IPOH, Oct 24 —  He was flung out of a car following an accident and ended in a 20m-deep ravine and suffered broken limbs.

Through his sheer will to survive, A. Nicholas Andrew crawled through thick jungle for three days and drank drain water while praying to be rescued.

The 33-year-old Civil Defence Department worker was driving with a friend, R. Thiyagarajan, 34, from Tapah to Bidor on Sunday to send invitations to his younger sister’s wedding later this month, when the car swerved off the road and landed in a ravine at Km62.8 of the Ipoh-Kuala Lumpur trunk road near Tanah Mas.

Andrew was discovered by orang asli villagers at a nearby oil palm plantation on Wednesday evening and was rushed to Tapah Hospital.

He recounted the incident to Tapah police, who found Thiyagarajan’s body at the exact spot he told them, pinned under the vehicle.

Andrew said he was unable to recall much about the crash, which police said occurred at about 3am on Sunday.

“All I remember is that I lost control of the car. The next thing I remember was opening my eyes in a 20m-deep ravine,” he said when met at the Teluk Intan Hospital, where he was transferred to yesterday.

“I realised that I had been thrown out of the car and my first instinct was to call for my friend. But he never replied.”

Andrew recounted that he tried to stand up but he buckled and realised his right arm and right leg were broken.

At this point, he decided he would not die alone in a forest and tried to pull himself but failed because of his injuries.

He then began dragging himself along the forest floor and struggled to search for anyone who could rescue him.

“All I found on the first day was a small drain running along the ravine. It was raining but I was unable to gather any rainwater to drink, so I just gulped down the drain water. I was just so thirsty,” he said.

“Throughout the day I kept calling out to my friend but I didn’t get a reply. I was hoping he had managed to escape and could save me.”

Andrew said he spent his nights perched on trees and on a sandbank.

On Monday, the rain continued but he crawled further upstream as his condition worsened.

His cuts and wounds became infected and he was unable to drink by Tuesday because his mouth was full of cuts.

“I fashioned a straw out of a hollow blade of grass and sipped water from another drain,” he said.

Despite his worsening condition, Andrew said, he reached a larger part of the waterway on Wednesday and it was then that he saw a man.

He frantically called out to the man and initially thought he had not been seen as the man walked away.

“My heart broke as I thought that my luck had run out. But he came back with some of his friends. A short while later, they managed to locate me after hearing my cries,” he said.

Tapah OCPD Supt Som Sak Din Keliaw said Thiyagarajan’s body was sent to the Tapah Hospital for post-mortem and the case was being investigated for reckless driving.

Andrew’s wife, M. Ratna, 34, said she had not slept or eaten during the period her husband went missing.

“I knew something was amiss when he didn’t call me because he would always call to let me know where he was,” she said.

“I made a police report the next day.

“Throughout the three days, I combed the news for any sign of him but I didn’t find anything. My children kept asking me where their father was and all I could say was: ‘He knows how to take care of himself and he will come home’.

“Thankfully, I was right.”