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.
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