In this article, we dive into the incredible stories of survival that transcend the ordinary, pushing the boundaries of human resilience and ingenuity. From the vast, unpredictable waters of the Pacific to the deserted islands that dot its expanse, these narratives are a testament to the will to survive against all odds. Here, we unfold … Continue reading 3 Castaway Survival Stories: Incredible Tales of Resilience
Five Unbelievable Survival Facts That Prove Humans Are Remarkably Resilient
Survival stories have always been the source of inspiration, admiration, and intrigue. Each account, whether…
Survival at Sea: A Month with Ketchup and Seasonings
Elvis Francois, a 47-year-old sailor from Dominica, managed to survive almost a month stranded at sea, with ketchup and seasonings as his only source of sustenance. In December 2022, while carrying out repairs on his vessel near St. Martin, unforeseen currents swept him out to the open sea. Losing his signal, he was cut off from the outside world, unable to call for assistance.
With no food aboard, Francois had to improvise to survive. He mixed ketchup with garlic powder and Maggi seasoning cubes, using water to create an improvised meal. He also ingeniously collected rainwater on a cloth for hydration.
Despite efforts to light a fire for a distress signal, he was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, he crafted a “HELP” sign on his boat’s hull and tried to catch the attention of passing planes by reflecting the sun’s rays off a mirror. After 24 days of this maritime ordeal, he was finally located by the Colombian Navy, approximately 120 nautical miles northwest of La Guajira.
Francois was rescued and transported to Cartagena, where he was given the necessary medical care after his epic survival feat.
Olympic Triumph to Survival: Rulon Gardner’s Lake Powell Ordeal
In 2007, three years after securing a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, wrestler Rulon Gardner and two of his friends miraculously survived a plane crash in Lake Powell, Utah. After the accident, they swam for an hour through water at a chilly 44F (7C) to reach the shore. They endured the cold night without any shelter, awaiting rescue. Remarkably, all three men survived this ordeal.
In 1925, Nome, Alaska was hit by a diphtheria…
In 1925, Nome, Alaska was hit by a diphtheria epidemic and all the available antitoxin had been exhausted. Since land, air, and sea routes were not feasible, 20 mushers and 150 sled dogs bravely carried the serum over a distance of 674 miles in just 5 and a half days despite harsh subzero temperatures, near-blizzard […]
Iceland is the safest country in the world….
Iceland is the safest country in the world in case of a nuclear war, because it is isolated from the rest of the world, doesn’t have a standing army to target and generates all of its electricity from geothermal sources.
People Who Escaped A Serious Accident Unscathed Share Their Experiences
When faced with mortality, how can you ever look at things the same?
Life and death experiences are teaching tools—pay attention.
Redditor CrownedBird wanted to hear from everyone who was lucky enough to be able to tell us their close call story.
They asked:
“What moment made you say ‘Yep, I’m definitely dead,’ but survived with no major injuries?”
Shattered
“Not me, but my mom before I was born.”
“She was riding in a convertible with a friend of hers.”
“They came to an intersection and the friend wasn’t paying attention and lost control of the vehicle.”
“There was a big rig going through the intersection and they went right under the trailer.”
“My mom ducked, the driver didn’t not.”
“Driver was decapitated, my mom was lucky and only ended up with a scalp full of glass and some serious psychological trauma.”
“She had to get over 200 stitches in her scalp, but nothing else significant.”
“I think about it all the time and think how close I came to never being born at all.” ~ Laszerus
Taking the Bend
“I was at the end of a 2 hour journey about 10 mins from home, pretty rural and I was probably complacent because I took that road everyday.”
“I took a bend at 40MPH (legal limit was 60MPH so wasn’t breaking any speeding rules) which I’ve done many times before, probably faster which looking back was really reckless.”
“Didn’t see until it was too late that a car had spun out on the other side of the corner and another car had pulled up to help.”
“I slammed on but I wasn’t going to stop in time before hitting the cars pulled up/crashed.”
“I was hurtling straight towards the other cars and people who where stood in the road from the other crash.”
“It was like time slowed down and I was at a cross roads; in my mind I had three choices.”
“Continue on my path and hit the other cars and people, veer to the right and go into a field but there was oncoming traffic and there was a chance I’d hit them or veer to the left and fly into a wooded area.”
“I chose the last option, and in that moment I knew the chances of me surviving or not being seriously injured after a 40MPH head on collision to a tree in a 10 year old Ford KA was pretty slim.”
“I just felt a complete peace come over me, turned the wheel and woke up slumped over the steering wheel to some poor man shouting ‘OMG I THINK SHES DEAD!!’”
“Turned out I passed out from shock or something before the impact so when I hit the tree I was completely floppy and this contributed to me having no serious injuries.”
“The front of my car was completely disintegrated, after coming to I tried to put my clutch down to take the car out of gear out of habit and my foot hit the tree trunk.”
‘The tree was absolutely fine. I drove past that tree everyday for years after and you could see the chunk my car took out of it.” ~ Comfortable-Pie8349
Falling to Doom
“I had an idiot friend and we were hiking.”
“We got to this waterfall and he goes ‘dude let’s climb it!’”
“I said no f**king way.”
“He says ‘well I’m gonna do it and if I fall and die it’s on you for not coming.’”
“So I climbed it with him.”
“Got stuck halfway up on a slick a** rock.”
“Pinched a nerve in my shoulder, so my right arm was useless.”
“I thought I was certain to slip off the rock to my doom, but we managed to get me unstuck.”
“That was the beginning of the end for that friendship.” ~ blindfire40
Rolling in the Deep
“I survived a car crash that wrecked my car.”
“Rolled twice, landed upside down, learned the hard way that I didn’t have airbags (or at least they didn’t deploy).”
“Did have my seatbelt on though, that probably saved me.”
“Paramedic said he hadn’t seen a wreckage like that and have it end well.”
“Not even a hairline fracture.” ~ Chempenguin
Well this is it…
“I went out for a surf on a stormy day and thought to myself, ‘no one else is out, those idiots.’”
“Before being held down by 2 waves after eating it on the first wave of the set.”
“First wave of the session.”
“Was thrown down and held under and while being tossed around my leg rope wrapped around both my legs and one of my arms so I was probably being held at around 5ft under with only one arm free while my board tombstoned.”
“Board tip is barely visible at the surface but floats vertical like… a tombstone.”
“Finally managed to catch a breath between sets before taking another 3 or 4 on the head and for sure just thought… well this is it.”
“No ones out, fishermen will find my body or my board.”
“Managed to get my other arm free and got to shore very quickly and then avoided the ocean for a few days even though the waves were absolutely perfect.”
“There’s a reason no one was out, everyone else was 10 minutes down the road at another beach where the waves were smaller and cleaner.” ~ Gigiskapoo
In Air Issues
“Parachute deployed but failed to open.”
“That was one of those moments, than training kicked in.”
“Cut away failed chute, deploy secondary.”
“But for a brief moment life was about to be over in my mind.” ~ GREYDRAGON1
Hanging in the Balance
“Tire popped going over a two lane road with steep drops on both sides.”
“My car jerked to the side hard, and my car went sideways.”
“Half my car hung over the side and luckily it’s low so it bottomed out.”
“I climbed into the back seat and jumped out the back door.”
“Some dude in a truck pulled me out and I drove on a flat to the other side and swapped my tire out.” ~ pineappledaddy
How Am I Alive?
“I was driving in the left lane of a highway going 80.”
“A car didn’t check their bond spot and merged into me.”
“I was run off the road and lost control of the car.”
“It flipped and dragged along the highway for 200 feet.”
“I remember the sparks flying up at me in slow motion.”
“The only damage to be was cuts on my arm from done glass.”
“My girlfriend just had a few cuts on her leg.”
“When I look at the photos of the car it doesn’t look like anything could have survived that.” ~ ImpressivelyLost
From the Rear
“I was driving down a highway, doing 65 MPH, and suddenly my car started to shake.”
“I tapped the brakes in reflex and my entire car flipped 180 degrees.”
“I’m now facing oncoming traffic, including a semi truck.”
“I was so close I couldn’t see the driver compartment.”
“I screamed and jerked the wheel, bringing me in front of a sedan with two people screaming as they watched me appear out of nowhere.”
“I kept screaming and floored the gas pedal.”
“Made it to the side of the road and cried for a long time.”
“I had blown a rear tire. Hitting the brakes was a terrible terrible choice.” ~ AhFFSImTooOldForThis
Bad Highways
“I was driving home from college on one of those highways with only one lane in either direction and no shoulder.”
“A guy in the oncoming lane didn’t see me as I was in a small car.”
“He thought he could pass 4 18 wheelers in one go and pulled into my lane going at least 90.”
“There was no where for me to go.”
“He flew off into the ditch to avoid hitting me head on, likely did severe damage to his car, but I lived!” ~ pilatesse
That is a lot to process.
I never want to get in a car again and skydiving is definitely out.
In 1993 a French man driving a Citroen…
In 1993 a French man driving a Citroen car in a remote area of the Moroccan desert had a breakdown and became stranded. To survive he tore down the car, built a motorcycle from the parts, and rode it back to civilization. When he arrived he was ticketed for operating an illegal vehicle.
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People Share Little-Known Survival Tips That Could Save Your Life
In a perfect world, none of us would need to know or use any of the information we’re about to go over.
We don’t live in anything remotely close to a perfect world.
Tragedies happen, accidents occur, life gets heavy. In those moments, the thing that tips the scales might be something as seemingly unimportant as “that random factoid I read on the internet.”
Reddit user GlumExcitement9 asked:
“People of Reddit, what is a surprisingly unknown survival fact that everyone should know?”
So listen, we sincerely hope you never need this stuff.
We hope you never find yourself waiting to be rescued, facing down a person determined to hurt you, or falling off of a ship in the middle of the open ocean.
But just in case …
Whistle While You Wait
“Pack a whistle.”
“There’s no chance your voice will hold out yelling at the top of your lungs, and whistles carry long distances. Especially handy if you’ve injured yourself, and need to rely on others finding you.”
“SOS in Morse code is … – – – …”
“So three short blasts, three longer ones, three short, pause….and repeat.”
“This is an especially handy and harmless device to give kids that are along for a hike (along with, ‘if you get separated, stop walking and blow the whistle lots, and we’ll come to you’).” – Bubbafett33
Don’t Climb
“Contractor and someone who has designed quite a few subway and stations here.”
“Here’s something we’re taught during the first day of security clearance classes and this is how we design stations as a standard feature on every new platform being built. Older platforms may not have this or will have some other safety feature.”
“Having said that – many subway platforms have a space big enough for a person to fit under in case they fall onto the subways tracks.”
“So if you fall off the edge of the platform and onto the tracks and there’s a train coming, roll to the side. There’s likely a gap you can fit in.”
“It might be tight, and you’ll certainly get dirty, but better than standing up, scrambling to try and climb out, and dying.” – IndianInferno
“I work for NYCT. There are niches you can stand that are safe if you fall.”
“As long as there isn’t a red and white stripped board, you’re good.”
“Another fatal and idiotic piece of advice I hear a lot is to lie down flat between the running rails. This may work in a few stations and in specific spots in those stations but do not try this!”
“Just look along the wall for niches and flatten yourself against the wall in there. If there’s no wall then stand next to a column and hold onto it with one hand.”
“Then just try to stand flush with the column.” – CrankBar
Self Defense Is Cowardly
“My family runs self-defense classes. They include multiple black belts and lawyers.”
“In terms of ‘fights’ – bar brawls, people in the street, muggings, etc.:”
“- If they have a weapon, any weapon, run. Seriously, you will die, no matter how good you think you are or how many test-disarms you’ve done in a dojo.”
“Run like f*ck and be prepared to kill if cornered.”
“We’ve witnessed experienced black-belts hurt themselves with a real knife (after signing disclaimers!) so badly that they were hospitalized when they were JUST SPARRING, not fighting for real.”
“It’s just not worth it.”
“- If the fight is just ‘brewing’, repeatedly announce that you don’t want to fight them (attracts help, shows you’re not trying to one-up them, covers you legally, and doesn’t prepare them if you do fight).”
‘ Say things like ‘Nah, man, I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to fight you. Look, I don’t want to fight you. Whatever, man, I don’t want to fight. I’m just gonna walk away, alright, I don’t wanna fight you’.”
“- If it’s not immediately life-threatening and you can avoid it, try not to throw the first punch. Again, legal coverage, but also means you’re not the guy who gets into something they didn’t want to.”
“The first punch is the trigger for everything to kick off. Up until that point you can still defuse everything back to harsh words and idle threats.”
“Once a punch is thrown, someone’s getting really hurt and you literally have no idea if the other guy is more experienced or better at it that you. No matter who you are.”
“However, you can *react* to anything that appears to come towards you perfectly legitimately… if he’s “faking out” a punch, you have no idea of that but can act as if it was real.”
“- If you’re surprised, ‘attacked’, etc… without warning… it’s no holds barred.”
“Literally, who cares about his eyesight, his future fatherhood prospects, whether his kneecaps will ever work again or if he can breathe.”
“You can’t afford to end up on the floor, be incapacitated yourself, stunned, reeling, unconscious, for him to summon aid, or even just to fall to the ground awkwardly.”
“And YES, that guy could stab you and you wouldn’t know until after he walked away, things are really that quick!”
“Your brain doesn’t notice some subtle movements, your body won’t scream out in pain because of the adrenaline, and someone who knows what they’re doing will not attract attention to the weapon until it’s in you, etc…”
“You can’t take that risk.”
“Once it gets physical, don’t stop until you’re sure he’s not able to harm you, and then run away anyway for good measure (legal hint: report to the police at the first opportunity, don’t wait).”
“Once they have shown they have an intention to hurt you, and they’ve started to act on it – nothing is out of line.”
“And to quote the legal people in our clubs who were always asked the questions: If you feel your life is genuinely in danger, you can do almost anything to protect it until the point it’s no longer in danger. Worry about the legalities later.”
“But if your life is in danger, you would act to protect.”
“Going back in for another kick, or using a weapon when he’s already down and you could run, or anything else? Yeah, that’s not self-defense.”
“You’re not *defending* yourself by walking back into a fight you could have easily escaped.”
“Victims who ‘just tried to punch him once, but he punched back, so I shot him’ are also often harder to take seriously for self-defense than ‘he was three times my size, I was on my own, he attacked, I was in a struggle for my life at that point’.”
“That’s especially true if they were heard trying to stop the fight from happening, ran away immediately when they could, and called the police as they ran.”
“You can also act in defense of others, but again – you are defending. You’re giving them time to run away – wife, child, friend, whoever.”
“If there’s a threat, that’s what you’re giving them; the opportunity to escape the threat.”
“But there’s literally nothing wrong with breaking the guy’s knee as your first action (kick it so it goes sideways) – in fact, from a self-defense point of view, it’s perfectly legitimate. It’s a perfect way to prevent pursuit and allow you to escape.”
“Self-defense is cowardly, at its heart.”
“Do everything you can to capitulate, avoid the fight, etc… but if it escalates, take the quickest, most effective way to incapacitate them and then run away.” – ledow
You Vs. The Ocean
“If you are ever caught in a rip current, swim perpendicular to it. If you swim into it, you will die.”
“If you let it carry you out to sea and aren’t a strong swimmer, you will die.” – [Reddit]
“I’ve been caught in a rip current. This advice is incredibly useful to know, because without it you’re also going to panic real hard when swimming towards the shore doesn’t work.” – homarjr
“I was caught in one, too, during my freshman year of college. I almost died.”
“I would have if it weren’t for my friend, who was a lifeguard, that was nearby. I tried the whole swimming parallel to the beach method, but what everyone conveniently forgets to mention is that you STILL have to swim back to shore.”
“This task is seriously exhausting. If you’re not VERY in shape, you’re pretty much f*cked if you’re caught in a rip current with no one out there to help rescue you.” – enginerd12
“Been a sailing merchant for 12 years. If you ever fall off a ship/ferry at sea and you’re lucky enough to be spotted – don’t try to swim your way to safety. The ocean will win.”
“The more you try to swim, the lesser your chances of survival. Just try to keep afloat and conserve energy (and body heat) while rescue team do what they’re supposed to.”
“Unless you are in hypothermic waters, the best bet always is to stay afloat without trying to swim to somewhere.” – trendz19
Snakebite Position
“Lead the pack if you’re scared of snakes. You’ll disturb them but the person behind you is more likely to get bitten.” – knittingtaco
“Mountain biker from southern Arizona here.”
“In the summer, we trail ride at night to avoid the heat. When on single track, whoever is behind the guy in front is in ‘snakebite’ position.”
“We’ve all at one time or another had to bunnyhop a rattlesnake” – tucsonyeti
The Star
“Elevator stuff: The STAR symbol on the elevator panel indicates the floor that is the most direct route to outside. It’s not always the first floor.” – AtopMountEmotion
Leave It To The Professionals
“Don’t f*ck with garage door springs.” – SpitefulShrimp
“Used to work on commercial and residential doors and openers. Seen a broken spring go through a cinderblock wall.”
“The main thing to look for are the red bolts.(assuming the door was installed correctly.) Those are the ones holding tension on the springs/lines.”
“Screw with something else you might break it. Screw with the reds they might break you.” – ThePrevailer
“THIS is what almost killed me!”
“I was trying to fix a gap in my garage door a couple of years ago and started to unscrew a couple of bolts with the door closed.”
“One of them flew right by my face. I almost pissed my pants and couldn’t sleep that night just thinking about how I almost won a Darwin award.” – Lapare
Sure, some of this is stuff we’re not really likely to use, but how many elevators have you been in.
Did you know what that star was for?
Had you even noticed it?
Exactly.
In 1969, 17 year old Cuban, Armando…
In 1969, 17 year old Cuban, Armando Socarras Ramirez survived hiding in the right wheel well of a Douglas DC-8 on an eight-hour flight from Havana to Madrid. Upon landing he was found on the ground covered in ice and not breathing, Dubbed ”the popsicle” by Spanish doctors, he recovered fully.
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