A deceased woman from Venezuela has been recognised as a hero for keeping her children alive after the boat they were on capsized, and left them drifting in the ocean for four days straight.
According to Business Insider, Mariely Chacón, her husband, and their two children, aged 6 and 2 were on a cruise from Higuerote to Tortuga island, Venezuela with five other people when a massive wave split the boat’s hull apart.
The group spent four days drifting on a small lifeboat in the hot sun. Mariely tried to keep her children alive by drinking her own urine which allowed her to breastfeed them, as News Beezer reports. But it was Mariely who succumbed to dehydration. Her children were found clinging to their mom’s dead body.
“The mother who died kept her children alive by breastfeeding them and drinking her own urine,” a spokesman for Instituto Nacional de los Espacios Acuáticos (INEA) said, as per the New York Post. “She died three or four hours before the rescue from dehydration after drinking no water for three days.”
The children’s nanny was also found on the lifeboat alive while the other five people, including the children’s father, have not been found yet.
Also read:
SA mom sent for psychiatric evaluation following the alleged murder of three daughters
Picture: Unsplash