When it comes to feeling sick, we aren’t all equally equipped to tolerate distress and discomfort. Yet there are certain kinds of pain that level the playing field, turning even the most resilient ballet dancer or hardened soldier into a whimpering mess. The worst part? You don’t have to hop on a plane to a far‑off jungle to experience them – they’re right here, waiting to ruin your day. Below is our top 10 painful countdown of illnesses that nobody wants to meet.

10 Endometriosis

Endometriosis is a surprisingly common disorder, touching up to one in ten women. It occurs when tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus decides to grow outside that safe haven – on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and even the intestines. When those rogue cells bleed each month, they cause excruciating menstrual cramps that can make even a seasoned athlete double over, forcing her to abandon daily chores and seek refuge in bed.

9 Gastroenteritis

The dreaded stomach flu, medically known as gastroenteritis, brings a cocktail of nausea, vomiting, watery diarrhea, fever, chills, and gut‑wrenching lower‑abdominal cramps. Often spread by bacteria or parasites, it can leave you dehydrated and curled up on the bathroom floor. Despite its nickname, it has nothing to do with the influenza virus, but the misery it inflicts is just as unforgettable.

8 Tooth Abscess

Few things inspire dread like a throbbing tooth abscess. The infection swells the pulp of the tooth, turning it into a pressure cooker of pain. Dentists become your reluctant heroes, because without antibiotics the infection can chew through anesthetic, rendering even the strongest painkillers useless. In extreme cases, the only alternative would be a self‑performed extraction with pliers – a nightmare most of us would gladly avoid.

7 Ear Infection

Ever had an ear infection? The pounding ache alone is enough to make you wince, but certain types of otitis bring along vertigo that spins the world around you. The combination of throbbing pressure and a sense that the room is revolving can turn a simple day into a dizzy, painful ordeal.

6 Peritonitis

Peritonitis is a life‑threatening inflammation of the peritoneum, the thin membrane coating the abdominal cavity. It often follows a ruptured appendix, gallbladder infection, diverticulitis, or even a burst ovarian cyst. The resulting pain is among the fiercest known to humanity, forcing patients to beg for immediate surgery. The abdomen becomes a battlefield of relentless, stabbing agony that simply cannot be ignored.

5 Twisted Ovary Or Testicle

When an ovary or testicle twists on its own supporting ligaments, the blood supply gets cut off in a matter of seconds. The result? A sudden, blinding pain that can knock an otherwise healthy person to the floor. Emergency surgery is the only rescue, and the agony rivals the intense contractions felt during the transition phase of labor.

4 Shingles

Shingles erupts as a fiery rash of red blisters that can become inflamed, infected, and agonizingly painful. Anyone who’s ever had chickenpox carries the dormant virus, and stress or a weakened immune system can coax it back into action. The resulting pain is often described as a burning, electric shock that can linger long after the rash fades.

3 Gallbladder Lithiasis

Gallstones are hard, cholesterol‑rich deposits that form in the gallbladder when bile becomes oversaturated with fat. After a greasy meal, the gallbladder contracts, pushing a stone into the bile duct – a move that triggers excruciating, immobilizing pain. The agony is so intense that tears well up in the eyes of even the most stoic patients, making diet control essential.

2 Cluster Headache

Cluster headaches are a brutal cousin of the migraine, delivering pain that feels like a bolt of lightning striking behind one eye. Unlike typical migraines that favor women, clusters strike men – especially young Caucasian males – with recurrent, unstoppable attacks. Patients often rush to emergency rooms convinced they’re dying, and effective treatment remains elusive.

1 Nephrolithiasis

Kidney stones represent perhaps the fiercest pain a human can endure without succumbing to shock. The tiny crystal shards scrape through the urinary tract, producing a torment likened to an intense childbirth. Doctors often resort to IV narcotics to dull the agony. While the exact cause varies – dehydration, high sodium, excess calcium, genetics, and race all play roles – the antidote is simple: stay hydrated, limit salty snacks, and pray those little rocks never form.

Any ailment that brings physical pain is already a nightmare, but the sting sharpens when a physician shrugs and says the suffering is “all in your head.” Below you’ll find the ten most baffling painful conditions that trigger genuine, sometimes crippling symptoms, yet are routinely chalked up to pure psychology. These 10 painful conditions illustrate how mysterious the mind‑body connection can be.

10 Exploding Head Syndrome

Why This Is One of the 10 Painful Conditions

The disorder dubbed Exploding Head Syndrome (EHS) makes a person hear a sudden, thunder‑like burst inside the skull, usually as they drift off to sleep. Though harmless, the experience can be terrifying, often jolting the sleeper awake. Accompanying sensations may include bright flashes, an intense heat wave, chest discomfort, and a tingling electric shock that courses through the body.

First documented in the late 1800s, EHS still lacks a concrete medical cure. Physicians have found that the most effective remedy is simple reassurance; one patient’s episodes vanished after his doctor assured him the syndrome was merely an inconvenience. Stress, fatigue, and other sleep disturbances are thought to trigger the episodes, but the exact cause remains elusive.

9 Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia brings a suite of physical woes: widespread aching, relentless fatigue, mood swings, and pounding headaches. Yet many physicians still treat it as a mental construct. As Dr. Gerard Mesill explains, sufferers are often branded as “annoying and needy,” adding insult to injury when their pain is dismissed as imagined.

There is no definitive lab test for fibromyalgia. The older “tender‑point” exam has been supplanted by a simpler criterion: persistent, widespread pain for over three months without any identifiable medical cause. Doctors may order blood work to rule out other diseases. Despite estimates that five million Americans wrestle with the condition, a stubborn contingent of clinicians continues to doubt its existence.

8 Somatization Disorder

Somatization disorder traps patients in a vicious loop of bodily complaints driven by anxiety. Its symptom list reads like a medical encyclopedia: amnesia, diarrhea, dizziness, pounding headaches, temporary paralysis, and visual disturbances, to name a few. Because no tangible physical cause can be pinpointed, many doctors label the disorder as purely psychological and dismiss it outright.

Given the lack of an observable origin, clinicians typically recommend psychotherapy paired with antidepressants. Emerging research hints that the disorder may stem from abnormal neurocircuitry, suggesting a neurological underpinning to what has long been treated as a mental health issue.

7 Conversion Disorder

Conversion disorder, historically called hysteria, once provoked accusations of witchcraft and even executions. Ancient Greek physicians blamed a “wandering uterus” for its manifestations. Modern sufferers can experience seizures, sudden blindness, or inexplicable paralysis, often after a traumatic event that remains repressed.

Though the condition now affects only about 0.03 % of the population, many doctors still view it as a psychological reaction rather than a genuine neurological malfunction. The trauma‑linked nature of the disorder fuels the ongoing debate over its true origins.

6 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) struggle to obtain a solid diagnosis, often facing skepticism that their debilitating fatigue, cognitive fog, sleep disturbances, autonomic irregularities, and pain are merely psychosomatic. The Institute of Medicine felt compelled to declare that CFS is a real, physiological illness, not a lazy‑person myth.

Research estimates roughly 2.5 million Americans endure CFS, yet fewer than a third of medical schools teach the condition, and over half of textbooks omit any mention. This educational gap fuels persistent doubt among clinicians, leaving sufferers to battle both their symptoms and the disbelief of health‑care providers.

5 Retired Husband Syndrome

Retired Husband Syndrome (RHS) is a Japan‑centric disorder affecting wives who develop ulcers, polyps, rashes, and headaches after their spouses stop working. The sudden increase in domestic presence triggers stress rooted in long‑standing gender expectations.

The psychological strain has measurable consequences: between 1985 and 2000, divorce rates among couples married over twenty years doubled, a trend linked to RHS‑related health issues. Doctors have yet to uncover a physiological cause beyond the stress of a husband’s retirement.

4 Psychogenic Dystonia

Psychogenic dystonia forces muscles into painful, involuntary contractions without an identifiable organic trigger. Historically viewed as a conversion‑type disorder, recent brain‑imaging studies reveal markedly different activity patterns, suggesting a neurological basis rather than pure hysteria.

Unlike genetic forms of dystonia, patients with the psychogenic variant lack known mutations. PET scans have shown distinct activation in specific brain regions, nudging researchers to reclassify the condition from a purely psychological label to one with measurable neurological signatures.

3 Pseudocyesis

Pseudocyesis, or false pregnancy, convinces both men and women that they are pregnant, complete with an enlarged abdomen, fetal‑like movements, lactation, and even labor‑type pains. The condition appears most often in regions where women delay seeking prenatal care.

Studies reveal that pseudocyesis shares endocrine traits with polycystic ovary syndrome and major depressive disorder, though its hormonal profile aligns more closely with the former. Elevated sympathetic nervous system activity also characterizes many sufferers, underscoring the powerful mind‑body interplay at work.

2 Chronic Lyme Disease

While acute Lyme disease responds to a month‑long antibiotic regimen, a subset of patients report lingering musculoskeletal pain, neurocognitive deficits, and dysesthesia lasting up to nine years—a condition labeled chronic Lyme disease. Yet many physicians question its legitimacy, attributing improvements to placebo effects.

Detractors argue that persistent symptoms may stem from co‑infections or misdiagnoses, warning that treating patients for chronic Lyme without identifying the true cause could cause more harm than good. The debate remains heated, with patients caught in the crossfire.

1 Psychogenic Non‑Epileptic Seizures

Psychogenic non‑epileptic seizures (PNES) masquerade as epileptic events but arise from deep‑seated psychological distress rather than abnormal brain electrical activity. Clinicians spot PNES by noting atypical movement patterns, unusual durations, and triggers that differ from classic epileptic seizures.

Most PNES patients have endured trauma, and the condition demands a grueling therapeutic journey. Dr. Selim R. Benbadis describes the management of PNES as a “frustrating challenge” both in diagnosis and treatment, reflecting the broader struggle faced by those whose pain is dismissed as imagined.

J. Francis Wolfe is a freelance writer and a noted dreamer of dreams. He aspires to one day live in a cave high in the mountains where he can write poetry no one will ever see.

Snakes, spiders and bugs, oh my! Nature has concocted a whole suite of nasty, evil fluids we call venom, each evolved either as a shield or a hunting tool. In this article we count down the top 10 most horrifyingly painful venoms that can turn a simple encounter into a nightmare of agony.

Why These Are the Top 10 Most Painful Venoms

10 Brown Recluse Spider Venom

There’s an eerie tale I grew up hearing about a little girl whose hair was styled in intricate braids. One day she began screaming in agony from relentless headaches that wouldn’t quit, prompting her mother to rush her to the emergency room for relief.

When the doctors started to untangle her braids, the unbelievable happened: the entire scalp slipped from the girl’s head into their hands! The stunned physicians dropped the scalp, and a swarm of Brown Recluse spiders poured out, having nested in the braids and gnawing at her scalp, causing it to rot away.

While that story is pure urban legend, the actual effects of a Brown Recluse bite are chillingly real.

The spider’s venom carries a protein that forces your own tissue to turn against itself, causing necrosis that begins at the bite site and spreads inward over two to three days. Once the decay starts, the only recourse is surgical removal of the dead tissue, thorough sterilization, and often a skin graft.

9 Cobra Venom

Cobras may look quirky, but their venom is anything but funny. A healthy, irritable cobra can spray its toxin straight into a victim’s eyes from up to six‑and‑a‑half feet away, blinding and searing the eyes on contact.

If the venom enters the bloodstream—whether from a spit or a bite—you have roughly thirty minutes before the toxin shuts down your diaphragm. It binds to the receptors that command the breathing muscle, and if just a third of those receptors are blocked, you stop breathing and suffocate.

8 Stonefish Venom

Did you know a fish can kill you painfully? The Stonefish, an ugly, rock‑like creature that hides on the sea floor, is a perfect example.

Its camouflage lures unsuspecting swimmers into stepping on its deadly spines, delivering a venom that triggers a cascade of horrors.

The toxin releases a protein similar to cobra venom, causing lung failure, excruciating pain, seizures, severe muscle spasms, heart damage, and ultimately paralysis.

7 Lionfish Venom

Although not as lethal as the Stonefish, the Lionfish still knows how to wring tears from its victims. Depending on how many spines pierce you, this gorgeous yet vicious fish can cause intense pain, profuse sweating, breathlessness, and, if unlucky, temporary paralysis.

And then you drown!

6 Crown Of Thorns Seastar Venom

If you ever get impaled by the razor‑sharp spines of a Crown Of Thorns starfish—spines that can pierce diving suits and gloves—you’ll feel immediate, debilitating pain, followed by heavy bleeding and swelling.

Usually the symptoms subside within thirty minutes to three hours, but a heavy dose of venom can lead to numbness, vomiting, severe headaches, and, in rare cases, paralysis.

5 Arizona Bark Scorpion Venom

Caught somewhere between a crab and a spider, with just enough snake thrown in to keep things fresh, scorpions scuttled right out of man’s nightmares and into the waking world to terrorize us.

The Arizona Bark Scorpion tops the list of worst‑looking and worst‑venomed scorpions. While most scorpions merely cause a painful welt, this species can unleash a torrent of misery.

Its venom triggers severe pain, swelling, numbness, frothing at the mouth, breathing difficulty, convulsions, twitching, and occasionally suffocation.

4 Gila Monster Venom

Although Gila Monster venom is comparatively mild, the way it’s delivered is horrific. Unlike the common venomous snake, Gila Monsters don’t possess hypodermic teeth.

Instead, the toxin drips through grooves in their terrible little lizard fangs. To really get that toxic spit into your system, the Gila Monster not only bites but chews on whatever part of you it latches onto, often flopping back and forth to tear the wound so it can really smear the venom around.

The venom itself is incredibly painful, and there’s no known antidote. It has never caused a fatality in a human, but you’re definitely going to suffer.

3 Black Widow Venom

Surprisingly enough, the Black Widow spider is actually very docile, for a horrid little murder bug. In order to get a bite from this strangely pretty creature, you have to really provoke it.

The Black Widow has some of the most potent venom in the arachnid world, in concentrations high enough to kill a healthy adult human with a single bite.

The bite releases a toxin into the blood, and from there the nervous system, that completely hijacks your nerves. Within minutes of a bite, you lose control of your body, experiencing relentless, full‑body cramps that can last up to twenty‑four hours even with treatment.

You can recover, of course, if you get medical help in a timely manner, but those unlucky few who don’t: die a horrible, horrible death.

2 Tarantula Hawk Venom

The Tarantula Hawk is a frightening hulking beast of a bug. It was given its name because it hunts and eats (and lays eggs in) tarantulas.

The real terror, however, comes not from what they can do to other bugs, but from what they can do to you. While their venom isn’t deadly, it is so painful that a single sting can incapacitate a man.

According to Justin Schmidt, the world’s foremost expert on painful bug bites and stings (who allowed himself to be stung or bit by just about everything and recorded the results), the only thing you can do if one of these stings you is lay on the ground and scream until it’s over.

1 Platypus Venom

What on God’s green earth is the Platypus doing with its biology? It has hair, but also a beak. It lays eggs but also produces milk (despite having no nipples). And if all of that wasn’t enough, these Frankenstein animals have half‑inch spurs on their tiny little feet that produce venom.

Not just any old venom, either, but the most long‑lasting and painful venom in the animal kingdom!

According to people who have been spurred by an angry platypus, the pain is immediate, completely devastating, and unending. Worse yet, no painkiller can be used against it. Not even morphine can stop the pain; nothing works to stop it except the complete deadening of the affected area.

The muscles in the area will wither away, and you’ll find yourself shivering, sweating, and throwing up from the pain and the venom.

You won’t die… but you’re going to wish you had.

About The Author: Deana is, as of writing this list, trembling in sheer terror of the horrific things nature is capable of producing to hurt us.

Lightning strikes, bee stings, snake bites… some people are exceptionally unlucky, others just a glutton for punishment. Still, the ability of a select few to endure overwhelming pain is as impressive as it is cringe-worthy.

Following are folks with excruciating records. Most are uninvited and unfortunate; a few are intentional and, well, insane. Regardless, as Dodgeball’s Pepper Brooks so eloquently put it: “Ouchtown, population you, bro.”

Related: Top 10 Peculiar Facts About Pain

10 Fang You Very Much

Tim Friede, a mid-50s former truck mechanic from Wisconsin, puts a new meaning to the phrase “draining the snake.” In his role with California-based vaccination research firm Centivax, Friede has been intentionally bitten by venomous snakes more than 200 times.

Friede’s lengthy list of potentially lethal injections includes bites from cobras, mambas, vipers, taipans, rattlers, and kraits. Centivax’s goal is to develop a universal antivenom, replacing the current snake-specific approach prone to misidentifications and stock shortages.

Friede is among the few capable of performing his dangerous duties. As an adolescent, he kept a collection of venomous snakes and began milking their venom, realizing it was in his best interest to develop some sort of immunity should something go sideways. He then diluted the poison and injected himself with it to build tolerance.

This was, Friede admits, an imperfect process. In 2001, he was milking his Egyptian cobra when it bit his finger. The semi-immune Friede would have been fine, but just an hour later, his monocled cobra tagged him on the bicep. “Two cobra bites, back to back, within one hour,” he remembers. “I basically flat-lined and died.”

He was in a coma for four days. But luckily for both himself and science, Friede lived to bite another day. He describes his gainful yet painful employment as something akin to “a bee sting times a hundred.” Videos of him purposefully getting bitten have garnered hundreds of thousands of views.^[1]

9 To Be or Two Thousand Bees

On January 28, 1962, Johannes Relleke was working at the Kamativi Tin Mine near the Gwaii River in Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe). There, he was stung by a bee.

Then he got stung by 2,442 more.

Several incredible things happened next. First and foremost, Relleke survived, which invites one to wonder just how many bee stings a human being can suffer without dying. According to the U.S. Agricultural Research Service, a non-allergic human can be expected to survive 10 stings per pound, meaning a 200-pound person would be expected to survive upwards of 2,000 stings. So Relleke rode that educated estimation right up to the edge of lethality. Well played, sir.

Still, the feat also leaves one asking how 2,443 separate bees found distinct places on Relleke’s body to sting—so distinct, in fact, that in the hospital, each stinger was removed and counted, making Relleke the confirmed Guinness World Record holder for Most Bee Stings Survived. Details about the incident are sparse, but assumedly Relleke was working in the mine—a confined space where a quick retreat is difficult—and disturbed a honeybee hive. The sheer number of stings likely wouldn’t have happened in the open air.

In Zimbabwe, the event has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname “The Relleke Massacre” because the spot where he was found was littered with thousands of dead bees.^[2]

8 Mama-Rama

Ah, childbirth. As a proud father, I know from experience that it’s wonderfully, beautifully…

… awful. It’s a screaming, swearing, sweating mess that no woman should have to endure. Worse, the pain is often downplayed on medical sites because, if it weren’t, people would probably stop having kids—a dubious-at-best decision even without excruciating agony. For example, Healthline reassures would-be moms that “pain is subjective… This means that you may have a very different pain experience from even your mother or sister.” Read as: Disregard their brutal honesty about how intolerable it was. The site goes on to suggest pain alleviation methods such as massage (which seems useless when your crotch is aflame) and visualization (which seems useless, period).

In any event, Valentina Vassilyeva had no such cyber-reassurances because she was born in 1707. She and her hubby Feodor were from Shuya, Russia. And there must have been very little to do in Shuya because ol’ VV got knocked up 27 times between 1725 and 1765.

That’s not even the most shocking part because those 27 pregnancies resulted in… wait for it… sixty-nine babies, including 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. All but two babies—one of the sets of twins—survived, another surprising feat in an era of high infant mortality.

Feodor wasn’t finished. He remarried upon Valentina’s passing and had 18 more children with his second wife. They didn’t call him Feisty Feodor for nothing.^[3]

7 Ice Breaker

Hockey hurts. It’s a sport with thrashing wooden sticks, sharp skate blades, vicious crosschecks, and of course, semi-legal fisticuffs. It’s the only major sport where teams frequently employ a so-called “enforcer,” whose job is to basically beat the crap out of the opposing side, penalties be damned.

Unsurprisingly, jack-o’-lantern smiles are a regular thing in hockey. Players who enjoy an entire career with their teeth intact are considered fortunate. But in 2010, one player, Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks, was decidedly unlucky. Midway through the second period of a playoff game, Patrick Marleau of the San Jose Sharks was attempting to clear the puck from his team’s zone. He slapped the puck fast and high… right into Keith’s mouth.

“I just knew right away,” Keith said later. “I took one breath, and it felt like my whole mouth was missing, so I knew there were some teeth gone.”

Broken chicklets came careening out of his mouth, with one sticking in the back of his throat. Keith lost an ungodly seven teeth on one shot—three on the top and four on the bottom (the dentist ultimately replaced ten, though). And while no firm stat exists for “most teeth lost on a single shot,” it’s believed that Keith is the NHL’s dental record holder.

Amazingly, Keith actually returned later that same game, albeit a few ounces lighter. His terrible luck and terrific grit earned him the nickname “Duncan Teeth.”^[4]

6 Choking Hazard

Sports can scar the soul as well as the body, lifting hopes before cruelly crushing them. On the field, the other shoe—or cleat—always seems ready to drop.

In 2004, the New York Yankees were winning a best-of-seven series by three games to none. They were one out away in the final inning with the game’s best reliever pitching. They blew the series in what remains the greatest collapse in baseball history. Notably, the 2022 Yankees had a 15½-game lead that has evaporated. If they don’t win their division, they’ll hold unenviable records for choke artistry in both the playoffs and regular season.

In American football, the greatest postseason gag job belongs to the 1992 Houston Oilers, who led the Buffalo Bills 35-3 in the third quarter. They lost, 41-38. Ironically, the Bills were in the middle of a historic horror show of their own, losing four straight Super Bowls from 1990-93.

Individual chokes are an equally fascinating trip down the psychological rabbit hole. Golf, a silly game played by serious people, is a prime example, as even the most talented golfers sometimes snatch defeat from victory: At the 1966 U.S. Open, Arnold Palmer blew a five-stroke lead with four holes to play.

But the worst golf gag belongs to Frenchman Jean van de Velde at the 1999 British Open, who needed a six—a double-bogey—or better on the final hole to win. In what remains golf’s most tragicomic sequence, he shot… a seven.^[5]

5 Lucky Shot

In America, it’s really easy to get shot. Like, really easy. After all, for every 100 Americans, there are 120 guns. So 20% more guns than people… with a population of 330 million… that’s… let’s see… carry the 1…

… just shy of 400 million guns. For the record, the country with the second-highest firearm-per-person ratio is the liberal beacon of Yemen (53 guns per person), followed by the pacific enclave of Syria (39 guns per person). USA! USA!

Anyway, so yeah, it’s pretty easy to get shot and get dead in the U.S. Nearly 50,000 Americans perished by guns in 2021. Given such generous gunplay, it’s unsurprising that the person credited with surviving the most gunshots is an American.

In August 2010, 23-year-old Angel Alvarez was leaving a party in New York City when another man, Luis Soto, confronted him. One of them (it’s unclear who) had a gun, and the two scuffled. When several police officers attempted to break it up, the gun went off. The officers thought the shots were intended for them and returned fire… a total of 46 times.

One officer mistakenly shot another officer. Soto was struck several times and died. Alvarez lived despite being shot twenty-three times. He was cleared of any wrongdoing, save for a weapons charge.^[6]

4 Feel the Burn

A Google search for “worst burn survivor” brings one name to the forefront. In 1999, 20-year-old Jacqueline Saburido was a passenger in her friend’s car in Caracas, Venezuela, when a drunk driver slammed into their vehicle with his SUV. The driver in the car carrying Saburido died, as did a fellow passenger.

The car caught fire, trapping Saburido. She suffered second- and third-degree burns on 60% of her body. Doctors didn’t expect her to live, but she did despite being gruesomely disfigured. Commendably, Saburido used her horrific predicament and permanently mangled appearance to draw attention to the dangers of drunk driving.

Saburido’s notoriety is likely the reason for her top search engine billing. However, recently another burn survivor likely surpassed Saburido’s sizable injuries. In May 2017, Colorado couple Jamie and Troy Ketchum were driving with Jamie’s parents when a dump truck blew a tire and smashed headfirst into their SUV. Jamie’s father died instantly. The other three were injured—but none as bad as Jamie, who suffered burns over an unbelievable 95% of her body.

Both of her legs and one arm required amputation. Jamie spent more than a year in the hospital burn unit—425 days, to be exact. But she pulled through and has plans to walk again after being fitted with prosthetic legs.^[7]

3 Miracle Miles

In June 2017, a 14-year-old girl survived a 25-foot (7.6-meter) fall at an amusement park when bystanders braced her fall. The incident was recorded and broadcast on news stations. The girl dangled before falling, giving good samaritans time to gather underneath her. Would she have survived otherwise?

“The probability of surviving a 25-foot fall… is influenced by many factors, including your speed,” Dr. Robert Glatter of NYC’s Lenox Hill Hospital said. He added that falls from heights exceeding 30 feet (9.1 meters) typically inflict serious injuries involving the spleen, liver, and lungs, along with blunt chest trauma and rib fractures.

The median lethal distance for falls is 48 feet (14.6 meters)—about four stories. This means that 50% of people who fall from that height will not survive. The chance of death increases to 90% as heights approach seven stories.

So the highest survived fall on record would probably be… twelve stories? Fifteen? Maybe a miracle drop of 25 stories into two feet of powdery snow?

Nope… try more than two-thousand stories. In 1972, a Serbian flight attendant named Vesna Vulović was on board JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 when a bomb exploded in the luggage compartment, an apparent terrorist attack. When the device went off, the plane was at cruising altitude—just over 33,000 feet. Everyone died… except Vulović, who fell over six miles (77 kilometers) with no parachute—a Guinness record. Despite a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis, she eventually made a near-total recovery.^[8]

2 Testicle Fortitude

Amandeep Singh is a bona fide tough guy. The 40-year-old stuntman can break beer bottles with his bare hands and lift two motorcycles at once—one dangling from each side of a weight bar. He can lift two people, weighing a combined 330 pounds… with his teeth.

In his homeland of Punjab, Singh has earned the fitting (albeit unoriginal) nickname of “India’s Steel Man.” Just this past July, he set an international bodybuilding record with his 28th competitive medal.

But a series of stunts Singh performed back in 2016 truly set him apart—if not as the world’s strongest or toughest man, then perhaps the craziest. For starters, he broke 53 beer bottles with his bare hands and used a series of ropes to stop 20 running motorcycles in their tracks. He allowed cars to run over his abdomen, a commercial truck to roll over his lower back, and full-grown men to jump off ladders and land by stomping on his chest.

But one stunt, in particular, left onlookers both amazed and grimacing. Amandeep Singh became the first known person to be hit in the balls with a sledgehammer… brace for it… ten times. To prove the hammer made solid scrotal contact, Singh even placed a brick over his privates and let the sledgehammer break it in two. That is, literally, nuts.^[9]

1 Unlucky Seven

Born in 1912 in Greene County, Virginia, Roy Sullivan came of age during the Great Depression. He fell in love with the national park system, which underwent a series of improvements under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s public works programs. In 1936, he became a park ranger at Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. A brawny, rugged man who bore a resemblance to actor Gene Hackman, Sullivan seemed right out of central casting.

In April 1942, Sullivan sought shelter from a thunderstorm in a newly built fire tower. The tower caught fire after being struck by lightning, forcing him to flee. He got just a few yards from the exit when he was also struck. The bolt singed a portion of his leg and toe and burned a hole in his shoe. Sullivan survived.

Everything was fine for… oh, about 27 years. Then, in 1969, Sullivan was struck by lightning again. And then again, and again. In fact, he was struck by lightning six times in just eight years—seven in total—and survived them all.

The ways these strikes unfolded are just plain odd. One occurred in his truck—whose metal exterior and rubber tires should have been a safe haven. He was struck in his own front yard. He was struck standing inside his ranger station—an incident that set his hair on fire.

By the fourth strike, Sullivan became convinced that storm clouds were following him. Many concurred, refusing to go near him at the slightest hint of inclement weather.^[1]