He lived for 40 years in a remote forest unreachable by humans

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For nearly 40 years, Ken Smith has abandoned traditional ways of life and lived without electricity or running water in a log cabin on the banks of a remote lake in the Scottish Highlands, a two-hour walk from the nearest paved road.

 Ken Smith, 74, lives a secluded life of fishing, gathering plants and firewood and washing clothes in an old bathtub in the open.

Ken spoke to the BBC, about his work in his youth building fire stations, since the age of fifteen, but his life changed when a gang of criminals attacked him at the age of twenty-six, as he suffered a brain hemorrhage and lost consciousness for 23 days.

'They told me I wouldn't recover,' said Ken.

They said I would not speak, nor would I walk again, but I did..Then I decided that I would no longer live on anyone else's terms.”

Ken began to travel, became passionate about the idea of ​​living in the wild, and when he traveled to the Canadian territory of Yukon, which shares a border with the US state of Alaska, he wondered what would happen if he went off the main road and went "nowhere."

And that is exactly what he did, as he says he walked 22,000 miles before returning home.

While he was traveling, his parents died, and he only learned of their deaths when he returned.

Kane walked the length and breadth of Britain, and when he came to Rannoch in the Highlands of Scotland, he was startled by the memory of his parents and sobbed.

“I came all the way crying,” says Ken.

What, I asked, is the most secluded place in Britain?

Four decades later, Ken uses wood to heat the hut without electricity, gas, or running water — and of course a cellphone signal, chops firewood in the woods, and carries it to his remote hut.

Ken grows vegetables and collects cranberries, but his main food source comes from the lake.

In February 2019, Ken realized one of the dangers of isolation when he suffered a stroke while walking in the snow.

He used a GPS device that sends a warning signal, which he had acquired a few days earlier.

The device automatically sent a distress message to a response center in Houston, Texas, USA.

The center, in turn, notified the UK Coast Guard, and Ken was flown to a hospital in the Scottish town of Fort William, where he spent seven weeks to recover.

The medical staff did what they could so that he could be self-reliant and live independently again.

Doctors tried to persuade him to return to civilization, where he could live in an apartment and receive care.

But Ken just wanted to go back to his little hut.

But after suffering double vision from a stroke and suffering from amnesia, he had to accept more help than before.

A year after he was rescued, Ken had to be airlifted again after he was injured when a pile of logs collapsed on top of him.

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