Without food and sleep in caves: A young woman survives 5 days in the forests of Australia

A statistician from China who lost the way during a trip with her partner slept in a fruit bag and hid from the heavy rains in the area, was found at the end of an extensive search operation. She has eaten nothing but a single grain that spit due to its bitter taste, and she is malnourished. "We thought we'd find a body"

Without food and sleep in caves: A young woman survives 5 days in the forests of Australia

A Chinese student survived five days in a forest in Australia while sleeping in a cave to hide from the heavy rains and floods. Young Chen, 26, disappeared last Wednesday in Talbodgara Valley and was feared to have drowned to death, but was found alive Monday after an extensive week-long search involving divers, dogs and aircraft.

Police said she was unlucky and that she was very dehydrated, but she had already been released from the hospital. "We were expecting to find a body," said senior police officer Mitch Gray. She said she had no food and that she lost her shoes, but she drank water from streams and slept in a bag of bananas in some caves.

The Bond University student lost her way during an outing with a friend as he went before me to choose the preferred route. When he discovered she was gone, he reported it to the authorities and the extensive search operation was underway. However, after five days of wandering through the thick forest, Chen was found in the channel 50 meters deep and only 300 meters away from where she disappeared.

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Australia: Young Chen, a 26-year-old Chinese student, survived 5 days in the jungle and survived death by sleeping in caves in a sleeping bag sewn from banana tree leaves (Photo: Reuters)

Gray, the senior officer, said the search and rescue operation was "massive" and the most difficult he's ever been involved with. He said the crews risked their lives and what they did "was nothing short of amazing." The stormy weather hampered the efforts to rescue, and the operation was suspended periodically.

"I had butterflies in my stomach," Gray said. "When you reach the end of such rescue operations, in the last day or two you start to be quite stressed out that you will not find the missing person, and you start to raise questions about the decisions you have made," he said.

Chen, who suffered from undercut and malnutrition, said she saw the rescue teams three days before they arrived, but they could not hear her due to the noisy rapids in the area. "She kept saying thank you, thank you," one of the extractors described her reaction. All she ate for five days was one berry that was picked from wood, but spit it out soon after due to its bitter taste.