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Post your favorite hard-to-believe tales of survival: daring Arctic rescues, wilderness survival, escapes from dangerous people or animals or regimes, and any other freaky "I can't believe s/he walked away from that situation" stories. Here's one that has stayed with me since I first read it 12 years ago: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/09/news/ad-index9 A suicidal 20-something mom, with her three young kids and her teenage cousin in the car, drove her car off a mountain road in the middle of the night. She and her youngest child died; the surviving kids huddled in the car through the night with their cousin, in below-freezing temperatures. At dawn, the teenager decided it was unlikely they could be seen from the road above, so she crawled 180 feet up the side of the mountain in thin clothes and high-heeled boots, with multiple broken bones, to flag down a car and save the kids' lives. And the horrifying one I saw recently that reminded me of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Singleton Guy picks up a 15-year-old hitchhiker, rapes her, cuts her arms off with a hatchet, then throws her off a 30-foot cliff and leaves her for dead. She survives, crawls back up, finds help, and recovers in time to testify against him at his trial. Less horrifying, more amazing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck_Weathers Beck Weathers got separated from other climbers in a blizzard on Mt. Everest in 1996: quote:Weathers spent the night in an open bivouac in a blizzard with his face and hands exposed. When he awoke, he managed to walk down to Camp IV under his own power. His fellow climbers said that his frozen hand and nose looked and felt as if they were made of porcelain, and they did not expect him to survive. With that assumption, they only tried to make him comfortable until he died, but he survived another freezing night alone in a tent unable to drink, eat, or keep himself covered with the sleeping bags he was provided with. His cries for help could not be heard above the blizzard, and his companions were surprised to find him alive and coherent the following day.
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Apr 10, 2015 17:29
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| # ? May 4, 2024 16:36 |
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This guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poon_Lim quote:Lim was working as second steward on the British merchant ship SS Benlomond when it was sunk by a German U-boat on November 23, 1942. After a few hours in the water, Lim found an 8-foot square wooden raft which contained some food and water. When the supplies ran low, he resorted to fishing, catching seabirds and collecting rainwater. On April 5, 1943, he was rescued by three Brazilian fishermen as he neared the coast of Brazil. After returning to the United Kingdom, he was awarded a British Empire Medal by King George VI. After the war, Lim emigrated to the United States. For those counting, that's 133 days on a 8-foot square raft. quote:When he saw sharks, he did not swim. Instead he set out to catch one.   A reconstruction of his life raft.
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Apr 10, 2015 17:38
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Juliane Koepcke...quote:survived after falling about 3 km (~10,000 feet) still strapped to her seat, before crashing through the rainforest canopy and coming to rest on the forest floor. quote:waded through knee-high water downstream from her landing site, relying on the survival principle her father had taught her, that tracking downstream should eventually lead to civilization. quote:could not sleep at night due to insect bites, which became infected. After nine days, several spent floating downstream, she found a boat moored near a shelter, where she found the boat's motor and fuel tank. Relying again on her father's advice, Koepcke poured gasoline on her wounds, which succeeded in removing thirty-five maggots from one arm,[5] then waited until rescuers arrived. In an interview with CNN: quote:As the plane broke into pieces in midair, Koepcke was thrust out into the open air:
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Apr 10, 2015 17:41
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Touching the Void is an incredible story of a mountaineering disaster gone wrong. Neither of them died, but by all accounts, probably both of them should have. A great documentary.
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Apr 10, 2015 17:45
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This guy is still well-known locally.quote:On Jan. 11, 1992, a teenager who hated being in front of a crowd was working on his family's farm in Hurdsfield. He was home alone when his arms got caught in a tractor's power takeoff. He was knocked unconscious. They reattached his arms, although he doesn't have full use of them.
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Apr 10, 2015 21:56
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| # ? May 4, 2024 16:36 |
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The best example that I know of is known simply as "Alive", so you ought to know already what I'm talking about. Just read the full article here or watch the film. It's ridiculous - just unbelieveable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Andes_flight_disaster And there was also a guy who was inside the World Trade Center on 9/11 when the tower he was in collapsed, and he found himself sitting/lying on top of the remains of the tower. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWdCzX1ieOw
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Apr 10, 2015 22:08
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