At the end of World War II, the death marches, which claimed the lives of countless people, were considered among the worst atrocities. Some were simply done to kill prisoners or to keep them from being freed by the advancing Allies, while some were marched for later use as hostages. Survivors were witness to the cold-blooded murder of family, friends, adults, and children. They lived to tell of some of the darkest days of World War II.

10 David Friedmann

Before the Holocaust, David Friedmann was one of Berlin’s most important and prolific portrait artists. Although he and his family escaped to Prague in 1938, they were deported to Lodz’s Jewish Ghetto in 1941. Friedmann was ultimately sent to Gleiwitz I and was a part of the death march to Blechhammer. His family died at Auschwitz.

Friedmann and the other prisoners left on January 21, 1945, and marched the 100 kilometers (60 mi) to the next camp. Friedmann wrote of the execution of those too weak to walk and remembers that he was nearly one of those people. Friedmann gave credit to a doctor named Orenstein and two friends for saving his life and getting him to Blechhammer, where they were liberated days later by the Soviets.

After the war, Friedmann continued to paint and immortalized scenes from the concentration camps he was in as well as the death march.

9 Salvator Moshe

Salvator Moshe was born in Greece, where his family had settled generations before, fleeing persecution by the Spanish Inquisition. Moshe and the other Jewish residents of Salonika were deported to German concentration camps in 1943.

Moshe and his brother-in-law were a part of the 4,000-person death march from the Warsaw Ghetto to Dachau in 1944. The march went on for days. On the third day, they were told to stop alongside a river, where the escorting officers told them they could finally have a drink. As they went to the water, Moshe recalled, “[A] fellow next to me, he was drinking water, but I heard bullets. They shooting. Zzz, zzz, zzz. Coming.”

The officers shot their charges as they kneeled to drink, and when the survivors made it back to the road, he saw another officer shooting those who couldn’t continue. Moshe and his brother-in-law survived and were liberated by US troops outside Seeshaupt.

8 William Dyess

A US fighter pilot, William Dyess was one of the soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March. He escaped in 1943 and made his way back to the States.

Dyess published an account of the horrors he witnessed, starting with the first murder. He described an Air Force captain being searched by a Japanese private, who found a handful of yen. As soon as the private, who Dyess described as a giant, saw the yen, he stepped to the side and beheaded the captain.

Dyess also talked about the so-called “Oriental sun treatment,” where captives were forced to sit in the blazing sun for hours on end, with no protection or water. The marchers were followed by a “clean-up squad” of Japanese soldiers who killed those who fell behind.

Once at San Fernando, Dyess and the other survivors found themselves in conditions so dire that they couldn’t even bring themselves to protest.

7 Eva Gestl Burns

When Soviet forces approached Auschwitz and the surrounding labor camps, those being held there were forced to walk. Eva Gestl Burns was working at an ammunition factory when they were told to start walking, and she later recounted a courageous escape.

The prisoners were clad in winter coats, and each coat was marked with a striped square. The women, many of whom were carrying scissors and thread, were able to remove the striped squares, cover the hole with a piece of plain material from somewhere else on the coat, and then replace the striped piece until they saw their chance for escape.

For Eva and a single companion, that chance came as they were being assembled into rows. When no one was paying attention, they ran, tore the striped fabric off their coats, and ultimately joined a group of German refugees heading to Sudentenland.

6 Stanislaw Jaskolski

In January 1945, prisoners at the Stutthof camp system were herded from their camps. Around 50,000 people were scattered. Around 5,000 were marched to Baltic Sea, ordered into the water, and shot. Others headed into Eastern Germany.

Stanislaw Jaskolski later described the march. He remembered freezing cold temperatures and the small bag of supplies they were handed. It included shirts, long johns, half a loaf of bread, and some margarine. They were given a scattering of blankets that were meant to be shared and were herded onto the road.

As they marched, Jaskolski thought of what they were leaving behind—the gallows, the gas chambers, and the crematorium. They were freezing, he remembered, but he also remembered thinking that they were, at that moment, doing pretty good.

5 Jack Aizenberg

Jack Aizenberg was one of 60 people (out of 600) who survived the 160-kilometer (100 mi) death march from Colditz Castle to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The 16-year-old boy was already starving, and he marched for a week with no food. Those alongside him were so hungry they were eating grass.

When they stopped to spend the night at a factory, Aizenberg found a single pea. He wanted to boil it over a fire they had started, and he was terrified that someone was going to try to steal it. He cut it into four pieces to make it last longer, and it was the only food he had for the entire march.

Aizenberg made it to Theresienstadt, and he knew he was dying—but he no longer cared. Soviet forces liberated the camp days later, and he would be taken to Britain as part of a resettlement program for the war’s orphans.

4 John Olson

Colonel John Olsen survived the Bataan Death March and the horror that came after it—Camp O’Donnell.

When survivors arrived at the camp, locals were granted permission to give them food. They were also given a welcome speech by a Japanese captain who made it clear that his only regret was that the code of honor to which he had to abide forbade him from killing the prisoners outright.

As personnel adjutant, Olson kept a meticulous record of what went on every day in the camp and would later use his notes to write a book. His journal records things like an increase in daily sugar rations (to 10 grams each) and the daily death toll. He also wrote about the burial detail and how men would volunteer for the task in order to make sure that their friends could at least have a proper burial.

3 Ingeborg Neumeyer

After World War I, around three million ethnic Germans were living in the area that became Czechoslovakia. By the time World War II rolled around, those Germans were no longer considered racially pure and became subject to the wrath of the Third Reich.

Ingeborg Neumeyer was 15 when she and her family were dragged from their apartment on May 31, 1945, and herded into the streets to join what would be known as the Brno death march. Later, she would recall seeing people shot for falling behind as well as her mother’s attempt to make sure her daughter at least had clothing. She was wearing three dresses when they started the march, but when she tried to discard two of the dresses, she was seen. She was beaten bloody, her clothes were taken, and her shoes were thrown away.

2 Marie Ranzenhoferova

Marie Ranzenhoferova was 24 years old when she walked from Brno to the Austrian border. She was offered the chance to stay by a would-be suitor who promised that if she and her baby went to live with him, she would be safe. She refused, and he would later force her at gunpoint to join the march.

Marie talked about families forced to leave homes they had been in for generations, dropping priceless family heirlooms as they walked, unable to carry them anymore. She remembered being supervised by guards from concentration camps, who were nowhere near as cruel as the men from the Zbrojovka arms factory. Those men were violent drunks, and she remembered one grabbing a baby from a woman’s arms and throwing it into a field because it would not stop crying.

When they reached the border, Marie left the march, and around 700 people followed her into the village of Perna. She stayed there for a while and eventually moved to Mikulov.

1 Keith Botterill

Keith Botterill (pictured above on the right) is one of only six people who survived the Sandakan death march. He and the other survivors only lived because they were able to escape their Japanese captors on the march from Sandakan Camp.

Botterill would later remember the camp itself as decent enough for the first 12 months they were there. As the war dragged on, the beatings and starvation got worse. As he and his companions planned for their escape, they were caught stealing rice in preparation. Botterill’s friend, Richie Murray, stepped forward and confessed to the theft. He was bayoneted.

After their escape, another companion, weakened by dysentery, slit his own throat to keep from slowing them down. The other survivors were Owen Campbell, Nelson Short (pictured left above), Bill Moxham, Bill Sticpewech (pictured center above), and James Richard Braithwaite. All Australian, they had been warned to escape by a sympathetic Japanese officer who knew about an upcoming slaughter.

Botterill died in 1997, just after the completion of a book about the remarkable story of the Sandakan Six.

+Further Reading

Here is a small selection of lists from the archives based around World War II.

10 Bizarre World War II Weapons That Were Actually Built
10 Little-Known Alternative Plans From World War II
10 Amazing Untold Stories From World War II
10 World War II Soldiers Who Pulled Off Amazing Feats

Life is unpredictable. Tomorrow may play out like every other day or your life or maybe a meteor falls from the sky and crushes your house right before you win the lottery then get attacked by a tiger on the way to collect your prize. We mostly get by hoping that things are predictable and happen the way they usually happen. But some twists and turns and events seem to defy all odds and they happen all the time. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and sometimes both.

No one’s going to say any disaster that claims lives is a good thing, but when something terrible happens and just a single person survives, it can still be amazing.

10. George H. W. Bush Survived a Brush with Execution and Cannibalism

George Herbert Walker Bush was President of the United States from 1989 until 1993. A former military man, he’s maybe even more famous today for being the father of the other President Bush. But if you go back far enough in his career, you’ll see that he was the sole survivor of an absolutely harrowing, horror-movie-level event in World War Two.

Bush was a pilot in WWII. He joined the Navy when he was 18 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two years later he was flying a mission over Japan on September 2, 1944. His plane was hit and Bush had to eject.

The other servicemen jumped first and as Bush went, he was caught in the wind and slammed into the plane’s tail where he cut his head open. He deployed his parachute and landed in the water but he was alone.

He inflated a life raft and paddled away from the Japanese island he’d just attacked and was rescued by a submarine. A lucky break on his part, but the story isn’t over. There were nine servicemen sent on that mission besides Bush and none of them made it back.

One man with Bush went down with the plane. The other’s parachute didn’t deploy. From the planes that accompanied him and were also hit, the men who parachuted to the island were captured by the Japanese. Years later the scope of what happened to them was fully revealed when the Japanese soldiers were tried for war crimes.

The Americans were beaten and tortured and ultimately executed by beheading. Some of them were then cut up and eaten by their captors with evidence that their livers and thighs were eaten for medicinal reasons because it was “good for the stomach.” 

9. George Lamson Was the Only Survivor of a 1985 Plane Crash 

There are many smaller aircraft crashes per year than we ever hear about and most are not fatal. In over 1,200 accidents reported in 2021 there were 376 fatalities. It’s rare that a large passenger jet crashes but when it does it usually represents a horrible loss of life that can be well over 100. On very rare occasions, there will also be survivors.

In 1985, 17-year-old George Lamson was on a flight with 70 other people that took off from Reno and crashed soon after. Lamson was the only passenger on board who survived. His body was thrown from the plane on impact. He lost his father in the crash and most of us can only imagine what he must have thought in the time since it happened.

In his unique position, Lamson has tried, in the ensuing years, to be a support for others like him. He has reached out to every sole survivor of a plane crash that has happened since his accident of which there have been 14. 

Lamson says he and other survivors often feel a lot of complex emotions of which guilt is only one and it’s very hard to describe or talk about with people who are on the outside looking in. He says he feels pressure to do something big with his life because he survived and that people unintentionally make it worse by telling him, and other survivors, that they’re miracles and lucky and must have a purpose.

8. Vesna Vulovi? Survived the Highest Fall in History

Vesna Vulovi? holds one of the most unusual records in the world. Not only is she the sole survivor of Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 which exploded mid-flight in 1972, she also holds the record for surviving the highest fall ever without a parachute. Not the sort of record you’d want to challenge.

Vulovi? fell from 33,330 feet when the plane came apart into three pieces. She was a flight attendant at the time of the disaster, which was caused by a briefcase bomb going off in the baggage compartment. It was only through a series of miraculous coincidences that she could survive at all.

The plane was torn into segments and Vulovi? was at the rear with the refreshment cart. As the fuselage tore apart, many passengers were sucked out but Vulovi? was pinned by the cart which held her in place.

The tail section that housed Vulovi? crashed into a snowy hill but the impact didn’t kill her. Vulovi? was almost rejected for the job entirely because she suffered from low blood pressure. Flight attendants have to pass a medical exam so Vulovi? cheated by drinking coffee to boost her blood pressure ahead of time.

When she was pinned and the cabin depressurized, it’s believed that Vulovi? passed out because of her low blood pressure. After the incident, she had no memory of what happened so losing consciousness is entirely plausible. As a result, the force of the impact was less traumatic on her heart than it would have been for someone with normal blood pressure, which ended up preventing a heart attack.

She didn’t walk away unscathed and suffered serious injuries including a few days in a coma and several months recuperating from many broken bones in hospital. 

Ironically, Vulovi? wasn’t even supposed to be on the flight, the airline had mistaken her for another flight attendant with the same name. 

7. Juliane Koepcke Survived A Crash in the Amazon

In yet another remarkable case of plane crash survival, Juliane Koepcke survived the crash and escaped from the Amazon rainforest afterward. She was just 17 flying with her mother and over 80 others, when lightning struck their plane. After the plane went into a nosedive she found herself, still in her seat, but alone and outside, two miles above the earth. She was sucked from the plane and fell. 

When she awoke the next day, she was in a dense jungle. The trees and her seat had broken her fall, though she had sustained injuries. No one else was there. 

Juliane’s parents were zoologists, and she’d spent years with them in the Amazon already. Using the knowledge she’d gained from life in the jungle she survived ten days as she searched for help. Her wounds became infected with maggots and she eventually found a boat and sucked out the fuel and put it on the wound to kill the parasites.

The next day locals found her and treated her wounds, and she was reunited with her father. She still runs the research station her parents founded.

6. A 12-Year-Old Who Couldn’t Swim was the Only Survivor of a 2009 Crash at Sea

It has to be terrifying to crash anywhere at any time, but imagine crashing at sea, when you’re 12 years old, and you can’t swim. That happened to Bahia Bakari, and she was the only survivor of Yemenia Flight 626 that saw 152 others perish.

After the plane went down, Bakari had to hold on to the wreckage for 11 hours to stay alive. The crash was blamed on pilot error and airline negligence which resulted in years’ worth of lawsuits. The trial only began in 2022 despite the crash happening in 2009.

5. Harrison Okene Survived 72 Hours in an Air Pocket

How long could you survive at the bottom of the ocean? If you’re Harrison Okene, the answer is three days. Three days he survived in an air pocket, trapped in an upside-down, sunken tugboat.

Eleven others died when the tugboat suddenly capsized while towing an oil tanker. Okene had been in the bathroom at the time and got out, found some tools, and got into an air pocket as the boat went down. He had only a bottle of Coke to sustain him as the vessel sank to 100 feet.  When divers went in to recover the dead, none expected to find a survivor. The event was recorded on camera and became a viral video as few believed it was possible. 

4. Whitney Cerak Survived a Crash But Was Mistaken For Someone Else

There’s no nice way to spin this story, the whole thing is messed up. In 2006, Laura VanRyn and Whitney Cerak were in a horrible car crash with several other students. The college students were friends and looked quite a bit alike. Enough that, in the chaos, Cerak, who survived, was mistaken for VanRyn, who did not.

Cerak, the only survivor, was taken to hospital with serious injuries. So serious that when VanRyn’s family was called, they could not tell that it was not their daughter they were visiting. Meanwhile, Cerak’s family were told their daughter had died. They had a funeral and mourned her. Neither family had any idea the girls were mistaken for each other.

When Cerak awoke from her coma, the mistake was discovered and while her family got to feel relief, VanRyn’s family had to deal with realizing not only had they lost her daughter, but she’d already had a funeral as someone else.

3. John Capes Was The Only Survivor of a Sunken WWII Submarine

When the HMS Perseus hit a mine in 1941, it sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean with a crew of 59. But the sub was also carrying two passengers, one of whom was John Capes. Capes was only hitching a ride when disaster struck and the submarine sank. Depth gauges read 270 feet but they were off by 100. The vessel sat at 170 feet below and, with a handful of injured men, Capes prepared to use an escape hatch from a sealed compartment where they had no choice. Their re-breathers were only good for 100 feet but they didn’t have a lot of options.

Capes and the others flooded the hatch and escaped. He forced himself to rise slowly, trying to avoid the bends. When he finally broke the surface he was only, no one else had made it. He swam to a nearby island where locals discovered him and, because the islands were occupied by Germans and Italians, kept him hidden for an entire year and a half.

For the rest of his life, his story was met with doubt. British officials thought he was a total liar and even made a note on his record. They didn’t believe the Perseus was where he said it was nor that he could survive rising from that depth. But in 1997, after Capes had passed away, divers found the wreck, and every detail was exactly as Capes had described.

2. An Escaped Crocodile Caused a Panic on a Plane 

Avoiding crocodiles is just good sense. They’re dangerous and you should stay out of their territory. That said, if someone brings one on an airplane you may have a problem. That’s what happened on a British plane in 2010 which led to a crash that claimed 20 lives.

Someone had smuggled the crocodile on board in their luggage and it escaped mid-flight. This caused an understandable panic. The passengers all ran which caused the plane’s balance to shift as they piled to one side. The pilot could not regain control and they crashed with only one survivor who relayed the story. Word is the crocodile survived too, only to have someone kill it on the ground.

1. Huang Yu Survived the First Airplane Hijacking

You may not know the name Huang Yu but he holds a true place of infamy in the annals of survival. Yu was a survivor of the first plane hijacking in history. In fact, he’s the only person who has ever survived a hijacking, and that sounds remarkable if we stop explaining the details there. The problem is that Yu was also the hijacker.

Yu and four other men hijacked a plane in 1948 because it was transporting gold. The flight was only 20 minutes from Hong Kong to Macau so the men needed to be fast. They set about robbing the plane at gunpoint but the crew and some passengers fought back. In the melee, people were shot and the plane took a nosedive into a river. Yu snagged a life jacket as the plane crashed before being thrown clear. The 27 others on board died.

Later, when being questioned by police, Yu could not provide a believable story about why he was on the plane. He even confessed at one point but thanks to jurisdictional problems and Yu claiming the confession was a joke, he was never actually convicted.

When one hears the words “sole survivor” it tends to conjure up many feeling and emotions. For the families and loved ones hearing that there is only one person alive, and then holding out hope that just maybe it was their family or loved one that survived. For the survivor thinking why me and was it fate, or was it not my time, was it destiny or was it just pure luck?

Or maybe it is as Forest Gump said: “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time”.

NOTE: I tried keeping the descriptions short, and that was often difficult. I wanted to include information on the flight, the crash and the survivor. Many sources were used to make this list, so I am fairly confident the general information is correct, but please, if any  knows of any information that is incorrect or want to add some additional facts or information about these air disasters or other sole survivors, please share them. Also it might seem not quite right to put a subject matter like this in a bottom to top list order. Obviously, each incident is just as tragic as the next. The “order” criteria I used was the over all survival story, and the survival chances of each individual.

Date of Crash: January 19, 2006
Aircraft type: Antonov An-24
Operator: Slovak Air Force
Crash Site: Hejce, Hungary
Passengers & Crew: 43
Fatalities : 42
Cause of Crash: Pilot Error

This airplane was carrying Slovak peacekeepers. The aircraft crashed in snowy and forested terrain, on Borsó Hill, at an elevation of 700 meters (2,300 feet), near the Hungarian village of Hejce and the town of Telkibánya. The plane hit the tops of trees, before catching fire and crashing. The bodies and wreckage were scattered over a large area. Michaela Farkasova, the wife of the only survivor, reported that she received a cellular telephone call from her husband, who told her that his plane had crashed in a forest. He asked her to alert rescue services. Shortly after the phone call, Farkas was found. According to rescuers, his survival was pure luck as he was found in the aircraft’s lavatory, which received little damage. Farkaš suffered minor brain swelling and lung injuries after the crash. He was put into a medically induced coma, and was soon reported to be in stable condition. Further investigations indicated that the pilot descended too early in the dark towards the lights of Košice.

Date of Crash: August 27, 2006
Aircraft type: Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) CRJ-100ER
Operator : Comair (d/b/a Delta Connection
Crash Site: Blue Grass Airport, Lexington, Kentucky
Passengers & Crew Onboard: 50
Fatalities: 49
Cause of Crash: Pilot Error

This aircraft was assigned the airport’s Runway 22 for the takeoff, but used Runway 26 instead. Runway 26 was too short for a safe takeoff, causing the aircraft to overrun at the end of the runway before it could become airborne, killing all 47 passengers and two of the three crew. The Flights First officer, James Polehinke, was the only survivor. Polehinke suffered serious injuries, including multiple broken bones, a collapsed lung and severe bleeding. Doctors later determined that Polehinke had suffered brain damage, and has no memory of the crash or the events leading up to it. Polehinke was flying the plane when it crashed, but it was the flight’s captain, Jeffrey Clay, who taxied the aircraft onto the wrong runway.

Date of Crash: JUNE 14, 1943
Aircraft type: B-17C Flying Fortress
Crash Site: BAKERS CREEK NEAR MACKAY, QLD Australia
Passengers & Crew: 41
Fatalities: 40
Cause of Crash: unknown

For reasons of military security and morale, this incident was hushed-up by U.S. Army and Australian civil authorities for many years. The plane carried forty-one American servicemen returning from ten days of leave. The aircraft took off into ground fog, and leveled off at an altitude of about 300 feet. In a matter of minutes the plane had caught fire in the air, and as it dived into the trees one of its wings came away, leaving a great opening in the fuselage through which most of the passengers were emptied into the bush before the final impact. The only survivor was Foye Kenneth Roberts. Roberts suffered head injuries that were not diagnosed at the time of the crash, and lost his speech for many years after lifesaving brain surgery. Roberts cannot recall anything of the actual crash. In February 2004, Foye Kenneth Roberts passed away. Another fact that is remarkable is that, still to this day, this crash rates as the worst aviation disaster in Australian history.

Date of Crash: March 17, 1957
Aircraft type: C-47 Skytrain
Operator : Philippine Air Force
Crash Site: 22 miles NW of Cebu City, Philippines
Passengers & Crew: 26
Fatalities: 25
Cause of Crash: Metal fatigue

This crash killed the 7th President of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay, as well as many high ranking military officials. A reporter for the Philippine Herald, Nestor Mata, was the sole survivor of the accident. The aircraft took off from Lahug Airport for Nichols Field, and eyewitnesses on the ground observed that the airplane had not gained enough altitude as it approached the mountain ranges in Balamban. Mata was sitting in the second seat, next to the President’s compartment, when the crash occurred, and remembers there was a blinding flash for a moment, then he fell unconscious. When he regained consciousness he found himself on the side of a steep cliff among trees and bushes. As he was in agonizing pain, he began shouting, ‘Mr. President! Mr. President!’ When some farmers found him they had to return to the village to get a hammock on which they loaded and carried him for 18 hours through rugged terrain. As soon as Mata reached the Southern Island Hospital in Cebu, he was treated for severe shock and pain from second and third degree burns. Mata did not lose consciousness in the hospital, and was able to dictate to a nurse a press dispatch to his paper. It began ‘President Magsaysay is dead.’
The photo above of the white cross is a “marker” of the exact site of the crash.

Date of Crash: Jan 13, 1995
Aircraft type: DC-9
Operator : Intercontinental airlines
Crash Site: Maria La Baja, 500 miles north- west of Bogota
Passengers & Crew: 52
Fatalities: 51
Cause of Crash: Unknown

This airliner exploded in mid-air as the pilot, apparently, was attempting an emergency landing near a swamp, but hit a grassy field and exploded and then toppled into a lagoon. A farmer said he heard cries for help, and found a 9 year old girl, Erika Delgado, on a mound of seaweed, which had broken her fall. She was the only survivor. She was traveling with her parents and a younger brother, from Bogota to the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena. The rescuers said she told them her mother had shoved her out of the plane as it broke up and burst into flames. She was taken to hospital in shock, and with a broken arm. Erika later recalls someone approached and ignored her cries for help, but ripped a gold necklace from her neck and ran away. Witnesses say scavengers also looted the bodies of other passengers. Erika issued a plea for the return of the necklace, which she says was the only memento of her father.

Date of Crash: January 21, 1985
Aircraft type: Lockheed Electra 188
Crash Site: Reno, Nevada, USA
Passengers & Crew: 71
Fatalities: 70
Cause of Crash: Pilot/Ground Crew error

After a weekend of skiing, 17 year old George Lamson had taken a seat next to his father in the front row of the airplane’s cabin, directly behind the bulkhead. The plane began to shudder and the plane’s right wing dipped as it began its ill-advised right turn. Lamson pulled his knees to his chest just as the plane hit the ground. The force of the crash ripped Lamson’s seat from the fuselage, and he was catapulted out of the plane, landing upright in the middle of the highway, still strapped in his seatbelt. He unbuckled and dashed toward a field at the far edge of the pavement as the plane exploded. Three people survived the crash initially, including George Lamson’s father, but both died a few days later of severe burns and head injuries. It was later determined that the probable cause of this accident was the captain’s failure to control, and the copilot’s failure to monitor the flight path and airspeed of the aircraft. This is what caused the unexpected vibration shortly after takeoff.
Lamson was recently contacted by the press and is a now a father himself. He asked the reporter not to reveal anything more of his work or whereabouts and remains a very private person.

Date of Crash: July 8, 2003
Aircraft type: Boeing 737
Operator : Sudan Airways
Crash Site: Port Sudan
Passengers & Crew: 116
Fatalities: 115
Cause of Crash: *Unknown

About 10 minutes after takeoff heading from Port Sudan on the northeastern coast to the capital, the pilot radioed the control tower about a problem in one engine. The pilot killed that engine and told the tower he was returning to the airport. Ten minutes later, the Sudanese airliner plunged into a hillside while attempting an emergency landing, killing 116 people and leaving 3-year old Mohammed el-Fateh Osman amid a scene of charred corpses, as the only survivor. The boy was found injured and lying on a fallen tree by a nomad. The boy’s mother was among the victims. Mohammed lost part of a lower leg and was treated for severe burns. The bodies were buried in a mass grave after performing the Muslim prayer, because the conditions of the bodies would not allow transporting and delivering them to the relatives.

*The country blamed the United States for the crash, saying that sanctions had restricted vital aircraft parts. The United States denied that claim, stating that there was no ban on equipment required for aviation safety.

Date of Crash: January 26, 1972
Aircraft type: McDonnell-Douglas DC-9
Operator: Jugoslovenski Aero transport
Cause of Crash: Bombing
Crash Site: Hinterhermsdorf , East Germany
Passengers & Crew :28
Fatalities: 27

This is close to the top of the list because of the overall circumstances, and the unbelievable survival story of Vesna Vulovi? . Vesna was a flight attendant on board when a bomb went off, at the altitude of 33,000 ft. (10,050 meters). The terrorist act was attributed to Croatian Ustashe terrorists. The explosion tore the jet into several pieces in mid-air. The wreckage fell through the sky for three minutes before striking a frozen mountainside. A German man, upon arriving at the crash, found Vesna lying half outside of the plane, with another crew member’s body on top of her, and a serving cart pinned against her body. The man was a medic in the second world war, and did what he could for her until further help arrived. Vesna’s injuries included a fractured skull, two broken legs and three broken vertebrae, which left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. She regained the use of her legs after surgery, and continued working for JAT at a desk job. It was discovered later that her schedule had been mixed up with that of another flight attendant named Vesna, and she was subsequently placed on the wrong flight.

Vesna still holds the Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute, at 33,330 feet. She is considered a national heroine throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Date of Crash: August 16, 1987
Aircraft type: McDonnell Douglas MD-82
Operator : Northwest Airlines
Crash Site: Romulus, Michigan (western Detroit)
Passengers & Crew Onboard: 155
Fatalities Onboard: 154 – 2 on the ground were also killed
Cause of Crash: Pilot error

After taking off from Metro Airport, during the initial climb, the plane rolled about 35 degrees in each direction. The left wing struck a light pole about ½ mile (800 m) from the end of the runway, struck other light poles, the roof of a car rental building, and then the ground. Cecelia Cichan was located by rescue workers in her seat, several feet away from her mother’s body along with Cecelia’s father, and her 6-year-old brother. Her survival of the crash was considered unexplainable and miraculous by many, including airline crash investigators. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the flight crew’s failure to use the taxi checklist to ensure the flaps and slats were extended for takeoff. Cecelia is now married and earned a Psychology degree from the University of Alabama. Although she has made no public statements, or attended annual memorial services regarding the tragic crash, she corresponds with some of the crash victims’ loved ones.

Date of Crash: December 24, 1971
Aircraft type: Lockheed Electra L-188A
Crash Site: Puerto Inca, Peru
Passengers & Crew: 92
Fatalities: 91
Cause of Crash: Human Error and Structural failure, possibly struck by lightning

This is really two survival stories, so I have placed it in the number one spot. There are many more interesting details to this story, but to keep this to a list format here are the basic facts of the account. On Christmas Eve 1971, the Peruvian airliner had taken off from the Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, on a flight to Pucallpa, Peru. About a half hour after takeoff, and at about 21,000 feet, the aircraft entered a thunderstorm and heavy turbulence and was possibly struck by lightning. The pilots had difficulty controlling the aircraft, and it soon went into a dive. The crew attempted to level out the plane, but the fire and turbulent forces on the wings caused the right wing and most of the left wing to separate from the aircraft. The aircraft came crashing down in a mountainous region of the Amazon. Miraculously, a German teenager Juliane Koepcke (17), who was traveling with her mother, survived the crash and was still strapped in her seat. After searching for her mother in vain, Koepcke wandered through the jungle for nine days looking for help. On the ninth day, she found a canoe and shelter. Hours later, local lumbermen returned and found her. The men took her on the final seven hour journey via canoe down the river to a lumber station, where she was airlifted to a hospital. Koepcke is now a successful biologist in Germany.

The photo above is Juliane Köpcke sitting near the recreated wreckage for a documentary called Wings of Hope.

Contributor: Blogball

We all take our ability to travel for granted. You can drive from Boston to New York in 4 hours. That trip took early English immigrants 1-2 weeks. They had to ration out provisions just to survive the journey.

Now cars are everywhere, and most humans on Earth use them daily. They’ve become appliances- just bigger, faster hairdryers and toasters. But when a toaster acts up, you might get a crispy bagel; when something goes wrong with your car, you might get a crispy person.

Car accidents are all too common, thanks partly to how comfortable we’ve become inside them, and some accidents are often fatal. Whether it’s due to weather, driver error, or sheer bad luck, some accidents leave a trail of death in their wake. It can be scary, not just because of the tragedy, but because we could so easily be in the victims’ place. Here are ten fatal car accidents that may freak you out, whether from sheer carnage or just the bizarre way in which they happened.

10 Coalinga Crash

Though this first crash isn’t as big as others on this list, it is just as freaky. That is due to how little happened to cause so much suffering. On State Route 33 in Coalinga, California, on New Year’s Day 2021, a man driving a Dodge Journey struck a Ford F150 head-on. There was no inclement weather; the man had not been drinking, nor did he fall asleep at the wheel. He simply lost control for a few brief seconds, drifted into another lane, and struck the Ford.

The man in the Dodge died in the collision. Though built to hold six, the Ford had eight passengers- a mother and seven children, all siblings and cousins. This means at least two kids weren’t wearing seatbelts. Worst of all, the collision somehow caused the Ford to go up in flames, and the blaze is what killed all eight passengers. It only took one sober adult a moment of distraction and error to cause the death of nine people, including seven children.

9 Paul Walker

Paul Walker was an actor known primarily for his starring role in the Fast & the Furious franchise. The role was not a stretch for Walker; he was a car collector and enthusiast and raced cars semi-professionally. The man knew his way around a vehicle. That’s why it was so surprising when he died in a car crash.

Walker was a passenger when he died, though the driver was a man named Roger Rodas, who was also a professional racer and with whom Walker collaborated on many automotive endeavors. The two were semi-experts in handling performance cars. That, combined with the clear, sunny day at the time of the accident; the lack of substances in either man’s systems; and the fact that the road on which they died was well known to the men, makes it a bit strange that they crashed. Both died, with Walker in the middle of shooting Furious 7. And no, they were neither drifting nor drag-racing.

8 Carnage Alley

On September 3, 1999, on Ontario Highway 401, a sudden bout of fog was all that was required to cause an 87 car pileup that killed eight and injured another 45. The area relied on a local weather monitoring station to issue warnings for fog, rain, snow, etc. but for some reason, the station failed to detect that day’s fog bank.

The fog rolled in across the highway and reduced visibility to less than one meter, which caused the first collision between two semis. This created a chain reaction of collisions that ballooned to 87 vehicles, many of them aflame, which local police described as “a massive fireball.” The extent of the horror earned that stretch of highway the nickname “Carnage Alley.”

7 Stuck in Snow but Burned Alive

This story is hard to hear, as it somehow transforms routine, mundane behavior into a grisly death. In early February, a New Jersey man was driving down a snowy road when the conditions caused him to slide off the road into a shallow embankment. It was a relatively slow, non-violent accident, and the man was completely unhurt. He began rocking the car back and forth and revving his engine to free it from the snow, often the norm in that situation.

Police arrived on the scene and told the man to stop trying to free the car, that it was no use. Instead, they told him to wait for a tow truck to arrive. The man ignored their advice, continued revving the engine, and the car suddenly erupted in flames. The man was unable to free himself from the vehicle, and the sudden blaze killed him. A simple strategy for dislodging a car from the snow ended in a horrific case of someone burned alive.

6 Head Stuck

23-year-old Victoria Strauss died in a unique and terrifying way. She was leaving a parking garage in her car and stopped at the kiosk to pay for her time parked. Security camera footage shows that Strauss accidentally dropped her credit card while attempting to pay, and so opened her door and leaned down to the ground to pick it up.

It was then that she accidentally pressed her car’s gas pedal with her foot while stretching down, causing the vehicle to lurch forward. When her body was found, around six hours later, her head was pinned between the side of her car and the payment kiosk. The sudden trauma to her head killed her. A promising graduate student in social work, Strauss died in the most random, unpredictable accident imaginable.

5 Macho Man Randy Savage

This accident involved one death, and luckily also includes one survivor. What makes it freaky is that the crash itself didn’t kill anyone, and no one- driver or passenger- was at fault. Macho Man Randy Savage was a professional wrestler from the 80s and is one of the all-time greats. His popularity and impact on the industry were massive. On the morning of May 20, 2011, Savage was driving his Jeep with his wife in the passenger seat. Suddenly, he lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree. Savage died, his wife survived.

The crash did not kill him. Unbeknownst to Savage, he had had advanced coronary artery disease. On that morning, the disease caused him to have a heart attack while driving, which caused him to lose control. The crash itself caused almost no damage to either Savage or his wife; it was an unknown, underlying health issue that was the true culprit. It is freaky to know that this situation is plausible for anyone at any time.

4 Found Hanging from Freeway Sign

On the Monday of October 30, 2015, 20-year-old Richard Pananian was in a hurry. Driving down the 5 Freeway in Los Angeles, California, Pananian was speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, and illegally passing cars on the right shoulder of the highway. Pananian then clipped the back of a Ford F150, spun out of control, and rolled towards an embankment.

The car’s momentum carried it up the embankment until it suddenly stopped, causing Pananian to be ejected from the vehicle. He flew some twenty feet into the air and smacked into an exit ramp sign. His lifeless body came to rest on the sign and hung there, serving as a tragic, grisly reminder of the dangers of unsafe driving until firefighters were able to bring his body down two hours later.

3 Anton Yelchin

Anton Yelchin was a young actor, best known for his portrayal of Pavel Chekov, an engineer aboard the Enterprise in J. J. Abram’s Star Trek reboots. On June 18, 2016, Yelchin failed to arrive at a rehearsal and friends went to his house to find them.

Find him they did. Yelchin was dead, his body pinned between his Jeep and one of his gateposts. Police determined that Yelchin had driven his Jeep part of the way from his gate to his house and gotten out to lock the gate or check his mail. The Jeep then rolled backward and struck him, pinning him between it and the gatepost. He died from the collision, and in doing so became a tragic member of Hollywood’s 27 Club.

2 Carrollton Bus Crash

The Carrollton bus collision is an accident that famously led to renewed support for- and created the future president of- MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. On the night of May 14, 1988, on Interstate 71 in Kentucky, a pickup truck collided with a school bus filled with 66 members of a church youth group. The group had visited a theme park that day and were on their way home.

Larry Wayne Mahoney had been drinking heavily and at the time of the accident, he was driving the wrong way on the highway. Though the collision itself did little damage to the bus, it did cause the bus to erupt in flames. The many passengers scrambled to escape through the rear of the bus, but in the chaos, many were unlucky. The bus driver and 26 children burned to death in the bus, and 34 more children were injured. Mahoney served less than ten years in prison, to the outrage of many.

1 1955 Le Mans disaster

Called “the worst motorsports accident in history” and one of the deadliest vehicular accidents of all time, the Le Mans disaster is an almost unimaginable tragedy. On June 11, 1955, during the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. The specifics of the crash have been detailed again and again, broken down into second-by-second steps, but all that is important here is that two race cars collided, sending one into a crowd of spectators.

Pieces of the car broke apart and flew into the crowd, killing an astounding 83 people and injuring as many as 178 others. One particular piece of ghoulish detail is that the car’s hood, having detached from the car’s body, flew off into the crowd, spinning. It was precisely at neck level and sped along, “decapitating tightly jammed spectators like a guillotine.”

Suicide is the 13th leading cause of death world-wide and ranks 3rd in many countries among 10-24 year olds. An estimated 815,000 people commit suicide each year around the world representing one death every 40 seconds. Some who attempt suicide are fortunate enough to receive a second chance at life. This list includes some of the more popular suicide locations along with people that were given another chance to live. Also included in the list are the grim suicide statistics for each destination. It also should be noted that the details from each incident varies depending on the information put forward by the press and the survivors.

Location: Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (Estimated over 30 Suicides)

In 1995 after a failed relationship, 29 year old Connie Mercure from Brooklyn jumped over 200 feet into the Lower New York Bay. Rescuers immediately pulled her from the chilly waters. Mercure survived with a broken leg, extensive internal bleeding and hypothermia.

Location: Throgs Neck Bridge (Estimated over 40 Suicides)

In 2001 26 year old Matthew Sicoli, after a fight with his girlfriend and job woes walked on the pedestrian lane toward the center of the Throgs Neck Bridge. Authorities spotted Sicoli kneeling and then watched in horror as he hopped over a railing and disappeared. Police quickly mounted a rescue effort and saved Sicoli in less than 10 minutes. Matthew survived the 140-foot leap and suffered only bruises to his ribs, stomach and face. It is estimated he went into the East River hitting the water at 64 mph. Sicoli’s 51-year-old mother committed suicide by jumping off the Whitestone Bridge just five years earlier.

Location: Sunshine Skyway Bridge: (Over 120 Suicides)

On May of 2001, 35 year old artist and inventor Hanns Jones was despondent over business pressures. After heavy drinking and a horrible fight with his wife, Jones drove his pickup to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to end his life. Right after Jones jumped he said he knew it was a big mistake. Jones described the jump as “You just accelerate and accelerate so fast and then it stops, but when you stop you don’t feel like you hit water, you feel like you hit concrete”. The force of the impact ripped Jones’s clothes off. Despite multiple rib fractures, internal bleeding and a collapsed lung, he was able to swim to the rocks near one of the pylons. He was sitting there naked when rescuers arrived, and then spent weeks in the hospital recovering. Jones says he’s fine and happy today, and he often wonders why he survived when so many others didn’t.

Location: Jacques Cartier Bridge (Over 140 Suicides)

Did Bélizaire had an addiction to gambling which started when he was 17 years old. In 2003 at the age of 36, he had another losing night playing the video lottery terminals at the nearby Casino de Montréal. Bélizaire found himself deep in a hole and called his girlfriend on his cell phone, asked for her blessing and ended the call without telling her what he was about to do. Bélizaire then jumped off the Jacques Cartier Bridge into the St. Lawrence River. Bélizaire survived the jump and was unable to force himself to drown because his survival instincts took over. The jump cost Bélizaire the use of his legs and is now a paraplegic. Bélizaire is quoted saying “Once I was a strapping 6-foot-7 basketball and football player and now I’m a 3 foot 3 inches in a wheelchair”. Bélizaire takes every opportunity he can to tell young people his story and sound the alarm against compulsive gambling.

Location: Brooklyn Bridge (Estimated suicides are in the hundreds)

In June of 2008, a 34 year-old woman identified as “Michelle” decided to end her life by jumping off the pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge. After her 10 story leap into the East River several witnesses called 911 and the woman was quickly plucked from the chilly waters. Paramedics were amazed that she came out of it with no broken bones and hardly a scratch. She was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where she was admitted for having water in her lungs.

Location: Humber Bridge (Over 200 Suicides)

28 year old Angela Schuman was going through a custody battle with her ex- husband over their daughter. She wrote several letters, including one saying:” I can be with my daughter all the time. I can be free and far away where no Julio (her husband) of this world can reach us and separate us. And I can be with my daughter on her birthday.” In the fall of 2005 Angela jumped off Humber Bridge (3 days prior to her daughters 2nd birthday) holding on to her daughter all the way down. The little girl was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary where she was found to be hypothermic, but five days later was able to go home. Angela Schumann spent almost two months in hospital for treatment to lower body fractures. In the hospital, Schumann was found to have faded writing on her stomach saying: “Cause of death Julio”. The mother and daughter are two of only five to have ever survived a fall from Humber Bridge.

Location: Aurora Bridge (Over 220 Suicides)

John Dittmann felt suicidal, blaming it on a daily regiment of taking tranquilizers to treat mental illness and drinking alcohol to offset the pills. Dittmann often would stare at the Aurora Bridge from his Wallingford halfway house and in 1979 at the age of 22 he decided to end his life with a leap off the bridge. After jumping Dittmann had a change of heart and decided he didn’t want to die. He then frantically threw his arms back and fought to keep his body from pitching forward and tried to keep his feet extended as he plunged 174 feet. He hit Lake Union at 70 mph with a crack and struggled to swim meekly to shore. Dittmann fractured his back and injured his lungs, but survived. The Seattle man is one of about 30 people who have survived a leap from the landmark bridge.

Location: Clifton Bridge (Over 500 Suicides)

This miraculous escape from death happened over 120 years ago. 22 year old Sarah Henley received a letter from her fiancé breaking up their engagement. In a state of despair she rushed to end her life by the jumping off the Clifton Suspension Bridge. That particular morning there was a slight wind blowing and Sarah’s skirt was inflated (acting like a parachute) and considerably slowed down her decent. The wind also prevented her falling straight into the water. Sarah lived a full life and died in 1948. Her incredible luck gave her an extra 62 years of life. Sarah Henley’s jump has become legend and is recorded in the official history of the Suspension Bridge.

Location: Beachy Head (Over 500 Suicides known)

In June of 1995, 15 year old Martin Hinchcliffe had a fight with his girlfriend’s parents. After writing a note to his mother saying he would kill himself he walked to Sugar Lump cliff on Beachy Head and jumped. 35 feet into his fall he was caught by some extending rocks and was completely hidden from view in a deep crevasse. After spending 72 hours holding on to the cliffs, his cries were finally heard by a man walking on the beach below. Coastguard, police and firefighters went to the scene and were able to rescue Hinchcliffe who suffered a broken leg and cracked several ribs. Hinchcliffe said he sucked on rocks during the 72 hours to avoid dehydration.

Location: Golden Gate Bridge (Over 1500 Suicides)

At the age of 19 Kevin Hines battle with bipolar disorder became so intense that he finally decided to end his life. In the year 2000 he attended his first class at school, and then took a bus to the Golden Gate Bridge, crying all the way. Hines picked his spot and stood there for 40 minutes. No one approached him to ask what was wrong and when a tourist came up and asked whether he could take her photo, Hines thought that was clear proof that no one cared. He took the picture, and then jumped. Instantly he realized he had made a mistake and thought to himself “God save me”. As he was falling Hines came up with a plan to save his life, and threw his head back and tried to hit feet first. Hines was hurtled 40 feet underwater but miraculously survived. Hines endured arduous physical rehabilitation after his near-death experience, but said dealing with his bipolar disorder had been far more difficult. He now lives by a strict schedule, and has found a combination of drugs and therapy that allows him to regulate his manic highs and depressions. Currently, Hines works with several mental health groups and suicide prevention hot lines.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the most devastating terrorist attack on American soil, we’re reminded of the day’s cascading tragedies. Four hijacked planes. Two imploded skyscrapers. The seat of the most powerful military on Earth bursting into flames.

Nearly 3,000 people died that day in plane crashes, building collapses and desperate leaps from burning buildings. Still, such disasters often have a select few who stand out as unlikely survivors. Here are ten.

RELATED: 10 Disturbing Raw Videos From 9/11

10 First One Down, Last One Out: Ron DiFrancesco (South Tower, 84th Floor)

Of the two collapses, the South Tower’s was more stunning simply because it occurred first. Never had a building that gigantic completely come down, so most thought they had far longer to escape than the scant 56 minutes between impact and implosion.

So as he approached the South Tower’s ground level, Ron DiFrancesco figured the worst was over. Less than an hour before, the Euro Brokers executive was in his 84th Floor office when United Airlines Flight 175 slashed threw at an intentional tilt to cause maximum damage. The plane’s cabin and fuselage struck below him; the right wing sliced through the floors directly above.

DiFrancesco was trapped; he couldn’t ascend or descend without flames and smoke. Finally, using sheered off sheetrock as a shield, he plowed his way through intense heat downward until he heard a voice. It was a firefighter, who guided DiFrancesco below the impact zone.

By the time he reached street level, a rescue worker was ordering everyone to exit via the basement; the plaza had too much debris (including, horribly, jumpers). DiFrancesco was nearly done descending at 9:59am. The building was collapsing.

DiFrancesco turned, saw a huge fireball… and blacked out. He woke up in a hospital, with burns over most of his body and his contact lenses melted in his eyes. He is the last known person to leave the South Tower.

9 Tied Up: Joseph Lott (Marriott Hotel)

On the morning of September 11, Joseph Lott woke up at the Marriott Hotel sandwiched between the two World Trade Center towers. A sales representative with Compaq Computers, he was participating in a presentation that day at Windows on the World, the renowned restaurant and conference venue occupying the North Tower’s uppermost floors.

Little did he know that his quirkiest hobby would soon save his life. Lott has an affinity for “art ties,” neckties featuring famous masterpieces. And when he arrived at the hotel lobby for a pre-presentation breakfast with colleagues, one of them, Elaine Greenberg, had a gift for him: a Monet tie. Lott loved it, and said he’d wear it when he spoke at the conference that morning.

Greenberg’s fashion consciousness spared Lott’s life: “Well, not with that shirt. You’re not going to put on a red and blue tie with a green shirt.”

After breakfast, Greenberg went up to Windows on the World while Lott went up to change his shirt. He was leaving his hotel room when the first plane struck. Lucky tie in tow, Lott was among the first to evacuate to safety. Everyone at Windows on the World—including Elaine Greenberg – died that day.

8 Saved by a Squeegee: Jan Demczur & Five Others (Elevator Shaft, North Tower)

Combined, the Twin Towers had 198 elevators, a system where express lifts took passengers to “Sky Lobbies” for transfer to local floor service. On 9/11, an estimated 200 people died in or near elevators. Some plunged to their deaths after the planes severed elevator cables; others incinerated as flames shot down shafts. Still others perished in stalled lifts when the buildings collapsed.

At 8:45am, window washer Jan Demczur was transferring at the North Tower’s 44th Floor Sky Lobby for an elevator to floors 67-74. He boarded a lift with five others: Shivam Iyer, John Paczkowski, George Phoenix, Colin Richardson and another man whose identity remains unclear.

Seconds after their ascension began, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building. The elevator shook violently, then stopped. Soon, an intercom announced an explosion, and they figured they’d better find their own way out. They poked at the ceiling hatch and pried open the doors.

They were between express landings – no exit, just a wall, marked “50.” Demczur rapped on it. Sheetrock. Thank God for flimsy construction materials. Were it concrete, they were goners.

They had just one tool: Demczur’s squeegee handle. They shaved away one, two, three inches… then hit tiles. Smashing through them, they crawled out… into a bathroom.

The men made a beeline for the stairwell, reaching street level at 10:23am – five minutes before collapse. The life-saving squeegee is displayed at the National Museum of American History.

7 Words Can’t Describe: Sheila Moody (Pentagon, E Ring)

Though significantly shorter than the Twin Towers, the U.S Pentagon is actually the world’s largest office building. Key to this distinction is its thickness: the building comprises five concentric rings – a girth-over-height emphasis that, considering the WTC’s complete collapse, certainly saved lives that day.

Something else saved lives, too: American Airlines Flight 77 impacted the Pentagon’s west side, which was undergoing construction and was emptier than usual. Still, 184 Pentagon personnel died. Their fates were, unsurprisingly, highly dependent on what ring they occupied. Many staff in the outermost circle, E Ring, simply didn’t have a chance; for example, of the 40 workers at the Program, Budget and Managerial Accounting divisions, just six survived. Of these, Sheila Moody was likely the luckiest.

At 9:37am, Moody heard a “whistling sound…. then a rumble, and a large gush of air and a fireball came into the office and just blew everything… and knocked us over.” Though the path to safety – the gaping hole created by the plane – was just yards away, Moody couldn’t see it through the thick smoke. She tried to call out for help – then realized she couldn’t breathe, let alone yell. Overcome, she began to black out.

“So,” Moody recalls, “I started clapping my hands.”

Her rescuer, Staff Sergeant Chris Brahman, extinguished the flames between them and carried her out. Moody was hospitalized for burns throughout her body – including her life-saving hands.

6 Grounded: Steve Scheibner (Pilot, American Airlines)

By September 2001, Steve Scheibner had a solid decade of service with American Airlines; before that, he was a Navy pilot. If you were boarding a cross-country flight, he was the kind of guy you’d want flying it.

And fortunately for him, he still is.

On September 10, 2001, Scheibner logged into American Airlines’ pilot registration system. It was common for assignments to be filled as late as the day before a flight. Scheibner noticed just one available assignment for the following day: an early-morning leg from Boston to Los Angeles. He snagged the open slot and, that afternoon, told his wife he’d be flying to L.A. the next day.

In American Airlines’ system, once an assignment slot was claimed a pilot with seniority has half an hour to override it. It was called “bumping” and, considering the tight time constraint, didn’t happen too often. But much to Scheibner’s chagrin, this time it did: a colleague with slightly more tenure, Tom McGuinness, supplanted Scheibner’s spot.

The next morning, McGuinness and co-pilot John Ogonowski became the first two victims of 9/11 when, at about 8:18am, hijackers led by Mohamed Atta stormed the plane’s cockpit and either killed or incapacitated them. About 28 minutes later, American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Scheibner’s experience is recounted in a 2011 short film called “In My Seat.”

5 Keystroke of Luck: Elise O’Kane (Flight Attendant, United Airlines)

Like American Airlines, United Airlines also had a computer-based assignment request system. Schedules were typically set a month beforehand, so in August flight attendant Elise O’Kane logged in to register for her usual trip from Boston to Los Angeles. Unfortunately (at the time, anyway), she mistakenly inverted two code numbers and ended up with an unintended schedule.

No biggie, though. In the ensuing weeks, O’Kane was able to trade flights with other flight attendants for all her typical assignments except for one: Flight 175 on September 11.

So on September 10, O’Kane logged in and requested that flight. But as luck would have it the system froze. By the time it finally processed her request, it was one minute past the airline’s deadline for such changes. Her request for Flight 175 was denied. She’d have to settle for Denver rather than LA.

The next morning, O’Kane’s Denver-bound plane left Boston’s Logan Airport between American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, and United’s Flight 175, which struck the South Tower. O’Kane promptly switched jobs, eventually becoming a nurse.

4 Saved by “Bandana Man”: Ling Young (South Tower, 78th Floor Sky Lobby)

As many as 200 people were crowded into the South Tower’s 78th Floor Sky Lobby – a transfer point between express and local elevators – when, at 9:03am, United Airlines Flight 175 sliced directly through it. Only a handful survived. Ling Young was one of them.

“I flew from one side of the floor to the other side,” Young recalls. “When I got up I had to push things off me. I can’t see because my glasses were filled with blood… I looked around and saw everybody lying there, not moving. It was like a flat land. Everybody was lying down.”

Next to Young was a man whose facial features had been shorn off his skull. Young herself had severe burns whose pain was muted only by shock. Then, she heard a young man’s voice.

“I found the stairs,” he said. “Follow me.”

Young recalls two details about the young man. First, he was carrying another woman over his shoulder. Second, he was wearing a red bandana. Young struggled to her feet and followed him down. At the 61st floor, the man put down his human cargo, told them both to continue down, then ascended back upstairs. He was never seen again.

For months, the hero who became known as the Man in the Red Bandana went unidentified, before he was discovered to be 24-year-old Welles Crowther, an equities trader at Sandler O’Neill and Partners.

3 Finally Freed: Genelle Guzman (North Tower, 64th Floor)

An administrative assistant with the Port Authority, Genelle Guzman was in her 64th Floor office when she felt a huge crash overhead. She looked out the window and saw a giant fireball.

That day, those inside the towers generally had less info than those outside; Guzman and her colleagues didn’t realize the cause and extent of the explosion until they turned on the television. One look sent most fleeing for the exits. But Guzman and about 15 other coworkers stayed…

… because the intercom told them to. The PA system asked everyone to remain in place and await further instruction. There they stood until, at 9:03am, United Flight 175 slammed into the opposite building. Time to go.

Progress was painstaking. Packed stairwells were clogged further first by ascending firemen, then, at 9:59am, by the collapse of the South Tower, which sent plumes of debris and smoke pouring into its still-standing sibling.

They reached Floor 13 when, at 10:28am, the North Tower came down. Everyone died.

Except Genelle Guzman. Her head was pinned between two concrete pillars and her leg was so badly mangled it would nearly be amputated, but she was alive. And she stayed alive – in a smoldering maze of twisted steel – for an amazing 27 hours before firefighter Paul Somin and his rescue dog found her. In the early afternoon of September 12, Guzman became the last of the few survivors found in what became known to rescuers as “the pile.”

2 The Plane Dodger: Stanley Praimnath (South Tower, 81st Floor)

In the North Tower, no one at or above the impact zone of American Airlines Flight 11 survived. The plane irrevocably blocked all elevators and staircases, sealing the fates of some 1,400 people on floors 93 and above.

In the South Tower, only 18 people survived at or above where United Airlines Flight 175 slammed through floors 78-84. Among the most fortunate was Stanley Praimnath, an employee at Fuji Bank on the 81st Floor.

For starters, Praimnath’s salvation should have been far less miraculous. After the first plane hit the opposite building, he had descended to the South Tower lobby where – in a scenario that unfortunately cost many others their lives, including Praimnath’s boss, Kenichiro Tanaka – a security guard assured him the building was secure. So Praimnath returned to his office. A few moments later, he was on the phone when he glanced at a familiar object on the horizon: the Statue of Liberty.

“And that,” he said, “was when the plane caught my eye.”

Seconds later, Praimnath dove under his desk as the jet smashed through walls, brought down the ceiling and annihilated every desk – except his. So close was his call that a piece of the plane’s wing was wedged in his office door.

Praimnath came to buried in rubble. Eventually a stranger, Brian Clark, heard Praimnath’s desperate cries and freed him from the debris – an ordeal that involved hurling himself over a smoldering office partition.

1 Saving Her Saved Them: Josephine Harris (North Tower, 73rd Floor)

Josephine Harris tops the list because an entire group of firefighters see her as their guardian angel.

A Port Authority bookkeeper, Harris began evacuating her 73rd Floor office after the first plane struck 20 stories above. However, Harris had an injured leg from a car accident, making progress slow and painful.

Meanwhile, Ladder Company Captain Jay Jonas had led his crew up 27 floors of the North Tower when he felt an earth-shattering rumble. An FDNY radio report confirmed his fears: the South Tower had collapsed; time to go. The team ran down seven flights of stairs…

… right into Josephine Harris. They couldn’t leave her. The descent slowed to one arduous step at a time.

By the 4th Floor, Harris was in such pain she told the firefighters to leave and save themselves. They refused and, while waiting for her to regain some strength, the rumbling returned – only this time from directly overhead. They ducked, covered and prayed as the booms of pancaking floors drew ever nearer. And then it stopped.

It was part miracle, part mathematics. The rubble from a 110-story building exceeded four stories, and the staircase’s central location left pockets of life for evacuees – including precisely where the group was.

“It was a freak of timing,” said Jonas. “We know the people below us didn’t fare well. Above, to my knowledge, none got out. God gave us the strength and courage to save her, and unknowingly, we were saving ourselves.”