VANCOUVER — Two days after Rita Chretien was found alive in northeast Nevada's remote high desert, her son — still wearing a look of disbelief on his face — told reporters at the hospital he didn't know she had it in her.
Just goes to show, Raymond Chretien said, "miracles happen."
Even the doctor sitting next to him was stunned the 56-year-old Penticton woman had survived seven weeks alone with little food or water.
She beat some "overwhelming odds," he said.
But wilderness survival experts say while Chretien's case is extraordinary, it is not unprecedented. The human body has an amazing ability to adapt to sudden change, they say. It's just that few of us realize it.
"We spend so much of our lives having our needs taken care of, we don't really suffer anymore. We're always in these controlled environments," said Sarah Brown, a wilderness survival instructor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
"People have lost touch with their relationship with the land. They don't realize what their capacities are."
Whether marooned on the ocean, caught in a blizzard or stranded at the bottom of a ravine, those who have lived through harrowing, stuck-in-the-middle-of-nowhere scenarios share common traits: They made smart choices and never lost the "will to survive."
Experts say in order to make smart choices, you first have to remain calm. Panicking will only lead to poor decisions.
Next, take stock of what's around you and what you have. In the case of Rita Chretien and her husband, Al, who apparently were led astray by their GPS device and ended up driving into the mud, it doesn't appear they were ever in any immediate peril.
The weather was neither extremely cold nor extremely hot. They had a water source (from a nearby stream), a bit of food (trail mix, candy) and shelter (their 2000 Chevy Astro Van).
Believe it or not, some people have lasted for several days without water and several weeks — about 60 days — without food, said Gordon Giesbrecht, a professor at the University of Manitoba who studies human responses in extreme environments.
The next step is to plan: do you stay or go? The general rule of thumb is to stay put and wait to be found but there may be occasions when you have to bail — if, for example, there is an imminent threat of death and there's no chance of immediate rescue.
According to Giesbrecht, the key questions to ask yourself are: How long do you expect it'll take for someone to initiate a search and find you? How long do you expect to be able to survive by staying put? How far do you have to travel to get help? Are you certain you know where to go and that you can make it there?
There's a tendency, Giesbrecht said, for people to underestimate how long they can survive and overestimate how far they can walk.
While many details of the Chretiens' decision-making have not been revealed, Giesbrecht said it appears that Albert Chretien's decision to leave after three days to seek help may have been premature. "You want to provide some reasonable opportunity for rescue," he said.
Albert Chretien remains missing. While officials continue to look for him, they admit that it is unlikely he will be found alive.
Once the decision is made to stay or go, the next step is to keep a positive attitude, experts say. It is critical, they say, to fight against letting uncertainty — not knowing when help will come, not knowing whether you'll survive — wreak havoc on your mind.
"We have a choice where we can slide down the slope of negativity, victimization and self-pity or you can do everything to stay positive," Brown said.
Staying positive can manifest itself in many ways. Humour is one, Brown said, recalling the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away in which a FedEx worker gets marooned on a desolate island and spends most of the movie interacting with a volleyball-friend he names "Wilson."
Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who got trapped by a boulder in Utah and eventually amputated his arm, said his spirits were lifted when he had a premonition of a boy he believed to be his future son.
In the Nevada case, it appears Rita Chretien took strength from her faith.
She read the Bible each day, including Psalm 86, which reads in part: "Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. When I am in distress, I call to you, Because you answer me."
"She felt Jesus was sitting next to her in the van," said Rev. Neil Allenbrand, the Chretiens' pastor for the past 12 years.
Others have found strength from finding beauty in their surroundings.
That's what Charles Horton says got him through eight nights in the bone-chilling cold after he broke his leg while cross-country skiing in Colorado in spring 2005.
During the day, he napped in the warmth of the sun and marvelled at the sparkling snow. Horton says he remembers being brought almost to tears the first night by the stark beauty of the near-full moon and the shadows of the trees.
"Each night, the coyotes were singing. It was almost like they were singing, 'We've lived another day!'"
That's not to say there weren't low moments. Horton, then 55, who survived on melted snow, an energy bar and a bit of dried fruit, made a decision on his third day to try to crawl to his vehicle which was a few kilometres away.
By the sixth day, however, his energy was sapped and he couldn't go any further.
He entered what he describes as "that wonderful spiral of self-pity."
"I started crying. I'm going to miss my friends, everyone I love, and die here alone."
But he was so dehydrated that he couldn't shed any tears. The discovery made him laugh.
Nine days into his ordeal, Horton — who had lost 30 pounds — was able to flag down a snowmobiler with his whistle.
By all accounts, Rita Chretien, who continues her recovery in a Penticton hospital, has managed to keep her spirits high.
Not everyone is so fortunate.
Dr. John Peachell, medical director at Wilderness Medical Consultants in Golden, B.C., said he's seen people who survived near-death experiences suffer from post-traumatic stress and recurring flashbacks.
Others, however, come out of such experiences feeling extremely empowered.
Tanya Rider, of Maple Valley, Washington, was driving home from work in September 2007 when she crashed down a 25-foot ravine. For eight days, she lay trapped sideways in her SUV going in and out of consciousness without any food or water. Her collar bone was broken and she was suffering from kidney damage.
Rider, 36, says she made it through her ordeal by focusing on her family and her future.
"I wanted to get back to my husband. We're a team. What is it you want out of life? You have to aim for it," she said.
"We have a tremendous amount of power within ourselves."
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Rita+Chretien+wilderness+survival+amazing+unbelievable+experts/4782076/story.html#ixzz1MM0gKv7F
