Name: I Survived an Airplane Crash
Uploaded: 2019-04-26T10:55:15.000Z
Duration: 6 min 43 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of manner

Overhead luggage began falling down
some directly on people's heads laps and into the aisle.

I felt like we were tumbling
around in a washing machine.

I turned to my side and looked out the window
where I saw lightning strikes and flashes

I grabbed my mother's hands as we locked eyes without a single word or sound from either of our mouths.

Amongst all the screaming crying and yelling from passengers, all I was able to do was

In a nose dive hurling straight down towards the earth,

the plane was disintegrating in mid-air with the
right wing now completely torn off

I held as tight as I could to my mom's hand
but it wasn't enough.

Our entire row was sucked out of the plane with me still strapped to my seat and my mother's sucked out of hers

As the screams of the people and the roar of the jet engine began to fade away,

All I was able to see her raindrops and
clusters of trees that looked like

broccoli as I tumbled a 9,800 feet
down to the earth

I thought I was dead.
At least, I should be dead but I wasn't.

I had been in and out of consciousness for nearly
24 hours and as I opened my eyes I saw no one.

I shouted for help and for my mother
and I shouted until the entire jungle went quiet.

But as my body caught up to my mind, I felt a horrible pain in my arms legs and chest.

Falling the length of nearly 3 1/2 Burj Khalifa's, 
the tallest building in the world

I managed to only have deep but not life-threatening cuts on my arms and legs

A swollen eye that I could not see out of,
and a broken collarbone.

To this day, there's no answer as to how I survived.

I spent an entire day and from
a distance I saw what looked like people!

With only one shoe, blurry vision, and one
eye to see out of,

I used my remaining shoe as a guide to
test the ground in front of me for any

I quickly went over relieved that I wasn't alone

but as I got closer I noticed their feet were pointing towards the sky

and their heads rammed headfirst
into the earth still strapped to their seats.

I stared at their bodies and noticed one was a woman and thought it was my mother

But as I looked closer, I noticed she had painted toenails

I was so happy but also ashamed at my reaction.

It was the first time I'd seen a dead body.

I found and crawled along a river
exhausted from lack of sleep

from the hundreds of bugs biting me through the nights.

I found a bag of candy as my food
ration, but that was quickly running out.

To make matters worse, I'd hear rescue
helicopters flying around in the distance

teasing me knowing they couldn't see me through the thick jungle forest giving me false hope for any rescue.

I wondered if it would have been better to
just die in the crash then go through

Still, I crawled around and floated
along the river for days

hoping either death or rescue
would come sooner rather than later.

Nothing until I saw what looked like
a boat parked along the river.

Was I hallucinating?
No, I could touch it!

What little energy I had left,
I stood and searched for the boat's owner.

No owner, but there was a small
path which led to a hut with a palm leafed roof.

Maybe I didn't have food, but at least I had some shelter.

When night came,
I began feeling something crawl in my upper arm!

I had an idea of what it was, but I didn't want to believe it

I looked down and saw maggots
crawling in and around the inside of my cut.

A fly had flown and managed
to lay her eggs in my wound.

My arm was infected and maggots
had been feeding on the dead flesh.

My eyes fell upon a canister of gasoline
for the boat and I was reminded of my infection.

I remembered our dog once had a similar infection and my father treated him using kerosene.

Still afraid to lose my arm despite not knowing if I would lose my life, I sucked some gasoline out

and put no more than one euro sized coin in my wound.

Instantly, the maggots began
digging deeper into my arm.

I bit hard into my shirt as the pain intensified.

Some maggots began falling out while others
dug even deeper into my flesh.

I was forced to pull out about 30 maggots
and actually felt pretty proud of myself.

At least the infection had been partially sterilized.

The next morning, I woke up to people's voices.

It was like hearing the voices of angels.

When saw me, they immediately stopped talking
and studied my fragile and exhausted state.

For a moment,
they thought I was a water goddess.

A figure from a local legend that resembled a hybrid water dolphin and a blonde white skinned woman.

I introduced myself in Spanish and told them my story.

The plane, the stream, how I ended up here.

They had heard about the plane crash and ended up providing me with food and treating my wounds.

The next day, they took me into town and I was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital.

where my father was anxiously waiting for me.

We didn't say a single word to each other.

We just hugged and held one another not letting go.

The doctors diagnosed me with a torn ACL, a strained vertebra in the neck, a partially fractured shin,

several deep lacerations on my arms and legs, and a swollen eye shut due to popped capillaries

as a result of the free fall from the aircraft.

In total, I spent 11 days in the Amazon jungle.

Out of 91 souls on Lanza Flight 508,
at 17 years I was the only survivor.

It was later confirmed that my mother also survived the initial plane crash

but due to her severe injuries, she couldn't move.

She died several days later.
Alone in pain and afraid.

I can't imagine what she
went through during her last days.

What is more disheartening,
she was one of 14 who survived the crash