[h=1]The most incredible survival stories of all time[/h]The odds were a billion to one but somehow they made it out alive
Sometimes its down to luck, sometimes instinct and sometimes a set of hard-earned survival skills. Whatever it is, sometimes humans survive situations they really have no right to
Louis Zamperini
Zamperini was a pre-war athletics hero and Olympian and part of an American bomber crew that crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1942. Three of the crew survived and took to a small inflatable life raft. Zamperini and crewman Allen Phillips survived for 47 days at sea eating raw fish and drinking rain water (the other survivor, Francis McNamara, died on day 33). The pair fashioned a piece of wire into a makeshift hook and captured two albatrosses, which they partly ate and partly used to catch more fish.
But mere subsistence was just one of many problems faced by Zamperini and Phillips. Their small raft was attacked by sharks and strafed by a Japanese bomber. It also nearly capsized during a storm. The pair eventually made land but were immediately captured by Japanese soldiers. Zamperini was held in a prisoner of war camp for three gruelling years. Long assumed dead, he returned to the US as a hero at the end of the war.
Mauro Prosperi
Mauro Prosperi was a Sicilian policeman and a keen distance runner who, in 1994, decided to take a shot at what is often described as the worlds toughest footrace, the Marathon des Sables. The race is a hugely gruelling, six day slog through 156 miles of the Sahara desert.
Prosperi was going well right up until a sandstorm blew up. At this point, race convention insists competitors stay where they are and wait for help. But the Italian, determined to protect his position, kept going. By the time the winds died down, six hours later, he no longer knew where he was.
Prosperi kept going, eventually trekking over a hundred kilometres in the wrong direction. He sucked on wet wipes and licked the dew off leaves to survive, but by the third morning, alone in an abandoned Muslim shrine Prosperi figured he could go no further and passed out. Hours later, he woke up and the realisation he was still surviving gave the Italian a renewed will to live, and he kept going, eating bats and scorpions and packing sand around his body to survive the freezing nights. He was eventually found by nomads, after nine days alone in the desert.
Check out Samsung's SOS Island, where contestants battle to survival on a desert island.
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SOS Island - Shelter Shock
Watch the contestants go head to head in building shelters on a desert island.
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SOS Island - Shelter Shock
Watch the contestants go head to head in building shelters on a desert island.
Date 01/11/13, Duration 7:22, Views 1985
Video by: SamsungSOS
Douglas Mawson
In 1912 Australian geologist Douglas Mawson was leading a three-man team on a surveying mission in Antarctica when, tragically, one of the party fell through a snow covered crevasse and was never seen again. To add terrible misfortune to tragedy, he took most of the partys rations, all their tents and their six best dogs with him. Mawson and his surviving comrade faced a 310 mile journey across snowy tundra that appeared all but impossible.
Mawson, alone, survived. He did it by eating dog meat and taking the hugely risky decision to travel miles out of his way to collect a tent cover discarded earlier in the expedition. He improvised a tent frame with skis and surveying equipment and, crucially, had a makeshift shelter from the wind and snow.
Mawsons epic trudge was accompanied by a frostbite so severe his skin, hair and the soles of his feet began to fall off. He almost fell into another crevasse, only to be saved by his sled digging into snow at the lip of the precipice.
When he finally made it to the main camp, he was told that the rescue ship had sailed just hours earlier, and he was forced to winter in Antarctica. He eventually went home ten months later.
Hugh Glass
In 1823 Glass was part of a fur trapping party near the Missouri River in the US that was surprised and attacked by a bear. The bear was killed but Glass received devastating injuries, including a broken leg and deep cuts. Unconscious, he was assumed to be near death and was left to die in the wilderness with nothing but the bear hide to cover him.
But Glass regained consciousness, and began a remarkable six week journey that saved his life. His wounds were festering so Glass laid his back on a fallen log and let them become infested with maggots which cleaned out the dead flesh, preventing gangrene! He also set his own broken leg! He ate wild berries and roots and after weeks of crawling and walking, improvised a crude craft out of fallen branches and twigs and sailed down river to the safety of Fort Kiowa.
Steven Callahan
When Callahans sailboat was overwhelmed by heavy seas during an Atlantic storm in 1984, he took to a small inflatable life raft. It would be his home for the next 76 days.
He quickly exhausted his supplies of food and water, but Callahan survived by adopting the mentality of a survivor. Every day he followed the same routine: he exercised, made repairs, collected water from solar stills, fished and improved whatever he could in his six-foot long floating world. He took on the characters of captain and crew, the captain ordering the crew to stick to routines and abide by an exact system of rationing.
It worked. On his 76th day fishermen picked him up. Callahan had lost a third of his bodyweight and was covered in sores, but he was alive.
Discover Samsungs SOS Island where eight contestants are stranded to see how they cope with survival on a desert island. Check out their latest videos, social feeds and get voting for your favourite...
Sometimes its down to luck, sometimes instinct and sometimes a set of hard-earned survival skills. Whatever it is, sometimes humans survive situations they really have no right to
Louis Zamperini
Zamperini was a pre-war athletics hero and Olympian and part of an American bomber crew that crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1942. Three of the crew survived and took to a small inflatable life raft. Zamperini and crewman Allen Phillips survived for 47 days at sea eating raw fish and drinking rain water (the other survivor, Francis McNamara, died on day 33). The pair fashioned a piece of wire into a makeshift hook and captured two albatrosses, which they partly ate and partly used to catch more fish.
But mere subsistence was just one of many problems faced by Zamperini and Phillips. Their small raft was attacked by sharks and strafed by a Japanese bomber. It also nearly capsized during a storm. The pair eventually made land but were immediately captured by Japanese soldiers. Zamperini was held in a prisoner of war camp for three gruelling years. Long assumed dead, he returned to the US as a hero at the end of the war.
Mauro Prosperi
Mauro Prosperi was a Sicilian policeman and a keen distance runner who, in 1994, decided to take a shot at what is often described as the worlds toughest footrace, the Marathon des Sables. The race is a hugely gruelling, six day slog through 156 miles of the Sahara desert.
Prosperi was going well right up until a sandstorm blew up. At this point, race convention insists competitors stay where they are and wait for help. But the Italian, determined to protect his position, kept going. By the time the winds died down, six hours later, he no longer knew where he was.
Prosperi kept going, eventually trekking over a hundred kilometres in the wrong direction. He sucked on wet wipes and licked the dew off leaves to survive, but by the third morning, alone in an abandoned Muslim shrine Prosperi figured he could go no further and passed out. Hours later, he woke up and the realisation he was still surviving gave the Italian a renewed will to live, and he kept going, eating bats and scorpions and packing sand around his body to survive the freezing nights. He was eventually found by nomads, after nine days alone in the desert.
Check out Samsung's SOS Island, where contestants battle to survival on a desert island.
Up Next
0
SOS Island - Shelter Shock
Watch the contestants go head to head in building shelters on a desert island.
Share
SOS Island - Shelter Shock
Watch the contestants go head to head in building shelters on a desert island.
Date 01/11/13, Duration 7:22, Views 1985
Video by: SamsungSOS
Douglas Mawson
In 1912 Australian geologist Douglas Mawson was leading a three-man team on a surveying mission in Antarctica when, tragically, one of the party fell through a snow covered crevasse and was never seen again. To add terrible misfortune to tragedy, he took most of the partys rations, all their tents and their six best dogs with him. Mawson and his surviving comrade faced a 310 mile journey across snowy tundra that appeared all but impossible.
Mawson, alone, survived. He did it by eating dog meat and taking the hugely risky decision to travel miles out of his way to collect a tent cover discarded earlier in the expedition. He improvised a tent frame with skis and surveying equipment and, crucially, had a makeshift shelter from the wind and snow.
Mawsons epic trudge was accompanied by a frostbite so severe his skin, hair and the soles of his feet began to fall off. He almost fell into another crevasse, only to be saved by his sled digging into snow at the lip of the precipice.
When he finally made it to the main camp, he was told that the rescue ship had sailed just hours earlier, and he was forced to winter in Antarctica. He eventually went home ten months later.
Hugh Glass
In 1823 Glass was part of a fur trapping party near the Missouri River in the US that was surprised and attacked by a bear. The bear was killed but Glass received devastating injuries, including a broken leg and deep cuts. Unconscious, he was assumed to be near death and was left to die in the wilderness with nothing but the bear hide to cover him.
But Glass regained consciousness, and began a remarkable six week journey that saved his life. His wounds were festering so Glass laid his back on a fallen log and let them become infested with maggots which cleaned out the dead flesh, preventing gangrene! He also set his own broken leg! He ate wild berries and roots and after weeks of crawling and walking, improvised a crude craft out of fallen branches and twigs and sailed down river to the safety of Fort Kiowa.
Steven Callahan
When Callahans sailboat was overwhelmed by heavy seas during an Atlantic storm in 1984, he took to a small inflatable life raft. It would be his home for the next 76 days.
He quickly exhausted his supplies of food and water, but Callahan survived by adopting the mentality of a survivor. Every day he followed the same routine: he exercised, made repairs, collected water from solar stills, fished and improved whatever he could in his six-foot long floating world. He took on the characters of captain and crew, the captain ordering the crew to stick to routines and abide by an exact system of rationing.
It worked. On his 76th day fishermen picked him up. Callahan had lost a third of his bodyweight and was covered in sores, but he was alive.
Discover Samsungs SOS Island where eight contestants are stranded to see how they cope with survival on a desert island. Check out their latest videos, social feeds and get voting for your favourite...
