Mauro Prosperi is an Italian police officer and a keen runner, who in 1994 decided to take part in the Marathon des Sables, an event that takes place every year in Morocco and is a 6 day, 233 kilometers race.
The race is roughly 6 times longer than a standard marathon and mostly takes place along desert roads or across open desert itself, but the planned route has various re-supply points and support staff along route in case things go wrong.
On the second day of the race Mauro was doing very well and was towards the front of the long line of runners, when a huge sandstorm started and made it almost impossible to see. Not wanting to wait it out in case anyone overtook him, he continued to run in what he though was the correct direction.
But of course it wasn’t an Mauro ended up running several hundred kilometers into Algeria. He soon realised he was horribly lost but continued to run, hoping to find someone to help him, but after 24 hours of being off course he ran out of both food and water.
He found a small Muslim shrine in the middle of no where that had the dead body of a holy man inside, and decided he would have the best chance of survival if he stayed put and waited for rescue, instead of trying to cross open desert without water.
(The shrine Mauro Prosperi survived in is still standing)
He remained at the shrine and managed to catch a few bats living in the roof, eating them raw and drinking their blood in an attempt to quench his thirst. The bats alone did little to help and he resorted to drinking his own urine.
He saw 2 aircraft when he was in the shrine, a plane and a helicopter who both failed to spot him, convincing him that his time had come. Instead of waiting to die of thirst he made the decision to end it himself and tried to slit his wrists with a pen knife. The dehydration he was suffering with caused his blood to thicken and upon making the cut his blood clotted almost instantly and he lost little overall.
The next day he decided he wasn’t going to give up and began to walk towards the early morning clouds as he was once told to do so by the native Tuareg people of the Sahara he’d met.
He walked through the open desert without seeing any signs of human life, and survived by eating raw lizards and insects. He managed to find a little to drink by opening some cactus he found and drinking the liquid inside.
He walked for many miles without hope, then suddenly saw a small oasis in the distance. Using all his strength he managed to make it to the edge of the water that had formed within it and collapsed at the bank.
He wasn’t there long when he saw some goats and a young girl who ran into a tent, soon coming out with several women who gave him some goats milk and moved him into the shade.
After being lost in the desert for 9 days he was finally safe. The women who found him took him to an Algerian military camp, and from there he was taken to a hospital where apart from being severely dehydrated and badly sun burnt was otherwise OK. He’d lost a total of 40 lb in body weight when he was found, was a total of 186 miles off course.
He attempted the race again in 1998 but had to stop early due to a toe injury, but another attempt in 2012 saw him complete the race in 34.5 hours, ending in 131st place.