Having been left in a holding cell and forgotten, Austrian Andreas Mihavecz went without food or water for so long that he became the Guinness World Record holder for time survived without sustenance.
Mihavecz’s 1979 ordeal saw him picked up by police at 18 and placed in a holding cell at a local government building. He had been working as an apprentice bricklayer at the time.
He was taken into custody by mistake as he had been the passenger in a crashed car, but the mistakes didn’t end there. The three police officers responsible for him all claimed to have forgotten he was being held, each believing their colleagues had already released him.
It’s not as if they didn’t get a clue he might still be there, as his mother had come questioning what had become of her son. They ignored her.
As his cell was in a basement, Mihavecz’s cries for help went unheard. He was only discovered when an officer caught a bad smell wafting from the cell he was in.
After being rescued, Mihavecz took months to recover. He was initially incarcerated on April 1st, but he was only found on April 18th. In total, he had been trapped for 18 full days.
Over those 18 days he had lost around 24kg of body weight, and he was close to death when he was finally released.
Markus Weber, Heinz Ceheter and Erwin Schneider were the neglectful officers in question, and they were charged in a criminal trial where they blamed each other.
They received a fine of around €2,000 as the trial couldn’t determine which of them was most culpable.
The ordeal was horrifying for Mihavecz, but he nevertheless displayed a kind of physical fortitude that is difficult to explain.
Human bodies can survive for up to three weeks without food, but even a few days without water can prove fatal.
He claimed he was able to stave off the devastating effects of dehydration by licking condensed water from the walls of his cell.
Later, he was awarded 250,000 Austrian schillings in compensation.
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Rachael Davis