Photographer lasted 17 days lost in a wasteland and survived Punta de Agua

Jeshua Kaslo, a photographer from the United States, had to live an unprecedented survival experience. It all happened when he was visiting a wasteland in eastern Cundinamarca, about 2 hours by car from Bogotá, and after going with a group of friends, he got distracted for a moment and got lost. What seemed to last only a few minutes or a few hours, turned into 17 days in the cold, without food and without water, he thought until he could die at any moment.

“When I realized, because he was totally lost, I called them and they didn't answer, it's very easy to get lost there because nature is very similar,” he told Caracol News and added that what fortunately helped him to rescue him was that he sent a message to his acquaintances asking for help, before he completely lost the signal and that the cell phone will run out of battery.

While he was wanted by different rescue groups that used everything from guide dogs to drones, he had to pass many tests among those when he fell into a river and had to find a way to maintain his body temperature.

“It was darker and I went down some kind of river and fell into the river. It was super ugly because the water was very cold, I got out of the river and said 'I have to spend the night here'. I did like a cave with my shirt to warm up the air and I breathed and massaged my feet,” he said.

The days passed and hallucinations began to manifest, because he did not have any kind of food and despite the sources of water in the moors, when he could not access them he had to take his own urine.

At one point he was already surrendering to despair, physical pain and uncertainty, but he was still carrying his camera, drone and cell phone. When he took the drone, he noticed that it was still charged, so he passed power to his cell phone and commanded the location. However, it was only up to 12 hours later that the rescuers managed to get to the American who was already showing signs of dehydration, malnutrition and skin problems: “When I'm there suddenly you hear a cry 'hello', and I got up from one and raised my arms,” he said.

The question that everyone asks of how did he survive so many days? He answers her only one way, explains that his faith worked him alive at home. For now he is still recovering and developing sleep problems due to the psychological exhaustion that occurred in those days.

The Red Cross also supported

As Jeshua Kaslo was not found on the first weekend, both the Colombian Red Cross Sectional Cundinamarca and Bogotá, in unison with the Fire Department and the Civil Defense deployed an operation two days after the disappearance.

“At the end of the day, during the night, the balance was negative because we did not find the citizen. Different theories are believed, among them, that perhaps he tried to leave for the municipality of Macheta, which would mean having to climb up a mountain approximately 4,300 meters high. It is also believed that he tried to walk at night to leave the area and when he walked in the dark something could have happened to him,” said Fernando Díaz, Emergency and Disaster Coordinator for the Red Cross.

For their part, the entities described above are advancing with dogs, mountaineering lifeguards, the Disaster Battalion of the National Army and other entities worked to find the photographer by profession.

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