A French cyclist survived for three days after falling down a steep ravine while drinking bottles of red wine from a shopping bag, authorities in France said.
According CBS NewsThe 77-year-old man, who has not been named, was cycling home from the supermarket on a quiet road in the mountainous Cévennes region when he missed a curve, careening down a 130-foot uneven slope and tumbling into a ravine near Saint-Julien-des-Points in southern France.
The man, who could not get out of the ravine, screamed for three days trying to get the attention of passersby, but he was unable to warn anyone.
As the days went by, he was supporting himself with the bottles of wine he was carrying home when he fell, said the rescuers, who were alerted to his whereabouts by road workers from the Interdepartmental Highway Directorate after detecting the destroyed frame of the victim’s bicycle, according to the French media. Interview.
Firefighters from the Hérault Fire and Rescue Service, with the help of a Civil Security helicopter, transported the man to the Alès hospital, he said.
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“It’s a miracle,” said Dr. Laurent Savath, medical chief of the Hérault fire department.
“In the cold and wet, with almost no food or water, it is incredibly resilient.”
The man escaped relatively unharmed with minor injuries and a mild case of hypothermia, CBS News reported.
It’s not the first time a survival story has seen someone subsist on wine.
In 2023, a woman survived for five days in the thick Australian bush by eating sweets and drinking wine after her car got stuck in mud on a dead-end road. ABC11reported a subsidiary of the ABC news network in North Carolina.
On a brief day trip in spring, the woman, whom police referred to only as Lilian, brought no water or food. However, she did have a bottle of wine that she had bought as a gift for her mother and small amounts of sweets, which were enough to sustain her until a police plane located her.
“Lillian was found about 60 kilometers from the nearest town and due to health problems she was unable to attempt to walk to call for help so she stayed in her car,” said Wodonga Police Station Sgt. Martin Torpey said in a statement following the incident.
“She used great common sense to stay in her car and not go into the bushes, which helped the police find her,” he added.
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