Mauro Prosperi: Lost in the Sahara in the Middle of the Marathon des Sables

01A start like any other

Mauro Prosperi is 39. A former Olympic-level modern pentathlete, he is also a police officer, according to Australia's ABC. He signs up for the Marathon des Sables: about 250 km in six days across the Moroccan Sahara. The first three days go fine. Day four is the longest stage. And in this desert, the thermometer can brush 50 °C at midday.

02The day the course markers disappear

A sandstorm rises in the middle of the stage and lasts about eight hours. Instead of sheltering, Prosperi keeps moving. When the wind drops, he is alone and the course is gone. He sleeps in the dunes, then walks. On the second day a helicopter passes close by: he fires his only distress flare, and the pilot doesn't see him. He eventually finds a marabout, a small empty Muslim shrine, and takes shelter there.

03Mauro Prosperi's survival story: living on almost nothing

Everything that follows comes from his own account, given to the BBC and ABC among others. He keeps his urine in his water bottle, uses it to cook his rations, and eventually drinks it. Bats nest in the shrine's tower: he catches them and eats them raw, he says (and drinks their blood, he tells the BBC). He swallows snakes too. When a plane passes, he sets his bag on fire to signal it. The plane leaves without having seen him.

There is a dark side too, and we won't dodge it. At his lowest, convinced he won't get out, Prosperi leaves a note for his wife and tries to end his life. According to his account to the BBC, he slashes his wrists, but his blood, thickened by dehydration, barely flows. He wakes up the next day and, he says, decides to do everything he can to survive. If you are going through a hard time, talk to someone: in France, 3114, the national suicide-prevention number, answers free of charge, 24/7.

04A little shepherd girl, then Algeria

He sets off again. After eight days he finally comes across water: a large puddle at the bottom of a wadi, according to ABC, where he can barely swallow and drinks in small sips. Goat tracks lead him to a little girl minding a herd. Frightened, she runs to warn her family. A nomad camp welcomes him with goat's milk. He is then taken, blindfolded, to a military base, then to a hospital in Tindouf, he tells the BBC. He is in Algeria, 291 km from the course.

Meanwhile, back in Italy, his wife was already preparing for the worst: according to the BBC, her first question on the phone was whether he had already arranged her funeral.

05The toll, and the debate

He reaches the hospital weighing about 45 kg. ABC mentions 16 liters of IV fluids. His liver is seriously damaged; his kidneys held up, according to the BBC and Discover magazine. It takes him about two years to recover.

Not everyone buys the story. In 1998, the race's founder, Patrick Bauer, called it physiologically impossible and suspected that Prosperi had been found much earlier, ABC reports; Prosperi has always denied it. On the other hand, again according to ABC, a documentary crew went back to the shrine in 1995 and found Prosperi's belongings and bat skeletons there. Durations also vary from one account to another (from nine to more than ten days). What is certain: he disappeared during the race in 1994, and he was indeed found in Algeria.

The ending is almost crazier. Prosperi came back to run the Marathon des Sables, and not just once: six starts, according to ABC.