A man missing for more than a week in the vast wilderness of Canada’s province of British Columbia has been found after etching the word “help” on a rock and drawing “SOS” in the mud.
Andrew Barber was rescued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on 8 August – nine days after the 39-year-old was reported missing – after a helicopter spotted his truck on a forest road, which helped narrow the search.
Police say he was severely dehydrated and had a leg injury but used a number of tactics to survive, including building a shelter and drinking pond water.
Staff Sgt Brad McKinnon of the Williams Lake RCMP said Mr Barber is doing “quite well”.
He was reported missing on 31 July near McLeese Lake, some 365 miles (587km) north of Vancouver, where his truck had broken down.
A police helicopter spotted Mr Garber near his makeshift shelter on Friday after catching a glimpse of the truck.
“After over a week in the wilderness, our subject has been located alive during today’s search from the air,” Quesnel Search & Rescue, an area volunteer search and rescue group posted on Facebook.
“This outcome is the result of countless hours on the ground and in the air, using every resource and piece of technology available to us.”
An image shared by the rescue group shows the shelter Mr Barber built for himself out of sticks and mud. It was propped up against the rock where he used dirt to write “help”.
He was taken to hospital for treatment and has since been released.
Mr McKinnon told the Canadian Press news agency that Mr Barber “munched on whatever he could find” while he was in the woods.
“He was literally slurping unclean pond water to stay hydrated,” he said. “The human body can go a long time without food, but water is a different situation.”
Bob Zimmerman, president of Quesnel Search and Rescue, told CBC News that he wasn’t sure Mr Barber “would have made it another 24 hours without us recovering him”.
www.bbc.com
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