London:
A United Kingdom teenage backpacker drank his own urine and contact lens fluid to survive for three days after he was lost in the remote Australian outback scrubland in scorching summer, his mother has said.
Eighteen-year-old Sam Woodhead was lost after he set out for a jog from the remote Queensland cattle station where he had worked for less than two weeks.
However, the chance discovery of packets of lenses in his rucksack - put there by his father, helped to keep him going for 72 hours in blistering temperatures of around 40 degree Celsius, the 'Sky News' reported.
The former Brighton College student from London, also used his rugby shorts and other items of clothing to create an SOS sign that led to his rescue.
He was found about five km away from the ranch by rescuers in a helicopter. He had lost two stones in weight and was just hours from death.
"I feel very fortunate to be alive and to be standing here. I know that so many people helped out ... and I genuinely believe that if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here today," he said.
"He tried to drink his own urine. He said he'd run out of the contact lens fluid and the contact lens capsules said they were 69 per cent water. But they'd all gone so the urine had become very, very concentrated," his mother, Claire Derry, said.
"So he said he couldn't stomach it, so he had nothing, he had nothing to keep him going, by the time the helicopter crew got to him," she said.
Derry said Sam had lost weight and his kidneys were not working properly due to dehydration.