Maria das Gracas Bernardo: Wife paddles for days protecting husband's corpse from caimans and vultures
MANAUS, BRAZIL: A woman in Brazil escaped vultures and subsisted on raw fish for a week while stranded on a boat with her husband's body. José Nilson de Souza Bernardo, 68, had a heart attack and died at the beginning of his wife Maria das Graças Mota Bernardo's maiden fishing trip down the Rio Negro on March 29.
Maria was forced to spend days paddling to safety through a sea of lethal caimans — which are relatively small alligatorids that can grow up to 4 feet long — after the boat's motor failed.
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'She spent all those days paddling'
As per The Daily Mail, their daughter, Cristiane, told reporters, "After dinner, [José] went to lie down in the hammock, but the rope snapped and he was startled. He got up and hit his knee. He sat down again and started fanning himself, telling my mother that he was feeling hot. She said he then stood up, screamed, and fell over. She caught him, lifted his head, and he took his last breath."
Maria informed her family that she had secured the canoe to the tree and departed in the second boat to look for assistance. She later discovered that the engine would not start again. Cristiane said, "She went to the bow and started paddling. She spent all those days paddling."
She claimed that being surrounded by caimans and the fact that she was unable to swim made her fear that she would fall into the water. On the third day, a man on a rabeta, a motorized boat, passed by. Maria was left alone and forced to paddle for days without sufficient sustenance after the man ignored her call for assistance and "just kept going."
Maria ate raw fish and flour for days
According to Cristiane, her mother consumed uncooked fish and flour they had aboard the boat over the first several days. She added, "One day she only drank water. On another day, she only ate flour with water and drank pure lemon juice." Maria banged pots and pans and yelled at the top of her lungs for rescue while floating on the river. Maria's daughter claimed that she "screamed and screamed and no one answered."
She claimed that when her husband's body began to decay, Maria made the decision to switch to the opposite side of the boat and covered his airways with a cloth. Cristiane stated. "She couldn't sleep anymore. All her strength went into bringing his body home, for the family to give him a dignified burial." The elderly widow was forced to protect her husband's body from the harsh Amazonian elements, such as the scorching sun, tropical storms, and even rapacious animals. Cristiane said. "My mum said vultures started to perch on top of the vessel. She hit them and they screamed. She took the tarp off the top of the awning and put it over the body because bees and mosquitoes were already sitting on his corpse."
The boat was discovered on April 4
A week after they started off, on April 4, the Brazilian Navy discovered the couple's boat drifting in Iranduba, around 100 miles (161 km) from their place of departure. Maria was evacuated from the site by a Navy aircraft, and authorities provided the grieving woman with comfort and first aid. After that, she was taken to Manaus for medical evaluation.