Despite all the difficulties and a small chance of survival, you either become history or write it. This list includes those who were able to cheat death, whether it was a fluke or an incredible will to live.
# 10: Donner's Squad
It was not an easy feat, and even less so for the time when the pioneer settlers were looking for a better life. In May 1846, James F. Reid and George Donner took the lead in a wagon train bound for California. Hoping to reach their goal before snowfall, they chose a new route called the Hastings Cut, despite opposition from most. While it was supposed to be the easiest route, Donner-Reed's group was stuck in the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains for the entire winter. Their food was running out, which means that some had to resort to cannibalism. In the end, only 48 out of 87 people survived to tell the story.
Source: blogs.rgj.com
# 9: Hugh Glass
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This American colonist distinguished himself with an immense patience for pain. In 1823, Hugh Glass was engaged in the fur trade with a dozen other men, when they encountered a grizzly, then his path of agony began. The bear was killed by those who came to the rescue, at the cost of multiple lacerations and a broken leg. Glass suffered this fateful meeting, but became a burden and the remaining members of the expedition wrote him off. He was promised a funeral and left with two people who will take care of him after his death. But the volunteers fled, taking all possible things. Having come to his senses and not finding anything useful at hand, Glass decided to go to the nearest fort, crawling. He managed to survive by eating pasture and preventing gangrene by using larvae that ate dead tissue.
Source: hughglass.org
# 8: Beck Weathers
Those who are trying to conquer Everest keep two thoughts in their minds - to reach the top and stay alive. On May 10, 1996, 49-year-old Beck Weathers suffered from health problems during his ascent. After he was practically blind, he began to wait for his guide, when suddenly a snowstorm came. Falling unconscious in the snow, a group of climbers abandoned Weathers, believing him dead. After lying like that for some time in sub-zero temperatures, he returned to the camp after a day and a half. Despite the fact that 15 people died on that expedition, the lucky one did not get off with a slight fright. Weathers lost his nose, all of his right hand, and most of his left.
Source: img-fotki.yandex.ru
# 7: Brad Kavanagh & Deborah Keely
What started out as a simple sailing trip from Maine to Florida for a team of 5 quickly turned into an absolute nightmare. After the shipwreck, in a storm in October 1982, the five found themselves in an inflatable boat and, due to lack of supplies and water, in the company of a wounded girl, the comrades began to go crazy. Two guys jumped off and were eaten by sharks, and the injured girl died of blood poisoning. What are the chances of saving a couple of people on the high seas? But they were lucky, a Soviet dry cargo ship passed by and picked up comrades.
Source: kinotom.com
# 6: Phineas Gage
On September 13, 1848, Gage was in charge of blasting rocks to build the railroad. He was injured in an explosion from a metal rod that flew into his head. Having lost his eye and part of his frontal lobe of his brain, Gage was conscious. Despite the fact that after such an injury, Phineas Gage recovered, friends claimed that he had changed too much. The doctors confirmed that the damaged part of the brain influenced the change in the psyche and emotional character.
Source: dic.academic.ru
# 5: Aaron Ralston
In April 2003, Ralston went on a routine hike in one of Utah's canyons. After an unexpected collapse, which crushed the mountaineer's hand with a boulder, he had to spend 5 days waiting for help, which never came. In the end, after the food and water ran out, he had to make the difficult decision to amputate his own hand with a penknife. However, this painful and painful act ultimately saved his life. Having managed to walk several kilometers under the scorching sun, he met tourists who helped him get to the hospital.
Source: i.ytimg.com
# 4: Jose Salvador Alvarenga
While Olympic runner and former WWII POW Luis Zamperini spent 47 days drifting at sea, this story is about a man who spent 13 months drifting in the Pacific Ocean. In November 2012, two fishermen, José Salvador Alvarenga and Ezekiel Cordoba, sailed off the coast of Mexico, but were thrown off course by a storm. Unleashing his will to live, Cordova stopped eating and died, leaving Alvarenga to consider an alternative to suicide for months. Surviving on urine, sea birds, turtles and fish, on the 438th day, the sailor's boat was nailed to one of the Marshall Islands, where he was helped.
Source: tribfox40.files.wordpress.com
# 3: Nando Parrado
On Friday 13th October 1972, the Uruguayan rugby team, along with their families and friends, flew over the Andes for the upcoming match. The dire weather conditions led to a plane crash at the peak called the Glacier of Tears. Some of the passengers died in the fall. Two months later, Nando Parrado and his friend Roberto Canessa made an 11-day march without equipment or food. Exhausted, they met a shepherd who helped them get to the village and called rescuers to the plane.
Source: i.ytimg.com
# 2: Ernest Shackleton
Built to maneuver in the ice, the ship known as the Endurance did get stuck in the ice of the Weddell Sea in December 1914. Turning the stuck ship into a wintering camp, Shackleton intended to wait for a convenient opportunity to break free from the icy shackles, but over time, damage to the ship did not allow his plans to come true. The ship sank, all the animals had to be killed. In the absence of the ability to move on the ice, the team had to take the lifeboats. Thus, the crew was at sea for 497 days, but thanks to Shackleton's leadership, not a single crew member was killed.
Source: thestar.com
# 1: Vesna Vulovich
Few survive plane crashes, but nothing beats the fall of Vulovic. In January 1972, the stewardess Vesna Vulovic was in a flying plane when a bomb exploded. Although Vulovic survived after falling from a height of 10 thousand meters, she does not remember anything about the landing. And this is not so scary, because she is the only survivor after the crash, escaped with a fracture of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and pelvis. The first days she was in a coma. The treatment lasted 16 months, 10 of which she was paralyzed from the waist down. In 1985, her name was included in the Guinness Book of Records as a survivor of a fall from the greatest height.
Source: supercurioso.com