A strange creature is a man: sometimes he literally dies from a pin prick, and sometimes he comes out unharmed from the most incredible and dangerous situations. Sometimes doctors say about people who miraculously escaped death: they simply did not know that they had to die, therefore they remained alive
Recently, a young man was admitted to one of the hospitals in the South African city of Johannesburg, who, during a fight, was driven into the skull with a long knife up to the handle. The doctors did not understand why, with such a wound, their patient stubbornly refuses to die. He did not even lose consciousness, but only wheezed and swore when he was put on the operating table. Soon the "super-living" patient was transferred from the intensive care unit to the general ward. Judging by the reports of the South African newspapers, now he feels rather well, only offended by the doctors for the fact that they were unable to save his injured eye.
Several more examples of "super-survivability" are known. One such phenomenon has gone down in medical history as the American Crowbar Injury. On September 13, 1847, the master of the Rutland-Burlington railway section, Fayniz Gange, preparing for construction work, laid explosives, ramming gunpowder in a pit with a special rod, one and a half inches in diameter. The tool, hitting a stone, struck a spark, and an explosion struck. The rod flew out of the pit and, hitting Gange in the cheekbone, pierced his head.
The comrades took the bloodied, but not unconscious, Gange to the nearby village where the hospital was located. The victim himself went to the doctor's waiting room, climbing a rather high staircase. Removing the crowbar from the head of the unfortunate, the surgeon was forced to remove part of the brain. No one hoped for a successful outcome, but fate was merciful to Gange. To the surprise of the doctors, he lived for many more years without complaining about his health.
And here is a completely fresh incident. In the Slovak city of Nitra, a petrochemical college student unsuccessfully threw a sports javelin during a physical education lesson. The cast was imprecise and sharp
the shell hit a fellow student who was standing nearby, piercing his heart. At the same time, a seventeen-year-old boy, without losing consciousness, pulled the spear out of his chest on his own and went to the medical office. An ambulance was immediately called. After a complicated heart operation, the lucky man had a ten-centimeter scar on his chest. And this is perhaps the only thing that now reminds him of the tragedy he has experienced!
Indeed, the human body shows miracles at times of endurance and vitality. Characteristic in this respect is the story that happened to a certain Granatkin, a resident of the city of Grodno, a storekeeper of a regional food base. On a winter evening, he was returning home and then, unfortunately for himself, he met his colleague, who was leaving the gates of the base on a motorcycle, whose sidecar was loaded to the brim with stolen goods. The motorcyclist slowed down and hit the unwanted bystander with something heavy on the head. Then the killer put the storekeeper on a motorcycle, took him out of town and threw him into a ravine, covering the body with snow and branches. Twenty-two days later, the lumberjacks accidentally stumbled upon Granatkin and, since he showed no signs of life, they took the body to the morgue. The pathologist decided to postpone the autopsy until morning. Imagine the doctor's surprise when, entering the dissection room in the morning,he saw that Granatkin, lying on the operating table, was not only alive, but not even frostbitten. Who would believe that a person, having lain in the cold without water and food for twenty-two days, could survive? However, the incredible happened: after lying overnight in a warm room, the storekeeper came to his senses!
How can you explain the cases of such incredible vitality? Perhaps the answer should be sought in the works of researchers who study the phenomenon they call "programmed death." According to their hypothesis, evolution, in order to preserve the balanced diversity of the animal world on the planet and avoid overpopulation, has laid in every living creature two opposing programs: one can be conditionally called "craving for life", the second - "self-destruction."
Were it not for the latter, we would most likely live forever. And so over time, the influence of the program "craving for life" weakens, and the effect of opposite impulses, on the contrary, increases. The cells of the body stop renewing, the body grows old, and eventually death occurs. Resistance to various diseases and injuries is determined by the "thirst for life."
When this program fails, even an elementary cold can become fatal. The body simply stops fighting for life. But, as can be seen from the above facts, as long as we have a strong "thirst for life", the human body shows examples of truly fantastic endurance and strength.
Pavel Steklov
"The Secret Power" № 10 2008