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The Longform Guide to Miraculous Survivals
A collection of picks about people in impossible situations — lost at sea, trapped under boulders, infected with incurable diseases — who somehow survived.
Inspired by Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival, Laurence Gonzales's unforgettable account of a United flight that went down 25 years ago and the 184 souls who lived to tell the story.
What It's Like to Survive a Plane Crash
The scene inside Flight 232 as it hit the ground, as remembered by passengers who believed their lives were ending.
Laurence Gonzales Flight 232 Jul 2014 15min
A Speck in the Sea
John Aldridge fell overboard in the middle of the night, 40 miles from shore, and the Coast Guard was looking in the wrong place. How did he make it?
Paul Tough New York Times Magazine Jan 2014 30min
Mizoram’s Wild Flower
In 1974, a pair of four-year-old cousins wandered into the jungle near India’s border with Myanmar. The boy was found five days later, temporarily incapable of speech. The girl was gone. For decades, stories echoed through villages of a “wild-looking woman,” sometimes striding beside a tiger. Thirty-eight years later, she returned.
Lhendup G Bhutia Open Aug 2012 10min
Trapped
When a boulder shifts and pins his hand, a climber on a solo trip is forced to do the unthinkable: amputate his own arm.
Aron Ralston Outside Sep 2004 25min
The Man Who Sailed His House
Two days after the Japanese tsunami, after the waves had left their destruction, as rescue workers searched the ruins, news came of an almost surreal survival: Miles out at sea, a man was found, alone, riding on nothing but the roof of his house.
Michael Paterniti GQ Oct 2011 30min
Survivor No. 3
A day after swimming in an Arkansas water park, Kali Harding was diagnosed with a brain-eating amoeba that kills 99% of the people infects. Kali was the 1%.
Peter Andrey Smith Buzzfeed Jul 2014 25min
Sixty-Nine Days
How the Chilean miners made it out.
Héctor Tobar New Yorker Jun 2014 55min
Into the Unknown
In 1912, 300 miles deep on a trek into the uncharted Antarctic wilderness, Douglas Mawson lost most of his crew and supplies. This is the tale of how he got back.
David Roberts National Geographic Jan 2013 10min
Fall to Earth
A first skydive goes wrong.
Chris Ballard Sports Illustrated Jul 2014 25min
Sep 2004 – Jul 2014 Permalink
