Jungle Fall in East Timor: Saved by Goats

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Shopify gives us the ability to customize without the complexity. We can change something without introducing fragility or having to pay a developer. We're thirsty total and we leveled up our business with Shopify. Start your free trial at Shopify.com/AU. It's dusk on June the 14th, 2019 in Southeast Asia.

On the island of Ataro, a tiny sun-soaked oasis of the coast of East Timor,

the dark silhouette of a mountain looms empiriously over the forest's fields and foothills.

This is Mount Manukoko, and according to local folklore, this thousand-meter peak is more than just a mountain. It's a sacred place where the boundary between the physical world and the spiritual world is porous and fragile. By day, there is a clear dividing line between these two realms. But at night, the line dissolves and, so the legend goes, the mountain becomes the domain of spirits.

“Some islanders believe that you must not set foot here after dark or risk antagonizing the”

supernatural forces set to dwell there. Those who ignore the warning do so at their own peril.

On this particular summer's night, partway up one of Manukoko's densely-witted slopes,

something moves through the darkening jungle. A hunched, howling figure, stumbling blindly over the ground. It's a strange, frightening creature, like a man with stripped of all obvious humanity. Its naked body is smeared with blood and filth, and it grows as it moves. Its head is split open, and the piece of scalp feels back with every step, exposing the bone beneath.

The creature stops for a moment, and when it looks up, and the moonlight catches its pale sunken face, the eyes peering out on that of a fantastical monster, or beast. They are the eyes of 42-year-old Morgan Segway, a man in desperate need of help. I really thought, if I die here, no one will find me. So I was trained, okay, I have to go back. At least, on the road, I have to die somewhere that people will find me.

[Music]

“Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes?”

If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extra-ordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode we meet Morgan Segway. In 2019, the former acrobat from northern France is living in the southeast Asian country of East Timor. One sunny Sunday, Morgan, a keen

hiker and climber decides to trek to the top of Mount Manukuka, a 3,000 foot peak on a nearby island just off the mainland. After reaching the summit, however, is thrill-seeking backfires. When he finds himself caught in the baking late afternoon heat, with an empty water bottle, in a long way back down. Soon, he finds himself hopelessly, confoundingly lost. So I took this path just the same path to go back, and after five minutes, suddenly like,

the path disappeared. But that's just the start. Navigating his way back through a dark and otherworldly jungle, things deteriorate rapidly, culminating in a brutal accident. "Street and the rock starting to fall with me, and suddenly fall. So I thought, okay, I don't have water. I lose my blood. Maybe in one or two days it's finished for me. I decided, okay, I will die and it's finished."

Greteskly hurt, with no clear way to reach help, Morgan will accept his fate. Until an unexpected arrival appears through the trees, offering a tiny flash of hope. I'm John Hopkins. From the Neutropodcast network this, is real survival stories.

An outboard motorboat chugs through Sapphire Colored Water.

“Sitting with one hand on the Tiller is thick, brown hair, towsled by the breeze,”

is 42-year-old Morgan Segway. Morgan's eyes are fixed on the horizon, where the hazy green outline of a mountain appears to rise from the twinkling sea. The island of Atara lies roughly 20 miles north of Dili, a capital of East Timor, where Morgan lives. Originally from a small village outside Paris, the Frenchman has been based in this

part of the world for two years. He loves it here, and as his boat skips over the crystal clear

waves, it's easy to understand why. This place is breathtakingly beautiful. It bursts with colour, the blue sky, the white sand beaches, the dazzling green palm trees.

“Everything seems alive. In local Timories culture, there is a concept known as Lulic, a sacred”

spiritual power associated with certain places and objects. Lulic is kind of the assembly of rules and spirits from this area is Timor. It's like animism, so stones, birds, trees are their own soul and they can help you or in the inverse totally make you jokes and make you struggle in your days. Morgan steers the boat into a sheltered coat. In the distance beyond the trees at the top of the beach, the jagged jungle clad spine of a mountain ridge rises above the palms.

Manukoko is a thousand meters tall. It's summit looms over the island, providing a constant backdrop to life here. It's also where Morgan is headed for today's hike. As he jumps out of the boat into the knee-high water, a group of islanders come down to the beach to help him drag his boat onto the sand. When I arrive on the beach, people come to welcome me and help me to move the boat onto the beach and ask, "Where do you go Malai? Malai is

the stranger, the white man?" "Where do you go Malai?" "I will go to the top of Manukoko."

“"Nice, nice, when?" "Now it's too late, you have to start at five or six a.m. it's”

it will be too hot and it's too long and you know of course there is a spirit so at night it's it's not a place for you, it's a place for no one." He reassures the islanders that he'll be careful. Then he sets off up the beach following a sandy track inland through the trees. There he is made the tropical island nation, his home. East Timor is a far cry from the surroundings of Morgan's youth. Born and raised in northern France, his childhood was set against a picturesque

backdrop of wooded hills and apple orchids. Always climbing trees and riding my bicycle going

by myself at school, it was a very, very small French village with 100 inhabitants, with one teacher for all the kids from 6 to 10 years old, so it was really really nice and close to nature when I was young. Morgan was a restless, outdoorsy kid, more at home running around in fields than sitting in classrooms. When he got older he found the perfect outlet for his boundless energy in rolling at circus school and training as a professional acrobat. At the age of 21, Morgan's

circus career took him to the biggest stage on earth, the opening ceremony for the 1998 FIFA World Cup in Paris. I was on the opening show and I was dressed like a rooster. They were decided to get 30 to chickens, representing the 32 countries participating to the workup and I was the English one, so you can watch an internet, English rooster and to the roof of the start of the frost in 1998, I'm inside. Shortly after this remarkable episode, Morgan decided to leave the circus

and return to college to study event design. After graduating, he began traveling widely,

he had switched lanes again. He was living in Kazakhstan, working as a documentary filmmaker, when a friend came to him with another exciting opportunity. Would Morgan like to come out to

“East Timor, where this friend lived and produced promotional documentaries for NGOs?”

At that time, Timor was a very very young country because they get their independence in 2001, so the country still ran with the help of many, many, many NGOs, American, Australian, European, Korean, Japanese, and Geos from anywhere. So I took a ticket from Kazakhstan to Timor,

see okay, let's see what's kind of cool. Not for the first time in his life, Morgan was throwing

himself headfirst into uncharted waters, but when he arrived in East Timor, and moved into a small house on the beach, something immediately clicked into place. So when I arrived to delete, delete the capital of East Timor, I choose a house in the front of the sea. And when you see that, with Kokonet tree, white sand, broken boats in the garage, you feel like, oh, I'm arrived. It's my place,

“it's my place. Since arriving in East Timor two years ago, Morgan has grown increasingly fond”

of this country. It's people and customs. But no matter how a climatized he becomes,

some things remain mysterious and foreign to him. And he is about to find out,

but despite the outward beauty of these islands, they can still throw up some nasty surprises. This march on the Neuser Podcast Network, a brand new show is launching. Join host Ian Glenn for Real Vikings, a limited release series, taking you on a deep dive into the Viking world. On short history of, we cross paths with earnest Hemingway and journey back to the European Middle Ages. On real survival stories, we're in sunny Spain, as a lifeguard on his holidays

gets drawn into a terrifying near drowning experience. And remote Myanmar, as a devastating flood

“overwhelms an isolated mountain community. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories,”

a woman arrives at Holmes' door, bemused by the sudden disappearance of her fiance in a case of identity. Get all of these shows, and more, early and atry, on Neuser Plus. And if you haven't already, get your hands on a copy of Neuser's book, a short history of ancient Rome. Available in all good bookshops, and wherever you get your audiobooks.

It's early afternoon on June the 9th. Morgan is walking through the jungle that covers the lowest slopes of Mount Manukoka. It's the height of the dry season. When this part of the world can go for many months without rain, and the midday heat is sweltering. Still, Morgan is in high spirits. The sky is a beautiful cobalt blue, and birds are paradise sing from the branches of the trees that line the footpath. Occasionally, he passes locals on the trail. They all look at him with

the same quizzical expression, some stop him to ask where he's headed. When he tells them, their curiosity turns immediately to concern. On the path to the 7th, many people stop me. When you go, I go on the top, how it's too late, with tomorrow. It's almost 1pm. By the time you reach the top of the mountain, it'll be late afternoon, dangerously close to nightfall. No local would ever risk wondering the slopes of Manukoka after

dark. But Morgan ignores the advice of the passerby. He appreciates that concern, but he is an experienced adventurer, a seasoned hiker and climber. He'll make it down in good time. The locals merely shake their heads and shuffle off, muttering into approval. Of course, after 500 years of colonization from Portuguese when Indonesian,

they're really very used to the malais, the white man who never discerns thing,

but in no everything and no better than anyone. The trail winds uphill through a patchwork of cultivated fields and pockets of dense jungle. The pass is plots where maze and root vegetables are grown on the outskirts of villages. Fruit trees overhang the footpath. The warm air fragrant with their sweet, sticky scent.

Up ahead he can see where the tree line ends and the narrow ridge follows its final snaking a scent to the summit. After another mile or so, he sees two women coming down the trail. One is very elderly and appears to be blind in one eye. A companion is younger and she is the one who speaks to Morgan, a tongue-agent. The young lady said, "Okay, sorry to disturb you during your journey during your trek, but I have the duty to explain you what's there. You see the line there,

the trees, it's the end of my field. Here it's safe, it's a no matter world. We are farmers,

there is fruits, vegetables, water, but just a little bit above his line. It's a never world

“is a sacred world of lullic. And you should not go alone, you should not go.”

But if you go, please don't sleep there and come back as soon as possible. Morgan glances up beyond the tree line, where the summit ridge looms menacingly, blotting out the sky. Perhaps he should heed the warning. He could just park the whole thing. Or come back next weekend and make an earlier start. But ultimately Morgan can't bring himself to back out. Doing so would be against everything he believes,

or at least everything he has been told to believe about his own limitations or lack thereof. I was in the time of my life, a pair of my life, where I was listening too much podcast.

“You know, it's self-improvement, self-development podcast where never lose your dreams and never stop”

breaks a barrier and go and go, go, go, go and you fed and you wake up and you fed and you wake up.

And this is really not walking with the mountain. Never do this. First string in the mountain is

if you feed it's not going well, you just have to make a uter and you can always do it another day. This is the rules number one and all this podcast and books and all that may be push me a little bit too, not listening. Perhaps Morgan has simply been listening to the wrong podcast. In any case, he chooses not to take the young woman's advice. He's already come this far, three quarters of the way and he isn't the type to turn back. And so he wishes that two women a good

day and continues on his journey.

“It's a couple of hours later. Morgan is walking the final approach to the mountain top,”

a steep scramble over rock and scrubby vegetation. The former acrobat covers it swiftly. His

lean nimble body moving effortlessly over the rough terrain. When he finally reaches the summit,

he straightens up and stands looking out across the glorious panorama unfurled below him. It's a spectacular view that takes in the whole island, a sweeping expanse of jungle-clad hills, stretching all the way to the ocean, where deep blue takes over from emerald green. Panting from the heat and exertion, Morgan reaches into his backpack for his water bottle. But when he pulls it out, he makes a troubling discovery.

There are only a few drops left. This was the first really big sign of "Oh, I should be very, very careful from now because I'm on the earth on the journey and I don't have water now with me." And we were really in the middle of the dry season, so not to single drop off water anywhere. At least the rest of the journey is downhill. Plus it's almost five. The worst of the afternoon heat is surely over. It'll be cooling down from

now on. But as he sets off back down the trail, the opposite seems to be true. The sun smoldes overhead, a blazing red fireball. Morgan can feel it scorching the back of his neck, sucking the last traces of moisture from his rapidly overheating body. He quickens his pace, anxious to reach the shade of the treeland. The air around him thickens and shimmers,

where he's putting his feet. So I took this path to the same path to go back,

“and after five minutes suddenly like the path disappear. It's ear and poo. It's not here.”

I cannot explain more than that. Morgan looks back the way you came. But there's no sign of the footpath. Just a steep sun-yellowed stretch of dry brush. Here and there, shards of volcanic rock protrude from the earth like jagged black arrowheads. It is as if the trail just vanished from right under his feet. Morgan tries to stay calm. He's only a few hundred yards from the treeland. Instead of climbing back up,

he heads down into the forest where at least there's some shade.

Hopefully he'll pick up the footpath somewhere in the jungle.

“But the trail never reappears. What he does find is a dry creek bed weaving through the trees.”

Morgan figures that if he follows it far enough, it'll eventually lead him to a village. He sets off. The stream may end us through tracks of dense underground and he must force his way through barricades of thorny vegetation. It's not a simple route downhill either. It undulates up and down through the forest. Occasionally he encounters dry waterfalls,

and he has no choice at the scale, tackling vertical rock faces.

Gradually the light starts to fade. Looking up, he sees that the flashes of sky through the canopy are streaked with dusky purple clouds. No, I was exploring more. I was lost and said, "It's night. It's night. You don't have water. You are lost in the jungle mountain. And you have to take a decision." Should he stop for the night and wait until morning? Or carry on in the dark and hope he reaches

civilization? The local woman he met earlier had warned him not to sleep up here on the mountain. Morgan isn't superstitious about malevolent spirits, but he keeps walking all the same. The night deepens. After another couple of hours he reaches the tallest obstacle yet, a towering 130 foot cliff face. He begins to climb, carefully seeking out handholds in the rock.

He makes it most of the way up when he stops. The rock up here is smooth and featureless, making it almost impossible to climb. He's only got about 30 feet. Less than 10 meters to go. But he's stuck. No place to put your finger. It was like marble. And there was only a tree.

“And you know when you climb, you should not use vegetation, trees, branch, anything stick on the”

rock. It's really a bad idea. But it was the only way to try to get up. Morgan reaches for the tree branch. He gives it a firm tug, testing its strength. Once he satisfied, it'll support his weight. He grabs hold of it and pulls himself out. So I put all my weight on it. And when my weight was on it, suddenly it was not a crack from the wood. It was like from the rock itself. Or the rock big rock.

Totally detached. And the time stopped. I really saw it like slow motion. You know like in a movie. There is a horrible wrenching sound. Morgan feels himself toppled backwards away from the cliff face. Everything seems to move slowly. The disaster unfolding in half speed. But there's still no time to react. Nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing you can do to prevent the inevitable. So I tried to use my fingers like hook and in the rock. But of course, the old rock.

So I feel like cocking. Yeah, cocking. All my fingers broke. And I saw the trees and the rock starting to fall with me. And suddenly this time took his normal speed and

At the base of a 40 meter cliff, Morgan lies on his back motionless.

“Blood oozes from a gash running the length of his skull. The right side of his face is puffy and”

modeled with dark bruises. His right eye is swollen shut. The bone around it shattered. The only sign that he's still alive is the faint flutter of his pulse. And then his left eyelid twitches. Slowly, he returns to consciousness. I opened my eyes, left eye. So right one was totally disconnected. Only my left end was working. And I was trying to understand what is broken, what's up in.

Morgan blinks up at the dark forest canopy. After he fell and his body's smashed,

repeatedly against the wall of the cliff, he blacked out. But it's hard to say how long for.

“hesitantly, he moves his left hand to his head. There is something soft and damp protruding from his”

scalp. It takes him a moment to realize that it's a part of his scalp prized away from his skull. All my upper head was cut, and it was very strange to feel, no pain. But I felt my hair, the stretch liquid from the body, and I felt my skirt totally naked. He tries to push himself upright, but his right eye must be broken. He can't put any pressure on it without triggering waves of immense pain.

Dropping himself up on his left elbow, he manages to lift his torso off the ground. He tries to straighten his right leg, but his nerve endings fizzle in agonizing protest.

“Clearly, walking is out of the question. Morgan lies back for a moment, breathing,”

trying to take stock. He must have hit his head hard during the fall, so the fact that he's still alive is a miracle, but that might be where his luck ends. He doesn't have a phone or any other means of calling for help, and he can't move. That means he is counting on someone stumbling across him in a dry creek bed, probably several miles from the nearest walkable trail. The odds aren't looking good.

So I thought, okay, in sure if I've all books, there is this kind of data slide. You can stay three minutes without air. Three days without water, then three weeks without food. It's a very drop course. So I thought, okay, I don't have water. I lose my blood. Maybe in one or two days, it's finished for me. Despite his grim prognosis, Morgan manages to remain sanguine.

So I decided, okay, I will die, it's finished. And a strange thing, once you decide, but it's like that, I had a nice life, and I will die in a nice place. I'm adventuring during the jungle with parades and beauty for insects and bats and stars. It's okay, I will enjoy that. It's the following day. Morgan lies in the exact same spot on his back,

at the base of the rock face. His injured head rests on a tough of undergrad, and his broken legs are stretched out in front of him. For the last 12 hours or so, he has settled into a kind of meditative state, watching the sky change color through the tree branches, listening to the birds and insects. Having accepted the likely outcome of his situation, he has reached a state of acceptance,

even peace. But as the second day wears on, there's one source of discomfort,

begins to threaten his equilibrium. It's dry, no water. This was the hardest thing in this adventure, not the bones, broken or head or scalp, but no water is something really hard to describe.

it's like death, death, or I don't know something, but it's not supposed to be in your body,

“it's growing inside you. It runs his tongue over his limbs. They feel like husks crack and dry.”

He closes his eyes and lets the sounds of the forest wash over him. Another night goes by. Morgan drifts in and out of consciousness. Even when he's asleep, he remains alert to the sounds of the jungle, the calls of animals,

the wind in the trees. Day two passes much like the first, a slow, indistinguishable procession of ours.

Another evening draws in. It's now been 48 hours since his fall, and he's still here. He hasn't died of thirst or blood loss or some unseen internal injury. Could it be that he resigned himself

“to his fate too quickly? Could survival actually be on the cards?”

In some ways, this creeping optimism isn't helpful. It complicates the simple serene state Morgan managed to achieve earlier. When you feel you will die, you don't have any more problem, you have one big problem, you will die. But also daily life problems are I have to pay this, or I said this to a friend, it was not nice and I have to call and apologize and I'm not that good person, or I have to pay a bill for this and blah, blah, blah, blah, all these things,

what makes some time daily life heavy? You put all these stuff in the bag and you let the

“bag there and suddenly you feel good to you. I have no problem, I will die.”

Trying to survive is altogether more complicated. Morgan lies there, sprawled on the forest floor, wrestling with what to do next. Of course you want to go back, go back home, but you are totally broken, my right foot was broken, my right arm was broken, you want to go back, but you don't want to be disappointed with a goal that you know you will not rich. It's day three. By now Morgan's thirst has started to seep into his subconscious.

There's our fantasies, playout behind his closed eyelids. I was dreaming about sparkling water, you know like in a bad shampoo advertising where you have a wave of sparkling water and I was swimming inside his parking water wave and drinking it. Until then, I woke up. Though not a religious man, Morgan even resorts to prayer, he appeals to the ether, promising to disavow worldly pleasures for just one sip of water.

I try all gods like Christian, Muslim, Jewish, mystical, animism, stones, crocodiles, everyone,

if I can have a sparkling water glass, I will never drink alcohol.

Day three, grinds on and Morgan's thirst only intensifies. Extreme dehydration is a protracted and painful way to die. When the body is deprived of water, it begins to draw fluid from non-vital organs. The eyes, lips and tongue, shrivel and contract, as moisture is redirected to other parts of the body. The blood thickens and coagulates, restricting the flow of oxygen to the brain,

resulting in disinous and delirium. The heartbeat slows to an intermittent twitch as the body begins to expire. But while Morgan's prayers for water go unanswered, his noisy pleas do attract attention.

As evening descends on the third day, he hears a rustling in the bushes to his right. He looks over.

They're peering at him from the underground, but several furry white faces. It was a bunch of goats and they came to me, the youngest, even touch my nose with iron nose,

And I was very happy with this visit. The goats spend some time me adding around this half dead human,

“snuffling and searching for food. Morgan watches strangely comforted by their presence”

before the herd turns and vanishes back into the wilderness. And we disappear for two minutes, but after two minutes, I saw them climbing the cliff, but they were not climbing straight like I did. They were using like a zigzag path, like a good path. He watches as the goats carefully ascend the cliff he fell from. They moved single-file, weaving their way upward in a wide, criss-crossing pattern.

To Morgan, the most obvious route up the rock face had been straight, but maybe he can learn something from these animals, a possible path out of this place.

“Survival is still hugely unlikely, but perhaps if he moves, Morgan can at the very least find”

a better place to die. If I die here, no one will find me. They will always think,

where is Morgan, maybe just left and did not call us and what's happened. He's somewhere in a bad situation, is he suffering? So I was trained, okay, I have to go back at this. On the road, I have to die somewhere that people will find me. And now, having witnessed the goats zigzag their way up the cliff, Morgan can at least see that it's possible. So, on the morning of the fourth day since the accident,

he starts getting himself ready. By this late stage, his body is in the process of shutting down. He has emptied his bowels all over himself, and not uncommon prelude to dying. It underlines the bleak reality of his situation, expelling any lingering trace of romanticism. And I thought, hmm, this is the end of Indiana Jones adventure. It's the end of

“nice stories. It will be not funny anymore from that point for the key I have to wash my”

self at least. And I wash my self, I took all my clothes off, I wash my self with sand and dry leaves.

Then I was naked, more always clean, and stand up on my one and a half feet.

Morgan's shattered right foot, throbs in agony, as he gingerly applies some pressure. His broken right arm hangs limp by his side. There was intensely painful to stand, the manager is to stay upright. With trembling effort, his staggers forward a couple of steps, shuffling towards the base of the incline. He looks up. Above a perilous sloping rock face covered in a tangle of dense thorny brush.

If he couldn't make it to the top before, then climbing it now, in his present condition,

seems impossible. I say, okay, let's try, and I make a first step. And we step was so small.

I call it run map step. And I say, hmm, it will be long, but I leave in Kazakhstan, which is from a SSR, and all SSR region is full of Babushka runmoser. And you saw them, they are so old, and sometimes it's take 20, 30 minutes to do 200 meters for them to go to the market. But every day, you saw this Babushka working with very small steps and going, and coming back to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to. So I thought, okay, I will do the Babushka step on the

God's root. And it's start to be a mantra. Okay, one more Babushka step on the God fraud. Morgan repeats these words to himself as he edges his way along the rock face, trying to stick to the path followed by the Goats. The gradually, he makes progress. Gaining a millimeter of elevation with every side with shuffle. Hours pass. Morgan pouring all his concentration into his task.

Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, he finds a well-rooted tree and positions himself

“in the crook of his trunk. He spends the night here, not sleeping, but resting.”

Saving his strength for one final push tomorrow. The next day, Morgan climbs all morning. Eventually, he reaches the final stretch. The place where he fell five days ago. But this time, he has one major advantage. Daylight. He can see that there's an easier route to the one he tried to take.

A slightly gentler gradient dotted with handholds and footholds.

Not daring to look down. He presses himself flat against the rock. His breath rattling in his ears.

“With his one functioning hand, he curls his fingers around a shallow hold and pushes with his”

only functioning foot. He grinds his torso into the cliff for friction and inches upwards. He pauses, muscles trembling, pain, flairing through his body. But he doesn't stop for long. He goes again, dragging himself inch by inch until at last his weight tips forward and his spills onto the flat ground of the cliff top. Morgan lies there, panting, his spirits soaring.

Though his body is utterly depleted, he finds himself flooded with a deep appreciation for it, marveling at its sheer resilience. I start to make like kind of checklists like okay, scalloped, broken arm, broken foot, but I can breathe. Wow, it's so strong. I was so happy with this body. The small core machine,

“like blood, brain, it's working. I was in presence, I hope, you have to bring this back to home,”

because it's really nice machine and life is so incredible.

Simon asked you about the story, about this swimming pool. You just have to breathe and then you have to breathe. You don't do it, because the story is so my z-space. You mean, you can't do it all? Yes, exactly. Because the story is so deep, the story is just a little different. The story is about the studio, the job or the music. The story is so deep, I don't feel like it's a story. The story is a story. With the story.

June, the 14th. Morgan staggers weekly through the dense jungle at the base of Matt Manicoco. It's been five days since his fall. Despite his triumph in reaching the top of the cliff, he is now closer to death and to life, a shadow of a mare, hunched and naked. His skin scratched, bloody and bruised. With increasing difficulty, Morgan pushes through the foliage. He forces aside a curtain of vines and stumbles out into a field. He pears around, dazed.

The field looks recently harvested, the soil freshly tilled, the crops that once grew here now gone. And then he spot something. A single pineapple resting on the ground. It was really strange woman because I thought, okay, I'm totally thirsty. I did not eat anything since five days and there is one, only one pineapple in the field, but I've been totally harvest. I thought it's a joke. I thought it's a spirit of the mountain. They are making a joke and I

wasn't really like looking right, looking left, where are these funny spirits? It's like, it's not possible. This perfectly rip pineapple in the middle of the field. But it's no mirage. It's really there, sustenance, only a few feet away. It stumbles over to the pineapple. Trimbling, he picks up the spiky fruit. With just one functioning hand, he has to find a way to cut into it to open it up.

slowly to be sure to not lose a drop of juice and I had this big slice and I really remember the

“first bite. It was so juicy, but the juice stopped after maybe three or four centimetres in my mouth.”

Because I was like really like a dry dry sponge. So after maybe five or six bite, finally a drop

of water arrived in my stomach, I mean inside my body. And I eat it, eat all this pineapple. And I suddenly felt all my organs one by one getting water. Nourishment spreads through him. Morgan finishes every last morsel of pineapple, sucking the juice from its tough bristling skin. With food in his belly he rests, falling asleep on a flat rock. Here wakes hours later, energized, ready to stumble on. With the signs of human cultivation around him,

he can now feel confident that he's at least headed in the right direction, back towards civilization.

“And sure enough. I saw house, far, far, far in the hill, but I called, in Tétune Ajrodha. Ajrodha,”

it's been helped. And I heard something like that. So I ask again, Ajrodha and Irnofin. Nothing again, silence. And therefore, maybe it skits and there will be a thread of what comes from the mountain. To where we leave and there will be lost again. Hey Stily, Morgan pulls his soiled bloodstained clothes from his bag and puts them on. It doesn't want to frighten off any, it would be rescuers.

Once he's fully clothed, he staggers off in the direction of the house. It isn't long before a man appears. A wear of what a bizarre spectacle he must be.

“Morgan wouldn't be surprised if the man was scared or suspicious, or even hostile.”

But instead, his face is full of compassion. And I look at him and I try to start to explain, like, I had a nice attitude and Tétune is a hookah longway, it's a mix of Portuguese and Creole. And he said, no, the explanation. Let's make a prayer. And it took me in his arms and started to think, "Jesus!" And I suddenly felt, "Okay, it's done, it's finished."

The kindly man takes Morgan by the arms and guides him back to the house where he sits him carefully at the table. He calls for his wife, who comes in and begins examining Morgan's wounds. Then, seeing the extent of his hunger and dehydration, she provides him with water and food. The couple Morgan learns unnamed Moise and Rachele, or man, Moise and Manna Rachele, to use the local honorifics.

She gave me, like, a huge plate of rice, corn, beans. She prepared me a cafe Timo, Timo Coffee, which is big, light coffee, full of sugar, man Moise, climb a coconut tree, came back with two coconuts, open one, open all the peanuts, cut them, took off everything. That was heavy and gave me this coconut, I had this coconut juice. And this wife, Manna Rachele, she gave me the plate and she watched me eating, like, if I were her kids.

She was full of love. When I saw her eyes, it was so sweet, so nice, so warm.

He is overwhelmed by their kindness. But he's still in critical need of proper medical attention.

The gash on his head is gaping and at risk of infection. His broken bones need setting and strapping, and there is every chance he sustained in terminal bleeding in the fall. The nearest hospital is back on the mainland. Morgan doesn't have a phone himself and trying to communicate all this to Man Moise and Manna Rachele is proving difficult. So they quickly

They called Manna Attie and Manna Attie have many things. So she have this phone with battery

“and credit and she's speaking English because she worked with NGOs. So she came and”

we walk like 10 minutes to find network and we call my friends and we manage that my friends we send a small plane to what island. Rescue is on its way. Then, before Morgan can probably thank Manna Attie for her help, she revealed something that leaves some speechless. She said, "Sorry, Man Moise, I have to go. I have to go because it's

funeral of my daughter." And I felt, "What do you say? It's funeral of my daughter."

And I feel like, "Do you take these hours with me during your daughter's funeral?" She said, "Yes. She's dead. You are alive." I was really emotional crying and I was really saying, "When I T, I don't know how to say thank you to you. How has total shock and I really feel like I'm still not the good man. I want to do me and this person really show me a part of the path, the real path."

Some other villages helped to carry Morgan down the hill to the beach where a small plane soon touches down. He is loaded aboard and flown straight to hospital in Delhi on the mainland where doctors check his vitals and restore his bodily fluids. After some time recovering his strength, Morgan returns to France where he undergoes further medical treatment. Once his injuries have healed, he doesn't go back to East Timor straight away.

Instead, he starts to reflect on the ordeal, putting pen to paper and recounting his experience. In the process of writing, he is forced to think deeply about his time on the island and about what allowed him to maintain such calmness in the face of death. Ultimately, he believes it comes down the one thing.

“I think the secret ingredient that really help me to show life, I think it's joy.”

I think if, at that moment, I was sad or terrified, or having bad mood, I would love day like it's pretty sure. But with a joy, I was so light and said, "Okay, I'm an adventurer." And it's nice. If I die, I will die in a nice way. You know, I let all the problems go.

And joy is, I understood that it's so powerful. And very so much more than in life where we just

forget and lost joy when the joy of life is away. It's so heavy. Morgan keeps writing, eventually completing his book, telling the story of those five days he spent clinging to life in the jungle. But it isn't just his story. The real heroes of the tale are the local people who help save his life. Man, Moise, Manorashel and Manor Ati. In the end, Morgan says this was the real motivator behind his book, to share with others

“the extraordinary kindness of these islanders. I think it was the biggest thing of this”

story of this accident. And at that moment, I really feel, "Okay, I have to come back and write the book." The book is now not a joke. It's a duty, humanity and man Moise and Manorakel. All of those people and how we do after 500 years of occupation, colonization from Portuguese and Indonesian, even everyone kills their peoples. They stayed human. I have to tell this. I have to share and say, "Hey, very country-called

is Timor and people there are hard." Next time on real survival stories, we tell the unique tale of Pete Takeda. A story that combines extreme locations, extraordinary natural phenomena and espionage. In September 2005, Pete is leading a small party deep into the Himalayas.

of a spy movie, to find proof of plutonium-powered surveillance devices rumored to have been

“planted in the mountains by the CIA some 40 years earlier. But when the might of nature turns”

against Pete and his team, all their priorities shift, unable to descend due to the wild weather,

the climb has become trapped, buried alive beneath hundreds of tons of snow. With no way out,

“there only hope of survival is to stay alive long enough for the storm to clear.”

That's next time on real survival stories. You can listen right now without waiting and without

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