| 词条 | Ricky Megee |
| 释义 |
Ricky Megee (born 1971) is an Australian, most notable for having been stranded in the Outback and surviving for 71 days in 2006. Megee later gave contradictory statements as to how he came to be stranded crossing the Northern Territory and Western Australia. On one occasion he said that his car broke down, and on another that he had been carjacked by an armed gang. However, a doctor later confirmed that Megee's appearance was consistent with having lived in extreme conditions. Like most deserts, the Tanami can reach {{convert|40|C|F}} during the day but still be very cold at night. Megee made his own primitive shelters and survived by drinking rainwater and eating small animals and available vegetation for nourishment. He was eventually discovered by a group of station hands near Katherine, Northern Territory, and taken to Darwin for medical assistance. Although some doubts were later raised as to the exact chain of events as Megee related them, the police did not find evidence that a criminal offence had occurred. Early lifeRicky Megee was born in 1971 in Gippsland, Victoria; he later described his childhood as a happy one, until the family moved to Melbourne, where his father later killed himself. Megee worked at a variety of jobs. He was, variously, a carpet salesman, prawn fisherman, nightclub doorman, and an electrician. He eventually became a bailiff. Eventually, he went to jail after being involved in a fight in Perth,{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} as well as for drug offences.{{sfn|Squires|2006b}} In 2006 he was 35 years old{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} and living in Queensland.{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} Journey to Port Hedland and attackIn January 2006{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} Megee had been offered work in a government department in Port Hedland,{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} Western Australia.{{sfn|BBC News|2006}} He accepted the job, and set off on the long drive, which he had made multiple times before.{{sfn|Rajok|2009}} Driving a 2001 Mitsubishi Challenger{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} he took the Buntine Highway, which for much of his journey was a desert track{{sfn|Squires|2006b}} across the outback of the Northern Territory.{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} The events leading to Megee being stranded are somewhat confused, and indeed, Megee's version of how events unfolded changed significantly over time. He first told his rescuers that his car had broken down,{{sfn|BBC News|2006}} but then, The Washington Post reported, he claimed "that he'd been drugged by hitchhikers and left for dead".{{sfn|Rupar|Fisher|2014}} Megee later elaborated on how this scenario unfolded, saying he had picked up a lone Aboriginal{{sfn|BBC News|2006}} hitchhiker between the towns of Kalkaringi and Halls Creek. He believed that at some point the hitchhiker drugged Megee's drink at some point.{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} Megee said that although he normally always opened his own drinks from the car refrigerator, on this occasion he allowed his passenger to open one for him.{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} Later, in his 2010 autobiography,{{sfn|Allen and Unwin|2010}} Megee said that there had been three men sitting on the roadside, who had run out of petrol, and that he had offered to give one of them a lift to a petrol station.{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} Megee also posited that he could have been stabbed with a drugged-syringe during a struggle.{{sfn|Squires|2006b}} Either way, Megee later recalled feeling increasingly "dazed and confused", and then blacked out before he recovered consciousness hours later.{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} He also said that his attackers did not leave him immediately: they over-powered and stunned him. He later awoke in their camp. They had a gun, wrote Megee, but never used it; they did bring him water. After an unknown period, the carjackers lifted camp and disappeared.{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} Before they left, they stole his shoes,{{sfn|Megee|McLean|2008|p=2}} but left him with $12.30 which had been in his pocket.{{sfn|Rajok|2009}} When he regained consciousness, he said, he was in a hole, covered in black plastic, which had had "some rocks and dirt thrown on top".{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} Megee suggested that it was only the attempts by four{{sfn|BBC News|2006}} dingoes to claw him that woke him up.{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} Journey across the desert{{Quotebox|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|quote=I ate the leeches raw, straight out of the dam, grasshoppers I just ate them...But the only thing I really sort of had to cook was the frogs which (I) slipped onto a bit of wire and stuck the wire on top of my humpy, let the sun dry them out a fair bit until they were a bit crispy and then just ate them.|qalign=center|salign=left|source=Ricky Megee talking to ABC Radio|width=25em|quoted=yes}}Megee walked for ten days through the northeastern fringe of the Tanami Desert.{{sfn|Squires|2006a}} He often lost consciousness through heat exhaustion,{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} as temperatures regularly went above {{convert|40|C|F}}.{{sfn|Polley|2018|p=96}} According to Mark Clifford, a local man who later witnessed Megee's arrival, although the temperatures were high, it was also the middle of the wet season, which was in Megee's favour. When combined with the abundance of small wild animals and Megee's "hardy constitution", his chances of survival were, with hindsight, relatively good.{{sfn|Jones|2006}} However, it was never clearly established precisely how Megee became as lost as he did.{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} Megee said that he survived by eating leeches, insects,{{sfn|Rupar|Fisher|2014}} snakes, ants and lizards,{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} and edible plants.{{sfn|Mann|Pezzullo|2012|p=106}} He drank water from "various dams and waterholes" and scavenged in the bush{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} every evening, eating "one meal a day, just enough to stay alive".{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} When water was unavailable, he drank his urine after chilling it to suppress the flavour.{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} Megee—"baked in the day and frozen at night"{{sfn|Mann|Pezzullo|2012|p=106}}—created temporary shelters from the sun out of old branches, and eventually found a decrepit windmill.{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} Megee said that he made "a little humpy{{refn|A humpy is described in the Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms as "an Aboriginal bark hut [or] any rude shelter or hut".{{sfn|DAC|2018}}|group=note}} out of a feed trough that was at some cattle yards, obviously a mustering point, I thought to myself, so I've dragged it up on top of the dam, flipped it over and dug a hole and just lived in there for 10 weeks."{{sfn|Kerin|2006}} Megee became dangerously weak, to the extent that he was unable to travel as far on his daily foraging expeditions.{{sfn|Mann|Pezzullo|2012|p=106}} At one point he suffered an abscess of the tooth that—weakened as he was—could have been fatal,{{sfn|Polley|2018|p=96}} and which he prised out of his mouth with his car keys.{{sfn|Rajok|2009}} Rescue and recovery{{Quotebox|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|quote="It's a bit unclear what the trouble was with the car, and why he ended up off the road. He's walked for about 10 days to get to where he is before he's realised that he's got to set himself up some shelter and start trying to get some food into himself. He basically sat where he was for about 10 weeks.{{sfn|Squires|2006a}}|qalign=center|salign=left|source=Mark Clifford, manager of the Birrindudu cattle station|width=25em|align=left|quoted=yes}}Megee was eventually discovered about {{convert|50|km|mi}} from Birrindudu Station, about {{convert|500|km|mi}} southwest of Katherine, Northern Territory.{{sfn|BBC News|2006}} His rescuers were local station hands{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} and their trainees,{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} known as jackaroos.{{sfn|Squires|2006a}} By now, Megee was starving, sunburnt,{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} and suffering from malnutrition and exposure.{{sfn|Jones|2006}} Birrindudu Station manager, Mark Clifford, described Megee as "just a walking skeleton" when he was brought to the station,{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} and said that the area he was found in was one of the "most isolated places in Australia".{{sfn|Jones|2006}} On 5 April 2006{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} Megee was flown to the Royal Darwin Hospital,{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} where medical staff described him as "emaciated, but...well hydrated".{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} While in Darwin Hospital, Megee was interviewed by Northern Territory police, although they dismissed suggestions that there was any question of criminal activity on Megee's part.{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}}{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} Indeed, they said they were unable to find any evidence of criminality at all, or even Megee's stolen car.{{sfn|Jones|2006}}{{sfn|Squires|2006a}} Megee discharged himself from hospital after six days.{{sfn|Kerin|2006}} AftermathMegee's Challenger was never recovered,{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} and Megee himself lost {{convert|60|kg|lb}},{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} or over half his original bodyweight,{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} which was over {{convert|100|kg|lb}}.{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} The Sydney Morning Herald subsequently suggested that there were "some doubts" over elements of Megee's account, and reported that Megee was attempting to sell his story to "a commercial television station".{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} It was also reported that the police, too, initially "had doubts about the story because of Megee's previous minor drug convictions".{{sfn|Mann|Pezzullo|2012|p=106}} Megee refuted allegations that his account was in any way misleading and even offered to appear live on television and eat frogs to prove he was telling the truth.{{sfn|Squires|2006b}} ABC Radio reported that Megee had told his story to them for free—although only after trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade the station to match a A$15,000 offer he said he had received from elsewhere.{{sfn|Kerin|2006}} The doctor who treated Megee in Darwin commented that it was "very difficult to either deny or validate" his story, as he had responded so well to the treatment provided by dieticians, nutritionists and physicians.{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} Bush Tucker Man Les Hiddins—considered an expert on outback survival{{sfn|Colvin|2006}}—acknowledged that Megee's survival was not as surprising as might have been thought. It was possible, he said, to survive in the bush for up to three years, and that "there are some areas where it's difficult to survive, and others where you can".{{sfn|Sydney Morning Herald|2006}} For example, the area where Megee was, Hiddins described as "dry country which is, you know, that's pretty severe country in there".{{sfn|Colvin|2006}} Other survival experts credit Megee's survival on his "instinctively solving the basic requirements of water, food and shelter—and adopting a survival mindset that pulled him through".{{sfn|Mann|Pezzullo|2012|p=106}} Megee subsequently wrote a book on his experience and emigrated to Dubai{{sfn|Lamparska|2012}} to work in construction.{{sfn|H&S|2009}} NoteReferences{{Reflist|20em}}Bibliography{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
5 : Living people|1971 births|Survivalists|Australian writers|People from Victoria (Australia) |
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