19 January 2021 - SURVIVORS FORCED TO EAT HUMAN FLESH

 

SURVIVORS FORCED 

TO EAT HUMAN FLESH

G'day folks,

Here is a true story of survival that has been well-documented.

On October 13th, 1972, an Uruguayan plane travelling from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile, crashed in the Andes mountains. On board were the Old Christians Club, a rugby team, and family members who were going to a match against a Chilean team. Of the 45 people on board, 25 survived, but 8 of them died two weeks later when an avalanche hit the crash site.

 

Trapped in the snow at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, the survivors eventually resorted to one of the grisliest acts of self-preservation imaginable – they were forced to eat the flesh of dead friends and family members who had been preserved in the cold.

 

After more than 8 weeks without rescue, two of the athletes, 21-year-old Fernando Parrado and 19-year-old Roberto Canessa decided to hike off into the wilderness in an attempt to find help. After 10 days, they came across a livestock herder, and the next day, a search team in helicopters reached the survivors. Their story was made into a book and a movie, both called “Alive.”

Clancy's comment: I'm not sure how I would have coped.

I'm ...

 

28 January 2021 - FLIGHT ATTENDENT SURVIVES PLANE CRASH

 

FLIGHT ATTENDENT

SURVIVES PLANE CRASH

G'day folks,

Welcome to another mysterious survival.

On January 26th, 1972, Vesna Vulovic, a 22-year-old flight attendant, went down in history for surviving the highest fall from a plane. As the aircraft was flying over what is now known as the Czech Republic, it suddenly exploded. Rescuers eventually found Vulovic in the still-smoking fuselage, her legs poking out of the wreckage. She had lost a lot of blood, and she spent the next three days in a coma with a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, and an array of other injuries, but she somehow managed to hang on.

 

She was the only one out of the twenty-eight people on board who survived. Vulovic had fallen more than 10 kilometers, and the Guinness World Records eventually recognized her as the person who has survived the longest fall without a parachute. In the late 2000s, two Czech investigators claimed that, based on previously secret records from the Czech Civil Aviation Authority, the official story that the place was blown up by Croatian nationalists was false.

 

In fact, the airliner had been shot down by a Czechoslovakian fighter pilot who mistook it for enemy aircraft. They claimed that Vulovic only fell about 800 meters. Even if this was the case, she still survived a fall that was 27 times more than the average height that kills most victims of falling accidents.

Clancy's comment: Wow. Unbelievable. 

I'm ...

 

17 January 2021 - AMAZING SURVIVAL FROM FROZEN RIVER

 

AMAZING SURVIVAL FROM

 FROZEN RIVER

G'day folks,

Welcome to another story of survival.

In May 2000, Dr. Anna Bagenholm, 29, was skiing on a familiar trail outside Narvik, Norway, when she lost control and fell headfirst into an icy river. Her head and body became stuck under thick ice, but she managed to find an air pocket so that she could continue to breathe. 

 

After 40 minutes of trying to free herself, the exhausted woman was in the throes of hypothermia. Her companions found her, but it took them another 40 minutes to break the ice and drag her out of the freezing water. By this time, her body temperature had dropped to just 57 degrees Fahrenheit, and her vital signs were so low that she was clinically dead. Thankfully, emergency doctors managed to revive her by pumping her blood through a special machine that warmed it. 

 

After several months of rehabilitation, she was back to her normal health, except for a persistent tingling sensation in her hands. This case led to the development of therapeutic hypothermia as a protective procedure for some epileptic and stroke patients.

 

 

Clancy's comment: Now, that's almost unbelievable.

I'm ...

 

 

13 January 2021 - LUCKY TODDLER SURVIVES FALL IN BRONX

 

 

 

 LUCKY TODDLER SURVIVES 

FALL IN BRONX

 

 G'day folks,

Well, here is another toddler's story of survival.

In an apartment in the Bronx in 2017, two-year-old Audrianna had become used to sitting on a windowsill, playing on her tablet. The window, of course, was always locked. One day, things took a turn for the worse when Isabella, her 17-year-old cousin came to visit.

 

While the girls were playing in the room, Isabella opened the window to amplify the pattering sound of rain outside. Then, she left the room briefly to grab some pizza from the kitchen, only to hear a loud bang, and a scream from Audrianna, who had just fallen out the five-story high window onto an awning below. The awning cushioned her landing and the toddler was fine (apart from a bruise on her arm). However, if this awning hadn’t been there, the toddler’s crash would have been fatal.

 Clancy's comment: Wow. Lucky child.

I'm ...