Against the Odds

On January twenty sixth, nineteen seventy two, twenty three year old flight attendant Vesna Vulović was working aboard JAT Flight Three Six Seven when the aircraft broke apart over Czechoslovakia. Twenty seven people died. Vesna was the only survivor. Guinness World Records recognizes her as having survived a fall of ten thousand one hundred sixty meters without a parachute. She was discovered ins...

In November nineteen sixty one, eleven year old Terry Jo Duperrault was sailing through the Bahamas aboard the charter yacht Bluebelle with her parents, brother, and younger sister. On the final night of the trip, she awoke to a violent event aboard the vessel. Hours later, Bluebelle was sinking and Terry Jo was alone. She escaped onto a tiny cork float with no food, drinking water, or shelter. Fo...

In September nineteen eighty three, twenty three year old sailor Tami Oldham and her fiancé, Richard Sharp, left Tahiti aboard the yacht Hazana, delivering it toward San Diego. Both were experienced sailors. About twenty days into the crossing, Hurricane Raymond overtook them with enormous seas and hurricane force winds. The yacht capsized. Tami was knocked unconscious, and when she woke, Richard...

On May twentieth, nineteen ninety nine, twenty nine year old physician Anna Bågenholm was skiing with two colleagues near Narvik, Norway, when she fell headfirst through ice covering a mountain stream. Her body became trapped beneath the ice, but she found a small pocket of air and remained conscious for roughly forty minutes. By the time rescuers freed her after about eighty minutes, she had suff...

In nineteen ninety four, Italian endurance athlete Mauro Prosperi entered the Marathon des Sables, a multiday race across the Moroccan Sahara. During a long stage, a severe sandstorm erased his visual references and separated him from the course. When the wind finally eased, Prosperi could no longer see runners, markers, or anything telling him which direction led back. The Marathon des Sables rec...

On the night of March twenty fourth, nineteen forty four, twenty one year old RAF tail gunner Nicholas Alkemade was returning from a bombing mission over Germany when his Lancaster was attacked by a German night fighter and caught fire. His parachute was destroyed, leaving him with a choice between remaining inside the burning aircraft or jumping without one. Alkemade fell approximately eighteen t...

In June nineteen seventy two, the Robertson family was sailing across the Pacific aboard their schooner Lucette when the hull was struck and badly damaged by orcas roughly two hundred miles west of the Galápagos Islands. The vessel sank within minutes, leaving six people with an inflatable raft, a small fiberglass dinghy, and only limited emergency supplies. As the days passed, drinking water and...

During the disastrous Mount Everest climbing season of May nineteen ninety six, American pathologist Beck Weathers became temporarily blinded high on the mountain and was caught outside when a violent storm descended. Other climbers eventually found him unconscious and severely exposed to the cold, and rescuers believed he could not survive. Hours later, Weathers unexpectedly regained consciousnes...

In nineteen eighty one, twenty two year old Yossi Ghinsberg entered the Bolivian Amazon with three other travelers. Disagreements eventually divided the group, leaving Yossi and American photographer Kevin Gale traveling together on a homemade raft along the Tuichi River. After losing control near dangerous rapids, the two men were separated. Yossi survived the river but found himself completely a...

On May twenty fifth, two thousand six, Australian mountaineer Lincoln Hall reached the summit of Mount Everest. During the descent, he became severely confused and incapacitated at extreme altitude, consistent with high altitude cerebral edema. Sherpas spent hours trying to help him before concluding that he had died and descending to protect their own lives as oxygen and daylight disappeared. The...

In nineteen twenty one, Ada Blackjack joined four men on an expedition to remote Wrangel Island, north of Siberia. She was an Iñupiat seamstress and mother who accepted the job largely because she needed money to reunite with her son, Bennett, who was suffering from tuberculosis. When a relief ship failed to arrive, food became scarce. Three men eventually left across the sea ice seeking help and...

On November twenty third, nineteen forty two, British merchant ship Benlomond was torpedoed by German submarine U One Seven Two in the South Atlantic. Chinese seaman Poon Lim survived the sinking and eventually reached a small wooden life raft. He would become the ship's sole survivor. The raft initially contained emergency food and water, but Lim remained alone for one hundred thirty three days....

In nineteen fourteen, Ernest Shackleton sailed south aboard Endurance with twenty seven other men. His goal was to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. But before the expedition could even reach the continent, the ship became trapped in pack ice on January nineteenth, nineteen fifteen. For months, Endurance drifted helplessly with the ice. At first, Shackleton hoped the ship woul...

In November nineteen twelve, Australian explorer Douglas Mawson left Cape Denison with Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz to explore the Antarctic coast. More than five hundred kilometers from base, Ninnis disappeared into a crevasse along with a sledge carrying much of the party's food and equipment. Mawson and Mertz turned back, surviving on shrinking rations and eventually their remaining sled do...

In April two thousand three, twenty seven year old mountaineer Aron Ralston was exploring Bluejohn Canyon in Utah when a falling boulder trapped his right arm against the canyon wall. He was alone, far from help, and nobody knew exactly where he had gone. For more than five days, Ralston rationed his remaining water and tried unsuccessfully to free himself. When he realized that waiting meant almo...

On May twenty sixth, twenty thirteen, the tugboat Jascon Four capsized in heavy seas off the coast of Nigeria and sank upside down to the ocean floor. Ship's cook Harrison Okene became trapped inside the wreck at a depth of about thirty meters, while the other eleven crew members died. ([Maritime Executive][1]) Okene found an air pocket inside the overturned vessel and remained there in darkness,...

On July twenty fourth, two thousand two, miners working at the Quecreek Number One Mine in Pennsylvania accidentally broke into the flooded workings of an abandoned neighboring mine. Water rushed through the opening. Nine miners escaped, while nine others became trapped roughly two hundred thirty feet underground and about a mile and a half from the mine entrance. ([MSHA][1]) The trapped crew move...

In nineteen eighty two, sailor Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone when his small sailboat was badly damaged and began sinking west of the Canary Islands. He escaped into a tiny inflatable life raft with only limited food, water, and survival equipment. ([The Guardian][1]) For the next seventy six days, Callahan drifted across the Atlantic, catching fish, producing small amounts of dri...

On December twenty second, nineteen seventy two, Nando Parrado guided two Chilean Air Force helicopters back toward the wreckage of Flight Five Seven One. The flight into the mountains was difficult, but the crews eventually located the survivors who had been stranded in the Andes for seventy two days. Six were evacuated that day, while the remaining survivors were brought out the following mornin...

More than two months after Flight Five Seven One crashed, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio Vizintín left the wreckage to search for help. After climbing for three exhausting days, they reached a summit expecting to see the green valleys of Chile. Instead, almost everything ahead was still mountains. ([HISTORY][1]) Vizintín returned to the crash site so the remaining food could support t...

Seventeen days after Flight Five Seven One crashed in the Andes, an avalanche struck the wrecked fuselage where the survivors were sheltering. Snow filled the cabin and killed eight more people, while those still alive found themselves trapped beneath the mountain inside the only shelter they had. ([HISTORY][1]) After escaping the buried aircraft, the remaining survivors understood that waiting co...

Eleven days after Uruguayan Air Force Flight Five Seven One crashed in the Andes, the survivors heard devastating news through a small radio: the official search had been called off. Their white fuselage had been almost impossible to see against the snow, and rescuers no longer expected to find anyone alive. ([HISTORY][1]) Their food was already gone. Trapped at high altitude with no vegetation an...

On October thirteenth, nineteen seventy two, Uruguayan Air Force Flight Five Seven One was carrying members of the Old Christians rugby club, along with friends and family, toward Santiago, Chile. While crossing the Andes, the aircraft struck the mountains and broke apart before sliding to a stop on a glacier. Of the forty five people aboard, twelve died in the initial crash. ([HISTORY][1]) Those...

On July eighth, twenty eighteen, the extraction began. Specialist cave divers entered Tham Luang to bring the first members of the Wild Boars football team through flooded passages that stretched for kilometers between their chamber and the entrance. The operation would continue over three days. ([The Guardian][1]) Because panic underwater could be fatal, Australian anesthetist and cave diver Rich...

After the Wild Boars football team was found alive inside Tham Luang, rescuers faced a problem with no easy solution. Nearly two miles of difficult cave passages separated the group from safety, and significant sections were underwater. ([The Guardian][1]) Waiting for the water to disappear carried its own risks. Oxygen levels inside the cave had fallen, more rain could arrive, and on July sixth f...