A man survived more than a year adrift at sea, only to return to land and find himself hit with a $1 million court case.
When Jose Salvador Alvarenga and Ezequiel Cordoba set out from Mexico for a two day fishing trip together in November 2012 they could have no idea of the ordeal that awaited them.
What had intended to be a two-day trip turned into an ordeal lasting some 15 months and which would claim the life of the 22-year-old Cordoba.
The boat that the two castaways were stranded on. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
After setting sail on an eight-meter boat, the pair were hit by a violent storm which knocked them off course, destroyed their communication systems, and knocked their supplies overboard.
The final words that Alvarenga sent to land before being cut off were radioed to the boat’s owner, saying: “Come now, I am really getting ****** out here.”
Cordoba had panicked according to Alvarenga, and tried to throw himself overboard where sharks were already circling.
For several months the pair were able to subsist by catching fish and birds, as well as drinking rainwater and turtle blood.
Tragically, Cordoba died after eating a bird that had a poisonous snake in its stomach, but not before making Alvarenga promise not to eat his corpse.
Alvarenga claims that he kept Cordoba’s body with him for six days.
Alvarenga came ashore again in the Marshall Islands. (GIFF JOHNSON/AFP via Getty Images)
He said he would even talk to it, until he realised that he was losing his mind and threw the body overboard.
He told The Telegraph: “I could see my death was going to be very, very slow.”
By a miracle Alvarenga survived, being washed up in the Marshall Islands in January 2014, some 15 months after he went missing.
A visit to Cordoba’s mother Rosalia Rios went badly wrong, and then things only got worse when Alvarenga’s former lawyer sued him for $1 million after he signed a book deal.
Not only that, but Cordoba’s family also launched a $1 million legal action against Alvarenga alleging that he had engaged in cannibalism.
The family of Cordoba launched a $1,000,000 lawsuit against Alvarenga
Alvarenga strongly denied eating Cordoba, claiming they had made a pact not to eat each other if one of them died.
They also demanded 50 percent of the proceeds of Alvarenga’s book, called 438 Days, which was published in October 2015.
Ricardo Cucalon, Mr Alvarenga’s new lawyer, said: “I believe that this demand is part of the pressure from this family to divide the proceeds of royalties.
“Many believe the book is making my client a rich man, but what he will earn is much less than people think.”
Ultimately, only Alvarenga himself will ever know for certain what happened.