It’s never easy to come to terms with your own mortality. In fact, many people decide to completely ignore the fact that they won’t live forever. After all, there's not much we can do about it! But if you happen to have an experience where you come close to losing your life, you’ll never ever take it for granted again.
Threads users have recently been sharing stories of people who miraculously survived life-threatening situations, so we’ve gathered some of the craziest ones below. We’ll warn you right now, pandas, that some of these tales are not easy to read. But we hope they’ll remind you just how resilient humans are and inspire you to live every day to the fullest!
#21
As a paramedic, the thing that immediately comes to mind for me is the one adult woman who survived the Miami condo collapse in 2021. iirc among her injuries was a shattered pelvis, lacerated liver, and ruptured bladder (I’m sure there were more). Any ONE of those injuries can kill you very quickly on their own, and she survived having all three at the same time. It blows my mind.
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27points
#22
Jim LeBlanc.
The only human being to have been exposed to a vacuum and survive.
The saliva on his tongue started to boil before he was rescued.
The only human being to have been exposed to a vacuum and survive.
The saliva on his tongue started to boil before he was rescued.
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25points
#23
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh of the Air India crash. Out of 242 passengers he survived alone.
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25points
#25
Thad Phillips. Was kidnapped and had both his legs snapped by his assailant because he liked “the sound” of cracking bones. Crawled down the stairs and called 911.
Also all the women who are held captive and assaulted for years before getting rescued. I can’t even imagine!
Also all the women who are held captive and assaulted for years before getting rescued. I can’t even imagine!
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24points
#26
Judy Malinowski. Set on fire and survived long enough to testify at her own murder trial.
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23points
#27
Chris Lemons- saturation diver. Survived 35 minutes without air at the bottom of the North Sea (300 ft deep) after losing comms and getting cut from his umbilical air supply. Hollywood made a movie about it (in addition to th documentary) with Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu.
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22points
#28
Charla Nash. 200lb chimpanzee tore off her face, nose, lips, eyelids, and hands.
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22points
#29
That Russian doctor who performed his OWN appendectomy.
(Leonid Rogozov)
(Leonid Rogozov)
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22points
#30
Clint Malarchuk was an NHL Goaltender who got a skate to the neck, cutting his jugular during a game against St Louis. Blood was squirting 6 feet in front of him. Luckily, the team Equipment Manager was an ex Vietnam medic and pinched his Jugular off until he got to the hospital saving his life. If he would have been on the other end of the ice he would have bleed out. He also survived a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His story is insane
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22points
#31
Michael Moylan was shot in the head by his wife while sleeping & not only did he survive but he didn’t know he was shot until he got to a hospital & they found the bullet. He asked his wife to drive him to the hospital because he had a bad headache.
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21points
#32
I think some of the most astonishing cases are people who fell into frozen lakes and were able to be resuscitated after being rescued hours later. Technically drowning and being unable to breathe for that long is 100% fatal, but the cold, in rare cases, can slow the metabolism and prevent brain death long enough for the person to rescued and warmed. It's led to the phrase "you aren't dead unless you're warm and dead."
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19points
#33
A man in india climbed a pole and grabbed a transformer in an attempt to end his life. He was knocked off and fell but survived. Turns out, his skin has a high electrical resistance which makes him incredibly unique. He performs now, routinely running 10-20x the current needed a kill a human through his body.
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15points
#34
Ann Fowler Hodges was the first known individual documented to have survived being hit by a meteorite. No case since has been documented where the victim survived.
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15points
#35
I have a friend who lost at Russian roulette. He was pronounced dead. Several hours later while in a body bag, in the fridge he woke up. Starting yelling and pounding on the door. He has lots of physical challenges but he is alive and mostly well.
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15points
#37
In July 1978, Soviet physicist Anatoli Bugorski survived an impossible accident when his head was struck by a high-energy proton beam in a particle accelerator. While repairing the U-70 synchrotron, safety systems failed, causing a 76 GeV beam to pass through his skull, leaving him with permanent facial paralysis, deafness, and occasional seizures, but allowing him to live a normal life.
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13points
#38
I just saw one today, a child fell through the ice and was submerged for 177 minutes, was 7 degrees when pulled out of the ice. Neuro damage, of course but kid is walking n talking 3 months later.
13points
#39
The guys from the Uruguayan Flight 571 crash. Truly incredible story. The movie Society of the Snow on Netflix is worth a watch.
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13points
#40
Death: Velma Thomas, a woman from Virginia was clinically dead for 17 hours. She woke up as they were preparing to take her organs.
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13points
