Cyclist tumbles down ravine in France, survives on wine he had in his bag – National

A French cyclist survived for three days after falling down a steep ravine by drinking bottles of red wine he had in a shopping bag, authorities in France said.

According to CBS News, the 77-year-old man, who has not been named, was biking home from the supermarket along a quiet road in the mountainous Cévennes region when he missed a turn, hurtling down a jagged 130-foot slope and into a ravine near Saint-Julien-des-Points in southern France.

The man, who was unable to traverse his way out of the ravine, cried out for three days trying to catch the attention of passersby, but failed to flag anyone down.

As the days went by, he sustained himself on the bottles of wine he was taking home when he fell, rescuers said, who were alerted to his whereabouts by road workers from the Interdepartmental Directorate of Roads after they spotted the mangled frame of the victim’s bicycle, according to the French news outlet Entrevue.

Firefighters from the Hérault Fire and Rescue Service, with the assistance of the Civil Security helicopter, transported the man to the hospital in Alès, it said.

“He’s a miracle,” Dr. Laurent Savath, chief medical officer of the Hérault fire department, said.

“In the cold and damp, with almost no food or water, he’s incredibly resilient.”

The man escaped relatively unscathed with minor injuries and a mild case of hypothermia, CBS News reported.

It’s not the first time a survival story has seen someone subsist on wine.

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In 2023, a woman survived for five days in thick Australian bushland by eating candy and sipping wine after her car got stuck in mud on a dead-end road, ABC11, a North Carolina subsidiary of the ABC news network, reported.

Out on a short springtime day trip, the woman, whom police referred to only as Lilian, did not bring water or food supplies with her. However, she did have a bottle of wine that she had purchased as a gift for her mother and small amounts of candy, which were enough to sustain her until a police aircraft spotted her.

“Lillian was found a good 60km away from the nearest town and due to health issues she was unable to try and walk for help so stayed with her car,” Wodonga Police Station Sgt. Martin Torpey said in a statement following the incident.

“She used great common sense to stay with her car and not wander off into bushland, which assisted in police being able to find her,” he added.

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