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Endurance In Extremity (Tales Of Stubborn Survival Or Persistence)

Man missing for two weeks found alive on Queensland beach
Garry Amey, 60, was last seen going for a walk but has been found in the surf on a beach north of Cairns suffering from dehydration and sunburn
Agencies
Monday 26 October 2015 02.31 GMT

A 60-year-old man has been found on a Queensland beach two weeks after he disappeared.
Garry Amey was taken to Queensland’s Cairns Base hospital on Saturday for treatment for dehydration and sunburn, police said.
The avid walker went missing from his home at Kewarra beach, north of Cairns, on 11 October and police gave up the search 10 days later.

Swimmers found Amey in the surf off Wangetti beach, about 20km (12 miles) from where he was last seen at Kewarra beach, police said.
“He looked like he had been wandering in the scrub for some time,” Cairns police senior sergeant Bob Morris told the Cairns Post.

Amey’s family members were unable to explain what happened.
“He doesn’t recognise us at the moment due to all the dehydration and the confusion with what’s going on,” his son Justin Amey told Seven Network television.
“Once everything is normal, hopefully he can tell us what happened,” he added.

His wife, Arlene, said she never gave up hope her husband would be found alive but he had been been unable to explain what happened.
“He’s very tired, I don’t think he knows what’s going on,” she told the Cairns Post. I don’t think he even knows me. He can’t remember what happened.”

His disappearance sparked a week-long search, but police officially called it off when no trace of him was found.
He remains in the Cairns hospital in a stable condition.

http://www.theguardian.com/australi...for-two-weeks-found-alive-on-queensland-beach
 
Nunavut MLA built igloo to stay alive while awaiting rescue on tundra

Lost on the tundra and low on fuel, Pauloosie Keyootak knew there was only one thing he could do to keep himself, his son and his nephew alive.

“I built an igloo with a small knife,” the 62-year-old member of the Nunavut legislature said following his rescue Thursday night after eight days lost on the land.

Keyootak, his 16-year-old son Atamie Qiyuqtaq and nephew Peter Kakkik, 47, were spotted by a Twin Otter search plane well south of their intended route between Iqaluit and Pangnirtung. They were flown by helicopter to Iqaluit, where they were found to be in good condition.

Keyootak was back in his legislature office Friday and happy to explain in halting English – his first language is Inuktitut – how he and his companions became disoriented and kept themselves alive for more than a week in one of the most forbidding environments on Earth.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-alive-while-awaiting-rescue/article29494827/
 
I love survival stories. It is said there's one difference between people who survive situations like this and people who don't. It all boils down to the fact that some people believe they will get out alive while others look at the scenario before them as a hopeless, insurmountable problem and buckle under.

Food for thought.
 
I love survival stories. It is said there's one difference between people who survive situations like this and people who don't. It all boils down to the fact that some people believe they will get out alive while others look at the scenario before them as a hopeless, insurmountable problem and buckle under.

Food for thought.

This guy looked at his plight as a challenge; a problem to be solved. He solved it and was swiftly back to work. Not a guy to let the snow compact under his feet.
 
This guy looked at his plight as a challenge; a problem to be solved.
Not only was it a challenge, he was responsible for the two young people with him, which was possibly the main incentive to do something.

TBH, I'm a bit surprised he got lost in the first place. But my time in Search and Rescue showed me that people often don't turn back when they can. And the right equipment helps - as the article says, "travellers are strongly encouraged to carry a communications device, GPS, or emergency locator."

Of course, if your ancestors didn't have such devices, there's perhaps some inclination to think you can get by without them too...
 
A 72-year-old woman and her dog have been found alive after a spending nine days lost in the Arizona wilderness in what is being described as a miraculous feat of survival.

Ann Rodgers and her dog survived by drinking pond water and eating plants, state officials said, and were rescued after a helicopter crew spotted the word “help” had spelled out on a canyon floor using sticks and rocks.

“The probabilities of finding her alive were really low,” said Gila County sheriff’s detective Johnny Holmes, who coordinated the search and rescue, which took place on Saturday. “It’s a miracle on its own that she’s still here given she was out there that many days.”

Rodgers went missing nine days earlier, on 31 March. She was on her way to visit her grandchildren in Phoenix when she ran out of gas and used up the charge in her hybrid vehicle. In an attempt to establish cell phone service to call for help, she climbed several ridge lines in the area but got lost. ...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ann-rodgers-dog-survive-lost?CMP=share_btn_tw
 
She was on her way to visit her grandchildren in Phoenix when she ran out of gas and used up the charge in her hybrid vehicle.
Proof (to me, anyway) that those cars are a bit useless if you live in America (because of the huge distances).
 
Proof (to me, anyway) that those cars are a bit useless if you live in America (because of the huge distances).

She could just as easily have run out of petrol/gas by the sound of it, so I doubt the car manufacture was to blame.
 
When Brett Archibald fell overboard in the middle of a stormy night in the Indian Ocean he thought he was going to die. For more than 28 hours he was alone at sea, encountering a shark and being attacked by gulls for his eyeballs. Here is his story.

"I just watched the lights of the boat disappear. I screamed, I screamed with everything I had in my lungs, but I realised very quickly that they were never going to hear me."

Brett Archibald relives the moment he thought his life was over. At 02:30 local time on 17 April 2013, in the middle of a storm in the Indian Ocean, he had fallen overboard after passing out on the top deck of a hired boat off the coast of Indonesia. It was dark and pouring with rain.

He was on a surfing holiday with nine friends, but had fallen ill from food poisoning during a 10-hour journey along a stretch of water known as the Mentawai Strait in Indonesia's West Sumatra province.

He had gone to the side of the boat - the Naga Laut - to be ill overboard, when he became dizzy and blacked out. When he woke, he was in the water - the boat already 10 or 15 metres ahead of him. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37645201?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17493330

[This] report above is a bit mangled. The main expedition vessel, Endurance, was ice-bound, eventually being crushed and lost. The crew then trekked on foot across the sea ice to set up a camp and await spring. As the ice opened up they used the salvaged lifeboats to sail / row to Elephant Island, setting up a base. The crew then fitted out the James Caird and Shackleton and 5 volunteers set off on one of the worse journeys in a small boat ever recorded. 800 miles later, they reached the southern shore of South Georgia. Shackleton, Worsley and Crean then walked across the island. Reaching the whaling station at Stromness, they effected a rescue of the crew left on the south coast and Elephant Island.

I'd recommend 'South with Endurance' featuring Frank Hurleys photographs.

And now the Telegraph presents:
Football and frostbite: Remarkable photos of life on Shackleton's ill-fated 'Endurance' voyage

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/d...-endurance-voyage-royal-geographical-society/


Includes 13 newly discovered photos by Frank Hurley.
 
The Packet has this Strange Crime story, however:
Thieves steal hood from historic Shackleton exhibition
5834269.jpg

The hood is a replica for a display on Ernest Shackleton

23 hrs ago / Peter Johnstone, Reporter /

Police are appealing for information after an exhibit was stolen from an exhibition on Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.
Between Friday December 2 and Monday December 5, the item was stolen from its display at The National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

Thieves took the item, a hood from an outfit which forms part of the current Ernest Shackleton exhibition at the museum.
Police said: "The hood is a replica which had been custom made for the exhibition and is therefore one of a kind that they would very much like returned for display for others to enjoy."

Anyone with information should contact police by calling 101 quoting CR/90088/16 or emailing [email protected]

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/new...eal_hood_from_historic_Shackleton_exhibition/

Perhaps the fuckwit thieves did not realise it was just a replica...?
 
I love survival stories. It is said there's one difference between people who survive situations like this and people who don't. It all boils down to the fact that some people believe they will get out alive while others look at the scenario before them as a hopeless, insurmountable problem and buckle under.

Food for thought.

nah, it's mostly down to being able to build an igloo with a butter knife.
 
Australian man trapped in dam with just nose above water

An Australian man has survived spending hours struggling to keep his nose above water after his excavator rolled into a dam.
Daniel Miller, 45, had been riding the machine at his remote property 300km (180 miles) north of Sydney.

When the edge of the dam gave way, the farmer was pinned down by a bar on the three-tonne excavator.
Mr Miller said he adopted a yoga pose - arching his back for air - until a neighbour 500m away heard him shouting.
"I was trapped and had to keep my head up above water using my arms, I guess it was the cobra position," he told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
"I'm not a yogi but I guess you could say yoga saved my life. That and the will to live."

Rescue crews said the ordeal on Tuesday lasted two hours, but Mr Miller's wife, Saimaa, wrote on Facebook it was five hours.
Mr Miller said he spent "the whole time" thinking about returning to his wife and their two young children.

Police chief inspector Neil Stephens said only Mr Miller's nose and forehead were above the water.
"He's been extremely lucky to survive," he told Nine News.

Firefighters drained some mud and water before wading in to free Mr Miller.
"How he kept his back arched with his nose above the waterline was quite incredible for that amount of time," said Fire and Rescue New South Wales deputy captain Steve Howard.

Mr Miller was taken by helicopter to a hospital in the nearby city of Newcastle, where he was treated for hypothermia and minor back injuries.

"Dan is ok!" Ms Miller wrote online.
"He was trapped... with the weight of his excavator on his back, and with the boggy dam ground below him slowly slipping away.
"It was literally sheer mental strength and determination to survive that got him through. As well as being fit, strong and healthy. Nothing to do with luck.
"Legendary effort from a legendary man."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-38902977
 
Castaways stranded on two separate boats in a remote part of the north Pacific ocean are reported to have been rescued after they were spotted by a helicopter pilot scanning for tuna.

A report in the Marshall Islands Journal says both vessels were from the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, more than 600km away.

One had three fishermen on board and had been adrift for almost a month.

A 14-year-old boy on the other boat was reported to have been lost for 11 days.

The crew of the fishing boat survived by eating tuna and shark and drinking fish blood, the Journal reported.

Ocean currents brought the two boats to within 8km (five miles) of each other but they are said to have been unaware of the other's presence until they were rescued by a fishing vessel and taken to the Marshall Islands. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39067760?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
An 85-year-old woman survived in her car for five days with nothing but her pet cat, some spare clothes, snacks and a tin of cat food.

Ruby Stein's ordeal began when she took a wrong turn on 21 March while driving in Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

The great-grandmother had no phone signal, and her car battery died after she continuously flashed the lights and honked the horn in hope of rescue.

She was found by hikers who stumbled upon her car lodged in the snow.

Mrs Stein was visiting her great-grandchildren in Gypsum, Colorado, when she decided to cut the trip short because of an incoming snow storm.

She set out on the 245-mile (400km) drive back home to Akron, also in the mountain state.

But on the way to the interstate, she got lost and ended up on a mud and snow-covered road in the Eagle County wilderness area. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39448112#
 
Philippines fisherman tells of deadly two-month ordeal stranded at sea

The 21-year-old watched his uncle die, and lived off rainwater and moss growing on his small boat until his rescue earlier this month

Thursday 30 March 2017 02.09 BSTLast modified on Friday 31 March 2017 01.05 BST

A young fisherman flew home to the Philippines on Wednesday after being given up for dead at sea, battling hunger, thirst and despair for nearly two months on a tiny boat that drifted all the way to Papua New Guinea.

Rolando Omongos, 21, recounted an astonishing tale of survival as he arrived from his first plane ride at Manila airport, three weeks after his rescue by a Japanese fishing vessel.

“I cried non-stop when I was finally rescued. I was too weak to stand up and they had to carry me,” he told reporters.

He said he survived on rainwater and moss growing at the hull of his 2.5m (8-foot) long boat, finding respite from the heat of the tropical sun by diving into the water frequently.

His 31-year-old uncle Reniel Omongos, who was on a second small boat, died after a month. The nephew believes hunger and exposure killed the older man. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ded-sea?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
 
Doesn't compare to two months adrift but I guess 3 days on an inflatable toy fits in here.

A Ukrainian man has been rescued after he fell asleep on an inflatable toy and drifted out into the Black Sea, it's reported.

Russian coastguards near Crimea responded to a call on 5 August and found the "distressed" 19-year-old security guard Mykhaylo Doroshenko on an inflatable trampoline. He had been stranded on the contraption without food or water for almost three days, Russia's Ren TV reports.

He had fallen asleep on the inflatable on a beach in Kherson Region in southern Ukraine and was swept out to sea shortly afterwards, travelling some 35 nautical miles (40 miles; 64 km).

Mr Doroshenko told Ren TV "on the second day, when I couldn't see the shore, I didn't think it was funny any more. I started crying, I was in shock, and tried to cover myself from the sun as best I could." He called to to several passing ships, apparently in vain. But someone must have raised the alarm, as he was eventually rescued by coastguards. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-40874668?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
This guy is due double bonus points for staying cool ... :bdown:

Wisconsin man drives to hospital after nail shot into heart
A Wisconsin man who doctors say came perilously close to death after accidentally shooting a nail into his heart while working on his house calmly drove himself to the hospital and even parked his pickup truck in the lot before walking into the emergency room.

Doug Bergeson ... was working on framing in a fireplace at his house near Peshtigo in northeast Wisconsin when his nail gun accidentally fired, sending a nail ricocheting off some wood and into his chest. ...

FULL STORY (WITH PHOTO): https://www.yahoo.com/news/wisconsin-man-drives-hospital-nail-shot-chest-185310377.html

(EDIT to add ...)

Yes - the nail really entered his heart ... :omg:

DOCTOR SAYS NAIL PUNCTURED WISCONSIN MAN'S HEART
The doctor who operated on a Wisconsin man who accidentally shot himself with a nail gun says the nail punctured the patient's heart.

Dr. Alexander Roitstein performed the surgery on Doug Bergeson at Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay in June. The doctor said Tuesday it was difficult to assess how deeply the nail penetrated, but said it left bruising and a hole. ...

FULL STORY: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-08-16-01-03-41
 
The couple were lucky to survive given their ages

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Texas couple who set out for a day trip to Lake Powell while on vacation in southern Utah ended up narrowly surviving six harrowing days stranded on a rocky, desolate dirt road that was impassable in their rental car, authorities said Friday.

Helena Byler, 78, was found lying on the road Oct. 2 by a rancher who happened to be checking on his cattle in the area of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Kane County Chief Deputy Alan Alldredge said. She was confused and severely dehydrated.

Search and rescue teams aboard a helicopter found her husband, Gerald Byler, 76, later that day in a trailer he took shelter in after spotting an SOS sign made out of rocks and flowers that was nearby. He was severely dehydrated and unable to move, but could speak with rescuers.


https://apnews.com/5d6e3112be6f46cc...-survives-being-stranded-6-days-in-rural-Utah
 
He maintained a stiff upper lip!

A British diver says he swam 7.5km (4.5 miles) to safety off the coast of Australia after losing sight of his boat and being "followed" by a shark.

John Craig, 34, had been spear-fishing underwater in Western Australia on Friday when he surfaced and could not see the boat, being crewed by a friend.

Mr Craig said he noticed a shark as he called and splashed for help.

He then began a long swim back to shore before reaching land and walking for another 30 minutes until he was seen.

The Sunderland man, an experienced diver who moved to Australia two years ago, said the shark had appeared to be a tiger shark about 4m in length.

"It was extremely close and curious and kept approaching me from different angles. It was trying to work out what I was and whether I could be on the menu," he told the BBC.

"It was terrifying. I thought I was just going to be eaten out here in the middle of nowhere... this shark is just not leaving me alone."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41717024
 
British diver says he swam 7.5km (4.5 miles) to safety off the coast of Australia after losing sight of his boat and being "followed" by a shark.

'British diver *says*' etc.
Someone doesn't believe him.
 
Fair dues to them for not eating the dogs.

Two civilian mariners were rescued at sea by a U.S. Navy ship after being stranded in the Pacific Ocean for almost five months.

The two mariners were well off course: They left Honolulu on their sailboat in the spring, bound for Tahiti, 2,600 miles away in the South Pacific, but were rescued in the western Pacific 900 miles southeast of Japan.

Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba, both from Honolulu, and their two dogs were rescued on Wednesday by the USS Ashland (LSD 48), an amphibious transport dock ship.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/us-navy-r...10825--abc-news-topstories.html?.tsrc=fauxdal
 
They had a years worth of food on board, otherwise the dogs may not have been so lucky..
 
Hmmmm.

Doubts have emerged about the survival story told by two US women who said their lives had been saved when they were rescued by the navy after spending five months adrift in the Pacific.

The US Coast Guard said that neither Jennifer Appel nor Tasha Fuiava activated an emergency beacon onboard.

There appear to be inconsistencies in other details of their story as well.

The pair said they became adrift in May when their boat's engine failed as they headed to Tahiti from Hawaii.

They said the boat was without power or communications in the open seas about 1,500km (930 miles) south-east of Japan before a fishing vessel alerted US authorities to rescue them last week.

The pair, travelling with two dogs, had strayed significantly from their planned course.

Ms Appel later said that she and Ms Fuiava were "incredibly lucky" to survive because they were running out of food and had endured a tiger shark attack.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41816709
 
The Appel / Fuiava story strikes me as even more Fortean owing to the increasing number of things that just don't add up.
 
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