Eighteen-year-old Sam Derry-Woodhead got lost while jogging on a remote property in the central Queensland state near the town of Longreach on Tuesday. He survived by drinking contact lens fluid and his own urine.

 

　　His mother, Claire Derry, visited him at Longreach Hospital after arriving in the town. She said her son looked well.

 

　　"He looks fantastic. He's suntanned. His mouth isn't blistered. He looks great. He's thinner and questionably a lot thinner than when I last saw him. The only concern is that his kidneys are not quite functioning normally, and his blood's not normal. But that, the doctor says, is completely typical of somebody who's been completely dehydrated."

 

　　Derry described how her son managed to survive the ordeal.

 

　　"He said that by the time he started drinking his own, 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 percent water, but they'd all gone. So the urine had become very, very concentrated and so he said he couldn't stomach it. So he had nothing to keep him going by the time the helicopter crew got to him."

 

　　Inspector Mike Curtin from Queensland State Police has warned other young people not to put their lives at risk while looking for an adventure.

 

　　"It's one of those things. and I think there's a lesson to be learned here from any of these young fellows. ..Never take the harshest Australian environment and our climatic conditions here for granted."

 

　　Curtin said in order to find Sam, a group of 50 people had searched an area of about 500 square kilometers of ''extremely harsh terrain'' in temperatures that reached 39 degrees Celsius.