Man survives 31 days by eating worms in Amazon jungle

• Jhonattan Acosta, a 30-year-old Bolivian man, survived 31 days in the Amazon jungle.
• By drinking rainwater, eating worms, and eating wild fruits.
• Jhonattan Acosta has decided to give up hunting for good and play music to praise God.

According to a Bolivian man who got lost and spent 31 days in the Amazon jungle, he was able to survive.

While out hunting in northern Bolivia, Jhonattan Acosta, 30, lost contact with his four friends.

He claims that while running from peccaries, a sort of pig-like creature, and jaguars, he drank rainwater that had accumulated in his shoes and consumed worms and other insects.

A month after going missing, Mr. Acosta was finally located by a search team made up of neighbors and friends.

“It’s incredible, I can’t believe people kept up the search for so long,” he said amid tears.

“I ate worms, I ate insects, you wouldn’t believe all I had to do to survive all this time,” he told media. He also ate wild fruits similar to papayas, known locally as gargateas.

“I thank God profusely, because he has given me a new life.”

The intricacies of how Mr. Acosta got lost and how he managed to stay alive would still need to be pieced together, according to his relatives, but they said they would gradually ask him because he was still emotionally scarred from the ordeal.

When he was discovered, Mr. Acosta had lost 17kg (37lb) of weight, a dislocated ankle, and was dehydrated, but the people who found him said that he was still able to walk with a limp.

“My brother told us that when he dislocated his ankle on the fourth day, he started fearing for his life,” Horacio Acosta told Bolivia’s newspaper.

“He only had one cartridge in his shotgun and couldn’t walk, and he thought no one would be looking for him anymore,” Horacio Acosta, the survivor’s younger brother, added.

When Jhonattan Acosta became lost and had to use his boots to get rainwater to drink, he did not have a machete or a lantern with him.

Furthermore, he disclosed to his kin that he had come into contact with other exotic animals, including a jaguar.

According to Jhonattan’s younger brother, a squadron of peccaries—pig-like herd animals prevalent in South American rainforests—were frightened away by Jhonattan using his last round of ammunition.

After 31 days, he saw a search party approaching from a distance of 300 meters (980 feet), and he limped towards them through thorny bushes while shouting to get their attention.

Horacio Acosta says that his brother was found by four local people. “A man came running to tell us they’d found my brother. It’s a miracle.”

According to the younger Acosta, Jhonattan has decided to give up hunting for good after his ordeal.

“He is going to play music to praise God. He promised God that, and I think he will keep his promise,” he said of his guitar-playing brother.

Police announced that they will question the survivor’s four pals in order to determine how he got away from them.

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