Australia: Woman survives on wine during five days stranded in Australian bush:
A 48-year-old woman survived five days stranded in the bush in Australia by eating sweets and drinking a single bottle of wine.
Lillian Ip set off on what was meant to be a short trip on Sunday, travelling through dense bush in Victoria state.
But she hit a dead-end after taking a wrong turn, and her vehicle became stuck in the mud.
Ms Ip - who doesn't drink - only had a bottle of wine in the car as she was planning to give it as a present.
After five nights stranded, she was discovered by emergency services on Friday as they flew overhead as part of a search.
"The first thing coming in my mind, I was thinking 'water and a cigarette,'" Ms Ip told 9News Australia. "Thank god the policewoman had a cigarette."
[...] "The only liquid Lillian, who doesn't drink, had with her was a bottle of wine she had bought as a gift for her mother so that got her through," Wodonga Police Station Sergeant Martin Torpey said.
"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."
Ms Ip was taken to hospital to be treated for dehydration, but has since returned home to Melbourne.
I'm just off to repack my survival bag.....
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday May 09 2023, @12:19PM (1 child)
To give it some context I checked the weather and it's "spring jacket weather" around there now.
A lot of Americans think the weather in .au is dramatic ocean coast surrounded by 150F desert. But there is some variation from that in Australia.
It reminds me of Texas where there's some parts that are almost habitable although there is plenty of wasteland.
(Score: 5, Informative) by namefags_are_jerks on Tuesday May 09 2023, @12:31PM
We're coming into Winter atm, wit Alpine areas already experiencing snow, with sub-alpine hitting 0C. The Victorian region she was lost in would have certainly been between 0-10C overnight -- so staying with the car was a good idea for that reason alone.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 09 2023, @03:06PM (1 child)
I've been surviving exclusively on beer and crackers for 45 years. Where's my prize?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Tuesday May 09 2023, @09:10PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GloomMower on Tuesday May 09 2023, @03:17PM (5 children)
I thought alcoholic drinks above 4% alcohol by volume dehydrate more than hydrate. Most wine is 11-15% alcohol by volume. Was it more like a wine cooler? Somethings seems off in the reporting, glad she survived though.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GloomMower on Tuesday May 09 2023, @03:20PM
I found this article saying it depends on how dehydrated you are, if you are hydrated then wine dehydrates you, but if you are already very dehydrated, it can hydrate you and keep you alive.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/on-a-desert-island-would-it-be-better-to-drink-wine-or-go-thirsty/ [sciencefocus.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday May 09 2023, @03:25PM
Well, I'd guess it depends on how much water you still contain. I mean, if you're close to dying from dehydration, I wouldn't deem it impossible that even vodka would do the trick.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday May 09 2023, @03:25PM
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/on-a-desert-island-would-it-be-better-to-drink-wine-or-go-thirsty/ [sciencefocus.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by driverless on Tuesday May 09 2023, @04:23PM (1 child)
Since alcohol evaporates a lot faster than water, she could have decreased the alcohol content by leaving the bottle open. In fact if it was corked, which admittedly is usually not the case any more, she wouldn't have had much choice but to leave it uncorked.
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Tuesday May 09 2023, @09:14PM
Letting any of the liquid evaporate is probably a bad idea though, since you'd surely lose water in the wine as well.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday May 09 2023, @11:50PM
If I learned it correctly, beer and wine got popular not only for the booze effect, but also because they were storable, because of the alcohol working as disinfectant.
Where there's mud where a car can get stuck in, there's got to be water nearby (or was it dry mud without any vegetation nearby?). I would probably have tried to treat some of that water with a 30% wine addition to reduce the amount of gut-threatening bacteria. Also, with the fuel from the tank it shouldn't be too hard to start a fire to boil off some more water. Although a cooking vessel might have been an issue now that hubcaps aren't that common anymore - don't the Australians learn a bit of survival stuff (beyond the Vegemite coating against drop bears) for the outback as kids?