Robertson Family Turtle Blood Enemas

A British family survived a shipwreck for 37 days in the Pacific Ocean by taking enemas of turtle blood and rainwater collected in the bottom of their lifeboat. In 1971 the Robertson family set out from Falmouth on the yacht Lucette, and about 18 months later a school of killer whales struck and sank the boat about 200 miles from the Galápagos Islands, forcing them onto a leaky raft and then into a 9-foot dinghy. As their meager supply of drinking water ran out, the only water left was a poisonous mix of rainwater, blood, and turtle offal that pooled in the dinghy. Drawing on her nursing background, Lyn Robertson made makeshift enema tubes from ladder rungs and used them to give the family enemas with this contaminated water, which they could not safely drink, until a Japanese fishing boat finally rescued them after 37 days adrift.

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