Extraordinary photos show the transformation of an Australian castaway who was found at sea with her dog after three months of surviving on rainwater and tuna.
Tim Shaddock and his dog Bella were rescued off the coast of Mexico last week after a helicopter with a tuna trawler sighted their catamaran.
Although found healthy and in good spirits, footage of Mr Shaddock’s rescue showed the Sydney man looking emaciated and emaciated after months on a bare-minimum diet.
A remarkable picture has emerged of Mr Shaddock’s very different life before he disappeared off the coast of Mexico.
The most recent photo shows Mr Shaddock looking the picture of health with a neatly trimmed beard – a far cry from the wiry beard and dirty clothes he wore when he was rescued.
Tim Shaddock and his dog Bella (both pictured) were rescued after two months stranded at sea off the coast of Mexico, surviving only on a diet of raw fish and rainwater
His disheveled appearance after being rescued by a tuna trawler immediately drew comparisons to Chuck Nolan, played by Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway.
Another photo of a sailor shows a much younger heavyset Mr. Shaddock wearing an ironed shirt with neatly groomed hair and a clean-shaven face.
Another photo showed a slightly older Mr Shaddock glowing with a wide smile on his face and looking slimmer after adopting a raw food diet.
Mr Shaddock and his dog Bella set off from La Paz along Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on a solo journey of more than 6,000km across the Pacific Ocean to French Polynesia three months ago.
However, just two weeks into their voyage, a storm destroys the electronics on their boat, leaving the pair without communication with the outside world or a means of navigating the open sea.
The sailor was fortunate to have brought fishing and survival equipment for the trip, giving both him and Bella ample opportunity to survive the ordeal.
Mike Tipton, Professor of Human and Applied Physiology at the University of Portsmouth, told 9News Mr Shaddock’s survival was a mixture of ‘luck and skill’.
He said that the sailor had to be lucky for rainfall to replenish water stocks, knowledge of creating shade during the day to prevent heat stroke and strict rationing rules increased his chances of survival.
The professor said having Bella’s companionship on board ‘helped him tremendously’ to avoid isolation.
Bella was seen wagging her tail at the camera crew who filmed the sailor’s catamaran filled with buckets and equipment.
However, earlier images of Mr Shaddock show a radical change in his appearance from when he worked as an IT specialist in the 1990s (pictured, Mr Shaddock).
She weighed 140kg before being diagnosed with terminal stage four bowel cancer and converted to a ‘totally raw’ diet as a last ditch effort to survive the diagnosis.
Mr Shaddock immediately drew comparisons during his rescue to Chuck Nolan, played by Tom Hanks in the 2000 film ‘Castaway’.
However, this is not the only body transformation that Mr Shaddock has undergone, losing a large amount of weight after being diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer.
The Sydney man was an IT specialist in the 1990s and before his diagnosis weighed 120kg, a far cry from his body today.
She claims that raw food has helped prevent the growth of cancer cells and saved her life, not eating cooked food for seven years until a 2013 interview with The Raw Food Kitchen.
“I had stomach cancer many years ago and now I am cured,” he told the fishermen on the tuna trawler after being brought on board.
Mr Shaddock claims the diet helped him overcome his shortened life and ‘cure’ cancer and lose a significant amount of weight (pictured, Mr Shaddock in 2013).
He then quit his job as an IT specialist in 2010 to open Live Raw, a business that promotes and sells products related to a raw diet that can kill cancer cells.
The former IT specialist even started a business in 2010, Live Raw, which promoted and sold a raw diet lifestyle before it went out of business in 2020.
Interviewed on Seven’s Sunrise and Nine, Mr Shaddock gained a small amount of fame for his claim that a raw diet cured his cancer.
However, the former Live Raw website claimed that an unknown doctor forced Nine to pull the interview from being broadcast, saying: ‘If this interview is broadcast people will be killed … (if they watch it and take Tim’s advice)’,
Mr. Shaddock stands by his claim that holistic medicine helped cure his cancer despite no scientific evidence to support it.
A healthy diet can reduce the risk of developing cancer but cannot cure the disease.