Surviving On Ketchup: Man Rescued After 24 Days At Sea

Read the article below.

A man who claims to have lived for 24 days on a sailboat in the Caribbean by eating ketchup, garlic powder, and seasoning cubes has been rescued by the Colombian navy. Elvis Francois, a 47-year-old resident of the Caribbean island of Dominica, claimed that the yacht was being repaired off the coast of St. Martin when it was carried out to sea in December 2022.

"I called my friends, they tried to contact me, but I lost the signal. There was nothing else to do but sit and wait," he said in a video released by the navy. Francois claimed that to keep the boat from sinking, he had to continually drain the water from it. He also made unsuccessful attempts to start a fire to call for assistance. Francois gave a mirror signal when a plane finally landed. He claimed that the navy informed him that he was observed when the plane flew over the boat once more, at this point 200 kilometers off the coast of Colombia.

According to the Colombian navy, Francois was transported to the city of Cartagena by a nearby ship. Even though he acknowledged that he had started to lose hope, he praised his rescuers for sending him to Colombia so that he could be examined by doctors before being sent back to Dominica. Francois claimed that he used a cloth to collect rainfall, according to Commander Carlos Urbano Montes, who spoke to The Associated Press. Francois was discovered to be in good condition, but he claimed to have lost weight. However, the boat was left at the sea.