Left for Dead: How I Survived 71 Days in the Outback

Gripping and inspiring story of how one man endured almost three months alone in the desert living on nothing but insects and frogs. An extraordinary story of survival in the outback.

‘No shoes, no vehicle, no food, no water and no idea. I’d always been one of those blokes who ragged on people who found themselves lost in the desert. Now I was one of those people. It was harsh, desolate country for a man all alone in bare feet. Nevertheless, I started to walk. And walk. The more I walked, I figured, the less distance I’d have to travel to get found. It was faulty logic, but it was the best I could come up with.’

In April 2006 the news broke of an amazing feat of survival by a white man in one of the most inhospitable areas of Australia. Ricky Megee was found sheltering by a dam on a remote cattle property in the Northern Territory.

After being abducted on the Buntine Highway then left for dead, Ricky had walked for ten days in bare feet through unforgiving terrain in blistering heat. Stumbling upon a dam, he set up camp there and survived for almost three months on leeches, grasshoppers, frogs and plants, losing 60 kilograms in the process.

In Left for Dead, Ricky Megee gives a full and frank account of his abduction, survival and extraordinary rescue. Vividly told, it’s a gripping and yet inspiring story of how one man endures a terrible ordeal and lives to tell the tale.