She was exhausted, but she needed to keep moving.
Her head throbbed with hunger.
Every part of her body ached; she was covered in mosquito bites and had second degree sunburns.
Her wristwatch stopped long ago, but she tried to estimate how many days it had been since
she had fallen from the sky.
At twilight she heard voices and thought that she was imagining things again.
But then three men walked out of the rainforest and were stunned to see her.
“I’m a girl who was in the LANSA crash,” she told them.
“My name is Juliane.”
Born to German zoologist parents Maria and Hans-Wilhelm on October 10, 1954, Juliane
Koepcke had an interesting childhood.
Her parents worked for the Museum of Natural History in Lima, Peru.
When Juliane was 14, her parents decided to leave the city and set up Panguana Ecological
Research Station in the Amazon rainforest.
For the next 2 years, Juliane was homeschooled and accompanied her parents on research trips
into the jungle where she learned plant, animal and insect identification and various survival
techniques along the way.
Educational authorities disapproved and Juliane was forced to return to Lima to finish high
school.
In December of 1971, Maria came to the city to collect 17 year old Juliane, the plan being
to visit her father for Christmas.
Although her mother wanted to leave sooner on the 20th, Juliane had a school dance on
December 22nd and a graduation ceremony on the 23rd.
After pleas from Juliane, her mom agreed to fly out on Christmas Eve.
Unfortunately, all the flights were booked, aside from one with Lineas Aéreas Nacionales
Sociedad Anonima--LANSA.
The airline had a poor safety record and Hans-Wilhelm had previously urged Maria to avoid flying
with the company, but Juliane's mother thought they’d be fine.
Just before noon on December 24, LANSA domestic passenger flight 508 departed Lima's Jorge
Chávez International Airport bound for Iquitos, Peru, with a scheduled stop at Pucallpa, Peru.
The first half of the 70 minute, 304 mile flight to Pucallpa was normal.
Then the Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop aircraft which was traveling at about 21,000
ft (6,400 m) flew into a thunderstorm.
A later investigation determined that the crew, feeling pressure to meet the holiday
schedule decided to continue the flight, despite the treacherous weather ahead.
As the plane dipped and heaved due to turbulence, luggage and Christmas presents fell from the
overhead lockers.
Scared passengers screamed and wept.
Suddenly there was a bright flash as a lightning strike ignited the fuel tank in the right
wing, blowing a hole into the plane.
Juliane remembers Maria saying "That is the end, it's all over."
Those were the last words she ever heard her mother speak.
The plane disintegrated about 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) above the ground.
Juliane, still strapped into her airplane seat, spun head over heels, the wind whistling
in her ears.
She lost consciousness only to regain it and lose it again as she freefell to the ground.
Sometime later, Juliane came to in the rainforest; wet, muddy and alone.
She huddled under her airplane seat fading in and out of consciousness for the next 19
or so hours--throughout the rest of the day and the night.
The next morning, Juliane took stock of herself.
Her neck, shoulder and ankle hurt; she had a large gash on her arm and her right eye
was swollen shut.
She wore a very short, sleeveless mini-dress and one white sandal.
Aside from the swelling, she was near-sighted and had lost her glasses.
However, her watch still worked and she knew it was around 9 am.
Maria’s airplane seat had landed next to her daughter’s--but it was empty.
Dizzy, Juliane crawled on all fours and searched the area around her crash site.
She marked trees to keep her bearings and called for her mother.
Hearing nothing except the sounds of the rainforest, she felt scared and helpless.
After some time, Juliane forced herself to stand.
At first she was wobbly, but gradually grew steady on her feet.
Thirsty, she drank raindrops off of leaves.
She heard planes overhead searching for the wreck, but due to the dense tree canopy couldn’t
see them.
She realized that she needed to get somewhere wide open where she could be seen by rescuers.
Juliane headed off into the rainforest.
As she walked, she tested the area in front of her by throwing her remaining shoe ahead,
then moving forward to pick it up, and tossing it again.
Snakes could be camouflaged as dry leaves and she didn’t want to step on one or any
other creature.
The only sign of the crash Juliane found was a bag of candy which she promptly ate, saving
a few pieces for later.
The trek was rough going, with uneven terrain; she frequently had to climb over or squeeze
under huge logs that blocked her way.
Eventually, Juliane found a small creek and followed it, having been taught that following
water leads to rivers which often means civilization and people.
Over the next day or so, Juliane stumbled through the rainforest, following the water
as it slowly grew from a trickle to a stream.
Other than candy and water, she didn’t have anything else to eat.
Since was the rainy season, there was no fruit for her to pick.
She didn’t have any tools to help her cut trees, catch fish or cook roots.
Also, she was aware that many of the plants that grew in the jungle were poisonous.
The days were sweltering, humid and it frequently rained.
At night the temperature dropped.
Juliane cowered under bushes, curled up, shivering in her mini dress.
She was constantly attacked by insects, especially mosquitoes.
Flies laid eggs in the wound on Juliane’s arm.
She squeezed it, but wasn’t able to get them out.
She worried that she’d lose her arm.
As she walked downstream, Juliane saw more evidence of the plane crash.
She heard the call of a King Vulture and suspected that there were dead bodies nearby.
Eventually she came across a row of seats with three dead people still strapped in.
The passengers had a head-first impact and hit the ground so hard that they were buried
almost two feet into the dirt.
Juliane was horrified.
Judging by their clothing, 2 of the victims were men.
To make sure that the woman was not her mother, Juliane took a stick and knocked a shoe off
of the female corpse.
Since the toes were painted, she knew it could not have been Maria, since her mother never
used nail polish.
On December 28, Juliane’s watch finally stopped.
After that she tried to count off the days, but suffered from confusion.
On the 5th or 6th day of her journey, Juliane heard a sound that gave her hope.
It was the call of a hoatzin, a subtropical bird that nests solely near open stretches
of water.
Figuring that people would be settled by the water, Juliane followed the sound, picking
up her pace.
Finally Juliane made her way to the bank of a large river...but there were no humans or
settlement in sight.
Periodically, she had heard the sound of planes in the distance, but less and less as the
days passed.
She despaired, believing that the searchers had given up, having rescued all the passengers
except for her.
The densely overgrown riverbanks made it hard for Juliane to continue on land.
She began to carefully wade through shallow water, keeping a lookout for stingrays.
Because it was slow going, Juliane decided to swim in the middle of the river, knowing
that stingrays won’t venture into deep water.
However, she still had piranhas and caimans to worry about.
At night, she huddled on the riverbank, restlessly dozing, her various injuries pulsating with
pain, her cuts and scrapes infected.
. Days ago, Juliane had eaten the last piece
of her candy.
Now, she drank river water to keep her stomach full.
One morning, she felt a sharp pain in her back.
When she gingerly explored the area, her hand came away bloody.
The sun has severely burned her back as she swam.
An exhausted and starving Juliane was plagued with hallucinations of civilization, sometimes
she saw the roof of a house or heard chickens clucking.
She endlessly fantasized about food.
Each day it got harder to get into the cold water and swim.
On the tenth day of Juliane’s arduous journey, she constantly encountered logs as she drifted
downriver.
She weakly climbed over them, using the last of her strength, trying not to injure herself
further.
After an exhausting day, Juliane swam to shore where she dozed off on a gravel bank.
Minutes later, she awoke to an amazing sight: a boat.
Juliane wanted to leave, but she didn’t want to steal the boat.
Instead, she took a small path that led up the bank from the river.
Because she was so weak, it took her hours to make it up the hill to a tiny hut with
a palm leaf roof.
At the hut, Juliane found a litre of gasoline.
She poured some on her wounds, remembering having seen her father do the same to cure
a dog of worms.
The gasoline stung, but drew out a mass of maggots that were infecting her arm.
A second path led from the hut into the rainforest.
Juliane waited, but no one showed up, so she spent the night at the shack.
The ground was too hard, so she went back to the water and laid down in the sand.
The next day, Juliane walked up to the hut again because it was pouring rain.
There were frogs everywhere and Juliane tried to catch one to eat.
Thankfully, she was too slow, which was good because the frogs ended up being poisonous.
Juliane stayed at the shelter, telling herself that she’d rest one more day before moving
on.
Near evening she heard voices and thought it was her imagination.
But then three lumberjacks came out of the forest.
They froze in shock when they saw her.
Juliane recalls that they thought she was a kind of water goddess called a Yemanjá
- a figure from local legend who is a hybrid of a water dolphin and a blonde, white-skinned
woman.
In Spanish, Juliane explained what happened.
The woodcutters treated her wounds and gave her food.
The next morning, they loaded her into a canoe for a seven hour ride downriver to a lumber
station.
From there, a local pilot flew her to a hospital in Pucallpa.
Juliane learned that her collarbone was actually broken, she had a torn ACL and partially fractured
shin.The day after arriving at the hospital, Juliane was reunited with her father.
She described their emotional reunion as "a moment without words".
Juliane was interviewed by the air force and police.
With her directions, search parties located the crash site and the bodies of the victims.
In total, LANSA Flight 508 crash killed 91 people: 6 crew members and 85 of its 86 passengers.
It was discovered that as many as 14 passengers including Juliane’s mother Maria survived
the crash, but perished due to their injuries before they could be found.
Juliane was hailed as ‘the miracle girl’ in the Peruvian press.
She received hundreds of letters from people all over the world touched by her tale of
survival.
She and her father moved to Germany, where Juliane made a full recovery.
Though plagued by nightmares, grief over her mother’s death and haunted by survivor's
guilt, Juliane excelled at college, studying zoology like her parents and got a Phd.
In 2000, famed director Werner Herzog made a documentary about Juliane’s ordeal.
He actually located the crash site and filmed Juliane retracing some of her steps.
In 2011, Juliane published an autobiography.
Today Juliane, now in her 60’s is a librarian at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
in Germany and frequently visits Panguana, the Peruvian research facility started by
her parents.
Juliane displayed amazing courage, grit and a strong determination to survive.
Do you think that you could survive being lost in the rainforest?
For how long?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video Do These Things To Survive If You Get Stranded
On an Island!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!”