A Peruvian fisherman who was rescued after 95 days lost at sea said CNN May his faith and his desire to see his family again kept him firm – along with a diet of cockroaches, birds, fish and, occasionally, a turtle.
“First, it was my faith in God. Because I spoke to him for many days. CNN.
Keeping hope alive was not easy. He came to a point where he thought he no longer wanted to live.
“I even took a knife three times. Three times I took the knife because I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said. “But I said to myself: Calm down, Gatón. You can. You can.”
He said he had packed enough supplies to last a month. And after those first 30 days at sea, he was ready to return to Earth. But that’s when the engine of your boat stopped working. He often tried to make him work again, but to no avail.
From then on, he knew he had to ration the little remains of food and water left, hoping that they would last enough for someone to find him. But after another month or more, your food is over. Then he resorted to drastic measures.
“After January and February, that’s when I started eating cockroaches and birds, various types of fish that happened to jump on the boat.”
He said he had to hunt those birds in the middle of the night. Around one or two in the morning, they rested on his boat and fell asleep. When that happened, he took a club, sneaking behind them and “pop.”
“I didn’t want to do that, but I had no choice.”
In a moment, he even had to hunt one – not for the flesh, but by the blood, since he had nothing more to drink.
Shortly thereafter, a sign of hope finally arrived.
He was about to sleep inside his boat. But only 30 minutes later, he heard a loud voice shouting his nickname: “Gatón!”
He was a rescuer in a helicopter.
“That’s when I said (God): You got it! You got it!”
People aboard the helicopter gestured to him, saying that another boat would come soon to take him home.
After about an hour, when the night fell, he finally saw the boat lights. He was going home.
“It was sensational,” he said.
After those 95 excruciating days, he now says he has a new appreciation for life.
“I will tell my story to the whole world, so that the world knows that God is everything in this life, that we put our hand on our chest and fill with love, give love.
