Lessons of the Human Spirit

Photo by Ivars Utināns

Our stories reach you in the middle of the week. We all know that this can be a time where energy is waning and we are all searching for that inspiration to get us through to the weekend.

We’ve got you covered!

We are going to share a story of someone beating insurmountable odds. The story is a reminder that we all carry within us the wonderful strength of the human spirit that can be full of grit and determination. This story is full of unbelievable, adventurous twists and turns.  It is simultaneously harrowing and amazing. We hope this provides some inspiration and encouragement to get you through the rest of the work week.

So come with us as we journey back to 1971 to tell the tale of Juliane Koepcke.

She was traveling in Peru from Lima to Pucallpa. The airline she flew that day was rife with difficulty. Later, investigators would find that her plane was a compilation of spare parts, held together by little more than wire and glue.

The flight left late and so to pick up some time, the pilots made the poor judgement to fly through, rather than around, a storm. The plane was suddenly hit by lightning. This severely damaged the plane and it rapidly descended from the sky. (FYI, due to advances in aeronautics, lightning hitting a plane today is no problem and happens more than you think!)

What Juliane remembers is a flash and then intermittently waking up as she twirled through the air still strapped to her seat. In fact, she fell 10,000 feet from the air. She eventually hit the canopy of the Peruvian Amazon Rain Forest and crashed to the ground. She awoke with a severe concussion, broken blood vessels in her eyes, a couple of deep lacerations and a broken collar bone. Although severe, it’s amazing she wasn’t more seriously injured.

Sounds unbelievable? We agree. It is theorized that the twirling motion of the airline seat slowed her down enough that the thick rainforest canopy could absorb a significant amount of the shock, lessening the velocity of her final descent to earth. Okay…back to the story.

She soon realized she was alone. There were no signs of other people or plane remnants.

She tried to wrap her mind around what was happening. Juliane did bring a unique set of skills to this situation. She had been raised by rainforest researchers and had learned how to live in the wild. After lapsing in and out of consciousness for some time, she eventually realized she had to move.

She recognized that she was deep in the Amazon, far from civilization. She determined that her best chance to come in contact with people and find food was to follow the river. She used her navigational skills and soon found herself on the riverbank. Once there, she alternately floated down the tributary or climbed along the shore. Along the way, she had to combat insects, crocodiles and the burning sun. 

Eventually she came upon part of the plane wreckage, but found no other survivors. She scooped up a bag of candy which would serve as her only source of food. Although she tried to catch fish and frogs, her injuries prevented her from completing the task.

She eventually saw rescue planes flying above, but had no way to signal them. As time wore on, she became weaker and weaker, eventually hallucinating and doubting her own senses.  

When she was feeling that all hope was lost, the image of a boat tied to the shore shimmered on the horizon. She thought it was just another figment of her imagination. She blinked her eyes several times before trusting that it was truly there. She stumbled toward it, hoping to find someone to help, but to no avail.

What she did find was a small cabin which could provide shelter from the elements. She crawled inside, wondering if someone would arrive. When no one did, she made a plan to take the boat, seeing it as her only option to get to civilization. 

As she was readying the boat, a storm came rumbling across the forest. It would be too dangerous to navigate in this weather, so she retreated to the cabin until the storm cleared. 

The next morning, her eyes barely open, she was awoken by the sound of voices. The door of the cabin swung open and three forestry workers made the shocking discovery of an injured, starving Julienne. She quickly explained who she was and the workers were truly flabbergasted. The crash had been widely reported as a crash without survivors.

They quickly assessed that she needed medical attention. They loaded her onto the boat and got her to the closest hospital where she was treated and reunited with her family.

Fate had definitely played a hand. The workers who found her were not scheduled to go to the cabin that day. Their mission was to go further into the forest. They had only returned to the cabin to assess if the boat had weathered the storm.

Juliane had been on her own in the Amazon for 11 days working against impossible odds.

Oh, and by the way, Juliane was only 17 years old.

Now hopefully none of us will have this type of truly unbelievable experience but there are many lessons we can take from her story. 

Make action your default: She did not wait to see if someone would come and save her. She assessed her situation, skills and resources and moved forward.

Trust your instincts and preparation: When the going got rough, she had to trust her instincts that had been honed through life experience. As the days lingered, she relied on those instincts even when she wasn’t sure she was in touch with reality.

Perseverance is key: We don’t think we have to say a lot about this. It is amazing anyone, let alone a child, would keep going for 11 days, injured and navigating treacherous terrain. She just focused on taking the next step.

Embrace life: There were some challenging times for her as she physically and emotionally recovered, but she embraced the passions that had been stoked by her parents.  She went on to become a renowned scientist focusing on the study of bats. She still runs Panguana, the research center that her parents started deep in the center of the Amazon. In her own words: "The jungle is as much a part of me as my love for my husband, the music of the people who live along the Amazon and its tributaries, and the scars that remain from the plane crash."

Her story is one that reminds us of the power that we all hold within us. We hope reflecting on these lessons will inspire the rest of your week. 

If you want to learn more about this amazing story check out this podcast or the documentary Wings of Hope by Werner Herzog (who by the way was supposed to be on that ill fated plane, but his reservation was canceled due to a last minute change in itinerary).