You should always make sure that your team is following safety guidelines as close to the letter as possible. But, if something does go wrong, maybe they’ll go lucky, like these people did:
Reshma Begum
When Reshma Begum was 19 years old, she was working as a seamstress in a building near Dhaka in April of 2013. The factory collapsed right on top of her. Seventeen days later, rescuers had all but given up hope, when they heard a banging sound amid the ruins. Begumhad survived for over two weeks on dried food and what little water she could find.
Howard Ulrich and Son
Howard Ulrich and his eight year old son were out fishing one night in 1958 when, like something out of a disaster movie, they heard a distant rumbling. Looking around they saw a literal wall of water racing towards them, the highest wave in recorded history at 1,720 feet, created by an 8.0 earthquake dislodging a rock face. Ulrich couldn’t get the anchor up in time before the wave hit them dead on, amazingly lifting them atop the wave and dropping them safely back into the bay.
Zahrul Fuadi
Indonesian Zahrul Fuadi has either the worst or best luck in the world, having survived first the Boxing Day tsunami in the Aceh province, and then, moving to Sendai, Japan, the massive tidal wave that hit the country in early 2011. Fuadi tells reporters that he’s still scared that another tsunami might come along to finish the job any day now, and we have to say that we can’t quite blame him for being a bit phobic on the subject.
Peter Skyllberg
Now, there’s a chance that this guy made the story up, we can’t be sure, but some scientists take him at his word: Trapped in his car under a snowdrift for two straight months in 2012, the Swedish man claims to have survived by eating snow. As crazy as that sounds, some experts believe that he may have gone into a hibernation state that kept him alive for 60 days, while taking shelter in the igloo-style insulation that the snow had created around his car. It seems as if Jack Palance should come out at this point and ask that you “Believe it… or not!”
Surviving a disaster unscathed can happen, but if it were the norm, they wouldn’t call them disasters, they’d call them “uh oh’s.” Don’t take this list as a license for carelessness, but as a reminder that people can persevere through the worst of conditions.
