The wild can be harsh and merciless. That makes the following survival stories all the more incredible! Life can be fragile and unbelievably hard. There are no limits to what people are willing and able to do to stay alive. With a bit of skill, a dose of determination, and a lot of luck, these people managed to survive truly unbelievable things. These are the most extreme wilderness survival stories! Would you have been able to handle it?
Source: SITA/AP/Tham Luang Rescue Operation
Thai Football Team
You may have caught this story in the news - it wasn't that long ago, in June 2018, after football practice, that 12 members of a Thai football team and their coach decided to explore the nearby Tham Luang cave - one of the longest caves in Thailand. The boys, aged 11-16, and their coach (25 years old), waded through the cave's waters to explore it. When a flash flood came, it pulled them deeper into the cave. The flood filled the cave system with water and trapped the boys for 17 long days. For the first 9 days, they were without food and water.
They meditated to conserve energy and avoid negative thoughts. After nine days, British divers came across the boys. However, surviving that long was only half the success. Thai rescuers had to find a way to safely free them. The arduous journey to the surface required each boy to wear a full-face diving mask and be tethered between two divers, and then to swim for hours through the cave's narrow bends.
Thanks to the efforts of Thai rescuers and the international diving community, everyone survived and was able to quickly return to a normal, healthy life after the rescue. One former member of the Thai navy tragically died during the rescue operations.
source: https://nypost.com/
Angela Hernandez
In July 2018, Angela Hernandez was driving near Big Sur on Highway 1, heading in her SUV to Southern California, when a small animal ran across the road. Hernandez swerved to avoid a collision. In doing so, she went off a cliff and fell about 60 meters onto a desolate, rocky beach. She had bleeding in her brain, broken ribs, a broken collarbone, burst blood vessels in both eyes, and damaged lungs, but she did not die. The water in her car was up to her knees. She used a multitool to break her window, crawled out of it, swam to the beach, and passed out.
When she came to, she started walking and looking for help. She walked for days. Up on top of the cliff, she saw cars passing by, but they neither saw her nor heard her cries. Finally, fishermen came across her wrecked Jeep and searched the beach until they found her asleep on the rocks. They gave her water and called for help. Rescuers eventually descended the cliff using ropes and transported Hernandez to the hospital, ending her 7-day ordeal.
Source: historydaily.org
Steven Callahan
After a successful voyage across the Atlantic, Callahan set off for home in January 1981. The storm around his boat wasn't as big a problem as the hole that a whale or a shark tore into the hull of his boat in the middle of the night (and the storm). When the boat began to sink, Callahan repeatedly dove into the cabin below deck to retrieve his survival gear. Callahan climbed into his 8-meter circular raft with food and water for several days and sailed away from the Canary Islands. Callahan caught fish with a spear and prepared water using solar distillation. On the 14th day, he signaled a passing ship, but it did not notice him.
After a month, he drifted out of the shipping lanes. After 50 days, he was covered in saltwater sores, battled dehydration in tropical waters, and struggled to repair holes in the raft. Exhausted and having lost a third of his body weight, Callahan was finally spotted by a fisherman off the coast of Guadeloupe and, after 76 days, was finally rescued.
source: www.mirror.co.uk
The Robertson Family
For 38 days, the Robertson family was stranded at sea. Patriarch Dougal Robertson, a British dairy farmer, just wanted to take his family on a boat trip to the "university of life," as his son called it. On January 27, 1971, Dougal, his wife, and their four children boarded a wooden schooner named Lucette and headed into unknown waters in search of adventure.
That journey turned out to be bigger than they expected. For 17 months at sea, the family fared well, sailing from port to port and seeing the world. But on June 15, 1972, the family encountered a pod of killer whales off the coast of the Galapagos Islands and was shipwrecked. The whales attacked the boat, splitting it open and severely damaging it. The vessel began taking on water. All they had was a small life raft and food for only six days. They survived on rainwater and caught turtles until they were discovered by Japanese fishermen on July 23, 1972.
source: theguardian.com
Harrison Okene
When divers dove into the wreck of the Jacson-4 on May 28, 2013, they did not expect to find survivors. Harrison Okene was the ship's cook. When the boat capsized, he was in the bathroom and tried to open the emergency exit, but was unable to do so. The vessel began taking on water and Okene became trapped. He eventually found himself trapped in an air bubble measuring one square meter.
After three days, when he had begun to lose hope, he heard knocking. It was the hammer of divers working on the surface of the ship. They gave him diving gear, and then placed him in a decompression chamber, where he had to spend another two days. Unsurprisingly, he vowed never to go to sea again.
source: www.mirror.co.uk
Ernest Shackleton's Endurance Expedition
Ernest Shackleton had already faced the South Pole once and was ready to face it again in 1914, when he set out there with a group of 28 men. They hoped to cross the entire continent and reach a waiting ship on the other side. Instead, they became hopelessly trapped in the ice when their ship broke down. Their supplies began to dwindle, and the men boarded their lifeboats and sailed for 14 days across the bitter Antarctic seas.
From there, they had to undertake another expedition to the island of South Georgia, the nearest inhabited island, almost 1,000 miles from their original starting point. Despite many hardships, all 28 men on the mission survived, although some of the dogs were not so lucky (and were eaten as food supplies ran low).
source: bbc.com
Juliane Koepcke
Juliane Koepcke could tell you up to two great survival stories. On Christmas Eve 1971, Koepcke was flying on LANSA Flight 508. The plane was struck by lightning. It began to break apart in the air, and Koepcke found herself still strapped into her seat - two miles above the Peruvian rainforest.
She was battered and had numerous bruises. She had a broken collarbone, but she was alive - she was the sole survivor of the flight. And now she found herself alone in the wilderness. Some candy was her only food, but she found a small stream. She waded downstream in it, which made moving easier and also allowed her to drink and stay hydrated.
Insects in the jungle began eating her alive and worms infected her arm, but after nine days she managed to find a camp. She administered first aid to herself and waited. A few hours later she was found by loggers who provided her with help and drove her to a more populated area, from where she was airlifted to a hospital.
Her story was made into a documentary film called Wings of Hope in 2000 by director Werner Herzog, who also had a seat reserved on that unfortunate plane but cancelled it at the last moment.
source: wikipedia.org
Apollo 13
No living person has ever been in space as far as the crew of Apollo 13. The rocket carried the crew 248,655 miles from Earth, but they never reached the surface of the Moon, their original destination. Instead, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise encountered a problem that could have killed them all: faulty electrical wiring ignited an oxygen tank.
The crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat to stretch out the remaining supplies of oxygen. The crew had to perform an orbital correction that took them far from the Moon in order to slingshot them back to Earth. The lunar module provided the astronauts with a safe refuge in space, and later the crew moved back into the damaged command module and then successfully returned to Earth. Everyone remained uninjured, and they also saved a severely dehydrated Haise.
source: wikipedia.org
Aron Ralston
Ralston will forever be known as the guy who cut off his own arm to save himself from a climbing accident that left him trapped between two boulders. Ralston was climbing alone in Blue John Canyon in Utah. As he was making his way through the canyon, a boulder shifted and pinned Ralston's arm. No one knew he was trapped there. He had only a little water and a little food. It was up to him to save himself. He struggled for three days before deciding on amputation in order to free himself from under the boulder. After two days of trying various methods, he nearly gave up. At this point he was completely out of water and was drinking his own urine.
It was then, on the sixth day, that the idea occurred to him: he could much more easily amputate part of his arm if he broke the ulna bone. After an hour of working with a cheap multi-tool, he successfully amputated his arm and still had to make his way back to his vehicle, descending a 19-meter wall with one arm.
He was eventually discovered by a European family at a campsite, and six hours after his amputation he was finally rescued. And they found him just in time: Ralston was on the verge of death due to major blood loss. Today he runs outdoor expeditions and mountaineering adventures, gives lectures, and makes films about his life.
source: oceanwide-expeditions.com
Ada Blackjack
The expedition's conditions began to worsen, food supplies dwindled, and five members of the expedition were left to fend for themselves. On September 16, 1921, three membe
Alaska-born Ada Blackjack was a member of the indigenous Iñupiat population. She was hired by Canadians Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Allan Crawford for an expedition to Wrangel Island, which is today considered Russian territory. The goal was to claim it on behalf of Canada, and Blackjack served as the expedition's seamstress and cook.
The members left to seek help, while Blackjack stayed behind and cared for a sick member of the crew. He later died, and Blackjack was left alone on the island. Ada Blackjack survived there for two years, which, given the risk of polar bear attacks, was no easy task. She learned to hunt seals, until she was finally rescued on August 28, 1923, almost two years after being left on the island.
According to sites operated by the University of Alaska Anchorage, Blackjack did not receive a heroic welcome. Instead, she was blamed for failing to save the life of her fellow soldier, whom she had cared for on the island. She spent the rest of her life in poverty and did not receive recognition until shortly before her death in 1983.
