Off the river

A Survival Story

We only had food and water for one more day. We had been lost for two weeks already and we were losing hope in someone could see our signals. The helicopter's radio was broken and Mark, the only one who could fix it, had been unconscious most of the time.

Our ideas for calling the attention of the helicopters which daily passed us by weren't working. Last week we almost made it. We started a big fire and we saw the helicopter was approaching. It was a false alarm, it went away as quick as it appeared...

Suddenly, a humming resounds all around us. It's another helicopter! 'Hey, guys! Wake up! It's a helicopter... and it's landing!' said Lucy, one of the girls.

She remembers the accident: it was a technical problem. They were coming back from a three day trip in the rainforest, they were tired, but they enjoyed it. In the airplane, one of the boys accidentally hit Mark's head so hard he passed out. Mark was flying the aircraft, so it feel down and got totally destroyed. Fortunately, they all were alive and together.

The helicopter lands. The 6 friends got up and started to jump and yell trying to call the attention of the pilot. They all went to take their things and help each other because some of them felt exhausted.

'Hey! Are you OK? How long have you been here?' said the pilot.

'Two weeks' said Mark gasping. 'Some of us are ill, including me.'

The pilot and two other men helped the friends to put their stuff into the helicopter. Three of them had to stay and wait, there was not enough room for them. But they had waited two weeks, one more hour was not much. They were happy it was finally over.