Numerous individuals have defied medical odds with astonishing recoveries from near-certain death, often credited as miracles due to advanced interventions or sheer resilience.
Viswashkumar Ramesh's Plane Crash Escape
British-Indian Viswashkumar Ramesh emerged as the sole survivor of the 2025 Air India Flight AI-171 crash in Ahmedabad, which killed 241. Videos captured him walking dazed from the wreckage amid billowing smoke, enduring ongoing pain but alive against impossible odds.
Mythological Examples
Sisyphus: In Greek mythology, he cheated death twice: first by chaining up Thanatos (Death himself) so no one could die, and later by tricking Persephone into letting him return to the living world to "punish" his wife.
- Frane Selak ("The Luckiest Unlucky Man"): A Croatian man who survived seven brushes with death between 1962 and 1996, including a train derailment into a river, being blown out of a plane (landing on a haystack), a bus crash, and two car explosions. In 1962, Selak survived a train accident that killed 17 passengers, while in 1966, a bus skidded off the road, drowning four. Selak swam to the shore and only sustained a few cuts and bruises. Two years later, while teaching his son how to hold a gun, he accidentally shot himself in the testicles. In 1970 and 1973, he experienced car accidents catching fire but managed to escape without harm. In 1995, he was hit by a bus in Zagreb, causing minor injuries. A year later, he avoided a head-on collision with a United Nations truck by swerving into a guardrail, causing Frano, not wearing a seat belt, to fall 300 feet into a ravine below. However, Selak’s luck took a dramatic turn in 2003 when he won the Croatian national lottery, earning him a prize of 1 million euros.
- Violet Jessop ("Miss Unsinkable"): An ocean liner stewardess and nurse who survived the sinking or near-sinking of three sister ships: the RMS Olympic (collision in 1911), the RMS Titanic (sinking in 1912), and the HMHS Britannic (sinking in 1916).
- Vesna Vulović: A flight attendant who survived a 1972 plane explosion and fell 33,330 feet (10.16 km) without a parachute. She holds the Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute.
- Michael Malloy ("Iron Mike"): A homeless man in 1930s New York who survived numerous murder attempts by five acquaintances—including being fed antifreeze, turpentine, and rat poison, and being run over by a car—before finally being killed by carbon monoxide.
- Nicholas Alkemade: A British rear gunner in WWII who jumped from a burning bomber at 18,000 feet without a parachute. He survived by falling through pine trees into deep snow.
Alcides Moreno's Skyscraper Fall
In 2007, window washer Alcides Moreno plummeted 47 stories when his scaffold collapsed in New York City, surviving with severe injuries while his brother died instantly. After 16 surgeries and intensive care, he fully recovered within two years, walking unaided despite a 1% survival chance.
D’Zhana Simmons' Heartless Survival
South Carolina teen D’Zhana Simmons lived 118 days without a functioning heart in 2011, sustained by two artificial pumps after cardiomyopathy and a failed transplant. She bridged to a successful heart transplant, showcasing endurance amid experimental support.
Jordan Taylor's Orthopedic Decapitation
In a 2012 car crash, 18-year-old Jordan Taylor suffered "orthopedic decapitation," with his skull nearly severed from his spine, given just 1% odds. Pioneering surgery reconnected the structures; he was discharged in three months and returned to school.
Jan Grzebski's 19-Year Coma
Polish worker Jan Grzebski awoke in 2007 from a 19-year coma induced by a 1988 head injury and brain cancer, against all prognosis. He adapted to a transformed world, living several more years with family support.
- Tsutomu Yamaguchi: Recognized as the only official survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945. He was in Hiroshima for business when the first bomb dropped and returned to his home in Nagasaki just in time for the second.
- Nichiren: This 13th-century Japanese monk was about to be beheaded when a bright celestial object (or lightning strike) allegedly terrified the executioner, causing the authorities to stay the execution and commute his sentence.
- Ludger Sylbaris: A prisoner in St. Pierre who became one of the only survivors of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée, which killed 30,000 people. His thick stone jail cell shielded him from the volcanic heat and debris.
- Edwin Robinson
There is a 1 in 12,000 chance of being struck by lightning. However, those chances increased to 100% for Edwin E. Robinson, a 62-year-old deaf and blind man. Robinson was pacing the field in his backyard one evening, calling out to his pet chicken and swinging his aluminium cane. It was only when it started to rain that he sought cover beneath the tree. Lightning struck him to the ground and he was unconscious for about twenty minutes. When he woke, he stumbled back to his house and went to bed for a much-needed nap. But when he awoke in the evening, he experienced the unthinkable: he realised he could see and hear again. When his doctor examined him later, he confirmed that he had recovered his hearing and vision and that the rubber soles of his shoes had likely helped him survive the blast.
