Mum of rescued Hong Kong teen says his ‘strong willpower’ kept him alive amid 7-day search, but experts call case ‘abnormal’
- Amy Chan, mother of Matthew Tsang, says son recovering in hospital after being lost in country park
- But veteran mountaineer Chung Kin-man, who conquered Everest in 2003, says surviving alone in wilderness for week without equipment very unusual
The mother of a Hong Kong teenager has said her son’s “strong willpower” helped him to survive seven days lost in a country park, but experts have pointed to unanswered questions about the case and called it “abnormal”.
Amy Chan, the mother of 17-year-old Matthew Tsang Hin-chit, on Thursday said she was grateful to everyone who had helped bring her son home safe after he went missing when he left the campus at the Diocesan Boys’ School in Mong Kok on October 4.
“Matthew was lost and stuck in the woods for [seven] days and managed to survive using his strong willpower and drinking water from the stream,” she said.
The weekend’s typhoon and rainstorm had also left her son “thoroughly soaked and [he] realised he might fall sick if he continued to wear his clothes, so decided to take them off and hide in the bushes to shelter from the rain and wind”, she added.
The seven-day rescue effort to find Matthew involved hundreds of police, firefighters and volunteers, who searched his last known location, Ma On Shan Country Park, and only paused when Typhoon Koinu brought stormy weather to the city over the weekend.
Rescuers deployed drones and artificial intelligence tools in their search, taking more than 10,000 photos to scour the landscape for features not shown on the map, including temporary shelters, water sources and areas with thicker foliage.
Authorities said Matthew was found by firefighters on Wednesday afternoon in undergrowth about 100 metres (328 feet) from a hiking trail near Lo Shue Tin inside the park, with no shirt, trousers or shoes.