Historical Badass Archive – Part 2: 39 More Iconic Badasses You Haven’t Heard Of

In 2000, a Mexican woman named Ines Ramirez Perez successfully performed a C-section on herself after 12 hours of continual pain. Despite having no medical training, she used a kitchen knife and three glasses of hard liquor, while her husband was drinking at a bar. After operating on herself for an hour, she reached inside her uterus and pulled out her baby boy. She then severed the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors and became unconscious. She used clothes to bandage her wound after regaining consciousness and sent one of her older sons to find help. She was eventually taken to a clinic and she and her baby boy, both survived.

2. In the 1960s, a Soviet doctor named Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov had to remove his own appendix after it burst because he was the only doctor stationed in a remote Antarctic facility with no option for evacuation. The operation lasted one hour and 45 minutes and he lived to tell the tale.

3. A former Cambodian Khmer Rouge conscripted child soldier named Aki Ra has dedicated his life to removing landmines in Cambodia after the Cambodian Civil War. He has removed and cleared over 50,000 landmines all by himself with little more than stick and a knife over the course of 20 years.

4. In 2011, when three robbers broke into the house of Lance Corporal Wayne O'Mahoney, he woke up and wrestled with two robbers who later fled. The soldier then stopped the third knife-wielding robber from stealing his new car by smashing his car window with a metal crowbar. The terrified robber fled the car from the passenger door. This was when Wayne O'Mahoney realized he had no clothes on.

5. US Park Ranger Roy Sullivan holds the record for most survived lightning strikes. He was struck 7 times by lightning during his lifetime. He was struck once while operating a truck, once inside a ranger station, on two separate occasions after running/driving away from the storm, and immediately after the seventh strike he had to fight off a trout-stealing bear with a tree branch. He claimed that this was the 22nd time he had hit a bear with a stick in his lifetime.

In 1959, pilot Lt. Colonel William Rankin ejected from his plane directly into a violent thundercloud. The storm winds kept him aloft for 40 minutes, pelting him with hailstones and so much rain that at times he had to hold his breath to keep from drowning in mid-air.

7. In 2013, when an 80-year-old Russian villager named Yusuf Alchagirov came face to face with a bear, he chose to fight it. He head-butted the bear in the face and then kicked it in the balls a lot. Then, when the furious bear threw him over a cliff, he plummeted dozens of feet, slammed into the rock below, and fell unconscious, but survived to tell the tale.

8. New Zealand rugby player ‘Buck Shelford’ had 4 of his teeth punched out and took a cleat to the testicles during a game in 1986. This ripped open his scrotum leaving his testicles hanging. He got them stitched up on the bench and continued through the game and won the match.

9. In 1981, NFL running back Joe Delaney, who could not swim, died attempting to save three children from drowning. Delaney told a bystander there: “I’ve got to save those kids. If I don’t come up, get somebody,” before rushing into the water.

10. Italian adventurer Reinhold Messner has climbed Mount Everest without oxygen. He also climbed Nanga Parbat (8000+ meters) three times. The first time he lost his brother and 7 toes in the process. He then climbed it again to become the first person to solo climb it and climbed it the third time to retrieve his brother’s remains.

In 2012, Anthony Omari took a machete to the face while defending an under-resourced Kenyan orphanage his family runs from attacking robbers. He saved 37 orphans that day. The attack was in revenge to the previously foiled robbery when Anthony threw a hammer at one of the thieves.

12. In 2001, when a Florida man named Vance Flosenzier noticed that a 7-feet long shark had his 8-year-old nephew Jesse Arbogast by the arm, he grabbed onto the shark and wrestled the animal barehanded out of the water, while others freed Jesse to shore. He wrestled the shark for more than 10 minutes to keep it away from other children. Then they killed the shark and pried it open to retrieve Jesse's severed arm, which the surgeons were able to reattach.

13. During World War 2, Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec was imprisoned in a German concentration camp from which he made several attempts to escape. He received a death sentence for his second attempt to escape but managed to successfully escape in 1943 after killing his guard with a shovel when taken to dig his own grave. He escaped in the guard’s uniform.

14. On September 11, 2001, Officer John Perry of the NYPD went to headquarters to file his retirement paperwork. When he heard the explosion at the World Trade Center, he immediately responded and was later killed when one of the towers collapsed. He was the only off-duty officer to be killed on 9/11.

15. Major Dick Bong is USA’s highest air ace, having shot down at least 40 planes during World War 2. He actually collided with one plane, claiming a “probable” victory. In 1945, he became a Lockheed test pilot and died in a P-80 fighter jet crash on the same day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Fazal Din was a 24-year-old Indian allied sergeant during World War 2 who was fighting against the Japanese in Burma when his team was attacked by a team of six sword-wielding Japanese soldiers. One of them impaled his sword through Fazal’s chest and out through this back. When he withdrew his sword thinking that he died, Fazal Din, seized the sword from the Japanese officer and killed him with it. He then killed two more Japanese soldiers with it. He then stumbled back to Allied lines, dutifully filed an after-action report with his superior officer and then promptly collapsed and died.

17. In 1823, American fur trapper Hugh Glass was attacked by a grizzly bear during his exploration of the Upper Missouri River. After being thrown to the ground by the bear, he got up and repeatedly stabbed the bear with his knife until it died. He was left for dead 200 miles from the nearest settlement. He had a broken leg, cuts exposing his bare ribs, and festering wounds. He regained consciousness, set his leg, used maggots to eat his dead flesh, and crawled his way back to civilization over 6 weeks. He survived on roots, berries, and even chased wolves away from a bison carcass. When he returned home, he got his rifle back and continued his work as a trapper.

18. A 24-year-old New Zealander named James Grant was spearfishing with his friends in 2014 when he was attacked by what he believed was a sevengill shark. He fought off the shark by stabbing it multiple times with his knife. When he reached the shore, he saw bites up to 5 cm long. He stitched himself up using a first aid kit, before enjoying a pint of beer at a nearby pub with his friends.

19. Don Ritchie was an Australian who lived across the street from the most famous suicide spot in Australia. He officially rescued 160 people from suicide as of 2009 over a 45-year period, although his family claims the number is closer to 500. He would strike up a conversation with people contemplating suicide and invited them to his house for tea. He died in 2012 at the age of 85.

20. When Sean Connery was filming a love scene in the film ‘Another Time, Another Place’ (1958), his co-star's gangster boyfriend got jealous and pulled a gun on him. Connery grabbed the gun from his hand and twisted the guy's wrist until he ran off the set.

When a Rocky Mountain grizzly bear attacked hunting guide C. Dale Petersen, he killed it with nothing but his hands and his teeth. Petersen wedged his right hand in the bear's throat and used his teeth and jaws to pinch off the bear's jugular vein. When the bear passed out from the lack of blood flow to the brain, he beat the bear on the head with a stick.

22. In 2008, Florida wildlife officers shot a 375lb bear with a tranquilizer as it managed to wander into a residential area. The panicked bear ran towards the ocean and started drowning. That's when a man named Adam Warwick dived into the ocean to rescue it. Grabbing the bear by its neck, he brought it ashore. A couple of times the bear tried lunging at Adam to climb on top of him to stay afloat. Adam brought the bear to shore and only suffered minor cuts and scrapes.

23. After securing Ivory Coast’s place at the 2006 Football World Cup, the team’s star striker and national icon Didier Drogba pleaded with the combatants of Ivory Coast to lay down their arms, which resulted in a cease-fire after Ivory Coast was embroiled in 5 years of civil war. He also donated $3 million from his Pepsi signing bonus to build a hospital in his hometown.

24. Actor Sean Bean was once punched in the eye and stabbed in the arm with broken glass at a bar defending a former Playboy Model. He refused an ambulance and then ordered another drink.

25. In 1944, a Canadian soldier named Leo Major singlehandedly captured 93 Nazi soldiers in the Netherlands. In 1945, he again singlehandedly liberated the City of Zwolle in the Netherlands with a population of 50,000 from the occupation of several hundred German soldiers. He killed several Nazis and ran up and down the streets shooting a machine gun and tossing grenades. The Germans fled panicking that a large body of Canadian force was attacking them. He was blind in one eye at that time, from a grenade wound he had suffered in 1941.