The love a good mother has for her children is an unbreakable bond and extends beyond life itself. One very good mother recently made the ultimate sacrifice for her children, placing her in the ranks of other motherly heroes who have gone before her.
Mom-of-two, 40-year-old Mariely Chacón, was out on a boat with friends and her family on Sept. 3.
According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Chacón’s father, Humberto Chacón, said the trip was supposed to be “a family trip to entertain the children,” but turned into something much more horrible.
They were traveling from Higuerote, Venezuela, to Tortuga Island in the Caribbean when their boat was hit by a wave and broke apart.
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In the scramble, Chacón was able to get her 6-year-old son, Jose David, and her 2-year-old daughter, Maria Beatriz Camblor Chacon, into a lifeboat.
Mom, children and their 25-year-old nanny, Verónica Martinez, floated for four days before being rescued. They had no flares, GPS or radio and were left to the mercy of the elements.
On the evening of Sept. 6, someone spotted the floating group off La Orchila, an island. A search team was assembled, but by the time the four were picked up at around 2:10 p.m. on Sept. 7, the mother had been dead for several hours.
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When rescuers approached them, the two children were still clinging to their mother’s body, and the nanny was inside a cooler, trying to escape the sun.
Chacón had breastfed her children to keep them alive and drank her own urine, ultimately perishing from organ failure caused by dehydration, according to The Sun.
“The mother who died kept her children alive by breastfeeding them and drinking her own urine,” a spokesman for Venezuela’s National Maritime Authority INEA said, according to The Sun. “She died three or four hours before the rescue from dehydration after drinking no water for three days.”
The three survivors were taken to the hospital where they were treated for first-degree burns and dehydration.
Remis David Camblor, Chacón’s husband and the children’s father, is still missing, as are four others who were on board at the time of the accident. Rescuers have little hope of finding them.
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Chacón’s funeral, held on Sept. 11, was shared on social media, and many have paid their respects.
Now many are hailing Chacón as the hero she was, for making the ultimate sacrifice and giving of herself to save her children.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.