Bits and Bites > 4 kids including 4 y/o and infant survive 40 days in Colombian jungle

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4 kids lost in the jungle for 40 days after a plane crash

found alive in Colombia

By Kenneth Garger, NYPost

June 9, 2023 9:37pm  Updated

Four siblings, including an infant, were found alive and well in the Colombian jungle on Friday — a remarkable 40 days after the plane in which they were traveling crashed, killing every adult on board, authorities said. 

The miraculous ending to the saga that has captivated the world was shared by President Gustavo Petro, who told reporters Friday that the children’s incredible tale of survival “will remain in history.”

The scrappy youngsters were ultimately located in the Amazon rainforest by one of the rescue dogs handled by soldiers with the Colombian army who joined the search weeks ago. 

“The jungle saved them,” Petro said Friday. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”

The children – ages 13, 9, 4, and 11 months – are members of the Huitoto people who had been traveling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when their Cessna single-engine propeller plane crashed into the dense jungle on May 1. 

The mother, another adult and the pilot died in the wreckage, which was located by a search team on May 16. 

Soldiers and Indigenous men pose for a photo with the four Indigenous brothers who were missing after a deadly plane crash, in the Solano jungle, Caqueta state, Colombia, Friday, June 9, 2023

The four children had been the subject of an intense search in the Amazon jungle that held Colombians on edge.

AP

In this photo released by Colombia’s Armed Forces Press Office, soldiers and Indigenous men tend to the four Indigenous brothers who were missing after a deadly plane crash, in the Solano jungle, Caqueta state, Colombia, Friday, June 9, 2023.

AP

While the bodies of the three adult passengers were located, the children were nowhere to be found. Soon after, Colombia’s army joined the search and rescue operation, providing 150 soldiers with dogs to locate the kids. 

During the intense search through thick foliage and grueling conditions, soldiers dropped boxes of food into the forest for the siblings’ survival.

Rescuers, who also included volunteers from Indigenous tribes, used megaphones to play a recorded message from the children’s grandmother — imploring the quartet to stay in one place.

Petro told reporters the children were alone when searchers found them and are now receiving medical attention.

AP

Officials said the oldest of the four children possessed some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest. 

Two days after the plane was recovered, it was falsely reported that the siblings had been found after Petro tweeted that was the case. 

But the president later said he received erroneous information from a government agency, and he deleted the social media post. 

Military personnel unload from a plane one of four Indigenous brothers who were missing after a deadly plane crash at the military air base in Bogota, Colombia, Saturday, June 10, 2023.

AP

After the children were rescued Friday, they were wrapped up in thermal blankets and tended to by the soldiers and volunteers, according to photos tweeted out by the military. 

Another picture shows one of the soldiers holding a bottle to one of the children’s lips. 

“The union of our efforts made this possible,” Colombia’s military command wrote on its Twitter account.

How a bag of flour helped kids survive 6 weeks in the Amazon after plane crash killed adults

Kids who survived 40 days in Colombian jungle have their grandmother to thank

With Post wires

Fort McMurray - A Miracle No-one Was Killed in the Fire

Why wasn't the evacuation ordered

at least 24 hours earlier?

After escaping Fort McMurray with little more than the clothes on their backs, some evacuees are questioning when outside officials stepped in to help.

“I feel like the municipality can try but we only have so much,” Crystal Mercredi, who lives in the Thickwood neighbourhood, said. “We’re not close to anything. They can’t send in things right away and I understand that, but this was day three!”


On Sunday, residents of Gregoire were told to be ready to evacuate on short notice due to a wildfire southwest of Fort McMurray. On Monday, evacuation orders were issued for Prairie Creek and the Centennial Trailer Park. Shelter-in-place orders were issued for other communities. The fire doubled in size Monday. Tuesday evening, the entire city was ordered out.

“This didn’t happen until day three! Why was there still no help from the province and still no help from the country?

“They knew there were problems,” Mercredi said. “They evacuated a community where my sister-in-law lives the day before and then they let them go back to their house knowing it was going the other way. The fire chief said, ‘it’s going to be 30 degrees, there’s going to be wind and it’s going to get worse,’ and they still chose to tell us not to evacuate.”

Mercredi also thinks the evacuation order should have been given earlier.

My concern as I watched the horror develop on Sunday and Monday was that they evacuate the city before Hwy 63 was cut-off.  They didn't, and people had to literally drive through the fire to get out of town. When you are close enough to feel the heat from the fire - you're too close! When showers of burning embers are falling on your vehicle - you're too close. 

Hwy 63 south was the only real exit for the 88,000 citizens of Fort McMurray. The road north goes only to the oil fields and could not support more than a few thousand people at best. Consequently, authorities had to know that moving 88,000 people on a two-lane highway was going to take considerable time, and they should have factored that into the equation for when they called for evacuation. 

Waiting for the last minute to evacuate Fort Mac was a grievous error. It gave few people time to fill their gas tanks or gather important items from their homes. It caused excessive and unnecessary stress; people had to abandon cars, hundreds of them, because they ran out of gas; and it is nothing short of a miracle that people weren't killed by the fire.

The first responders, the police, the firefighters, etc., did an amazing job of getting people out of the city and of keeping the downtown core and vital services like water and sewer from destruction.

You guys are my heroes this week, God bless you!

“We’re the last street on Thickwood. We border on where Wood Buffalo neighbourhood is,” she said. “That street had just been told they were on mandatory evacuation and so they were putting us on voluntary evacuation, which we kind of thought was crazy.

“If they’re mandatory and we’re one block away, we should probably be mandatory too,” Mercredi said. “We started packing up. Obviously we were going to get out of there too.”

Tim Eaton is also displaced by the wildfire. He was evacuated twice.

“It was there. It was right there. And it was like, gee, why wasn’t there some notification before this?”

“I didn’t know where to go,” Eaton said. “On the radio, they weren’t telling you where to go. First they say ‘go north’ and then, ‘you can’t go north…go south’…we were herded.”

“I was listening to the radio on my drive to Fort McKay,” Mercredi said. “One of our local DJs… he was saying, ‘tell the police to help get the traffic out. We’re all sitting ducks sitting on this road and the fire is coming.'”

These concerns were raised with the premier and the emergency management officials Thursday. They say, considering the unpredictable nature of the wildfire, they’re happy with how the municipality responded.

“When you consider what needed to be done to convince people to get in their vehicles and start driving south – and of course the absolutely understandable stress that would occur when you get on the road and find that you can’t move – these are scary stories and everyone would be scared to hear those stories, but I think the public officials and the emergency responders have done a truly heroic job, they’re still doing it,” Premier Rachel Notley said.

“I think what we have to understand is,

within the space of 48 hours over 80,000

people were evacuated from a town that

essentially has two roads out of it.”

Scott Long, 

with the Alberta Emergency Management Agency

Yes, and one of those roads doesn't go anywhere.



“I thought that the evacuation notices and the mandatory evacuation notices were done as efficiently and as effectively as possible given the changing, dynamic nature of that wildfire. As you can see, it can turn on a dime and it can move relatively rapidly.”

That is precisely the reason why it should have been done at least 24 hours earlier. Knowing that the forest was as dry as it could possibly be and therefore explosive in nature should have caused an earlier evacuation order. 

Also, the sudden wind shift and increase should have been predictable. Was it predicted? If it was you knew about it? Was it shared with other managers? If it wasn't predicted, why wasn't it? 

And then, who was in charge? There were provincial fire fighters, the Mayor, the fire chief, the police chief all in some degree of control. Was Emergency Management there? When did they get involved? 

Was there communication between the various managers? Were there meetings? Phone calls? 

It seems to me that as soon as the city was in any real danger, that Emergency Management should have gotten involved and coordinated all information, including wind forecasts. Was that done? When? Apparently, not soon enough. That may not be very practical, but someone has to assume responsibility.

There is much to learn from this disaster, and there is a need for a major inquiry into how it was handled and how it could have been handled better.

Alberta declared a provincial state of emergency on Wednesday. Notley said the process begins with deferring to emergency responders in the affected municipality. She said Wood Buffalo did an excellent job and that the province was working alongside them. The premier said when people began evacuating to other regions, that’s when provincial emergency coordination experts stepped in.

Other evacuees understand why things went the way they did.

“I think it was organized to a certain degree, but I think they just did not realize just how bad this was,” Michel Godin said. “It was piecemeal.”

“I don’t think they had the big enough picture for what was going on,” he added. “I think now that they know, in the future, they better have something for a catastrophe.”

Miracle for a Muslim

Nasir Siddiki - Left to Die

By age 34, Nasir Siddiki, a successful businessman, had made his first million, but money meant nothing to him on his deathbed. Diagnosed with the worst case of shingles ever admitted to Toronto General Hospital, his immune system shut down and doctors left him to die.

The next morning I woke in a sterile room on the eighth floor of the hospital, my skin burning as though someone had doused me in gasoline and lit a match. I felt on fire from the inside out.

My doctor arrived and looked at me in wonder. “The blisters are multiplying so fast I can literally watch them grow,” he said. ‘”Your body isn’t fighting back.”

The next morning, in addition to shingles, I had chicken pox from head to toe. I was put in strict isolation. That evening my temperature soared to 107.6 degrees — hot enough to leave my brain permanently scrambled.

For days I continued to deteriorate. My nerve endings became so inflamed that a hair drifting across my skin sent shock waves of fire rippling through my body. By week’s end, I was listed in critical condition.

My Last Hope

In life, I’d been bold, self confident, a risk taker. But facing death, I was terrified. I had no idea what might await me on the other side. I’d been raised as a Moslem in London , England , and I understood Allah was not a god who heals.

My only hope was in medicine.

I eventually slipped so close to death that the doctors didn’t know I could hear them when they examined me. “His immune system has simply shut down,” one of them said.

“He’s dying,” the other confirmed. “His immune system must be compromised by AIDS.”

I don’t have AIDS! I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t form the words. Then it hit me. He said I’m dying!

The doctors spoke quietly to my co-worker, Anita. “In a few hours he’ll be dead,” they said. “If by some miracle he lives, he’ll probably be blind in his right eye, deaf in his right ear, paralyzed on his right side and he may be severely brain damaged from the high fever.”

Then they left.

They left me here to die! I felt like a drowning man going down for the third time. Gathering my strength I whispered a prayer. “God, if you’re real, don’t let me die!”

In His Presence

During the darkest hour of the night, I woke and saw a man at the foot of my bed. Rays of light emanated from him, allowing me to see his outline. I couldn’t see his face, it was too bright. No one had to tell me, I knew it was Jesus.

The Koran mentions Jesus; Moslems believe He existed, not as the son of God, but as a good man and a prophet. I knew this wasn’t Mohammed. I knew it wasn’t Allah. Jesus was in my room. There was no fear, only peace.

“Why would You come to a Moslem when everyone else has left me to die?” I wondered.
Without words, he spoke to me. “I Am the God of the Christians. I Am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

That’s all He said. He didn’t mention my illness. He didn’t mention my impending death. As suddenly as He appeared, He was gone.

The next morning, the same two doctors arrived to examine me. “The blisters have stopped growing!”

“We don’t know what happened, but the shingles virus has gone into remission!”

The following day, still in pain and covered with blisters, I was discharged from the hospital with a suitcase full of drugs. “Don’t leave home,” the doctor cautioned. “It will be months before the blisters go away, and when they do you’ll be left with white patches of skin and scars. The pain could last for years.”

Stepping outside into the morning sun, I looked like a cross between a leper and the Elephant Man. When people saw me, they crossed to the other side of the street. However, my mind was not on my looks; my thoughts were on Jesus. There was no doubt in my mind that Jesus’ presence in my room had stopped the shingles virus. Whatever else Jesus may be, I realized that in His presence miracles happened.

That fact left me with one consuming question: Is Jesus the Son of God as the Christians claim, or is He just a prophet as I was taught?

At home that evening, in spite of the drugs, the pain and itching was so severe I almost had to tie my hands. Even so, I fell into a restless sleep wondering about Jesus.

Learning to Live

The next morning, I woke early and turned on the television. Flipping through the channels, I froze when I saw the following words across the screen: Is Jesus the Son of God?

I listened intently as two men spent the entire program discussing this topic — answering all of my questions. Before the show went off the air, one of the men led the television audience in a prayer. My body was aflame with pain but I knelt on my living room floor anyway. Tears streaming down my face, I repeated the prayer and invited Jesus into my heart.

Immediately a voracious spiritual hunger sprang up within me. I had to know more about Jesus. In spite of my doctor’s orders to stay inside, the next day I went out and bought a Bible. First I read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Still ravenous, I started in Genesis and read through the Bible during my sleepless nights.

Meanwhile, Anita brought me books and teaching tapes explaining the Gospel. I devoured them while continuing to study the Word of God. As my understanding of faith began to grow, I dug out a picture of how I looked before shingles. I prayed and asked God to make me look that way again.

Nasir and Anita Siddiki - Jesus, My Healer

One week after my discharge from the hospital, I woke and found my pillow covered in blisters. I must have clawed them in my sleep, I thought. I crawled out of bed and stepped into the shower. What had started on my pillow was finished in the shower: Every blister fell off my body!

Instead of being covered with patches of white and scar tissue, my skin was simply red and raw. It slowly healed, returning to its pre-shingles condition. When it did, I not only looked human, I looked like I did before I got sick, except for the scars that I still carry on my chest.

None of the doctor’s dire predictions came true. My eyesight was 20/20. My hearing was normal. My speech was unimpaired. I suffered no brain damage.

My healing was miraculous, swift and complete. I never suffered from lingering pain or any other complication. Not only did I have the worst case of shingles ever admitted to Toronto General Hospital, I also had the most miraculous recovery.

Jesus, the God of the Christians, showed up in the hospital room of a dying Moslem and healed me. But that wasn’t the greatest miracle He performed. The transformation that occurred in my heart was even more dramatic than the one that occurred in my body.

An international teacher and evangelist, Dr. Nasir Siddiki is the founder of Wisdom Ministries (WisdomMinistries.org). He lives in Tulsa, OK with his wife Anita and their two sons.
http://www.onlinechristiansongs.com/

Answered Prayer, Angels, Miracles - ABC's Dianne Sawyer

The following video from ABC News' Dianne Sawyer begs the questions, 'are there angels among us'? Does prayer really work?

Decide for yourself...

Katie's miracle.

Snopes: No Angel! Priest found.

Origins:   On the morning of 11 August 2013, the vehicle bearing 19-year-old Katie Lentz of New London, Missouri, collided with another, crushing the young woman's car and trapping her inside the upturned wreckage. When it proved impossible to extricate the injured teen while the car was in that position, the decision was made to flip the vehicle back onto its tires, although such movement could dramatically change the pressure on her body and put her further at risk. 

Lentz called for someone to pray for her first. Seemingly out of nowhere, a priest no one at the accident scene recognized appeared and began ministering to the stricken girl. Those struggling to free the girl said the mysterious priest told them to be calm and their tools would now work. 

After praying with her, absolving her of her sins and anointing her, the priest slipped away unnoticed. Lentz was subsequently freed from what little remained of her car and transported by helicopter to the nearest trauma center. 

Photographs taken at the scene that morning failed to display the mysterious priest — in none of the nearly 70 of them did the man appear. Moreover, no one present had recognized him, which was highly unusual given that there was only one Catholic church within three towns, and the unknown man was not its pastor. 

It appeared a grievously injured teen's pleas for spiritual succor had been answered by an angel guised as a priest. 

The mystery was resolved within a few days. The mysterious stranger was in fact a Catholic priest, the Rev. Patrick Dowling. A priest since 1982, Dowling works in prison ministry and with Spanish-speaking parishioners, which accounts for no one present at the accident scene having recognized him. As to how he came to be there, he was returning from Ewing, Missouri, where he had celebrated Mass at a local church because that parish's regular priest had been ill. That no one saw him come or go was likely explained by his having parked his car behind a large vehicle about 150 yards from where Katie Lentz lay trapped. 

Charges are pending against the driver of the other vehicle, and Katie Lentz is on the mend despite suffering two broken femurs, a broken tibia and fibula, broken left wrist, nine broken ribs, a lacerated liver, ruptured spleen and bruised lung. 

Catharyn's Story - A Double Blessing

I just want to share this wonderful blessing, 

in double portion, with you.

It's a story of great faith and perseverance by a couple of beautiful people whom I got to know at an Alpha course at Northpointe Community Church, in Edmonton, Alberta, in about 2010. 

God hears our prayers; He feels the crying in our hearts. He is compassionate and loving and patient, sometimes infuriatingly patient, as He builds our faith and character and our relationship with Himself. 

And for the faithful - He is with us always.

Catharyn and Oscar