SURVIVAL: THE 5 MOST FAMOUS CASES
There are shocking survival stories, stories that when we hear them sink in. Some, fortunately, are just fictitious stories that luckily no one has suffered from, or so we hope. The most obvious example is surely the case of Robinson Crusoe, the adventure novel par excellence. Or not, because although Robinson's character is fictitious, he is actually based on a true story, that of the sailor Alexander Selkirk. This novel, written by Daniel Defoe, narrates the adventures of a sailor who, after being shipwrecked on a lost island near the Venezuelan coast, has to manage to survive for no less than 28 years.
If you're interested in survival stories, surely you've seen the The Last Survivor show more than once. It stars Bear Grylls, a British ex-serviceman and adventurer who was also a writer and TV presenter. Crylls, may be seen by many as a "madman with no sense of danger", and they're not wrong. Only in the program he has already been on the verge of dying 21 times. It can be said that he is a survival expert. We have seen him eating live animals, drinking all kinds of water to avoid dehydration... doing what is necessary to survive in extreme situations.
There are true stories in which we hope we never meet, although in the end you never know what life can bring you. At 1. ARON RALSTON, 2003 At 27 years old, Aron Ralston, a master mountaineer, was hiking alone through a Utah canyon. A 800-pound rock dislodged and fell, trapping his arm. He had no way of escaping, and after three days he ran out of water. Two days later he found a way to get rid of the rock. A macabre solution, but the only option to survive: cut off his own arm. And how? With the utility knife she carried. We'll omit the details of how he did it because they're chilling, but if you want to know, he's explained it himself in a number of interviews, including in his 2004 autobiography, Between your back and the wall , and in the movie that was inspired by his story: 127 hours. This process took an hour. Then he went down until he reached the bottom of the canyon, and there he met other hikers. Shortly after, park rangers used equipment to move the rock and retrieve the arm, which they would later take to a morgue. 2. HARRISON OKENE: 3 DAYS UNDER THE SEA At 4:30am on May 26, 2013, the oil tug Jacson 4 capsized off the Nigerian coast, with 12 people inside. All crew members were presumed dead, it was a real tragedy. What nobody imagined is what would happen three days later. The tugboat was sunk at 30 meters and divers were diving to remove the bodies. A diver saw an arm behind a television, and assuming it was another of the corpses, he approached it. What was the surprise? Her arm grabbed at his. It wasn't a corpse, it was Harrison Odjegba Okene, the ship's cook, who had miraculously survived. He was extremely lucky that there was an air pocket near where he was, very little, but it was enough. With the airbag, a life jacket and two flashlights, he locked himself in a cabin and waited for the worst. He just remembered his family and prayed, while listening to how the animals had fun with the corpses of their companions. He is very lucky, and an example of how staying calm in tragic situations can save our lives. 3. ERNEST SHACKLETON AND THE SHIP ENDURANCE Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) was an Irish polar explorer, a figure of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. With long experience in expeditions to Antarctica, but still not satisfied, he set himself one last goal: to cross the entire Antarctic territory for the first time, passing through the South Pole. He called this challenge “The Imperial Transantarctic Expedition”. To do this, he published an advertisement in the New York Times in which he was looking for "men to undertake a dangerous journey, extreme cold, long months of complete darkness, danger, return not assured and honor and recognition in case of success." On August 14, 1941, Schackleton left London, accompanied by 27 men aboard the “Endurance” (constancia in Spanish). This ship had been designed for polar voyages. However, he was unable to navigate on the ice. On August 19, 1915, an ice pack surrounded and blocked the Endurance. Two months later, the ship does not resist and sinks. The 28 men manage to abandon the ship before it sinks. From there, the leader, Shackleton, takes control of the situation and establishes a kind of "camp" on an ice pack, allowing his crew to survive for up to six months. To resist, they came to sacrifice their dogs and hunt seals to feed themselves. Faced with the untenable situation, he decides to change course, heading to Elephant Island, where 22 men remain. The remaining six, led by "El Jefe", manage to reach South Georgia and ask for help. A year later, in August 1916, a Chilean tugboat would rescue the other 22. All 28 of them returned to England safely. This would not have been possible without Shackleton's preparation, nor without his leadership. His positive spirit and sacrifice, his hope, his perseverance and his support for the rest of the team took him a long way. Currently it continues to be a benchmark studied as an example of the best leader. The most incredible thing is that just a few days ago, in March 2022, they found the Endurance at the bottom of the sea, and it is in very good condition. After being sunk for more than a hundred years, it is intact, you can even read the "Endurance" engraving perfectly. 4. TRAGEDY IN THE ANDES: AIR CRASH On October 13, 1972, the Old Christians rugby team was traveling on the Uruguayan plane FH-227D to Santiago de Chile to play a match against the Old Boys team. With 40 passengers and 5 crew members on board, it crashed in the Cordillera de los Andes. Twelve of them died at the time of the accident. In the following days, 17 died due to the terrible conditions on the mountain: hunger, injuries, extreme cold… they tried to survive with the few food reserves they had left, while they were not rescued. However, they heard the devastating news on a radio: the search for this plane had ended. Desperate, in constant anguish and sensing the worst of endings, they did the last thing they had left. First they ate the leather of their shoes, but having so many chemicals, they noticed that they were intoxicating. They had no more options, so they ate the bodies of their companions. They were the only source of protein, fat, carbohydrates... It was a tremendously tough decision, but thanks to her they stayed alive. They worked as a team, very close. It took 72 days from the tragedy until they were rescued. On December 22, 1972, the world learns that 16 passengers survived in the Andes Mountains, and on December 23 they find the plane and rescue the survivors. This tragedy is called the “Miracle of the Andes”. 5. RON HUNT AND A 45CM BIT It's impossible to think anyone could survive this. But it is necessary to see cases like this to believe that miracles exist. In 2003, Ron Hunt, a 41-year-old American builder, was working on a ladder with a huge drill. The ladder was not securely attached and Hunt fell to the ground. The drill bit went through his head from side to side. It was 45 cm long and 3.5 cm in diameter. It entered through his right eye and exited through the back of his head. When he got to the hospital, it looked like something out of a movie. The medics withdrew the drill in reverse. He had lost an eye and damaged some nerves, but his brain was intact. The drill, instead of going through his brain, shifted the brain mass to the side, preventing fatal damage. Ron acknowledges that his case was a miracle, and is thankful that he is still alive. Currently, he only wears an eyepatch, and can lead a normal life. These are the five survival stories that have impacted us the most. We believe that all of them teach us something about how to act when we find ourselves in tragic situations, the importance of staying calm, never losing hope and sticking together no matter what. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Aron Ralston, an expert mountaineer, got stuck while hiking in the mountains. A rock came loose and caught his arm. After three days without being able to move, he had to cut off his own arm to escape and survive. A film about the tragedy of Aron Ralston was shot in 2010: 127 hours (127 hours), starring James Franco. The stone that fell on Aron Ralston's arm weighed 800 pounds. Harrison Okene was the sole survivor of the 12 crew on the Jacson 4 tug. It survived at a depth of 30m for 3 days in the Atlantic, until divers found it. The ship Endurance, captained by Ernest Shackleton, sank in Antarctica in October 1915, after being trapped by ice for two months. Coincidentally, it was discovered a few days ago at the bottom of the sea. Some divers found it and confirmed that it is in very good condition. After being sunk for more than a hundred years, it is intact, you can even read the "Endurance" engraving perfectly. Of the 45 passengers, 12 died at the time of the accident. In the following days, 17 died, being wounded and not resisting the mountain conditions. The remaining 16 survived, though they had to face the worst to stay alive.
