Overview
- On Christmas Eve 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke fell roughly 10,000 feet into the Peruvian Amazon when her flight broke apart, landing strapped to a row of seats.
- She suffered a broken collarbone, deep leg lacerations, and a torn knee ligament, then endured 11 days alone in the rainforest.
- At a riverside shelter with an outboard motor, she found petrol and used it to treat a maggot-infested arm wound, removing about 30 larvae.
- Local men found her on the 11th day, initially mistaking her for a mythical water goddess until she spoke Spanish, after which they took her to safety.
- After recovery she returned to West Germany, earned a biology degree and a PhD, conducted bat research in Peru, married entomologist Erich Diller, and now works at Munich’s Bavarian State Collection of Zoology.