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Juliane Koepcke (1954 - )
German-Peruvian mammalogist who specialises in bats.
In 1971, at 17 years of age, she became famous for being
the sole survivor of a commercial plane crash in the
Peruvian Amazon rainforest. When the plane was hit by lightning,
she fell 2 miles to the ground while strapped in her seat.
With multiple injuries including a concussion, broken collarbone,
and a torn knee ligament, she walked for 11 days alone
in the jungle until she reached an inhabited camp.
In 2010, Koepcke wrote that "I had nightmares for a long time,
for years, and of course the grief about my mother's death
and that of the other people came back again and again.
The thought 'why was I the only survivor?'
haunts me. It always will."
Her 2011 autobiography is entitled When I Fell from the Sky.
Famed German filmmaker Werner Herzog made a
1998 documentary about her ordeal called Wings of Hope.
Koepcke accompanied him on a visit to the crash site,
which she described as a "kind of therapy" for her.
