Arranging for their movie heroes a test in the middle of the open ocean, under the scorching sun and in the snowy mountains, many directors take a real story as the basis of the picture. Unlike the actors, the heroes of these stories are not told the scenario of future events or explained what to do in order to survive. They have to rely only on their own strength, ingenuity and luck.
These 10 stories prove that by acting at the limit of your abilities, even in the most severe battle with nature, you can avoid meeting an old woman with a scythe.
The crash of the Essex
In 1820, the whaling ship Essex, sailing across the South Pacific, attacked a sperm whale. The ship got a hole and sank. A team of 20 people managed to get into the boats, taking with them supplies of food and fresh water for two days. The salvaged provisions were stretched out for a couple of weeks. After the fresh water ran out, the sailors rinsed their mouths with sea water and drank their own urine. When the team was already on the verge of death from thirst, an uninhabited island appeared on the horizon.
Having exhausted almost all the resources of the island in a week, the members of the Essex crew decide to resume sailing in search of a new island. But the food supplies taken with them are too small for such a long journey, and one by one the sailors begin to die. In order to survive, the remaining crew members decide to eat the bodies of their dead comrades. On February 18, 1821, the British whaling ship Indiana sighted the first boat with three remaining sailors. On 23 February, the whaling ship Dauphin rescued two more sailors from another boat; the three sailors who remained on the island were also rescued. Three of the Essex's crew members from the third boat died at sea.
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Jose Salvador Alvarenga
In December 2012, the boat of the fisherman Jose Salvador Alvarenga was caught in a severe storm. Jose, along with his 15-year-old son, was carried off into the open ocean. The boat's radio and motor were out of order, and all the fishermen had to do was try to survive and hope to be found. They ate fish, sea turtles, their own blood and rainwater. The young man's body could not stand such a diet, and after 4 months he died. Jose's boat drifted in the ocean for a long time, until it washed ashore - the ship brought it to the Marshall Islands. Locals took Jose to the capital, from where he was sent home to Mexico. After his return, Jose partially lost his memory, and a number of questions related to his survival remain unanswered.
Aaron Ralston
In May 2003, as Aron was crossing Blue John Canyon in Utah's Canyonlands National Park, his right hand was trapped under a boulder. After the last supplies of food and water ran out, Aaron was faced with a choice: live or die. There was only one way to get out of the trap - by cutting off your hand. With traumatic shock and severe blood loss, the climber wandered through the desert until he met tourists from the Netherlands.
Aaron Ralston became the protagonist of the film "127 Hours" directed by Danny Boyle.
Mexican fishermen
Jesus Vidana Lopez, Salvador Ordonez and Lucio Rendon drifted in the Pacific Ocean for almost 10 months before they were found. They survived by feeding on raw fish and birds and quenching their thirst with salt and rain water. Their boat was discovered in the Marshall Islands by a Japanese fishing vessel.
Harrison Okene
A tug sank 30 kilometers off the coast of Nigeria in May 2013. All crew members died, except for the ship's cook. Harrison was born in a shirt: he managed to find a cabin in which an air pocket formed. In this cabin, at a depth of 30 meters, he spent 62 hours. Kok was found by divers, who were sent to search and retrieve the bodies of the crew members.
Ed Stafford
British explorer and former captain of the British army became the first person in the world to walk along the entire Amazon River. The happy ending of the 859-day hiking expedition inspired him to a new experiment - to volunteer to become a resident of a desert island. Without tools, things and clothes, for 60 days he tried to survive on the island of the Fiji archipelago. He himself documented life on the island on camera. How he managed to survive on the island and what survival skills he used can be seen in the Discovery Channel film Naked Survival.
Mauro Prosperi
During the 1994 "Marathon in the Sands" passing through the Sahara, Italian police officer Mauro Prosperi lost his way and got lost in the desert. When he ran out of water, he decided to commit suicide by cutting his veins. But due to lack of water in the body, the blood was too thick and quickly clotted. Apparently, considering this as a sign, Mauro found the strength to continue his journey. After 5 days he was found by a family of nomads.
To survive, the marathon runner drank the urine and blood of bats he found in a Muslim shrine. In total, Mauro spent 9 days in the desert. During his wanderings, he lost 18 kg.
Norman Allestad
On February 19, 1979, during a snowstorm in the California mountains, a plane crashed at an altitude of more than two kilometers. The only survivor of the plane crash was Norman, an 11-year-old boy. Norman, despite his young age and lack of help, managed to descend from the mountain unharmed.
30 years later, Norman wrote the book Crazy About the Storm, in which he spoke in detail about the events of those days and how he managed to survive.
Ricky Megi
In 2001, Australian farmers found a man who looked more like a skeleton covered in leather. He did not really remember how he found himself alone with nature, and his memories were incoherent scraps: here he was driving through a sparsely populated area in a car, but he was lying face down, covered with earth, and a flock of dingoes were rushing around him. For several days he wandered in search of people, until, in the end, he decided to stop. He built a hut in which he lived for the next three months, feeding on grasshoppers, leeches and frogs.
Stephen Callahan
In the fall of 1981, Stephen was caught in a violent storm on a self-built boat. The raging elements deprived him of the ship, and Stephen had to drift on a liferaft less than 2 meters in size. From the sunken boat, he managed to grab a sleeping bag, an emergency kit, an apparatus for producing drinking water and Dougal Robertson's guide to survival at sea. The unscheduled "cruise" lasted 76 days, until April 20, 1982, the raft brought to the island of Marie Galante, where Steven was found by fishermen.
