Since I usually look at other sites in the morning before I start my post - you know, just to see if they give me some ideas -, I did this today too. And today's Oddee list is what gave me the idea to write a list about the luckiest people who walked on Earth!
Here they are, and here's their story!
1. Vesna Vulovic
I'll start with this one, since it's on the Oddee list too, and chances are you already read that. In 1972 a plane departed from Coppenhgen to Belgrade with 28 passengers and crew. What they didn't know, was that a terrorist planted a bomb on the plane, which at an altitude of 33000 feet (10100 meters), exploded. The plane disintegrated and crashed on the mountains. Vesna Vulovic was a flight attendant on that plane, and she survived the explosion and the fall, while she sat on the tail of the plane. She was 22 years old, and she wasn't even supposed to be on the plane. Another woman called Vesna was supposed to be the attendant, but she was happy with the mix-up, because this gave her the pleasure to fly to Denmark. She ended up with a fractured skull, two broken legs, and three broken vertebrae. She was paralyzed from the waist down. She spent the next months in hospitals, and with some operations she became able to walk again.
2. John Lyne
Johny Lyne could be Britain's (un)luckiest man. He has suffered 16 major accidents in his life, including lightning strikes, a rock-fall in a mine, and three car crashes. As a teen he fell from a tree, and on his way back from the hospital his bus crashed. He broke his arm in the same place he did by falling off the tree. As a child he fell off a horse and a cart, only to be run over by a delivery van. He is currently nicknamed "Calamity John".
3. Frane Selak
Frane Selak, born in 1929 was a Croatian music teacher. He is well known around the world because of the many fatal accidents and spectacular escapes. In 1962 he was on a train to Dubrovnik. The train suddenly derailed into an icy river, and killed 17 passengers. Selak managed to escape with one broken arm ans some scratches and bruises. A year later he was on a plane from Zagreb to Rijeka. Suddenly the door of the plane in the cockpit blew away, and he was blown off the plane. In this accident 19 people died, however Selak landed on a haystack and woke up a few days later in a hospital with minor injuries. In 1966 he was traveling with a bus... and it crashed and plunged into a river. Four people died in the accident, but Selak escaped unharmed again. In 1970 he was driving, when his car caught on fire. He managed to escape the car before the fuel tank exploded. In 1973 he was in a new car... when it suddenly caught on fire again. This time he wasn't as lucky... he lost most of his hair. In 1995 he went to Zagreb, where a bus hit him. He escaped with a few minor injuries again. In 1996 he was driving on a mountain road, and he drove off a guardrail to escape an oncoming truck. He landed on a tree, and watched his car explode 92 meters (300 feet) under him. In 2003 Selak won one million dollars on the lottery.
4. Roy Sullivan
Roy Sullivan was a forest ranger, in Virginia. Over 36 years in his career Sullivan was struck by lightning seven times. The seventh strike put him in the Guiness Book of World records. In 1942 the first strike shot trough his leg and knocked his big toenail off. In 1969 the second lightning burned off his eyebrows and knocked him unconscious. In 1970 left his shoulder seared. In 1972 his hair was set on fire and he had to dump a bucket of water on it to cool off. In 1973 a lightning ripped trough his hat, set his hair on fire again , threw him out of his car and knocked his shoe off. In 1976 the sixth strike left him with an injured ankle. In 1977 the last lightning bolt sent him to the hospital with chest and stomach burns. His wife was also struck once. He died at age of 71 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound over troubles unrelated to lightning.
5. Mauro Prosperi
Prosperi is an endurance runner, and he took part in the 1994 Marathon des Sables in Morocco. This is a 233 kilometer event. On the sixth day a sandstorm caused him to lose his way. He ended up disoriented and ran in the wrong direction, running several hundred kilometers into Algeria. After 36 hours he ran out of food and water. He survived by drinking his own urine and eating bats and snakes. He attempted to commit suicide in an abandoned mosque he found on his way by slitting his wrists with a pen knife. The attempt failed, because the lack of water caused his blood to thicken and this clotted the wound before he died. He was stuck in the desert for 9 days, when a nomadic family found him and took him to an Algerian military camp and from there to a hospital. He was 186 miles (300km) off route and lost about 18 kg in body weight.
