- 6/17/2025
From surviving atomic bombs to walking away from plane crashes, these individuals defied astronomical odds! Join us as we explore the most incredible stories of survival and fortune throughout history. Whether through divine intervention or sheer chance, these people's tales will leave you amazed.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00Despite being exposed to a lethal dose of radiation for the second time in three days,
00:05he lived an otherwise healthy life.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the luckiest people in history
00:12who survived near-death experiences or underwent many hardships and won against the odds.
00:16I just won 250,000. I'm not joking. I just won 250,000.
00:24Number 10. Nichiren A passionate supporter of Lotus Sutra and Buddhism,
00:31Nichiren's views made him beloved but also made him plenty of enemies. So much so that he was
00:35banished in 1261. Then when Nichiren returned to Japan, he was attacked in 1264. While he survived,
00:41he had a broken arm and a head wound. But that's not where his unprecedented luck comes in. In 1271,
00:47Nichiren was arrested by soldiers and was set to be executed. There are two beliefs about what
00:51happened that fateful night. One account claimed a bright light shone in the sky which terrified
00:56the executioner. Another version claimed lightning struck the executioner's blade,
01:00ending their life. Either way, Nichiren's sentence was changed to a second exile.
01:05Number 9. Martin De Jonga 2014 was a dreadful year for air travel. In March,
01:11Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished. While debris has been found, we still don't know for sure what
01:16happened. In July, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by either Russian or Ukrainian forces.
01:22Between those, 537 people are assumed to have perished altogether.
01:27Thoughts and prayers continue to be with their families around the world who are going through
01:31just unimaginable grief. One person who claims they were nearly one of the lives lost was Dutch
01:37cyclist De Jonga, who at the time was a part of Malaysia's Terengganu cycling team. He stated he'd
01:42plan to book a seat on both flights but went with cheaper options instead. These decisions not only
01:47saved him money but also his life. Attention should be paid to the victims and survivors,
01:52wishing everyone affected by this disaster a lot of strength.
01:56Number 8. Edwin Robinson
01:58In 1971, Robinson was involved in a truck crash that left him blind and partially deaf.
02:03Not exactly lucky, but nine years later in 1980, a dose of good fortune caught up to Robinson.
02:08At home in Falmouth, Maine, a thunderstorm was raging. Concerned about one of his chickens out
02:14in the elements, Robinson went outside to get it. While escaping the downpour from under a tree,
02:18he was struck by lightning and survived.
02:24In the U.S., there's a 1 in 15,300 chance of a person being hit by lightning throughout their
02:31lifetime. After a brief nap, Robinson's vision returned and he no longer needed a hearing aid.
02:35Even years later, he was still enjoying the surprising benefits.
02:39In most circumstances, lightning will leave people permanently scarred,
02:42so it's best to avoid it altogether and heed any warnings.
02:46Number 7. Adolph Sachs
02:47Best known for inventing the saxophone and other instruments, the 19th century's
02:56sax survived numerous close calls in his life. In fact, even his mother stated he's a child
03:01condemned to misfortune, he won't live. Beginning when he was a child, Sachs fell
03:05from three stories and hit his head. He also drank a bowl of acidic water that he mistook
03:09from milk. Add in further incidents of him sleeping in a room where varnished furniture
03:14was drying, being burned from a gunpowder explosion, getting burnt after falling onto a
03:19hot cast iron pan, being hit in the head and falling into a river, and we have the most
03:23hard-working guardian angel in existence. On February 7th, 1894, Adolph died peacefully in
03:29Paris. The saxophone had already crossed the Atlantic, primed to evolve into an icon of
03:33American jazz music and guaranteeing sax his immortality. Number 6. Vesna Vulovic
03:39Vesna Vulovic's story for me is one of the most incredible survival stories, if in fact not the
03:45most impressive that we have here at Guinness World Records. In 1972, JAT flight 367 was coming
03:53from Stockholm, Sweden to Belgrade, modern-day Serbia. However, an explosive on-board went
03:57off midway through the journey. The plane crashed near a village in the modern-day Czech Republic.
04:02As people examined the wreckage, they found one survivor, cabin member Vulovic. Vesna was found
04:07screaming inside the wreckage, and the person who found her was a former World War II medic,
04:11so he was able to administer vital first aid before rescuers arrived. It's believed that her
04:17low blood pressure protected her heart and being pinned in the craft as passengers and crew were
04:22blown outside saved her life. Vulovic suffered many injuries, including temporary paralysis,
04:27which affected her for the rest of her life. She broke almost every bone in her body,
04:31and she was paralyzed temporarily, in a coma for three days. Due to this incredible feat,
04:37Vulovic was inducted into the Guinness World Records as the highest fall survived without a
04:42parachute, at 33,333 feet. 5. Teddy Roosevelt
04:48In 1912, former U.S. President Roosevelt was on the campaign trail for the election the following
04:58month. Instead of being a possible third term in the Oval Office, it was nearly the end of his life
05:03when he arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On his way to deliver a speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium,
05:08Roosevelt was shot by John Schronk. Amazingly, rather than collapse, Roosevelt briefly stumbled
05:18and carried on. The bullet had struck a glasses case and then hit the 50-page speech in his jacket
05:23pocket before nestling in his chest. Roosevelt then delivered his 90-minute speech before going to the
05:28hospital. The bullet was left inside him for the rest of his life. Schronk, on the other hand,
05:31was sent to a psychiatric hospital. 4. Bill Morgan
05:41In 1998, Morgan was in a car crash in Australia. The damage and the allergic reaction to medication
05:47caused him to suffer multiple heart attacks. For nearly 15 minutes, Morgan was dead. However,
05:52he was thankfully revived. But he wasn't out of the woods as he fell into a 12-day coma before
05:57recovering. I'm only 37, and at 37, I've got so much to look forward to. Later, Lady Luck was
06:03looking upon him when Morgan got a new job, a fiancé, and won a car from a scratch card. With this turn
06:08of events in 1999, Nine News did a segment on him and got Morgan to recreate his win by buying another
06:14scratch card from a store. Amazingly, he won $250,000 Australian dollars, around $165,000 US dollars at the
06:21time. I just won $250,000. I'm not joking. I just won $250,000.
06:293. Violet Jessup
06:30The only woman to have survived the sinking of the two great seagoing sisters, Britannic and
06:36Titanic. It's bad enough to go through one boat accident, but three is unbelievable. Yet that's
06:41what happened with Jessup. In 1911, she was a steward aboard RMS Olympic when it struck the warship
06:47HMS Hawk. Thankfully, everyone survived and the boat got back to port. A year later, Jessup was
06:52working on the RMS Titanic when it sank after hitting an iceberg. While around 1,500 people
06:57didn't survive, Jessup did. Around 4 a.m., two hours after Titanic went down, the cruise ship
07:03Carpathia arrived and began pulling the survivors out of the lifeboats. Then, in 1916, during World War
07:09I, she was working on the sister ship of the Titanic, the HMHS Britannic. However, the vessel struck a
07:15German naval mine and sank. 30 people lost their lives, and Jessup nearly was one when she narrowly
07:20missed the wrecked boat's spinning propeller. She lived alone in this small country cottage until
07:25her death in 1971 at the age of 84. 2. Tsutomu Yamaguchi
07:30He doesn't know it yet, but the world's first atomic bomb has just exploded over the city
07:35with the force of 15,000 tons of TMT. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
07:42At the time, Yamaguchi was there for a business trip. He survived but suffered severe radiation
07:47burns and ruptured eardrums. Up to 166,000 people died that day. Yamaguchi then traveled to Nagasaki
08:05to tell his work what had happened. While there, on August 9, the second atomic bomb was dropped in the
08:09city. This time, Yamaguchi wasn't injured in the devastation, though up to 80,000 people perished.
08:15After that experience, he became a supporter of nuclear disarmament. In 2009, the Japanese
08:20government recognized Yamaguchi as the only person to have survived both bombs.
08:24Despite being exposed to a lethal dose of radiation for the second time in three days,
08:29he lived an otherwise healthy life before finally dying at the age of 93.
08:35Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about
08:40our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
08:45If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
08:49Number 1. Frane Selak
08:53Rather than a single guardian angel, Selak apparently had a whole army of them throughout
08:57his life. In 1962, Selak survived a train crash that took 17 lives. His train car plunged down a
09:04narrow canyon and into an icy river. Desperately fighting to escape the sinking train car,
09:09Selak made his way to the shore before being pulled to safety by a bystander. Then he was blown
09:13from a plane and landed on a haystack as the aircraft crashed, taking 19 lives. Seemingly
09:18transportation had a vendetta against Selak as he survived another two bus incidents and three
09:23car crashes. But his luck hadn't run out yet. In 2003, Selak won $1.1 million in the Croatian
09:29lottery. After enjoying a life of luxury, in 2010, he gave away the cash to friends and family.
09:34While some of the near-death experiences are disputed, if even half of them were confirmed
09:39to have happened, Selak was the luckiest person ever.
09:42Selak said that you could look at it two ways. I was either the unluckiest man in the world
09:46or the luckiest. I prefer to believe the latter.
09:49What's the luckiest thing to have happened to you? Let us know your tales below.
09:53More than 75,000 people died in the Nagasaki bombing. Yet once again, Tsutomu Yamaguchi walked away.
10:09Happy Birthday viral, see!
10:14Hello guys!
10:19Thank you guys.
10:22Well, thanks y'all.
Recommended
9:18
|
Up next
1:31:09
29:51
11:21
14:43
14:26
20:25
14:01
0:48
26:40
12:00