It sounds like something out of the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away. A Chinese tourist spent a week lost at sea. The 39-year-old survived the ordeal by eating raw crabs.
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What Happened to the Lost Tourist?
As reported by PEOPLE, Qin Jianping slipped on a fruit peel while walking along a cliff in Hainan Province in southern China. He then fell into the water around 11 p.m. local time on May 27.
From there, the odds of surviving were stacked against Jianping. He had neither a life jacket nor a phone, and his very limited swimming ability couldn't prevent him from drifting in the Qiongzhou Strait. Whenever Jianping tried to make his way back to shore, the waves pulled him back.
"For every meter I swam toward the land, the waves pushed me three or four meters back," he said. "The sea is nothing like a swimming pool. I couldn't touch the bottom, and huge waves kept pushing me farther out."
On his second day at sea, Jianping climbed onto a floating maritime buoy. However, passenger ferries didn't spot him and sailed on.
"There was no way I could return," he said.
An All-Crab Diet
Hungry and weak, Jianping survived by catching small crabs and eating them. He believes he ate between 60 and 80 crabs while at sea.
"I didn't start eating crabs until the fifth day," he said. "The crabs were only about the size of a little finger. I'd grab two or three at a time, rinse them in the seawater and toss them straight into my mouth."
Jianping kept himself hydrated with small amounts of seawater and his own urine. The latter also kept him warm while stranded out in the cold sea.
"Urine is a stream of warm heat," he said. "I curled into a ball and tried to preserve every bit of warmth."
By the time two fishermen found him on June 2, Jianping was six miles from land. He was suffering from hallucinations. He thought his friends were taking him out for food.
"When we found him, he told us, 'I think I'm dying,'" said fisherman Fu Tingsan. "I told him, 'You're not going to die. You've run into fishermen. We'll get you home.'"
Medical staff told reporters that Jianping suffered from severe sunburn, skin damage, and infections. He also lost 22 pounds, but now he's on the mend.
Jianping's wife was about to return home when she was told he had been rescued.
"I had already accepted that my husband was gone," she said. "I filled three bottles with seawater to take home as a memento."
The tourist will likely remain in the hospital for a week. When he is well, he plans on visiting the fisherman who saved his life.
He added, "No matter how dangerous or hopeless things get, if you keep a steady mind, you can get through it."
