While Turkish rescue teams are still searching for survivors under the rubble of the devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, and although several days have passed, quite a few questions have arisen about the possibility that the victims will survive without food and water for days in the freezing cold.
While many doctors and experts agreed that a person can survive without water for a maximum of five days, one of the Turkish survivors, 62-year-old Hossein Berber, who suffers from diabetes, revealed that he had to drink his own urine to survive, after being stuck under the rubble of his home in the city of Antakya, province Hatay, South Turkey.
What does medicine say about drinking urine?
There is no doubt that doctors do not recommend or advise drinking urine under any circumstances, because it contains toxic substances that harm our body, and for this reason it is eliminated naturally. Deniz Gezer, a specialist in internal medicine at a hospital in Mersin, confirmed that urine is a toxic liquid. In an interview with “Reuters”, he said: “We do not recommend patients to drink urine, because the liquid does not meet our needs as humans anyway, in addition to the fact that it contains toxic substances.”
The doctor also noted that the greatest difficulty the victims under the ruins struggled with was the low temperature that dropped below zero, especially during the night. It is worth noting that the rescue forces are still searching for more survivors under the rubble in the ten areas affected by the devastating earthquake, while the death toll continues to rise.
Search for survivors among the ruins of the buildings after the earthquake in Turkey (Photo: Reuters)