- 8 months ago
Death defying moments that seem impossible to survive! Join us as we count down the most extraordinary cases where people faced catastrophic situations and somehow lived to tell their tales. From surviving atomic bombs to plummeting from the sky, these individuals endured what should have been certain death and emerged on the other side.
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the people who faced the worst odds in the most dangerous situations, and still lived to tell the tale.
00:21Was the story of the Marvelous Man true? If so, how in the world did he manage to escape?
00:2620. Beck Weathers
00:30Beck Weathers expects his frostbitten face to recover, but the odds are this doctor might lose his hands.
00:38In May of 1996, several climbers succumbed to the harsh conditions of Mount Everest. Among their ranks was Beck Weathers, a doctor whose climb was hindered by a sudden loss of vision.
00:49He was told to head back down, but stayed and waited for their guide, Rob Hall.
00:54All passed away, leaving Weathers and others to their devices.
00:58Just as they started to descend, a storm struck. By the time help arrived, Weathers had wandered off, and wasn't found until the next day.
01:06The conditions had taken their toll, leaving him with blackened, frostbitten features.
01:10He survived, and made it off the mountain, where he received immediate medical attention. Though he lost his nose, and part of his limbs, he escaped with his life.
01:22In 1848, a seemingly regular day at work ended in disaster. During a moment of pure bad luck, Phineas Gage started to speak at the same time his tamping iron connected with the rock
01:50below. At that moment, the rod shot out of the ground, entered through his jaw, and pierced through the top of his head. Others would have died on the spot, but miraculously he sat up and spoke on his own.
02:04He made it to a doctor, even while constantly spitting up blood. Though the incident reportedly warped his personality, physically, he was fine.
02:12He went on to live another 12 years with his condition, before passing away. To this day, he still remains one of history's biggest medical mysteries.
02:20Phineas Gage was able to survive having a three-foot, seven-inch bar shot transcranially through his head.
02:2618. Betty Lou Oliver
02:28Talk about a bad day at work.
02:30In 1945, Betty Lou Oliver and the other employees inside the Empire State Building were suddenly interrupted by a lost B-25 Mitchell bomber plane flying directly into their workplace.
02:42Oliver was the building's elevator operator, and the force of the blast threw her from the car, leaving her with burns and broken bones. Emergency personnel put her in another elevator to be taken down and treated.
02:55It seemed all was well, and then the cables snapped. She plummeted down the shaft over 1,000 feet, leaving those she'd left above believing she'd died.
03:04In a stroke of luck, the broken wires landed before she could, cushioning the fall and allowing her to survive.
03:1117. Stacey Gustafson
03:14For many, waking up during surgery is a genuine fear. As in every profession, anesthesiologists are bound to make mistakes.
03:21Stacey Gustafson can attest to this, as she suffered through one of these accidents during a 2019 hernia operation.
03:28As the procedure began, she realized she was still awake, but the anesthesia left her paralyzed enough to not be able to call out or motion for help.
03:37She had to lie there and endure each painful slice into her abdomen. Even after they noticed she was awake, they still didn't correct the issue.
03:45She made it out alive, but traumatized. It was then discovered that the staff had allegedly forgotten to reconnect her IV, opening them up to a lawsuit that's still ongoing today.
03:5516. Helen Klaben
03:57When Ralph Flores and his passenger boarded his plane in February of 1963, neither of them had any clue that he would crash into the Yukon.
04:05After living through the fall, he and 21-year-old Helen Klaben were left stranded.
04:10The pilot was relatively uninjured, but her foot was all but shattered. With hardly enough food for one of them, it seemed all was lost.
04:18But using snow as a water source, the two survived for weeks. As time went by, Helen's foot turned black and the bones stuck out.
04:25Fortunately, after almost 50 days, they were spotted by a pilot named Charles Hamilton and rescued.
04:32Despite the severity of her injuries, Klaben went on to recover and live a full life.
04:3615. Violet Jessup
04:40Never has one person been given so many signs to switch careers.
04:49In 1911, Violet Jessup found work as a stewardess on the RMS Olympic, which collided with another ship and was forced to redock.
04:57A year later, she was switched to the RMS Titanic, where she was aboard the night of the fateful iceberg crash.
05:04There, she boarded one of the final lifeboats and escaped.
05:07In her final brush with death, she was forced to flee the HMHS Britannic in 1916, when it hit an underwater mine.
05:15It was her closest call yet, as she'd suffered a head injury after jumping from a perilous escape vessel.
05:20Luckily, that was her final aquatic disaster, and she went on to live a peaceful life.
05:25The ship will sink.
05:28Are you certain?
05:29Yes.
05:30In an hour or so.
05:32All this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.
05:3514.
05:36Anatoly Bogorsky
05:37The immune system fails.
05:39The organs and soft tissue begin to decompose.
05:42The arteries and veins spill open like sieves, to the point where you can't even administer morphine for the pain, which is unimaginable.
05:53Accidents happen, and he's lucky this one didn't take his life.
05:57While working on the Soviet Union's U-70 synchrotron in 1978, Anatoly Bogorsky moved his head into the machine's path, just as the safety precautions failed.
06:07In that moment, a proton beam was shot directly into the back of his skull.
06:11Despite having been through a day-ruining incident, he continued to work, and kept it to himself, until the physical symptoms set in.
06:18Doctors thought he would die, especially when his skin peeled to reveal burned sections of his brain tissue.
06:24Somehow, his injuries were non-fatal, and he suffered no loss to his intellectual capabilities.
06:30Bogorsky was left with paralysis and hearing loss on the left, which he still lives with today.
06:35Talk to me. I can't move, yes. Talk to no fear. Valeri. I can't move. His face is gone.
06:48Number 13. Chilean Miners.
06:50In the drill, they sent a note out that said in Spanish,
06:55Estamos bien en el refugio los 33. We are okay in the refuge, the 33 of us.
07:02There are some situations that are so dire that survival seems all but impossible.
07:06When 33 miners were left trapped underground in the San Jose copper gold mine following a sudden collapse, it seemed truly inescapable.
07:15With little food and even less ventilation, they did their best to stay alive until they were found.
07:20Miraculously, they all survived until they were discovered weeks later.
07:24They were then given supplies and told they'd have to wait until rescuers could successfully drill through to them.
07:30After another month and a half of darkness and desolation, a capsule finally reached them.
07:35One by one, they were lifted out. By October 15th, after 69 days, all 33 had been extracted, creating an unexpectedly happy ending to the horrible tale.
07:53Number 12. Juliana Kopka.
07:55The only thing that really alarmed me was this wound that I had on my arm.
08:00The flesh flies had laid the eggs there, maggots had hatched, and they had eaten themselves deep into my flesh.
08:07Imagine graduating high school and then immediately having to fend for yourself in a jungle.
08:12That is exactly what Juliana Kopka went through in 1971, when the plane she and her mother had been on was struck by lightning and plummeted to the ground.
08:20Juliana survived the fall with several injuries, but her tribulations were only beginning.
08:25While following a creek to a larger waterway, she was forced to live on her own for 11 days in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
08:32On the way, she braved the elements and botflies laying eggs in her injured arm.
08:37After being found, she ventured back into the canopy to help authorities find the site of the crash.
08:42If that isn't strength, we don't know what is.
08:45The man who is assisted by relatives up the embankment of the river is Marcio Ribeira.
08:50He is a lumberman, and he worked in the area of Rio Shibonia.
08:55He was the one who found Juliana.
08:57Number 11. Jose Salvador Alvarenga.
09:00Though the events in Castaway are dramatic, they pale in comparison to real life.
09:16In 2014, the world was shocked when Jose Salvador Alvarenga was suddenly found by locals on the Marshall Islands.
09:23What they didn't know was that he'd been missing for over a year, following a horrible storm that left him and his deceased shipmate, Ezequiel Cordoba, drastically off course.
09:32With all electronic appliances damaged and no food, the pair was left to drift.
09:37Alvarenga led the charge, catching marine life for them to eat.
09:40After four months, Cordoba passed from starvation, leaving him alone.
09:45Months later, he finally washed ashore, significantly less healthy, but alive.
09:50Afterwards, he was left with a fear of water, and we can't say we blame him.
09:54This is what Alvarenga looked like when he washed up ashore last week in the Marshall Islands on a small fishing boat.
10:00He told authorities he had been lost at sea for 13 months after he and another fisherman had been caught in a storm off the Mexican Pacific coast.
10:09Number 10. Aaron Ralston.
10:12Nowadays, everyone knows about Ralston's incredible story through Danny Boyle's 127 Hours.
10:17In April of 2003, Ralston was hiking alone in Utah's Blue John Canyon, when a horrible accident left his arm pinned by an 800-pound boulder.
10:31Ralston spent five days inside the cramped slot canyon and fully believed that he would die.
10:36By the end of the fifth day, he had videotaped goodbye messages for his family, and carved his name, date of birth, and estimated date of death into the wall.
10:43Following a hallucination in which he saw himself with a young child, Ralston did the impossible and amputated his own arm with a cheap multi-tool.
10:57It's a thrilling survival story, a brilliant showcase of both human ingenuity and perseverance.
11:16There will never be a more powerful experience for me.
11:21It was absolutely the greatest feeling to be given the chance to get out of here.
11:28Number 9. Roy Sullivan.
11:30It's been said that lightning can strike the same place twice, but seven times feels personal.
11:48Beginning in 1942, park ranger Roy Sullivan fell victim to several lightning strikes.
11:54The first occurred as he fled from a lookout tower.
11:57In 1969, a second bolt struck his truck.
12:00The third, in 1970, happened in his front yard.
12:03And the fourth, in 1972, at a ranger station.
12:06He tried to outrun the fifth and sixth in 1973 and 76 to no avail.
12:11The final strike, in 1977, hit his head and traveled down his body.
12:16His hair had been set on fire five times, and several body parts had suffered bad burns.
12:22Yet, no matter how much the sky tried, it couldn't take Roy down.
12:26In later life, Roy was a lonely man, as many chose simply to avoid him rather than to run
12:33the risk of being struck by lightning themselves.
12:36Number 8. Mauro Prosperi.
12:39In 1994, an Italian pentathlete, Mauro Prosperi, decided to participate in the Marathon
12:45de Saab, an ultra-marathon spanning over 150 miles of the Sahara Desert.
12:50Four days into the race, Prosperi got lost in a violent sandstorm, and eventually took shelter
12:55inside an abandoned shrine.
12:58I'm killing myself against similar conditions tomorrow!
13:03I'm so disorienting!
13:08The branding stamp over the race!
13:11While there, he hydrated himself by sucking on wet wipes and drinking blood from the bats
13:16he managed to catch and kill.
13:18He later attempted to end his own life, but this failed, and he continued searching for rescue.
13:23When I opened my eyes, my faith was broken, and it went in the middle of the two.
13:30At that point, I said, oh my God!
13:33At the beginning, I said, evidently, it's my destiny.
13:36Even my faith, I lost it.
13:38Prosperi eventually came across goat droppings in the desert, and followed them to a local camp
13:43populated by Tauric nomads.
13:46He was then taken to the hospital, having survived a week and a half alone in the barren desert.
13:51The nine days, it's as if it were those nine days, since I was in the blood of the desert,
13:58and then I was born again.
14:01Number 7.
14:03Ludgier Silbury
14:0430,000 dead, one man alive.
14:07How?
14:08Known as the Paris of the Caribbean, Saint-Pierre-Martinique was decimated by the eruption of Mount
14:14Calais in 1902.
14:15A pyroclastic flow struck at 8.02 a.m. on May 8th, destroying the entire city and leaving
14:21very few survivors.
14:23One was Ludgier Silbury.
14:25The night before the eruption, Silbury was thrown in jail after a physical altercation.
14:30He was placed in a cell, which just so happened to be the safest location in the city, thanks
14:36to its stone walls, poor ventilation, and underground location.
14:40The cell he was in had been built as an armory, as a place to store ammunition.
14:46So it had been built with incredibly thick walls, and it so happened that the only openings
14:51in it faced away from the eruption.
14:55Silbury survived the flow, but was badly burned from the hot air entering through a small grate.
15:01He later toured with Barnum & Bailey Circus, being touted as the man who lived through
15:06doomsday.
15:07How could an eruption kill a town's entire population save one?
15:12No volcano in history had ever been so thorough in its devastation, and yet so selective.
15:18Number 6.
15:20Vesna Vulović
15:21Many people are afraid of heights, but this takes things to a whole other level.
15:26Vesna Vulović was working as a flight attendant when JAT Flight 367 was bombed over Germany
15:32in 1972.
15:34Everyone else on board was blown out of the aircraft from depressurization.
15:39But Vulović proved incredibly lucky when she was pinned in the fuselage by a food cart.
15:44She then rode the fuselage 33,000 feet to the ground, where its impact was cushioned by tall
15:50trees and deep snow.
15:52Her injuries were extensive, but Vulović survived after being found by a local villager.
15:57She suffered amnesia and was briefly paralyzed from the waist down, but Vulović eventually
16:02recovered, albeit with a twisted spine and a limp.
16:06Number 5.
16:07Anna Bagenholm
16:09On May 20, 1999, Anna Bagenholm was skiing with work colleagues when she fell into a frozen
16:15river, trapping her head and torso under roughly eight inches of ice.
16:19Anna was trapped hopelessly beneath the ice, and was slowly but surely freezing to death.
16:24Bagenholm's colleagues attempted to free her to no avail.
16:28Luckily, Bagenholm was able to find an air pocket, but 40 minutes in the freezing water
16:32led to cardiac arrest.
16:34She was eventually freed by a rescue team and taken to the hospital with a body temperature
16:38of 56.7 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the lowest ever recorded in a case of accidental hypothermia.
16:45Even though Anna looked dead, the doctors knew that the hypothermia, the very thing that had
16:50stopped her heart, might also have preserved her brain.
16:53Bagenholm began showing signs of life following extensive surgery, and later spent months recuperating
16:59in the hospital.
17:00She has since made a full recovery, minus some nerve damage in her hands and feet.
17:05So now I'm back to work as a normal doctor.
17:08I do exactly the same things as everybody else.
17:11And you're out skiing, I understand, and so doing everything you were before.
17:17Yeah, I take a bit more care.
17:20Number 4.
17:22Harrison Okeney
17:23A Nigerian chef, Harrison Okeney, was working on a tugboat as it was stabilizing an oil tanker
17:29in the Atlantic Ocean.
17:30Found one, yeah?
17:31He's alive!
17:32He's alive!
17:33Unfortunately, the boat encountered some violent waves and capsized, sending it 100 feet
17:39to the ocean floor.
17:40While most of the crew perished in the accident, Okeney was left alive and made his way to the
17:45engineer's office in complete darkness.
17:47It's a once-in-a-lifetime miracle.
17:50It's beyond belief.
17:52How'd this guy survive for 60 hours underwater?
17:56The office was about 4 feet in height and contained an air pocket that allowed Okeney
18:01to breathe.
18:02He then fashioned a makeshift buoy out of a mattress and remained in the pitch-black air pocket
18:07for over 60 hours.
18:09He was eventually rescued by a team of divers who had been sent to retrieve the bodies.
18:13Imagine their surprise.
18:15Divers gave him an oxygen mask and put him in a diving bell to get him to 30 meters to
18:20the surface.
18:21He was the only survivor from the 12-member crew.
18:25Number 3.
18:26The Miracle of the Andes Survivors.
18:28One of the most spectacular survival stories of all time, this event has been immortalized
18:33in both literature and film.
18:35Jesus!
18:36On Friday, October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the Andes, leaving
18:4434 survivors stranded on a freezing mountain.
18:47Over the next 72 days, the survivors faced countless hardships.
18:52To stay alive, the survivors huddled together inside the plane's fuselage, sharing their
18:57body heat.
18:58At 4,000 meters, temperatures outside can drop as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius at night.
19:05Their only hope is to be rescued.
19:08Many suffered from exposure and critical injuries sustained in the crash, and a fatal avalanche
19:13struck the area 17 days after the accident.
19:16All suffered from debilitating hunger, resulting in the unthinkable becoming reality.
19:20Without the hope of rescue, two survivors climbed a 15,000-foot peak without any climbing gear,
19:31and hiked their way into Chile, where they eventually found help.
19:35Of the 34 initial survivors, only 16 made it home.
19:39Number 2.
19:40Louis Zamperini and Russell Phillips.
19:43War is hell for everyone, but these men faced a particular kind of hell.
19:47While conducting a rescue mission south of Oahu, their B-24 experienced mechanical failure
19:53and crashed into the ocean.
19:55Of the 11 people on board, only three survived.
19:58They were now floating in the middle of 65 million square miles of water.
20:03While aboard the life raft, the men had to contend with hunger and dehydration,
20:07shark attacks, dangerous storms, and even Japanese bombers attempting to shoot them.
20:12They subsisted on rainwater and fish.
20:15The third man, Francis McNamara, eventually died.
20:19But Zamperini and Phillips made it to the Marshall Islands after 47 days at sea.
20:24I got good news… and bad news.
20:30However, they were caught by the Japanese and held as prisoners of war, during which time they were frequently beaten.
20:39Against all odds, they survived and were released once the war was concluded.
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20:58I have walked and crawled through the bottom of hell. I should be dead, but it was my fate to keep on living.
21:09A Japanese marine engineer, Tutsomo Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on business when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city on August 6, 1945.
21:19Solid matter began to come apart, releasing untold quantities of energy.
21:24Yamaguchi witnessed the explosion and was left temporarily blind.
21:28He also suffered from radiation burns and ruptured eardrums.
21:32Astoundingly, he returned home and reported to work three days later.
21:36Work and home being Nagasaki.
21:39While discussing the Hiroshima bombing with his supervisor, the US bombed Nagasaki too.
21:45The second bomb was intended for the city of Kokura, but it was too cloudy, so the plane moved on to Nagasaki.
21:52Desperately short of fuel, the crew released the bomb despite more clouds.
21:59Unlike his experience in Hiroshima, Yamaguchi was left uninjured, despite being less than two miles from ground zero.
22:06Although he suffered radiation-inflicted ailments later in life, Yamaguchi lived to be 93 and passed away in 2010.
22:14Who do you think overcame the worst odds of survival?
22:18Let us know in the comments below!
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