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Boy, 5, survives 24 hours in Argentinian desert
BUENOS AIRES, March 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A five-year-old boy who went missing during a family walk in Argentina was found safe and well after 24 hours lost in a desert in the west of the country.
Authorities in San Juan province and some 1,000 volunteers went searching for the boy — with a former Dakar Rally motorcyclist finding him 21 kilometers (13 miles) from where he was last seen.
The child was hospitalized for slight dehydration.
“I was cold, I slept badly, leaning on a rock,” he told the newspaper Clarin upon leaving hospital Tuesday.
The boy said he had drunk from a stream and eaten grass.
“He spent 24 hours in nature, that is not nothing,” said Alberto Ontiveros, the man who found him, noting that wild pumas roam the area.
BSS/AFP/AU/08:30 hrs