24 hours of anguish for his survival. On Thursday, December 7, Michel Petitjean, a 73-year-old retiree, ventured into the national forest of Glenne, near the Nièvre river, in the hope of finding some mushrooms. More than 30 kilometres from his home, the septuagenarian tripped over a piece of wood and fell down an embankment. Broken ankle, he is condemned to immobility and will be found by a firefighter only 24 hours later, reports France 3 Bourgogne Franche-Comté.
Isolated in the heart of the forest and without a telephone network, Michel implements a real survival strategy. With the moss of a tree trunk, he manages to cover himself for the night despite the -3 degrees. While suffering from diabetes, Michel felt dizzy at nightfall, but determined to find something to eat, he decided to eat raw mushrooms. With his knife, he even managed to pull out oak roots to eat them. "There's a lot of protein. There are sometimes critters, but we do not look at what is in them, we eat, "he explains to the regional newspaper of France 3.
"I've been through hell"
Meanwhile, concern grows for his wife, Patricia, who is alerted by his absence around 16:30 p.m. With the help of two friends, her brother and sister-in-law, she wanders through Michel's familiar places until one o'clock in the morning, resuming their search the next day at 6 a.m. "I've been through hell ... I figured he might have had a bad encounter or that he had been kidnapped. Despite the fact that he was very careful, I thought about the accident," she told the local news.
The next day, Michel finally picked up some of the network. After 400 calls and despite a very bad signal, the firefighters were able to retrace his route and find him. Fourteen firefighters took turns to extract the pensioner from the "cabin" he had built for himself, made of moss and branches. "Afew hours later, it was probably too late. He wouldn't have made it through the night," says the head of the Étang-sur-Arroux fire brigade, admiring Michel's condition. Now bedridden for at least two months, Michel won't be going back to mushroom picking anytime soon.