care of 3
         | small children in a jungle full of snakes and jaguars for 40
         | days
         | 
         | FTA: "The children belong to the Huitoto indigenous group."
         | 
         | I.e. they're used to living on the land. Snakes are a concern
         | if you're unwary in the jungle, but if you are somewhat aware
         | of your surroundings you'll be OK. Jaguars are probably a
         | different story, but I guess luckily they weren't in the
         | territory of any animals.
        
           | looofooo wrote:
           | Well Jaguars are very limited in numbers. So of falling risk
           | to be eaten by one of them is low. If it would be high, then
           | there are to many and hence they would decline due to lack of
           | food soon. Plus human is not in their hunting scheme and
           | rather offsetting smell.
        
         | BasedAnon wrote:
         | You shouldn't be, 13 year olds have complex reasoning and the
         | physical capability. 14 year olds used to be expected to fight
         | wars.
        
           | Cyph0n wrote:
           | Definitely not a normal 13 year old. Taking care of a 1 year
           | old in ideal conditions is already a challenge (even for an
           | adult!), but doing so in the Amazon for over a month is a
           | different ballgame. Also, the older siblings' mental state
           | must have been all over the place.
        
             | karaterobot wrote:
             | What do you mean by normal? Having an adolescence centered
             | around indulgence and freedom from responsibility was not
             | the norm anywhere, historically, and is not the norm in
             | many places today. Waiting until adulthood to learn
             | practical skills (whatever those might be) is a little
             | weird, if you think about it.
        
               | Cyph0n wrote:
               | "Normal" as in, if you take a random 13 year old off the
               | street and throw them into the Amazon with their younger
               | siblings, they wouldn't be able to keep a 1 year old
               | alive for a month.
               | 
               | I'm not talking about history. I'm talking about the
               | current state of the world.
        
               | kjkjadksj wrote:
               | Its not likely a random 33 year old would fare better to
               | be honest
        
           | the_jesus_villa wrote:
           | I read a bunch of your comments and you seem like a very
           | erudite person. Is there a way I can contact you?
        
             | BasedAnon wrote:
             | I appreciate that. You can find me on Discord with the name
             | AbuSnood#6321
        
           | furyofantares wrote:
           | I'd be surprised if a 30yo could keep a 1, 4, and 9 alive in
           | the jungle for 40 days.
        
             | dahfizz wrote:
             | A 30yo with no experience in the outdoors, maybe
        
             | briga wrote:
             | Big difference between a 30 year old westerner who's never
             | been more than 500m from a paved highway and is afraid of
             | spiders and a 13-year-old indigenous child who grew up in
             | the jungle
        
               | furyofantares wrote:
               | I do believe we are in agreement, yes
        
           | runsWphotons wrote:
           | A few 14 year olds have always fought in wars but when was
           | this common or expected?
        
             | the_lonely_road wrote:
             | Here is a good historical reference from a western
             | viewpoint.
             | 
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_children_in_the_
             | m...
             | 
             | I am less familiar with other regions of the world but
             | understand it to be common place in some of them to this
             | day.
        
               | flashback2199 wrote:
               | The repeated use of the phrase that children were "used
               | by all sides" is concerning because there were many
               | countries that used no children except those that got in
               | by pretending to be older.
        
             | kjkjadksj wrote:
             | Just a few generations ago. If you were 14 in parts of
             | europe during wwii theres a good chance you were in some
             | army or a rag tag band of partisans. Probably a lot of 14
             | year olds took up arms against the US in wars since if I
             | had to guess.
        
           | 0max wrote:
           | Literally the age of any main character in a Shonen anime for
           | these reasons.
        
             | filoleg wrote:
             | I think the reason for this being the age of most Shonen
             | main characters is a bit more pragmatic than that - it is
             | simply around the age of the target audience.
             | 
             | P.S. No, I am not insinuating that shonen is strictly for
             | middle schoolers, and that no one else could enjoy it. It
             | is just the target audience for the genre, in general, is
             | middle school boys. Like, even the name shonen itself
             | translates literally to "boys' comics", and is officially
             | listed as an editorial category targeting adolescent boys.
        
         | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
         | A one year old eats almost anything you give to them.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | gdcbe wrote:
           | They'll put anything you want in their mouth, but they're
           | just as well masters in spitting it out. Feeding 1 year olds
           | is fun though, I give you that :P
        
             | xur17 wrote:
             | I might be wrong, but I'd imagine a truly hungry 1 year old
             | might manage to eat the food rather than starving.
        
               | misnome wrote:
               | It isn't a matter of preference, they might not have
               | gotten to the point where they realise it is food, or
               | sates hunger.
        
           | mysterydip wrote:
           | And several things you don't :)
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | The cheetah is well known for its speed but the fastest
             | land mammal is a toddler that was just asked "what is in
             | your mouth?"
        
           | pm3003 wrote:
           | They found the baby bottle quite late. Maybe they managed to
           | salvage some milk or formula from the plane.
        
             | 9dev wrote:
             | The word ,,harvest" is a particularly awkward choice given
             | the fate of their mother...
        
               | JadeNB wrote:
               | > The word ,,harvest" is a particularly awkward choice
               | given the fate of their mother...
               | 
               | The verb used is (now? Perhaps it was edited) "salvage".
        
         | biorach wrote:
         | It looks like it's a place where plants fruit all year round,
         | plus the BBC article said that they are members of a local
         | indigenous group and might have known what was edible.
        
           | Gualdrapo wrote:
           | Also the rescue mission and the air force was leaving
           | humanitarian packs here and there with food and essentials,
           | but am not sure if they found anything of that while they
           | were lost
        
         | ncpa-cpl wrote:
         | The children belong to the Huitoto indigenous group, who
         | inhabit Colombia's Amazon region.
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witoto
        
         | dfawcus wrote:
         | Why?
         | 
         | In English common law, traditionally 7 is the age of reason, 14
         | the age of an adult, and 21 the age of majority. We'd have 14
         | year olds off to sea, etc.
         | 
         | I suspect (but haven't checked) this comes from some biblical
         | rules.
         | 
         | Remember that people can generally breed by 14 (even now, some
         | girls go through pubity around 10 or 11), though a lot of
         | western cultures now outlaw it.
        
         | ayhanfuat wrote:
         | She*
        
       | gfarah wrote:
       | One thing I feel is missing from the article is how brutal the
       | conditions (for the kids and the rescue team) must have been.
       | Extreme heat and humidity are no joke.
        
         | anjel wrote:
         | Also the emotional headwinds of mourning the death of their
         | mother.
        
         | B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
         | > Extreme heat and humidity are no joke.
         | 
         | I don't think that applies - actually they probably had close
         | to ideal conditions for survival, it is possible to live naked
         | without discomfort, and some tribes do.
         | 
         | In what we call "temperate" climates they might have died of
         | exposure.
        
         | gossamer wrote:
         | I don't know about extreme heat. I have been to Colombia and
         | there are very different climates. I am not sure exactly where
         | they were, but it is probable that the temperature there was
         | more warm with lots of rain.
        
       | gossamer wrote:
       | A child was abandoned in the colombian jungle at the age of 4 and
       | lived in the jungle, raised by monkeys, for 5 years.
       | 
       | https://allthatsinteresting.com/marina-chapman
        
         | therealdrag0 wrote:
         | Note the skepticism of experts.
        
       | ufo wrote:
       | I hope they can still find Wilson, the rescue dog. Its tracks led
       | the rescuers to the children.
       | https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/el-perro-wilson-se-mantie...
        
         | rasz wrote:
         | Probably eaten by the children.
        
         | beebeepka wrote:
         | That's concerning. I do hope they find Wilson (if that's his
         | name). He's the actual hero
         | 
         | I have a soft spot for dogs with that sort of look.
        
         | grendelt wrote:
         | They just need to send in Tom Hanks to walk around and call for
         | him.
        
       | therealdrag0 wrote:
       | Anyone find out how far the children wandered from the crash
       | site?
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-10 23:02 UTC)