A British teenager walked out of hospital Friday just two days after surviving 12 nights in Australia's harsh bushland in a story that made headlines around the world.
A pale and overwhelmed Jamie Neale, 19, made only a brief statement before being whisked away in a black Range Rover with his new agent.
"I'd like to thank everybody for their support, especially the staff at Blue Mountains hospital, they've been magnificent," he said.
Neale, whose feat has been hailed as a miracle by rescue workers, is believed to be in line for a lucrative payday with an Australian current affairs programme reportedly paying 98,057 pounds for his story.
The Briton was earlier said to be in "very good spirits" following a quick recovery from dehydration and exhaustion after his chance rescue in the rugged Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
"We've spoken with Jamie, he's in very good spirits at the moment, still a little subdued," Commander Tony McWhirter told reporters, adding that Neale's description of areas he'd seen made his account credible.
"There is nothing, nothing at all to suggest that this is anything other than the greatest tale of survival that we've seen in the mountains."
Neale, of north London, set off for a solo hike on July 3 but got hopelessly lost, eating only seeds and weeds with just a lightweight jacket for warmth in freezing overnight conditions.
He told police he had torn strips of bark from native paperbark trees to wrap himself in at night, and went into "survival mode" once he stopped hearing search helicopters fly by.
"He thought he was in dire straits when he failed to see the helicopters fly any more," McWhirter said. "He said 'At that stage I thought they'd given up searching for me.'"
His father Richard Cass told the Daily Telegraph newspaper his son gorged himself on "several" pizzas at a youth hostel the night before his ill-fated trek, which may have helped sustain him.
Police commander McWhirter said Neale lost all sense of direction after wandering off a track near Mount Solitary, and "once he was in the bush, in the vegetation, he was gone."
The hikers who discovered Neale -- two off-duty soldiers, including a female medic just back from Afghanistan -- also spoke of their astonishment at seeing him emerge from the bush.
"They heard his cries for help, which they couldn't believe at first," the unnamed medic's mother told the Telegraph. "Then he turned up at their camp looking gaunt and scratched."
Neale could barely talk and was only carrying a 600ml bottle of water and "a fair bit of green weed" in his backpack, the medic's mother added.
Neale's father and his agent Sean Anderson, of celebrity management firm 22 Management, have both said profits would be donated to the youth's rescuers.
A baby killer whale and his mother perform at Kamogawa Sea World in Japan. AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye
New User?
New User?
buzzed up:
8 seconds ago 2009-07-17T05:15:04-07:00
buzzed up:
9 seconds ago 2009-07-17T05:15:03-07:00
buzzed up:
9 seconds ago 2009-07-17T05:15:03-07:00
buzzed up:
11 seconds ago 2009-07-17T05:15:01-07:00
buzzed up:
11 seconds ago 2009-07-17T05:15:01-07:00
0 comments:
Post a Comment