Survival Against All Odds

Survival Against All Odds: Humans have survived falls from airliners, months adrift on tiny rafts, and amputations performed with pocketknives. These documented cases show the limits of the body and the role of luck, preparation, and sheer stubbornness, and they prove the odds are never exactly zero.

Vesna Vulovic: A flight attendant, she fell more than 33,000 feet in January 1972 when her airliner exploded over Czechoslovakia. She was held in a section of fuselage by a food cart, landed in snowy woods, and spent weeks in a coma. Guinness recognized the record fall survived without a parachute.

Juliane Koepcke: In December 1971 the 17 year old fell about two miles from a lightning struck airliner over Peru, still strapped in her seat. She walked and waded for ten days along a stream through the Amazon rainforest before finding help.

Alan Magee: An American gunner whose parachute was destroyed, he fell 22,000 feet in 1943 and crashed through the glass roof of the Saint Nazaire railway station. He survived and was taken prisoner.

Nicholas Alkemade: A British tail gunner jumped from a burning bomber at 18,000 feet in March 1944 with no parachute. Pine branches and snow cushioned the fall, and he walked away with a sprained leg.

Endurance: Shackleton's ship was crushed by Antarctic ice in 1915, yet all 28 men survived. Shackleton and five others crossed 800 miles of ocean in a lifeboat to reach help, and the wreck was found on the seabed in 2022.

Poon Lim: A Chinese steward survived 133 days adrift on a wooden raft in the Atlantic in 1942 and 1943 after his ship was torpedoed. He caught fish and seabirds to live and was rescued by Brazilian fishermen.

Steven Callahan: He drifted 76 days in an inflatable raft in 1982 after his sailboat sank in the Atlantic. He lived on fish and water from a solar still and wrote a bestselling book about it.

Maurice and Maralyn Bailey: After a whale sank their yacht in the Pacific in 1973, the English couple drifted for 117 days in a rubber dinghy and a small tender before a Korean fishing boat found them.

Aron Ralston: In April 2003, a boulder pinned his arm in a Utah canyon for 127 hours. He amputated it with a dull multitool, rappelled down a cliff, and hiked miles before rescuers found him.

Joe Simpson: After breaking his leg on a Peruvian peak in 1985, he fell into a crevasse when his climbing partner cut the rope. He crawled out and dragged himself back to camp over days, a story told in Touching the Void.

Mauro Prosperi: The Italian runner got lost in the Sahara during the 1994 Marathon des Sables and wandered for nine days. He survived by drinking his own urine and the blood of bats, and was found by nomads.

Chilean Miners: In 2010 thirty three miners were trapped about 2,300 feet underground for 69 days. They survived 17 days on emergency rations before rescuers made contact, then were lifted out one by one in a capsule.

Andes Flight 571: In October 1972 a Uruguayan plane crashed in the Andes. Sixteen of the 45 people aboard survived 72 days, and two men trekked for ten days across mountains to find help.

Jan Baalsrud: A Norwegian commando and the sole survivor of a failed 1943 sabotage mission, he evaded the Germans in the mountains with frostbitten feet. He cut off his own toes and was hidden and carried by villagers into Sweden.

Beck Weathers: Left for dead twice on Mount Everest during the 1996 disaster, he woke in a snowstorm and staggered into camp. He lost his nose and a hand to frostbite but survived.

Ada Blackjack: In 1921 she joined a failed expedition to Wrangel Island in the Arctic. Left alone after the men died or disappeared, she survived two years by hunting and trapping until rescue in 1923.

Harrison Okene: When a tugboat capsized off Nigeria in 2013, the cook survived about 60 hours in an air pocket 100 feet underwater. Divers were recovering bodies when they found him alive.

Roy Sullivan: A Virginia park ranger was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977 and survived every strike. Guinness recognized him as the person struck most often.

Violet Jessop: A stewardess and nurse, she survived the Olympic collision in 1911, the Titanic in 1912, and the sinking of Britannic in 1916. She was nicknamed Miss Unsinkable.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi: He survived the Hiroshima atomic bombing while on a business trip in 1945 and returned home to Nagasaki, where he was bombed again three days later. Japan officially recognized him as a survivor of both in 2009.

Tham Luang Cave: In June 2018 twelve boys and their coach were trapped for 18 days in a flooded Thai cave. International divers brought them out, and the rescue cost the life of a former Thai Navy diver.

Hugh Glass: Mauled by a grizzly in 1823 and abandoned by his companions, the frontiersman reportedly crawled and walked roughly 200 miles to a trading post. His story inspired the film The Revenant.

Douglas Mawson: In 1912 the Australian explorer lost both companions and most of his food on an Antarctic trek. He fell into a crevasse, hauled himself out, and made it back after weeks, arriving hours after his rescue ship had sailed.

Louis Zamperini: A former Olympic runner, he survived 47 days adrift in the Pacific in 1943 after his bomber crashed. He drifted about 2,000 miles to the Marshall Islands, where Japanese forces captured him.