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An Arizona man and his dog are rescued after being stranded in the desert for six days. Mario Castro and his 14-year-old dog, Zoe, were headed to visit Castro’s mother in El Paso, Texas. They were nearly to the destination when his truck hit a rock and got stuck on a dirt road. Castro decided to get out of the vehicle and look for help.
With no one close by, he started walking with his dog hoping to get back to the road. They walked through the rocky desert for several days in intense heat approaching 100 degrees. “It was very difficult, and I was almost at the verge of death,” he recalls. “I would get so thirsty … but then I would find a watering hole, and get some water, and rehydrate again, and then head out again.” Just when they thought they couldn’t go any further, help finally arrived.
Frank Martinez was out exploring off-road trails with his wife when he spotted Castro and Zoe. He offered them food and water and drove them to a nearby hotel. The next day, he returned to check on the two and helped get their abandoned car. Castro knows that if it wasn’t for Martinez, he wouldn’t have survived, and Martinez is just as happy to have stumbled across them before it was too late. “I think about what if I didn’t get there yesterday,” he says. “I don’t think he would be here today, as bad as he was.”
Source: Today