For 15 days, Erasto Crisanto Valdez could not see the sun.

He could not tell whether it was morning or night. He had no food, no clear route back to the outside world and no way of knowing how long he had been missing.

All around him was darkness.

Yet somewhere more than 300 feet inside a cave in Mexico, the 31-year-old fisherman had found the two things that gave him a chance to stay alive: an air chamber where he could breathe and water he could drink.

Outside, his family and rescue teams were searching for him.

Against extraordinary odds, they eventually found him alive.

A Fishing Trip Took a Terrifying Turn

Valdez disappeared on July 23 while fishing with his father near San Francisco La Paz in Mexico’s Chimalapas region.

At some point, he entered the water in a cenote — a natural pool connected to an underground cave system — and went beneath the surface.

What happened next became the beginning of a two-week ordeal.

Valdez later explained from his hospital bed that after entering the cave, he turned around and could no longer locate the way out.

He tried swimming in search of an exit, but instead became increasingly lost inside the underground system.

Eventually, he reached an air-filled section of the cave.

That discovery would prove crucial to his survival.

More Than 100 Meters Inside the Cave

As Valdez remained trapped underground, authorities launched a massive effort to find him.

The operation lasted 15 days and extended across land, rivers and the air. Mexico’s Civil Protection agency, Secretariat of Public Security and Secretariat of the Navy-Military were among those involved.

Searchers refused to assume that the missing fisherman was beyond rescue.

Then, on Aug. 7, the long search produced the outcome his family had desperately hoped for.

Valdez was located alive more than 100 meters — approximately 328 feet — inside the cave where he had disappeared.

The Municipal Government of Uxpanapa described the operation as an extraordinary cooperative effort involving multiple levels of government and specialist rescuers.

Video released after the rescue showed team members carrying Valdez on a stretcher through the rugged terrain.

After 15 days underground, he was finally back in daylight.

He Survived Without Food

Finding Valdez alive raised an immediate question: How had he managed to survive for so long?

His answer centered on the environment inside the cave.

There was an air chamber, allowing him to remain above water and breathe. There was also water available inside the cenote, and rainwater helped provide him with something to drink.

Food was another matter.

Valdez went through the ordeal without eating.

By the time he was rescued, he was suffering from severe dehydration and was transported to a local hospital for medical care. Authorities said information about his precise medical condition would remain restricted while specialists assessed and treated him.

Yet the fact that he had survived at all was remarkable enough.

Inside, Time Almost Disappeared

Perhaps one of the most haunting elements of Valdez’s account is how completely the cave changed his sense of time.

There was no sunrise.

No sunset.

No clock marking the hours.

Valdez described the cave as pitch black. He could hear the water but could see virtually nothing around him, leaving him unable to distinguish daytime from nighttime.

The isolation distorted his perception so dramatically that the 15 days underground did not feel like 15 days to him.

He later said the ordeal seemed closer to three days.

That loss of time provides a glimpse into how disorienting his experience became.

Outside the cave, search teams were moving through a two-week operation, his family was waiting for news and authorities were coordinating resources to locate him.

Inside, Valdez existed in near-total darkness with little more than the sound of water and the need to survive.

‘I Couldn’t Find the Exit’

Valdez himself seemed stunned by how events unfolded.

From his hospital bed, he recalled entering the cave and then realizing that he could not retrace his route.

He described swimming without direction as he attempted to escape.

Even afterward, he struggled to explain exactly how he reached the chamber that ultimately kept him alive or how he endured the full 15 days.

Before becoming trapped, he had not known that the life-saving air pocket was there.

The cave also contained flowing water. When thirst — or even hunger — became overwhelming, Valdez said he drank from the cenote.

His survival became a combination of circumstance, endurance and the natural features of the cave itself.

Faith Became Something He Could Hold Onto

There was another element Valdez credited during the long period alone: his faith.

With no light and no clear indication that rescuers were getting closer, he said he continued believing God would help him survive.

It was one of the few things he could cling to while waiting in a place where virtually every familiar reference point had disappeared.

He did not know the date.

He did not know whether it was day or night.

He did not know how close — or far away — rescue might be.

But above ground, people were still searching.

The Municipal Government of Uxpanapa later emphasized that the operation continued because rescuers were determined not to give up before finding him.

Fifteen Days of Searching Ended With the News His Family Wanted

When Valdez was finally brought out on Aug. 7, the rescue ended more than a search operation.

It ended 15 days of uncertainty for his family.

Officials announced that his loved ones would at last be able to reunite with him while doctors continued monitoring his health.

There was still recovery ahead. Fifteen days without food, combined with dehydration and prolonged confinement underground, had taken a serious physical toll.

But the most important question had already been answered.

He was alive.

Valdez had gone beneath the water during what began as a fishing trip and disappeared into a cave so dark that he lost track of time itself. He had tried to swim his way back, failed to find the exit and ended up surviving in an air chamber he had never known existed.

For two weeks, the outside world could not reach him.

Then, after an extensive search across land, water and air, rescuers finally did.

What Valdez remembers from those 15 days is darkness, water and faith.

What his family received at the end of them was something far simpler — the chance to bring him home.