Annette Herfkens, the sole survivor of a 1992 plane crash in Vietnam, has described her harrowing ordeal of crawling through the jungle for 40 hours after the accident. The crash killed all 31 other passengers and crew, including her fiancé, Willem van der Pas.
Herfkens, then a trader, was on a holiday with van der Pas when their small plane crashed into a mountain ridge. She regained consciousness to find a dead stranger on top of her and van der Pas nearby, also dead. Despite suffering 12 broken bones in her hip and knee, a collapsed lung and a broken jaw, she managed to crawl out of the wreckage and away from the site.
For eight days, Herfkens lay injured in the jungle, surrounded by the sounds of dying survivors. She focused on the beauty of the leaves and sunlight to block out the horror, including a worm crawling from a dead man's eye and leeches on her own skin. She later described this as a form of mindfulness, accepting her situation and concentrating on what was present rather than what was lost.
Herfkens was eventually rescued and carried down the mountain on a hammock. She has since written a book, 'Turbulence: A True Story of Survival', and is working on a film adaptation. Reflecting on the experience, she says the jungle has become her 'safe place', a mental refuge she returns to in times of stress.
