Aerial view from the Tortuga Island, Venezuela, south of the Caribbean Sea. This is the spot where the boat that was carrying the family capsized. Juan Barreton/AFP via Getty Images
After a boat capsized, a mother in Venezuela died trying to save her children.
Mariely Chacn, who was on a lifeboat for several days, drank her urine to breastfeed her children while she was drifting.
Rescuers located the children aged 2 and 6 who were still holding on to their mother, who had died from dehydration.
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Newsweek reported that a Venezuelan woman was hailed as a hero after she saved her children's lives when the boat on which they were travelling capsized. They had been left to drift in the ocean for four days.
Mariely Chacn and her husband, Paul, were on a pleasure cruise, 6 and 2 years old, from Higuerote, Venezuela with five others when a huge wave ripped the boat's hull on September 3.
The group was forced to spend four days on the water in scorching heat, adrift on a small boat.
Newsweek reported that Chacn used her urine to keep her children alive. This allowed her breastfeed her babies.
Rescuers found the children, Jose David and Maria Beatriz Camblor Chacn alive earlier in the week. The children were found holding on to their mother who had succumbed to dehydration.
According to the New York Post, a spokesperson for Instituto Nacional de los Espacios Acuticos said that "the mother who died kept her kids alive by nursing them and drinking her urine." She died from dehydration three to four hours after she had not drank water for three days.
The lifeboat also found Veronica Martinez, the children's nanny at age 25, alive and well. According to the New York Post, she was treated for dehydration and first-degree burns.
The five other people, including the father of the children, are still unknown. According to the spokesperson for INEA, there is little chance of them being found.
The nation has been shocked by the news of Chacn's passing. Her funeral was held September 11, and it was streamed on YouTube.
According to Newsweek, her father Humberto Chacn said that the pleasure cruise was "simply an family trip to entertain children."
Insider has the original article.
