20 Insane Survival Stories: Against All Odds, They Made It

Sometimes in this modern world, just getting through the day can seem like an unprecedented act. But when things start to seem a little too challenging, you might want to consider some historical incidents of survival that are genuinely jaw-dropping. Surviving falls through the atmosphere, weeks on the frozen sea and burning sand, near-certain death while trapped on cliffs and underwater—these are 20 stories of survival that are almost impossible to believe, but they really happened. 

On Dec. 24, 1971, a plane carrying 17-year-old Koepcke crashed in the Peruvian rainforest. She survived a fall of 10,000 feet while strapped to her seat. Despite suffering injuries including a broken collarbone, a deep cut on her arm, an eye injury, and a concussion, the teenager trekked through the jungle for 11 days before she was rescued by a group of local fishermen.

Her mother died in the crash. "I had nightmares for a long time, for years, and of course, the grief about my mother's death and that of the other people came back again and again. The thought, 'Why was I the only survivor?' haunts me. It always will," she said. 

In 2003, Ralston was climbing down the narrow Bluejohn Canyon in Utah when a boulder came loose and pinned him against the canyon wall. After five days, he was forced to break his own arm, amputate it with a dull multi-tool, rappel 65 feet to the ground, and hike seven miles to safety.

Ralston's ordeal later inspired the 2010 film 127 Hours, starring James Franco. 

In 1972, Vulović was a flight attendant aboard JAT Flight 367 when a briefcase bomb exploded in the baggage compartment, breaking the plane apart. She fell to the ground from 33,000 feet, still strapped to her seat.

Despite multiple injuries, including a fractured skull and cerebral hemorrhage, she survived, making a near-complete recovery after months of hospitalization.

In 1985, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized Vulović as surviving the highest fall without a parachute.

In January 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, became trapped in drifting Antarctic ice, where they were stuck for nearly 10 months before the ship was crushed and sank. The crew of 27 then survived for two months by camping on an ice floe.

To seek help, Shackleton and five others boarded a lifeboat and sailed it more than 800 miles through rough seas and punishing weather. Ultimately, his entire crew was rescued. 

In 1981, the amateur sailor's boat sank in the Atlantic Ocean, leaving him stranded on a life raft. His use of an emergency radio beacon and flares brought no response. He survived for 76 days, catching fish and collecting rainwater, before being rescued by a ship's crew that noticed birds hovering above his raft.

In 2012, director Ang Lee asked Callahan to be a consultant on the film Life of Pi to ensure its depiction of living on a life raft was accurate.

In 1985, the two British climbers became the first people to scale the west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. While they were descending, Simpson fell into a crevasse, breaking his leg. Yates made the decision to cut the rope that bound them together, which would send his climbing partner plunging to certain death.

But Simpson survived, crawling back to basecamp after three days. He later wrote the book Touching the Void about his experience and toured as a motivational speaker. 

In 1912, Violet Jessop was a 24-year-old stewardess on the RMS Titanic when it struck an iceberg and sank. She was loaded onto a lifeboat and was rescued by the RSS Carpathia.

This wasn't her first shipwreck (the previous year, she had been aboard the RMS Olympic, which collided with a warship), nor would it be her last: In 1916, Jessop was serving with the British Red Cross during World War I aboard the HMHS Britannic when it sank after an explosion. She survived by jumping into the water and lived to the ripe old age of 83. 

In August 2010, a cave-in at a mine in northern Chile trapped 33 miners more than 2,300 feet underground. The men survived on limited food supplies for 69 days until they were rescued and brought back to the surface.

In July 1945, the USS Indianapolis had just finished delivering secret cargo for the first nuclear bomb when the cruiser was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The crew was left adrift in shark-infested waters for four days before being discovered by a Navy plane on routine patrol.

Enduring dehydration, exposure, and shark attacks, 316 out of 1,196 crew members managed to survive. 

In October 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the remote Andes mountains. After spending 72 days trapped in the mountains with the other crash survivors, enduring extreme cold, avalanches, and starvation, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, two members of the Uruguayan national rugby team, hiked 38 miles through the mountains over 10 days to find help. On Dec. 23, the last of 16 survivors were rescued. 

In 1823, the American frontiersman and trader was mauled by a grizzly bear while on a fur-trapping expedition. Noting the severity of his injuries, his fellow explorers left him for dead, without weapons or supplies. But Glass crawled 200 miles to safety, enduring infections, starvation, and harsh weather, surviving on wild berries and roots.

First published as an 1825 magazine article, Glass's story most recently became the 2015 Leonardo DiCaprio film The Revenant. 

In 1996, Texas physician Weathers was stranded on Mount Everest during a blizzard. Left for dead by guides, Weathers was exposed to extreme cold but survived, later losing his hands, nose, and parts of both feet to frostbite. His ordeal later inspired the hit book Into Thin Air and the film Everest.

During World War II, Lim was a Chinese sailor whose ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat, forcing him onto a wooden life raft. There, he survived for 133 days alone at sea—fishing (he fashioned a spring from a flashlight into a hook), catching gulls that landed on his raft, and collecting rainwater with a canvas tarp.

He was ultimately rescued by Brazilian fishermen, the lone survivor of the sunken ship. 

In 1994, Prosperi was running Marathon des Sables (Marathon of the Sands), a 156-mile-long desert ultramarathon. A blinding sandstorm hit, separating him from the rest of the competitors. Prosperi survived for nine days in the Sahara Desert by eating bats, beetles and lizards.

On the fourth day, he desperately attempted to slash his wrists but survived. Five days later, a local Tuareg family discovered him—so dehydrated he couldn't swallow water—and delivered him to safety. 

In January 2009, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger successfully landed a US Airways passenger plane on the Hudson River after both engines were hit by birds and failed. All 155 passengers and crew survived the emergency landing and were rescued by nearby boats.

"One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training," said Sullenberger. "And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."

In 2006, Megee was stranded in the Australian Outback for 71 days after his car broke down. He walked for 10 days, surviving temperatures that soared above 104 degrees Fahrenheit, by eating frogs, snakes, and leeches and creating makeshift shelters out of brush. At one point, he suffered an abscessed tooth that he pried out of his mouth with a car key.

Sunburned, dehydrated, and malnourished, Megee was discovered by local ranchers, one of whom said he  was "just a walking skeleton" found in one of the "most isolated places in Australia." Nevertheless, Megee recovered well enough to check himself out of the hospital after just six days.

In June 2005, Luttrell was the sole survivor of a four-man Navy SEAL team ambushed by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Suffering several fractures, a broken back, and multiple shrapnel wounds, Luttrell was able to evade capture for days with the help of local Pashtun villagers, one of whom got word to a nearby U.S. military base, enabling Luttrell's rescue.

In 1981, Ghinsberg became lost in the Bolivian Amazon after he was separated from his traveling companions with no supplies. He survived for three weeks in an uncharted area of the rainforest by eating insects and plants.

His adventure was made into the 2017 thriller Jungle, starring Daniel Radcliffe. 

In June 2018, a boys' soccer team and their coach spent two weeks trapped nearly 3,000 feet underground in a Thai cave after torrential rains flooded their only escape route. The group had no food or water when they were trapped.

It took nine days for divers to locate the 12 players and their coach and another eight days to rescue them as people around the world followed the story with bated breath. Luckily, all survived. 

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In May 2013, Harrison Okene was a cook on a small tugboat off the coast of Nigeria. Okene was in the bathroom when massive waves capsized the boat, which sank upside down in nearly  100 feet of water. Eleven crew members drowned. But Okene swam into an air pocket measuring about four square feet.

After more than two days, Okene was rescued by a team of South African search-and-rescue divers, who were shocked that he was still alive.