The 6 Most Insane True Tales of Survival
There's so much death in the news that we don't really stop to appreciate the fact that humans are actually really hard to kill. Nature and man conspire to do it every day, and every day there are untold stories of people making it through via luck, training or just the power of will. Even when it seems utterly impossible.
#6. Juliane Koepcke vs. Christmas
Everyone has a Christmas horror story, whether it's a tree igniting in the living room or some chronology ghosts haunting you for being a bad person. Still, none of them hold a candle to Juliane Koepcke's Christmas in 1971, which even John McClane would insist was pretty goddamn bad.
Badass of the Week
Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker.
On December 24, 1971, Juliane was with her mother and 91 other people on an airplane that got struck by lightning and exploded mid-air. The blast sent Juliane hurtling into the Peruvian jungle from 10,000 feet, while still strapped in to her seat.
She suffered a broken collarbone, a swollen eye and a nasty gash on her arm, but aside from these injuries and the trauma of surviving a goddamn plane explosion that liquefied everyone else, she was miraculously unhurt after her fall.
Caretas
Hell, she still photographed well.
After surviving exclusively on holiday sweets she found in the wreckage, Juliane followed a stream toward civilization and survived using the skills her father had taught her. Wait, did he know this was going to happen? Later was he all like, "See, I told you!"
Anyway, she waded downstream for nine days. And we should point out that she did all of this nearly blind, since she somehow managed to lose her glasses in the thousands of feet between mid-air explosion and jungle floor. Juliane eventually found a canoe and paddled it to the first sign of civilization she had seen since the crash: a lumber yard.
Wings of Hope
Years later, she returned to the site of the crash to beat up the wreckage.
The next day, Juliane was airlifted by less combustible means to a hospital, where her father was waiting for her -- we assume with a stopwatch.
#5. Betty Lou Oliver Survives the Fall That Killed King Kong
On July 28, 1945, a plane crashed into the Empire State Building so hard and fast that it gave the then-tallest structure on earth an exit wound. One of the engines blew a hole clean through the other side of the building and crashed through the roof of a building down the block.
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Something tells us this was the work of George Bush Senior.
More than a dozen people were killed in the crash, but among the survivors was Betty Lou Oliver, elevator operator and immortal.
The impact threw Oliver from the elevator she was standing in, and the resulting fire gave her severe burns. But it was about to get much, much worse.
Wikipedia Commons
Above: A bad day on the job.
Rescue crews, needing to get her to the ground so she could get medical attention, put her right back in the elevator and punched the button for the ground floor. Now, anyone who's familiar with the "Do Not Use in Case of Emergency" signs plastered on every elevator already knows this was a bad idea. Sure enough, the cables were so badly damaged by the accident that they snapped almost immediately.
Betty Lou was sent into a 75-story free fall.
Due to what was either a featherweight frame or an adamantium skeleton, Ms. Oliver survived that 75-story fall -- directly after getting hit by a plane -- then returned to the job only five months later. And yes, she went right back to work in the same elevator that tried to kill her.
#4. Marguerite de La Rocque Conquers the Isle of Demons
Way back in 1541, a French noblewoman named Marguerite de La Rocque accompanied one of her relatives on his expedition to explore the New World. During the trip, she was caught banging one of the shipmates, which is apparently a serious offense on French ships. Jean-Francois de La Rocque punished Marguerite by marooning her on the Isle of Demons in Canada's Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
Blaeu Map, 1617
At the time, Newfoundland held less than a dozen people. Barely half of its current population.
In addition to Marguerite, her lover was abandoned on the island, as well as her completely innocent, presumably pissed maidservant. Without much to do on an island, Marguerite and her new boyfriend got to work nailing one another, and without the benefit of prophylactics on the island, she got pregnant.
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Condoms: Because you never know when you'll end up stranded in bumfuck nowhere.
Now, while there weren't specialized OB-GYNs during that time period, it was still pretty well understood that no one should try having a baby on a deserted island. Nevertheless, she birthed a child by herself and survived. Sadly, no one else, including the baby, was as adaptable as Marguerite, and they all eventually died, leaving Marguerite on her own against the relatively unexplored Western Hemisphere.
Amazon.com
With a huge gun, apparently.
Marguerite lived on the island for two solid years, hunting wild animals/monsters, before she was eventually rescued by fishermen. Once back home, her story made her an instant celebrity for reasons that would have probably resulted in her own reality show today.
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"She's got tits? And a gun? GET ME ONE HUNDRED CAMERAS."
Yet, her story still isn't quite as improbable as ...
I thought Australia was nature's weapons stockpile...
ReplyI can't believe falling 10,000 feet and surviving virtually unscathed is 10th on this list!
ReplyMarguerite sounds like a real selfish bitch. "Sorry about getting you marooned, innocent servant, but I'm gonna go f**k this guy now. Seeya."
ReplyWhat about 50 Cent being shot 9 times??? lol
ReplyI down commented so hard it broke my clicker.
Hmm, Ernest Shackleton and his arctic exploration vessel the endurance got trapped in pack ice in the Wendell Sea in January 1915. The crew stayed on board until the ship was crushed about 10 months later if I recall, then the crew lived on the floating ice for a further 4 months until the ice broke apart. Getting into the lifeboats they rowed to elephant island, then a small crew of 5 or 6 sailed a lifeboat through the southern ocean (generally regarded as the most dangerous seas on the planet) to South Georgia Island. Then three people including Shackleton himself mountaineered through the middle the the island (something even well prepared and outfitted teams have had a very difficult time doing) to a whaling station on the other side.
ReplyThe story is so ridiculously awesome I can think of 5 books and three movies made about it. Oh, and all 28 members of the expedition survived.
The Ross sea party which was the other half of the expedition, sent to drop supplies for the main expedition on the other side of Antarctica, overcame similar hardship but with great loss of life on their end.
Given Cracked's love of old timey men with testicles the size of old timey cannon balls doing old timey manly things using good old timey f**k y'all lets do this mentality to become old timey heroes I was certain this story would make the list. I mean okay they only floated on ice for over 4 months, shit!, then sailed a lifeboat through the cape horn passage, holy shit!, then climbed a 3000 feet peak alpine style with just a carpenters ax and a rope, holy freakin' shit!, then they, hand to God, slid down the other side! I haven't yet come across enough qualifiers to the word s**t to adequately describe the cracked quality awesomeness of these men. Let's give it a shot: oh my God fearing holy awesome freakin' shit! Naa, still wrong.
These guys deserve the honor of a place on a cracked list.
Too long; read repeatedly
Fine, YOU try to fit the most awesomely epic tale of survival that you're complaining wasn't included in a list of the most awesome epic tales of survival in it's comments using just a few dozen words... Wait! Haiku! (man these things come in handy all the time!):
Ernest Shackleton
whose tale owns all these stories
deserves a place here.
pffft. Read 'Touching The Void' then rewrite the list.
ReplyYeah....fuck falling 10,000 feet in an exploded airplane. f**k that right in the neck.
ReplyI remember the Island of Blue Dolphins! I was so depressed and ticked at the end of it all D;
Replysucks about the ending of the real life story... imagine that... either get slaughtered to death or get deathly sick... in the end they died out in either sitch D;
Last night I drank enough for my vomit to kill a patch of grass in the front yard, but do you see anyone chronicling my tale of survival?
ReplyYou should do that in front of camera. Otherwise, it just hearsay.
Fun read
ReplyI don't think Narcisse Pelletier's entry (the one where the 14 year old kid gets adopted by aboriginal Australians) should qualify for this list.
ReplyTo survive 17 years in aboriginal culture is no big feat, seeing as they'd been living like that for around 40,000 years previous.
The kid probably had a pleasant time.
Surviving any length of time in Australia is impressive.
Speaking as an Australian I agree with Binga, remember it was QUEENSLAND, I couldn't last 3 days before I rushed back south.
Just putting it out there. Women are tougher than men.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesOh hi Mom
...soooo does that mean they just keep letting themselves get raped?
I'm sorry, but that was funny.
Actually, women tend to internalize ailments and wounds, emotionally personalizing them. Men tend to think more on the side of "Its just a flesh wound". They disconnect with the pain. Which doesn't necessarily mean they survive longer. For instance, a man my get sick and think "Oh, its just a cold, I'll tough it out." while a woman may get the same sickness and go see the doctor just to be safe. The woman lives, and the man dies. Which one was "tougher" doesn't really factor into it. Now if you said "Women survive longer than men." then you would have something there.
i challenge you to a race around the world.
"Yet her story still isn't quite as improbable as..." Ubuntu? o_O That's what the ad says...
Reply"LIPSTICK THAT LASTS FROM BROOKLYN TO SHANGHAI" was mine.
Vista Print was my improbable story lol
Quercia usually ends up with some interesting content, but the jokes just never work. I don't know if it's just me, but his humor is usually a miss and comes off as trying too hard. I do commend him for cranking out so many articles though, and appreciate the effort.
ReplyFor me, it was just the nature of the article. "So it turns out you CAN commit genocide on a kayak HAHAHAHAHA"
Love his articles as a whole, though, particularly the historical ones.
Those are some lopsided boobs.
ReplyThose 3 Mexican fisherman should make us all take a good look at our self. The Mexgyvers. Way to f****n not die!
Replypick your eye up, and come on
ReplyWith a stop watch. See, I told you not to wear the Jellies
ReplyI actually had to check what the population of Newfoundland was :(
Replysurprised none of the stories about american mountain men were on here, they had some seriously crazy s**t happen to them.
ReplyUghh you must not come around here that often because not to long ago, there was an article on mountain climbers' crazy stories of survivals.