Lost in the wilderness

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Lost in the wilderness
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Gene Penaflor was separated from his hunting
buddy on September 24. At first, he tried find
his way on foot out of the Mendocino National
Forest, a vast nature preserve in northern
California. But he was disoriented by the massive
area and quickly gave up. He stayed put in hope
that someone would find him. In his 19 days cut
off from humanity, it snowed several times, and
temperatures dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit
some nights. For almost three weeks he subsisted
on a diet of lizards, frogs and squirrels. After
being reported missing, nearly two dozen country
and state law enforcement offices set up a search
party. They scoured the mountain range on foot
and with rescue dogs, and in the air for four
days, but they found no clues leading to
Penaflor. Eventually, a hunter called the
sheriff's office, saying he and his large group
of friends could hear a man crying for help from
down in a valley. They cut poles from trees and
affixed their coats to them to fashion a
makeshift stretcher to carry him out. Penaflor
focused on small game, foraged for algae in a
stream and drank water from a creek. To stay dry,
he crouched under a fallen tree, and to keep
warm, he made a fire and packed dry leaves and
grass around his body. Penaflor made it to a
hospital, where his family surrounded his bed.
Doctors checked him over, released him and he is
now back home.
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In Other News

• The partial government shutdown entered its 14th
  day Monday, just three days before the U.S.
  government bumps up against its projected
  borrowing limit. Talks both on ending the
  shutdown and on avoiding the debt ceiling have
  shifted to the Senate, as Senate Majority Leader
  Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
  along with other top senators, began discussions
  this weekend. Congress has until Thursday, when
  the United States hits the debt ceiling.
• Malala Yousafzai lived in an area of Pakistan,
  the Swat Valley, where the Taliban government had
  effectively taken over governance, and imposed
  its harsh ideology of no music, no visible
  women, and certainly no girls in school. For
  defying their will, and refusing to stay silent,
  the Taliban tried to murder Malala, then a
  15-year-old girl. Miraculously, she survived, and
  has continued speaking truth to power about
  education, extremism, and equality.