Raul Fernando Gomez had been found alive after being lost in the Andes Mountains for four months. The 58-year-old Uruguayan was attempting to cross the mountain range from Chile to Argentina by bicycle when his bike broke down. Gomez then tried to finish his trek on foot, but became lost after two early season snowfalls.
Gomez told authorities that he lived off sugar and raisins he had with him, food cached in mountain shelters and rats that he captured.
Argentinian officials from the north-western province of San Juan stumbled upon Gómez in a shelter 2,840 metres (9,318 feet) when they travelled there to record snow levels.
“The truth is that this is a miracle. We still can’t believe it,” San Juan governor Jose Luis Gioja told the local Diario de Cuyo newspaper. “We let him talk to his wife, his mother and his daughter … I asked him: ‘Are you a believer?’ He told me, ‘no, but now I am.'”