There are remarkable accounts of individuals beating the odds, such as Juliane Koepcke, the German‑Peruvian who plunged 10,000 feet from a plane into the Amazon, and the Uruguayan rugby team that resorted to cannibalism after a crash in the Andes. Yet, some people have faced not one, but several life‑threatening catastrophes and lived to tell the tale.

10 people who defied death in astonishing ways

10 Stefan & Erika Svanström

When you think of a honeymoon, you probably picture romance, not survival. For Swedish couple Stefan and Erika Svanström, their post‑wedding adventure turned into a string of near‑fatal events. In 2011, they embarked on a four‑month odyssey with their infant daughter Elinor, planning to explore Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China.

Their first brush with danger came in Indonesia, where a monsoon ripped the roof off the bus they were riding. They escaped, but that was merely the opening act of a harrowing saga.

Later, in Australia, they endured a bushfire in Perth and a cyclone in Cairns. In New Zealand they narrowly missed the Christchurch earthquake thanks to a last‑minute reroute, only to find themselves in Tokyo when the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck. Mr. Svanström also says he survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami while traveling in Southeast Asia.

9 Gabriella Coane

Many newborns survive hurricanes, but Gabriella Coane from Houston, Texas, endured two major storms before she was even a month old. She was only a few days old when Hurricane Harvey battered Texas, yet their home remained largely intact. Her parents, concerned about water, fire hazards and other post‑storm problems, decided to relocate temporarily to their second residence in Miami, Florida, hoping for a calmer environment for the infant.

Just three days after settling in Miami, the family faced another evacuation as Hurricane Irma barreled through the area. After an 11‑hour drive, they found refuge in a small‑town Alabama hotel where they rode out the storm. Unable to return to their Miami home due to loss of water and electricity, the Coanes trekked over 3,000 miles in less than a week, finally making it back to Texas. They affectionately nicknamed little Gabriella “Storm.”

8 Gerald Ford

On September 5, 1975, Lynette Fromme attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California. The Secret Service tackled her, and although a shot rang out, it missed its target. Fromme, a drug‑addicted follower of Charles Manson, apparently sought to kill the president to curry favor with the cult leader.

Just seventeen days later, on September 22, 1975, a former Marine intervened in a second assassination attempt on President Ford—this time by Sara Jane Moore, who tried to shoot the president as he left a San Francisco hotel.

Interestingly, both Fromme and Moore were later incarcerated in the same West Virginia prison and each escaped—Fromme in 1979 and Moore in 1989—only to be quickly recaptured. Moore was released on parole in 2007, and Fromme in 2009.

7 Adrian Carton De Wiart

Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, born to Belgian and Irish parents, earned the moniker “the unkillable soldier.” He fought in and survived three wars—the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II—while losing an eye and a hand. Though initially too young and not a British subject, he abandoned his studies, assumed a false name, pretended to be older and traveled to South Africa to enlist in the Second Boer War, where he was shot in the chest and sent home. After recuperating, he promptly returned to combat.

During World I he sustained severe injuries on eight separate occasions. He lost his left eye in Somaliland in 1914, yet returned to the front. In 1915 on the Western Front he endured gunshot wounds to his skull, ankle, hip, leg and ear. In World II he served as a commanding officer, miraculously avoiding further limb loss, though he endured captivity in a POW camp at age 61. In 1943 he was appointed British representative to China, retiring in 1946. Despite his suffering, Carton De Wiart wrote in his autobiography, “Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.”

Rumor has it he may have been an illegitimate son of King Leopold II.

6 Wenman Wykeham‑Musgrave

On September 22, 1914, while patrolling off the Dutch coast, HMS Aboukir and two sister British cruisers, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy, were spotted by German U‑boat U‑9. Aboukir was struck first; Hogue began rescuing survivors.

Fifteen‑year‑old midshipman Wenman “Kit” Wykeham‑Musgrave swam for safety and was plucked from the water by Hogue. However, the U‑boat torpedoed Hogue as well, leaving Kit back in the sea. He managed to reach Cressy, thinking the danger had passed, only for Cressy to be hit moments later. A Dutch fishing boat rescued him, and other vessels saved hundreds more. In under 90 minutes, the young sailor survived three successive U‑boat attacks.

5 Roy Sullivan

Guinness World Records crowns Roy Sullivan, a park ranger at Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, as the individual struck by lightning the most times—seven in total. His first encounter was in 1942, when he lost only a toenail. Subsequent strikes occurred in 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1976 and finally 1977, inflicting burns on his chest and other areas, and singeing his hair twice. Even his wife Pat was struck once in 1970 on their front porch.

Sullivan ultimately died from a self‑inflicted gunshot wound to the head on September 28, 1983. Discover magazine featured him in its 2008 list of memorable survivors, alongside a Soviet WWII pilot who bailed out of a plane at 22,000 feet without a parachute and a sailor who drifted at sea for 76 days. The odds of being hit by lightning seven times are about 4.15 in 10⁴⁴.

4 Zahrul Fuadi

Tsunamis rank among the most terrifying natural disasters, a fact underscored by the Boxing Day 2004 Indian Ocean quake and tsunami that claimed nearly 228,000 lives across 14 countries. Surviving a single tsunami is extraordinary; surviving two is nothing short of miraculous.

Zahrul Fuadi was fortunate enough to escape both the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, and the March 11, 2011 earthquake‑tsunami in Tōhoku, Japan. After fleeing the 2004 wave, he pursued a doctorate in Japan, only to find himself on campus when the 2011 disaster struck, leaving him without power or water but otherwise unharmed.

Fuadi isn’t alone: fellow Indonesian Rahmat Saiful Bahri also survived the 2004 tsunami and the September 28, 2018 tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.5 quake on Sulawesi Island.

3 Wendall A. Phillips

Many soldiers have fought and lived through wars, sometimes even becoming prisoners of war more than once. Wendall A. Phillips, a radio operator on a C‑47 for the U.S. Air Transport Command, survived five separate aircraft crashes while stationed in England during WWII. After his last crash in late 1944, he and his crew were captured by Germans and interned in a Belgian POW camp. After 33 days, Phillips and two comrades escaped through a hole in the electric fence, wandering for three days before French resistance fighters guided them back to Allied forces.

Phillips was later reassigned to the China‑India‑Burma theater to deliver supplies against the Japanese. Another plane crash ensued, and he became a POW again, enduring Japanese torture that even caused him to lose his fingernails as his captors tried to extract information. He was finally released when Japan surrendered in 1945.

2 Violet Jessop

The sole female survivor on this roster is Violet Jessop, a stewardess aboard the RMS Olympic. Born to Irish immigrants in Argentina, she moved to England after her father’s death. Her mother worked as a stewardess on a Royal Mail Line, and Violet eventually followed suit, joining the White Star Line and later the HMS Olympic. In 1911, the Olympic collided with HMS Hawke—her first shipwreck among more than 200 voyages.

Although she initially hesitated to board the RMS Titanic, friends persuaded her, and she survived the Titanic’s fateful maiden voyage by reaching a lifeboat. Afterward, she returned to the Olympic. In 1916, during WWI, she served as a nurse aboard HMS Britannic, which struck a deep‑sea mine and sank in the Aegean Sea. She had to leap from a lifeboat to avoid the ship’s propellers, sustaining a fractured skull. Nicknamed “Miss Unsinkable,” she later rejoined the White Star Line and lived to 83.

1 Tsutomu Yamaguchi

While all disasters are devastating, few evoke the sheer dread of nuclear explosions. Surviving even one atomic bomb is miraculous; surviving both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is near‑mythic. About 150 individuals lived through both bombings in August 1945, and Tsutomu Yamaguchi was one of them.

Yamaguchi, an employee of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was in Hiroshima on August 7, 1945 when the atomic blast occurred. He suffered severe burns but managed to wade through a river littered with corpses, boarding a train back to his hometown of Nagasaki. He reunited with his wife and five‑month‑old son, receiving treatment for his injuries. He reported for duty on August 9, only to learn that Nagasaki was struck while he was still in a meeting. He survived the second blast as well.

Yamaguchi later died at 93 from stomach cancer. Tragically, his wife also succumbed to cancer, as did his son at age 58.