99-pound man recounts survival story

DARWIN, Australia – A skeletal man claimed he survived for three months in the Australian Outback by eating frogs and lizards.

Ricky Megee, 35, from the east coast city of Brisbane, was severely malnourished when he was found sheltering on the bank of a dam on a remote cattle property in the Northern Territory, near the Western Australia border, in Australia’s tropical north on April 5.

“(I ate) leeches out of the dam, frogs, grasshoppers, any sort of bugs that came within distance for me,” Megee told reporters Thursday in the Northern Territory capital Darwin after his rescue, adding that he also grilled lizards.

He told some media his car broke down, but told others that he was carjacked.

Megee said his ordeal began in late January as he was driving on a remote inland highway toward the coastal city of Port Hedland in Western Australia.

Police have yet to find the car and authorities have not verified his version of events.

Megee was in the Outback “for a considerable time,” police said. Len Notaras, Darwin Hospital’s medical director, said Megee – who is 6 feet 3 inches tall – arrived at the hospital weighing 99 pounds. He was treated for six days and released Tuesday.

Megee was interviewed by police while he was in hospital.

Mark Clifford, a cattle ranch manager, said Megee was weak when found by his farmhands.

“He was skeletal, he was really emaciated and when the boys found him he could only walk and fall and stumble,” Clifford said.

A police investigation has not uncovered any evidence “to suggest any criminal offenses have been committed,” a police statement said.