20 Amazing Survivor Stories in History

20 Amazing Survivor Stories in History

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today were looking at twenty mesmerizing and unbelievable stories of survival.

Violet Jessop

Very few people survive one tragedy. Violet Jessop survived three. Jessop was a stewardess on the RMS Olympic when it collided with the HMS Hawke on September 20, 1911. Despite great damage, no fatalities were suffered. However, it was only a portent of things to come. Just months later, Violet was chosen to serve aboard a little ship called the Titanic. Jessop helped non-English speakers get into lifeboats before boarding Lifeboat 16 herself and escaping the shipwreck. Fast forward four years to November 21, 1916, and Jessop was aboard the Britannic when it hit a German sea mine and sank. Undeterred by her awful luck, Jessop returned to work and sailed around the world a couple of times before retiring and living to 83.

Harrison Ojegba Okene

Youve probably seen the video of Harrison Okenes rescue, but maybe you dont know the full story behind it. Okene was working as a cook aboard the Nigerian tugboat Jascon-4 when it capsized on May 26, 2013. The boat sank nearly 100 feet into the water, killing eleven crew members. Luckily for Okene, he was able to find an air pocket inside the flooded engineers office. The pocket kept Okene alive, but he was forced to sit in the pitch black silence and could do nothing but wait for rescue. Luckily, rescue came about sixty hours later, when South African divers found a disoriented Okene inside the ship. While he initially suffered from trauma, Okene recovered and trained to become a commercial diver.

Marcus Luttrell

You may know the story of Marcus Luttrell from the movie Lone Survivor. He and three other Navy SEALs were tasked with capturing a Taliban leader in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, but they were ambushed in the process. The three other SEALs were killed during the brutal firefight that ensued, making Luttrell the lone survivor. During the skirmish, Luttrell suffered a number of broken bones (including a broken back), shrapnel wounds from grenades, and multiple gunshot wounds. Despite the horrific injuries, Luttrell managed to avoid his pursuers, and he was eventually found by a villager and rescued. He was ultimately awarded both the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart for his actions.

Los 33

On August 5, 2010, the San José Mine in Chile experienced a catastrophic cave-in, burying 33 workers over 2,000 feet underground. The miners were stuck in total darkness, suffering humid conditions and temperatures that reached upwards of 86 degrees. For food, they were rationed two spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk, and half a biscuit every 48 hours. And this is how they lived for seventeen days. Contact with the miners was finally made on August 22, when a note was found attached to a drill reading We are well. Knowing they were alive, supplies were then sent down through narrow boreholes, and on October 13, all 33 miners were rescued in a custom-built capsule, having survived 69 days underground.

Bethany Hamilton

13-year-old Bethany Hamilton was surfing off Kauai, Hawaii on October 31, 2003. Hamilton was floating on her surfboard with her arms dangling in the water when a tiger shark pounced and devoured most of her left arm. She remained calm as she was rushed to shore, but she was losing an extraordinary amount of blood. Hamilton miraculously made it to shore and was rushed to the hospital. And in a divine twist of fate, she was operated on by the same doctor who was scheduled to perform her fathers knee surgery that very morning! Hamilton had lost about 60% of her blood and was in hypovolemic shock, but she managed to survive and was back on the water just one month later.

Mauro Prosperi

Italian police officer and experienced marathon runner Mauro Prosperi became famous for his incredible survival story during the 1994 Marathon des Sables, a grueling ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert. During a fierce sandstorm, Prosperi became disoriented and ran off course. Now stranded and alone in the middle of the Sahara, Prosperi survived by eating various insects, consuming his own urine, and drinking the blood of bats that he found in an abandoned shrine. At one point Prosperi even attempted to take his own life, but he was so dehydrated that this proved impossible. Luckily, a nomadic family found him and took him to safety on the ninth day, and despite some lasting physical damage, Prosperi lived to tell the tale.

Joe Simpson

British mountaineer Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, were descending the Siula Grande when Simpson slipped and fell, suffering a horrific compound fracture that made movement impossible. Yates lowered Simpson using ropes, but in the worsening conditions, he accidentally dangled Simpson over a crevasse. Being dragged towards the drop himself, Yates made the decision to cut Simpson free. Over the next three days, Simpson dragged his way out of the crevasse and across miles of rocky terrain, often hallucinating and barely conscious. He miraculously made it back to base camp - and just as Yates was leaving. Simpson never blamed Yates for his decision, repeatedly defended him in the press, and called him a hero for even attempting to save him.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh

In June of 2025, an Air India flight out of Ahmedabad quickly turned fatal when it collided with a building mere moments after take-off. The plane had been carrying 242 people, and the crash took 241 lives leaving one man, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, as the sole survivor. Ramesh, who was travelling with his brother, was able to push himself out of the rubble and exit the wreckage through the crafts emergency door, saving his own life. His survival is nothing short of miraculous, only having suffered minor injuries despite the immense impact of the disaster.

The Essex Survivors

One of the most famous sea-based survival stories concerns the Essex, a whaling ship that was rammed by a massive sperm whale on November 20, 1820. The ship sank, and survivors crammed into three lifeboats. Stuck on the open ocean, the boats drifted for three months under the brutal Pacific sun. Men died of starvation and dehydration, and the survivors consumed their flesh. And on one fateful day, a lottery was held to decide who would be shot and killed to feed the others, with 17-year-old Owen Coffin drawing the short straw. Rescue finally came in February, when the lifeboats were found by passing ships. Of the 20 men that boarded the lifeboats, only eight survived, their story inspiring Herman Melville to write a little book called Moby Dick.

The Donner Party

It wasnt an easy feat and surely wasnt easy on the feet back in the day when pioneers were seeking better lives. In May 1846, James F. Reed and George Donner led a group of Americans by wagon train to California. Hoping to reach the state before snowfall, they took a new route and reported shortcut called the Hastings Cutoff, despite it being ill-advised by others. Though it should have been an easy route, the Donner-Reed party ultimately found themselves snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during the winter of 1846 to 1847. Their food slowly became scarce, which meant that some of the pioneers turned to cannibalism. In the end, only 48 of the 87 members of the party survived to tell this riveting tale.

Hugh Glass

This American frontiersman lived a life with a high tolerance for pain. In 1823, Hugh Glass was on a fur-trading venture with dozens of men when he encountered a grizzly bear that started his journey of agony. He killed the bear, but at a price of multiple flesh lacerations and a broken leg that had the rest of the expedition consider him a goner. Glass was promised a proper burial after his death when the leader of the expedition asked for 2 volunteers to stay behind, but he was instead deserted and betrayed. Glass then took a rain-check on the burial and crawled his way to the nearest camp. It took 6 weeks, but he managed to survive by consuming berries, and preventing gangrene by letting maggots eat his infected flesh.

Beck Weathers

Those that tread Mount Everest have two goals in mind - and they are reaching the summit and staying alive to tell the tale. On May 10th, 1996, 49-year-old Beck Weathers was suffering from health problems during his climb to the summit. After going almost entirely blind, he stopped his ascent and was waiting for his guide when a massive blizzard struck. Throughout his time on the mountain, he slipped in and out of consciousness, was separated from the group, spent multiple hours in the subzero temperatures, and was left for dead on numerous occasions. Though he managed to walk down to Camp and survive these extreme conditions, Weathers didn't come out unscathed, as he ended up losing his nose and amputating most of his left hand and his right arm.

Brad Cavanagh & Deborah Scaling Kiley

What started off as a simple sailboat delivery from Maine to Florida quickly turned into an absolute nightmare after bad weather shipwrecked a crew of 5 in October of 1982. Sailor Deborah Scaling Kiley was hired to crew a sailing yacht named the Trashman when the heavy rain and winds of a sudden storm unexpectedly hit, and things went from bad to worse. After the boat sinks, the crew members begin to lose their minds and their wills. Meanwhile, sharks, dehydration, and infections from injuries threaten their lives. Five days later, only Kiley and Brad Cavanagh remain alive barely and they are rescued by a Soviet cargo ship that just happens to be passing by.

Phineas Gage

On September 13th, 1848, Phineas Gage was in charge of blasting rocks for railroads, when he accidentally aligned his face with the blast hole after being distracted by his workers. This allowed for the over 3 foot tamping iron to shoot through his face and out through his head. Even after the debilitating accident that should have easily killed him, Gage was conscious and remained as such throughout his grueling recovery. And although he did physically recover, Gage was left emotionally unstable, which sparked discussions of personality changes linked to the damage of the frontal lobe.

Aron Ralston

In this story, the impractical becomes practical, even if it means shedding some blood. In April 2003, Ralston went on an ordinary hike through Blue John Canyon. After a boulder unexpectedly dislodged while he was descending, his right hand was crushed against the canyon wall. For five days, he struggled to set himself free, all while slowly eating away at what little food he had and even drinking his urine when he ran out of water. With no one aware of his whereabouts, Ralston ultimately did the unthinkable. Using a multi-tool, he amputated his right arm with a dull blade, which took about an hour. It may have been a slow and painful process, but it turned out to be a decision that saved his life.

José Salvador Alvarenga

In November 2012, two fishermen, Jose Salvador Alvarenga and Ezequiel Cordoba, departed from the coast of Mexico to do some deep sea fishing, but they were thrown off course after a violent storm. Losing the will to survive, Cordoba stopped eating and died, leaving Alvarenga to consider taking his own life for many months. Surviving on things like seabirds, turtles, fish, and his own urine, it was on the 438th day of his voyage that Alvarenga finally spotted an island to which he swam and from which he was ultimately rescued. Its estimated that he traveled about 6,000 miles during his 438 days at sea.

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes, stranding the survivors at over 11,000 feet in the freezing mountains. They made shelter in the fuselage, with temperatures outside often dropping to -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Eventually confronted with starvation, they eventually ate the flesh of the deceased, following a pact to honor each other and share their bodies if they died. And on day 16, an avalanche struck, killing eight of the survivors and forcing the rest to dig themselves out. Knowing that rescue wasnt coming, two men climbed a mountain and walked for ten days to reach safety, eventually finding a group of Chilean herdsmen. Helicopters rescued the fourteen other survivors, their ordeal finally over after 72 grueling days.

Juliane Koepcke

On December 24, 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke was flying over the Peruvian rainforest when her plane was struck by lightning and broke apart in mid-air. Still strapped to her seat, Koepcke fell over 10,000 feet and miraculously survived the crash with nothing but a broken collarbone, deep cuts, and an eye injury. Alone in the jungle, she relied on survival skills learned from her biologist parents, and for the next eleven days, she followed a stream and survived on candy and river water. Koepcke eventually encountered some local loggers who helped her get the necessary medical attention. She was the sole survivor of the 91 people on board.

Ernest Shackleton

Although built to maneuver through ice, the ship known as the Endurance found herself lodged in the ice of the Weddell Sea. Her skipper, Ernest Shackleton and his crew converted the ice-bound vessel into a winter camp. However, as spring arrived the hull began giving away and the ship sank, leaving the crew to set up camp on the drifting ice. Shackleton led his men from ice floe to ice floe with the hopes of arriving to safety at Paulet Island, but a month into this journey and just 60 miles from the Island, the ice broke forcing the men into lifeboats. Just days later, the adventure came to end at Elephant Island, for a total of 497 days at sea.

Vesna Vulovi

We told you the unbelievable story of air crash survivor Juliane Koepcke. Now its time for that of flight attendant Vesna Vulovi. In January 1972, Vulovi was on a plane when a bomb exploded while they were in mid-air. Though Vesna fell over 33,000 feet , she has no recollection of the landing. It did leave her with a fractured skull, broken legs and broken vertebrae that left her temporarily paralyzed as well as with the Guinness Book of Records title for the survival of the highest fall without a parachute. Following the fall, Vulovi was in a coma for 27 days, and only discovered upon waking up that she was the sole survivor of the crash.

Do you know of any other fascinating stories of this kind? Let us know about them in the comments below!