Have you ever heard a story and thought, “No way is that actually possible!”
Well, some people have lived through the most impossible and extreme situations that it’s
kinda hard to wrap your head around it!
Take, for instance, the story of Jean Hilliard.
This 19-year-old woman was found frozen solid, and (get this) she managed to survive!
It all started when Hilliard lost control of her car while driving home late one night.
The car wouldn’t start after the accident, so she decided to walk to the closest person
she knew who lived about 2 miles away.
But since it was the dead of winter in sub-zero Minnesota temperatures, she collapsed before
she could reach his door.
Actually, she only missed it by 15 feet!
The homeowner found Hilliard frozen solid the next morning and rushed her to the hospital.
Her skin was completely frozen, her eyes weren’t reacting to any light, but she was alive!
Her pulse was only 12 beats per minute, and her body temperature was just 88°F. (Remember,
98.6 degrees is where it should be!)
Since the doctors couldn’t put an IV through her frozen skin, they wrapped her up in an
electric heating pad and waited anxiously for her to come to.
The doctor who managed to revive her was stunned that the girl didn’t have any brain damage
and was able to keep all her limbs, although she did lose a few toes to hypothermia.
Hilliard’s recovery has been dubbed a medical miracle, which is probably pretty accurate!
But still, it’s also proof that our bodies are built for survival.
You see, in the extreme circumstance of sub-zero temperatures, the human body will slow down
all internal activities like heart rate and breathing to stay alive.
Well, that’s pretty helpful, indeed!
But there are plenty of other situations when the body defies all odds and expectations,
like the story of a construction worker in the 1840s named Phineas Gage.
When explosives used to clear the way to build a railroad went off early, a huge iron rod
was sent right through Gage’s head!
Now here’s the weird bit: he didn’t even seem phased by the whole thing!
He casually chatted with people who walked passed him while waiting for the doctor to
arrive.
Can you imagine?
Like, “Oh, hey, Bill!
Yeah, I got this minor inconvenience I gotta go take care of.”
Anyway, Gage then developed a brain infection that had him close to death, but looks like
he wasn’t ready to go.
He made a full recovery and only lost use of his left eye and part of his brain.
He could still live a normal life, go back to work, and do all the day-to-day activities
he used to, even with a piece of his brain missing!
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “How is it possible to lose part of your brain
and not have anything wrong with you?”
Well, here’s where it gets even more bizarre.
Gage might’ve just kept going on with his life, but anyone who knew him before the accident
said that he’d changed into a completely different person!
Medical experts explain that this was likely due to the fact that the piece of his brain
that was damaged is where our personalities are stored.
Yeah, who would’ve thought?!
Another man had an interesting story to tell after what should’ve been a typical mundane
day at the office.
He’d come in on a Saturday to catch up on some work.
He later got into the elevator and rode down to the first floor.
Again, nothing out of the ordinary!
But when the elevator stopped on the first floor, the man heard a strange sound.
He said it was like metal clanging way up above him.
He then had to make a quick decision when the doors started to open: either stay where
he was or jump out of the elevator.
Good thing he decided to do the latter because at that moment, a large steel board came crashing
down to the bottom of the shaft with a massive smash.
The doors then simply closed as if nothing had happened!
As for why this huge metal thing almost came crashing down on this poor guy just pulling
some overtime, well, that was because the maintenance crew that had been repairing the
old elevator that week had forgotten to fasten a panel, which caused it to come loose.
Oops!
The next story is about a few friends who were all relaxing in a hammock.
Hey, that’s just usually how these things start: a typical day with nothing out of the
ordinary!
Anyway, while the friends were lying there making small talk, the weather took a turn,
and it got pretty windy.
They heard the branches crackling above and even joked about how crazy it’d be if one
of them broke off and came crashing down on the hammock.
(Now that’s some pretty disturbing humor...)
A little while later, the wind got worse and the branches started to move a lot.
They decided to call it a night and go inside.
Only a few seconds after they went back in the house, a huge branch snapped and fell
on the hammock in the exact spot where they would’ve been lying!
Would they have lost their lives or just been seriously injured?
It’s hard to say, but, luckily, they got out of there just in time to never find out
the answer to that question!
A man named Chris Gursky decided to do something new and adventurous while he was on vacation
in Switzerland.
Naturally, he thought hang-gliding sounded like a great idea!
He was pretty excited for this adrenaline rush, and it was exactly that which probably
ended up saving his life!
You see, the pilot didn’t strap Gursky properly to the glider.
The man did fall, but he grabbed onto the pole and the pilot’s shoulder just in time
to catch himself.
Gursky had to hold on to dear life with all his strength for a whole 3 minutes before
the pilot could attempt to land safely.
Three minutes might not sound like much, but it’s an eternity when your fingers are supporting
all your body weight!
Gursky walked away from this terrifying situation with just a broken wrist, a torn bicep, and,
more importantly, his life!
Ya know, everyone always says it’s good to be adventurous and try new things, but
stories like these make me really appreciate the couch potato lifestyle...
Have you ever heard the saying “lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice”?
I guess it’s still true, but nobody said anything about it striking the same person
twice…or even 7 times!
Yep, that’s right, a man has been struck by lightning seven different times, and he
lived to tell the tale.
Roy Sullivan has even been placed in the Guinness Book of World Records for his strange attraction
for lightning.
Each time he was struck, he gained a different injury, from the most minor, like lost eyebrows,
to pretty severe burns.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, seven times!
Maybe he shouldn’t leave his house anymore…
And if you’ve never seen the movie Touching the Void, then get ready for spoilers!
Well, not really, because I’m not talking about the movie itself but the real event
it was based on.
A man named Joe Simpson and his friend Simon Yates were climbing in the Peruvian Andes.
Something went horribly wrong and Simpson broke his leg.
Yates tried to lower his buddy down from the mountain with a rope as far as he could, but
he ended up having to cut the rope to save himself.
Miraculously, Simpson landed on a ledge with only the one broken leg.
He then thought for sure that this is the place where he’d take his last breath, but
he then did something remarkable.
He crawled 6 miles to get back to base camp.
It took him four days to make the journey.
He wrote a book about his experience, and that then became the 2003 movie.
Come to think of it, all of these stories would make incredible films!
Some of them might seem rather impossible, but I assure you that they’re all true and
that there are millions of others out there that are probably even more bizarre than these!
Actually, if you know any other incredible stories of survival, leave them down in the
comments!
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