How One Man Got Lost for Almost 200 Miles in a Sandstorm During the World’s Hardest Race

In 1994, Italian ultramarathon runner Mauro Prosperi entered the grueling Marathon des Sables with high hopes of winning. However, his dream turned into a nightmare when he became disoriented and lost in the Sahara Desert on the fourth day of the race. 

The Marathon des Sables pushes even the most skilled athletes to their limits. The numbers alone are staggering: it’s a six-day race that spans about 156 miles through the unforgiving terrain of the Sahara Desert. Participants face scorching temperatures that can exceed 122 degrees Fahrenheit by midday.

Out of all the participants who took part in the race, almost half dropped out before reaching the finish line. The remaining runners had to endure a grueling test of endurance while facing physical challenges like blistered feet, dehydration, and even hallucinations. 

During this remarkable race, a story emerged of a man who lost his way during a sandstorm. Veering almost 186 miles (or 300 kilometers) off-course, he ended up stranded in the desert for a week. In other words, he veered off-course for about 30 miles longer than the entire race itself!

His real name was Mauro Prosperi, a 39-year-old endurance runner from Italy. When he was lost for over a week in the desert, he became almost like a desert snake or scorpion. He followed his instincts and lived by the rules of the sun.

Nowadays, as many as 1,200 people compete in the Marathon des Sables. To ensure their safety, all participants carry GPS with them. Furthermore, the race is carefully monitored from two helicopters, and 45 medical officers stand nearby ready to help those who need it. 

Back in 1994, however, things were different. Rather than a globally recognized race with 1,200 participants, the Marathon des Sables was little known and only attracted 80 runners. Mauro Prosperi was one of them. 

Between his job duties and daily training for the Marathon des Sables, Mauro was rarely (if ever) home. Understandably, this annoyed his wife. As if that wasn’t enough, before starting the race, he even had to sign a form with instructions on where to send his body in case he died during the race. 

The first three days of the marathon went well. Prosperi covered nearly 60 miles, mostly across sand dunes but also over rocks and salt beds. This put him in seventh place as the fourth day began. He was starting to feel confident and wondered if he had a chance at winning. 

When a desert experiences high winds, sand particles on the ground start vibrating and are lifted into the air to form a sandstorm. These storms can grow to nearly 50 feet in height and travel at 25 miles per hour. 

Before the race began, the Marathon des Sables organizers told all participants to stop and take cover if any sandstorms hit. For fear of losing his position in the race among other concerns, Prosperi chose to ignore that advice. Instead, he kept moving. 

Unfortunately, after spending the night in the dunes during a sandstorm, the morning didn’t bring relief. Instead, Prosperi woke up to find that the landscape had completely changed. It was unrecognizable to him. 

The race organizers realized Mauro Prosperi was missing when he failed to arrive at a checkpoint by morning. They knew they had to find him by midday or he would be stuck in the sweltering heat of the desert with very little water. 

All Prosperi had was a backpack with some dehydrated food, a compass, a knife, a sleeping bag, and a half-empty water bottle. To survive, he had to rely on his own skills and hope for the best.

When he woke up the next morning, it was an unsettling sight. Up above him were two vultures circling through the sky. Considering those birds feast off dead animals (including humans), Prosperi took it as a bad sign. 

That thing shimmering in the distance turned out to be a marabout shrine built centuries ago to honor an Islamic holy man. The structure provided some much-needed shade for Prosperi, who had been wandering through the scorching desert for days. 

As the days went by, Prosperi’s food supply ran out and desperation set in. He gazed upwards and saw bats hanging from the roof of the shrine. Although cooking the bats would have been the healthier option, Prosperi reasoned that he needed their moisture more than their meat, so he decided to eat them raw.

As Prosperi reached his fourth day alone in the desert, he heard another plane in the distance. Hope filled his body as he imagined, finally, being rescued. To signal the plane, he decided to burn his backpack and write “SOS” in huge letters in the sand. 

When that plane flew away, Prosperi felt like he had no choice but to give up. He decided that the small shrine he had stumbled upon would be his final resting place, and wrote a note to his wife asking for forgiveness. 

With a renewed sense of life, he moved through the desert as if he belonged there. To get moisture, he squeezed plants and licked dew. To get food, he hunted beetles and snakes. At night, he buried himself in the sand to stay warm.

Feeling replenished by all that life-giving water, he climbed up to his feet and continued walking — this time with a little pep to his step. Not long after, he found some goat droppings, human footprints, and then a young girl. 

Soon after the Tuareg nomads found Prosperi, organizers at the Marathon des Sables were notified and, understandably, shocked. When Prosperi started the race, he was in Morocco. Now, after a week alone in the desert, he was in the neighboring country of Algeria.

When he finally returned home to Italy, nearly everyone welcomed him as a hero. One man, however, said Prosperi was a fraud. That man was Patrick Bauer, the founder of Marathon des Sables. Bauer claims it’s impossible to travel that far in the desert without any water.

Despite the allegations of fraud, at least one medical expert believes Prosperi’s story. Dr. Kenneth Kaumler, the author of Surviving the Extremes, studies how harsh environments affect the human body. When he examined Prosperi, he found compelling evidence that Prosperi’s body experienced severe damage from his ordeal in the desert.

When Prosperi returned home, he had a long road of recovery ahead. After two years, however, he felt strong enough to get back to long-distance running. Although it might sound crazy to some, he decided to fly back to Morocco and run the Marathon des Sables once again.