26Rose-Noelle Survivors
In 1989, 4 sailors survived at sea off the coast of New Zealand for 118 days after their trimaran, the Rose-Noelle, was upturned by a rogue wave. They cut holes in the hull, collected rainwater, and eventually caught and cooked fish. They were in such good shape upon return that many doubted their story.
27. In 1971, Dougal Robertson, his wife, and four children survived a shipwreck by taking enemas of turtle blood and rainwater that collected in the bottom of their lifeboat. Drinking the mixture orally would have been poisonous and led to their deaths. They were rescued after 37 days.
28. In 1954, Ernest Hemingway survived two plane crashes in two days. He was presumed dead for almost 24 hours later until he was spotted coming out of the jungle carrying bananas and a bottle of gin.
29. Captain Samuel Whittemore was an American farmer who at the age of 78 was shot in the face by a musket and repeatedly stabbed with a bayonet by British soldiers in 1775 during their march to Lexington & Concord. He survived and went on to live another 18 years.
30. Hustler Magazine owner, Larry Flynt, survived an attack by a serial killer, which is why he was paralyzed from the waist down. He pleaded for his attacker to not be executed, saying “A government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.”
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31King Louis Philippe I
During the 1835 assassination plot on the French King Louis Philippe I, Giuseppe Fieschi, a Corsican ex-soldier, built a “machine infernale” that unleashed a simultaneous volley of 25 guns strapped on a wooden frame. Once fired, it killed 18 and wounded 22, but it also exploded severely injuring Fieschi. King Louis Philippe I however survived this assassination attempt.
32. During World War 2, a Finnish soldier named Aimo Koivunen overdosed on methamphetamine, stepped on a land mine, survived for a week in a ditch by eating pine cones, skied 250 miles, and was found weighing 94lb with a heart rate of 200bpm. He survived the ordeal and went on to live for another 45 years.
33. In 1971, after LANSA flight 508 was struck by lightning above Peru, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke fell from the sky for two miles but survived. Despite extensive wounds, she walked for 11 days in the rainforest before finding a group of fishermen who helped transport her to a hospital.
34. During a debate in 1843, an assassination attempt was made on Kentucky abolitionist politician Cassius Marcellus Clay due to his political views. Despite being shot in the chest, Clay not only survived but he drew his Bowie knife, tackled his would-be assassin, cut out his eyes, and threw him over an embankment.
35. In 2000, a woman named Inés Ramírez Pérez became the only woman documented to have performed a cesarean section on herself and survive, alongside her newborn.
