11 Incredible Survival Stories of All Time

Transcription

1 11 Incredible Survival Stories of All Time

2 Throughout history there have been plenty of beat-the-odds survival stories that demonstrate the tenacity it takes to stay alive under the absolute worst circumstances. But some of these stories, and the people who lived to tell them, stand out among the crowd (MacWelch).

3 Steven Callahan Toughest Battle with Dehydration On the night of January 29, 1982, Steven Callahan set sail alone in his small sailboat from the Canary Islands bound for the Caribbean. On February 5, the ship sank in a storm, leaving Callahan adrift in the Atlantic in a five-and-a-halffoot inflatable rubber raft. Naked except for a t-shirt, with only three pounds of food, a few pieces of gear and eight pints of water, Callahan drifted for 76 days, and over 1,800 miles of ocean, before he reached land and rescue in the Bahamas (MacWelch).

4 Aron Ralston Gutsiest Escape Aron Ralston became widely known in May 2003, when he was forced to amputate his right arm with a dull knife in order to free himself from between a boulder and a rock wall. Ralston was scrambling through a canyon in Utah when a boulder shifted, pinning his arm to the canyon wall. He was alone, and no one knew how to find him. After several days, he finally walked out of the canyon, near death and minus one arm (MacWelch).

5 Abby Sunderland Youngest Survivor Abby Sunderland was attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, when a strong storm snapped the mast of her 40-foot yacht, Wild Eyes. The 16-year-old was stranded in the Indian Ocean, 2,000 miles from land after being hit by gale-force winds and freezing temperatures. She was rescued by fishermen two days after raising a distress signal (MacWelch).

6 Lewis and Clark Expedition Surviving the West Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1804 to find a water route across North America and explore the uncharted West. Their famous story of two years of travel and discovery often glosses over the fact that without the help of friendly Native tribes and their interpreter, Sacajawea, the expedition would have starved to death or become hopelessly lost in the Rocky Mountains. Despite the help they received during their expedition, they were robbed, injured and nearly starved many times (MacWelch).

7 Ernest Shackleton s Expedition Team Unlikely Survivors Before the expedition was able to reach the continent, Shackelton s ship, the Endurance, became stuck in an early ice floe in the Weddell Sea. The crew of 27 had no means of communication or hope for outside help, and remained isolated for next 22 months. The men lived within the bowels of the Endurance for almost a year before the ice destroyed it, forcing the expedition to move out onto the frozen sea. Several months later, the expedition built sledges and moved to Elephant Island, a rocky deserted spot of land just beyond the Antarctic Peninsula. At this point, no one knew what happened to the expedition, or where they were. Most people assumed they had been killed. Knowing that a rescue wasn t going to happen, Shackleton made the decision to take one of the open lifeboats and cross the 800 miles of frigid sea to South Georgia Island where a small whaling station was located. Incredibly, he landed on the wrong side of the island and was forced to trek over the frozen mountains to reach the station (MacWelch).

8 Beck Weathers Everest Escape Jon Krakauer s bestseller, Into Thin Air, fleshed out many of the details of the ill-fated expeditions that left eight people dead, and became the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Mt. Everest. The most amazing part of the story centered on Beck Weathers, who was twice abandoned and presumed to be dead. Weathers spent 18 hours in subzero temperatures in the death zone before miraculously regaining his senses and staggering into camp. He was suffering from severe frostbite, corneal lacerations and hypothermia, and his face was so badly frostbitten it scarcely seemed human. Over the next year Weathers underwent ten surgeries, and his entire right hand and most of his left were amputated (MacWelch).

9 Juliane Koepcke Luckiest Plane Crash Survivor Juliane Diller (born 1954 in Lima as Juliane Margaret Koepcke) is best known for being the sole survivor of 93 passengers and crew in the December 24, 1971, crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest. The airplane was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm and exploded in mid-air. Koepcke, who was 17 years old at the time, fell thousands of feet still strapped into her seat. The thick, deep jungle canopy cushioned her fall, and she survived with only a broken collarbone, a gash to her right arm and her right eye swollen shut. Koepcke had no training or gear, but was soon able to locate a small stream, which she followed for 9 days. She finally found a canoe and a nearby shelter, where she waited, and was soon rescued by two loggers (MacWelch).

10 Deborah Scaling Kiley Last Woman Standing In October 1982, Deborah and four other people set out from Maine to deliver the 58-foot yacht Trashman to Florida. Gale winds and high seas off the coast of North Carolina sank the yacht, leaving the crew adrift in a rubber dinghy in shark-filled waters without food or water. Three of them ended up dying. Two of the crew resorted to drinking seawater, which caused their mental state to decline. One man got into the water and was eaten by sharks right underneath the raft. Another simply swam off, never to be seen again. Deborah and one other crewman were able to hang on for 4 days until rescued (MacWelch).

11 Scott O Grady Shot Down Over Bosnia On June 2, 1995, Air Force Lt. Scott O Grady s F-16 was hit by a Serbian missile, sending him into enemy territory. He spent the next six days trying to evade Bosnian-Serb troops using skills that he learned in a military survival training course (MacWelch).

12 (Hamilton and Berk et.al) Bethany Hamilton Shark Attack Changed Her Life On October 31, 2003, 13 year old Bethany Hamilton was surfing off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai when she was attacked by at 15 foot tiger shark, losing her arm in the attack. She then had to paddle to safety on the shore and wait for help to arrive (Hamilton and Berk et.al).

13 Works Cited Hamilton, Bethany, Sheryl Berk, and Rick Bundschuh. Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. New York: Pocket Books ; MTV, Print. MacWelch, Tim. The 25 Most Incredible Survival Stories of All Time. Outdoor Life. Bonnier Corp., Web. 26 Nov