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Endurance In Extremity (Tales Of Stubborn Survival Or Persistence)

Last night we watched the 2012 Icelandic movie Djúpið (aka The Deep).
It tells the remarkable story of fisherman Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, known as Gulli.
Following his ship's capsizing several miles off the Heimaey archipelago, South of Iceland, he swam to shore, surviving some 6.5 hours in sub-zero waters and then another couple of hours, hiking barefoot across lava fields and a rocky plateau until he reached a village.
He was (and still is - he's going strong at almost 60 now) a rather corpulent man and the subsequent scientific research cited that as a factor in his survival, whereas his younger, fitter shipmates all perished within 10 minutes or so.
It's a remarkable film, with the lead played perfectly by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and we get to see an interview with the real Gulli during the end credits. Available now on Prime Video.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764275/
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
...He was (and still is - he's going strong at almost 60 now) a rather corpulent man and the subsequent scientific research cited that as a factor in his survival, whereas his younger, fitter shipmates all perished within 10 minutes or so...
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I remember years ago reading an article in a science journal about people who survive disasters - much of it centred on the experiences of survivors of the MS Estonia disaster in 1994, I seem to recall.

One point that became clear is that quite often survivors don't seem to fit the bill in a way which might lead you to assume that they qualify for such a status, leading to the suspicion that sheer will could sometimes override the machine. What was also interesting was that this powerful 'will' did not necessarily manifest in their normal lives: they were not necessarily alpha types, or leaders of men with powerful jobs - just average people who happened to have a very well developed mental muscle that even they may not have been aware of.

(Another element I recall - which seemed to be quite common among supposedly unlikely survivors, was a kind of tunnel vision - literally - which appeared to block out all data of any kind which did not apply itself to immediate needs.)

Of course there will be many other factors involved, not least luck, and I don't think any solid conclusions were reached beyond the fact that the art of surviving apparently insurmountable odds does not necessarily follow even the most apparently logical of rules.

...It's a remarkable film, with the lead played perfectly by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson...
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Agreed.
 
A month on a deserted island off Florida.

Two men and a woman who said they had been stranded on a deserted island for 33 days were rescued after they waved flags to get the attention of a passing US Coast Guard helicopter crew, the agency said.

The crew were reportedly on a routine mission off the Florida Keys. Helicopter pilot Mike Allert told American digital television station WPLG: “We were alerted to them by the flags that they actually had in addition to a large cross that they put out there for themselves.”
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Mr Allert said he decided to fly back around Anguilla Cay to investigate and a crew returned to the island later on Monday to drop water, food and a radio.

They told officials their boat had capsized in rough waters and they were able to swim to the island. The trio told the crew they had survived on coconuts, conchs and rats, news outlets reported.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40224092.html
 
If I had coconuts and conches to eat, I don't think the 'rat' alternative would get much of a look in.
 
Faithful fido facilitates frozen hiker's survival.

A man who went hiking with his dog in the Italian Alps has survived seven nights in the open, stranded after falling and breaking his ankle.

Rescuers in a helicopter spotted the man lying near a stream on Thursday in mountains north of Udine, north-eastern Italy. He was covered in leaves, but they had seen his foil blanket nearby. The man, 33, was hungry and thirsty but said his dog "helped me to survive". He was found at a height of nearly 700m (2,300ft).

The man, from the north-eastern city of Trieste, was in a part of the Venzonassa Valley unreachable by mobile phone. He had dragged himself to a stream, so had managed to drink some water. He was found conscious but badly bruised. His girlfriend had alerted the Friuli mountain and cave rescue service (CNSAS) on Wednesday, as she had been expecting him to return on Monday. He had gone on such hikes in previous years, staying in mountain huts or makeshift shelters.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56125292
 
The old lady who is reported in the latest FT as saying when she was found collapsed with soil around her mouth from the pot plant she had been forced to eat after a fall: "I must have looked like a right sight for sore eyes!" Isn't a sight for sore eyes something you'd love to see because it's a real pick-me-up?

I mean, I appreciate it's small beer compared to her ordeal, but I did wonder.
 
Vid at link.

Teenage girl found in boat drifting for 22 days at sea

A 17-year-old from Ivory Coast has shared her incredible story of being rescued after spending three weeks adrift at sea. Out of 59 passengers, Aicha is one of only three to survive - recovering after 10 days in hospital. It's the biggest known tragedy involving migrant boats in the Canary Islands.

Aicha left her hometown in November and travelled to Mauritania, where she got the boat. Only her older sister knew of her plans to make the perilous journey. She was rescued by a Spanish Air Force crew member, who she has now been reunited with.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-57089249
 
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ramonmercado said:
A tale of co-operation.

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

I began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real children would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island? I wrote an article on the subject, in which I compared Lord of the Flies to modern scientific insights and concluded that, in all probability, kids would act very differently. Readers responded sceptically. All my examples concerned kids at home, at school, or at summer camp. Thus began my quest for a real-life Lord of the Flies. After trawling the web for a while, I came across an obscure blog that told an arresting story: “One day, in 1977, six boys set out from Tonga on a fishing trip ... Caught in a huge storm, the boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island. What do they do, this little tribe? They made a pact never to quarrel.”

The article did not provide any sources. But sometimes all it takes is a stroke of luck. Sifting through a newspaper archive one day, I typed a year incorrectly and there it was. The reference to 1977 turned out to have been a typo. In the 6 October 1966 edition of Australian newspaper The Age, a headline jumped out at me: “Sunday showing for Tongan castaways”. The story concerned six boys who had been found three weeks earlier on a rocky islet south of Tonga, an island group in the Pacific Ocean. The boys had been rescued by an Australian sea captain after being marooned on the island of ‘Ata for more than a year. According to the article, the captain had even got a television station to film a re-enactment of the boys’ adventure.

I was bursting with questions. Were the boys still alive? And could I find the television footage? Most importantly, though, I had a lead: the captain’s name was Peter Warner. When I searched for him, I had another stroke of luck. In a recent issue of a tiny local paper from Mackay, Australia, I came across the headline: “Mates share 50-year bond”. Printed alongside was a small photograph of two men, smiling, one with his arm slung around the other. The article began: “Deep in a banana plantation at Tullera, near Lismore, sit an unlikely pair of mates ... The elder is 83 years old, the son of a wealthy industrialist. The younger, 67, was, literally, a child of nature.” Their names? Peter Warner and Mano Totau. And where had they met? On a deserted island. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months
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Obituary for Peter Warner: Australian sailor who rescued Tongan schoolboys stranded for more than year on a Pacific island

Six British school boys aged 13-16 got bored of life at a boarding school in the capital of Tonga and so stole a fishing boat and set off for Fiji, some 500 miles away. The boat had no engine, the boys had no map or compass and on the first night a storm ripped the sails off and tore off the rudder. After drifting for a week, surviving on rainwater, the boat smashed (literally) onto the shore of a volcanic island called Ata about 100 mile from where they had set off. The lump of rock was uninhabited since its small Tongan community had been abducted by slave traders a century earlier. The boys lived on seabirds and eggs and also found a clay pot, a machette and chickens that were descendants of those left behind by the former inhabitants.
Unlike the inevitable comparison to the Lord of the Flies, the boys built a small commune based on friendship and loyalty with a food garden, gymnasium, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire kept going by a rota.
Fifteen months later in 1966 Warner was looking for new fishing grounds near Ata and spotted burnt patches on the cliffs. Six wild-looking and naked boys jumped off the cliffs and swam up to his boat and related their story to a very sceptical crew. Warner radioed to Tonga where a very tearful operator coinfirmed the boys were students, given up for dead with funerals held.
Warner took the boys back to Tonga where they were immediately arrested for the theft of the boat - he only found this out when he threw a party in their honour and they didn't turn up. Paying off the boat owner, Warner was joined by an Australian camera crew who filmed the reunion of the boys with their parents. The party lasted for six days. The story of the Tongan boys was told in Rutger Bregman's Humankind: A hopeful history.
Peter Warner died April13th aged 90, drowned after his boat capsized off the northern coast of New South Wales.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituar...r-rescued-tongan-schoolboys-stranded-pacific/
 
Bad Bungle said:
Obituary for Peter Warner: Australian sailor who rescued Tongan schoolboys stranded for more than year on a Pacific island

Six British school boys aged 13-16 got bored of life at a boarding school in the capital of Tonga and so stole a fishing boat and set off for Fiji, some 500 miles away. The boat had no engine, the boys had no map or compass and on the first night a storm ripped the sails off and tore off the rudder. After drifting for a week, surviving on rainwater, the boat smashed (literally) onto the shore of a volcanic island called Ata about 100 mile from where they had set off. The lump of rock was uninhabited since its small Tongan community had been abducted by slave traders a century earlier. The boys lived on seabirds and eggs and also found a clay pot, a machette and chickens that were descendants of those left behind by the former inhabitants.
Unlike the inevitable comparison to the Lord of the Flies, the boys built a small commune based on friendship and loyalty with a food garden, gymnasium, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire kept going by a rota.
Fifteen months later in 1966 Warner was looking for new fishing grounds near Ata and spotted burnt patches on the cliffs. Six wild-looking and naked boys jumped off the cliffs and swam up to his boat and related their story to a very sceptical crew. Warner radioed to Tonga where a very tearful operator coinfirmed the boys were students, given up for dead with funerals held.
Warner took the boys back to Tonga where they were immediately arrested for the theft of the boat - he only found this out when he threw a party in their honour and they didn't turn up. Paying off the boat owner, Warner was joined by an Australian camera crew who filmed the reunion of the boys with their parents. The party lasted for six days. The story of the Tongan boys was told in Rutger Bregman's Humankind: A hopeful history.
Peter Warner died April13th aged 90, drowned after his boat capsized off the northern coast of New South Wales.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituar...r-rescued-tongan-schoolboys-stranded-pacific/
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A sad end for Mr. Warner, but is suppose he died doing what he loved.
 
kamalktk said:
DAKOTA TEEN-AGER RECOVERS AFTER BEING 'FROZEN STIFF'
... Jean Hilliard was literally frozen stiff, ''like a piece of meat out of a deep freeze,'' when a friend found her in the snow after a night of 22-below-zero temperatures. But the 19-year-old has made an unusual recovery.
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This new ScienceAlert article provides some updated comments on how HIlliard survived and how the human body attempts to manage freezing.

40 Years Ago, a Woman Famously Survived Being 'Frozen Solid'. Here's The Science
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-woma...-frozen-solid-40-years-ago-here-s-the-science
 
A lucky toddler.

A 22-month-old girl found alive after four days in a Russian forest has promised never to disappear again.

Lyuda Kuzina wandered off while near her home in the Smolensk region west of Moscow, prompting a search involving hundreds of people. She had no food or water and was eventually found covered in insect bites but alive after one of the search parties heard her squeak.

"She's quite adamant she'll never run away from Mum again," said her mother.n"Although quite how long she'll remember that promise, I have no idea. But at least she says so." Antonina Kuzina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

The toddler is being looked after at a Smolensk children's hospital. Russian TV spoke to mother and daughter in a playground outside the hospital where they are waiting to be discharged.

The alarm was raised after Lyuda left the family's summer house last Tuesday in the Tyomkinsky area. She had been playing outside with her four-year-old sister but had wandered off into a nearby forest when her mother visited a neighbour and her sister had followed her.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58315926
 
Was just watching the Paralympic swimming, I was massively impressed by the 50m butterfly contested by athletes with no arms, although I did find it a bit harsh that the have to stop the clock by ramming the end of the pool with their heads.
 
A double amputee has completed his 13 hour crawl up Snowdon.

"A man who has had both his legs amputated has completed a 13-hour crawl to the summit of Snowdon.

Paul Ellis, 56, from Widnes, Cheshire, said he was in good spirits after completing the nine-mile (14.5 km) Llanberis route on Friday.

He has so far raised more than £3,000 to send amputee children on holiday.

Mr Ellis suffered a spinal injury in a fall in 1992, leaving him in excruciating pain and unable to stand for more than few minutes at a time.

In 2008 he chose to have both legs amputated below the knee to gain more mobility."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-58371553
 
Another lucky kid.

A three-year-old boy who went missing in the Australian bush four days ago has been found safe after a search.

Anthony "AJ" Elfalak was spotted by police helicopters on Monday, drinking water from a creek on his family's property in rural New South Wales. The little boy, who has autism and doesn't speak, had been last seen at the house on Friday. His family had feared that he had been abducted.

But rescuers found AJ on a riverbank about 500m from his house on the vast property in Putty, in the state's north.
In footage shared by New South Wales Police, rescuers can be heard saying "I've got the boy".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58458983
 
ramonmercado said:
Another lucky kid.

A three-year-old boy who went missing in the Australian bush four days ago has been found safe after a search.

Anthony "AJ" Elfalak was spotted by police helicopters on Monday, drinking water from a creek on his family's property in rural New South Wales. The little boy, who has autism and doesn't speak, had been last seen at the house on Friday. His family had feared that he had been abducted.

But rescuers found AJ on a riverbank about 500m from his house on the vast property in Putty, in the state's north.
In footage shared by New South Wales Police, rescuers can be heard saying "I've got the boy".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58458983
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I found this an odd story, mainly because the parents assumed he had been abducted ?! And he was found relatively close to his home on the family's property.
Did the family look for him at all?
 
Nosmo King said:
I found this an odd story, mainly because the parents assumed he had been abducted ?! And he was found relatively close to his home on the family's property.
Did the family look for him at all?
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Apparently the area where he was found had already been searched, he was likely moving around. Things like that have happened with missing children in the past.
 
Nosmo King said:
Did the family look for him at all?
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More than 100 officers and volunteers spent days scouring the bush for his son. They had earlier passed over the area where he was ultimately found.
"He has been bitten by ants and he has fallen over but he is alive. He is alive," a jubilant Mr Elfalak told television crews.
"I know I was acting frantic, but no-one can understand what it's like going through what we went through. I feel incredible.
"My leg, my hips, my ankles, I can't walk. I have been in the bush for four days with no sleep. We didn't stop."
Click to expand...
 
Autistic kid missing in Australian bush found a few hundred metres from home ? Either this is a repeat of an incident about 5 years ago or I have a massive case of deja vu.
 
All the sweaters bagged for donation but not yet delivered helped this retired nurse survive for 4 days trapped in her wrecked car in the Washington (state) mountains.
Woman survives snowstorm four days in wrecked car

A woman is alive after being trapped in the snowy mountains of central Washington state for four days.

Her car had wrecked down a steep embankment. It took rope technicians to pull out the woman.

The rescue was possible because of her daughter’s relentless search.

“That morning, her phone just rang and rang, which is not typical, and so, she always answers,” said Amanda McFarland, the rescued woman’s daughter.

The 68-year-old retired nurse was supposed to be driving west. But Lynell McFarland was turned around, and she was actually driving north into Blewitt during a mountain snowstorm. ...

She didn’t know her mother’s car had skidded off the highway and fell deep into a rocky, wooded ravine. ...

She reported her mother missing with every police agency between Ellensburg and Spokane.

Police were able to ping her phone, but an initial search came up empty. ...

It turns out Lynell McFarland survived while trapped with crushing injuries in a mangled car in freezing weather by wrapping a bag of old sweaters, which were supposed to be donated, around her wounds and her body.

“I just forgot to take this huge bag of like grandma sweaters out of the car, and she was able to - although her dominant hand and wrist were totally broken and she was pinned - she had a big dagger, and she was able to cut her seat belt off enough to wiggle to get my bag of stuff that I left in there,” Amanda McFarland said.

A technical rope rescue team from Chelan County [rappelled] down the embankment. They found Lynell McFarland cold, injured and dehydrated, but she was awake. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.wcax.com/2021/11/26/woman-survives-snowstorm-four-days-wrecked-car/
 
Madagascan policing minister survives helicopter crash & swims 12 hours to reach shore

57 year old Serge Gelle was miraculously unhurt after the aircraft plunged into the sea off the island’s northeastern coast on Monday.

He and a fellow policeman reached land in the seaside town of Mahambo separately on Tuesday morning.
It is not known what caused the aircraft, which was flying the minister to inspect the site of a shipwreck, to crash. Gelle had been due to visit the site of the disaster off the northeastern coast, which has now claimed the lives of 39 people after rescue workers retrieved another 18 bodies.

Police chief Zafisambatra Ravoavy paid tribute to the ‘stamina’ of the country’s secretary of state for police, telling the press he’d used one of the helicopter’s seats as a flotation device.

‘He has always had great stamina in sport, and he’s kept up this rhythm as minister, just like a thirty-year-old,’ he said. ‘He has nerves of steel.’
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1640179019813.png
 
Tongan man stays afloat for 24 hours after tsunami

He survives 2 tsunamis on his island Atata but is swept away by a third. He clings on to a tree trunk.

Lisala Folau, a retired disabled carpenter, told Tongan radio station Broadcom FM that he swam and floated from his island of Atata via two other uninhabited islands to eventually reach the main island of Tongatapu, a total distance of around 13 kilometres.
“It is absolutely amazing, given that he was fleeing a catastrophic event, to be under that kind of pressure, mentally and with additional physical pressure of fleeing in the dark.”

“Even very experienced swimmers have physical boundaries and set parameters, but it takes a different mindset to take do what he did. It’s not like he fell off a boat, he was escaping an erupting volcano, swept away by tsunami. There are more physical obstacles, such as ash, debris, waves and other factors that would have made his swim a lot more challenging.”
Click to expand...

His niece his son were also swept away with him but no news of them.


328.jpg
 
Another aeroplane wheel stowaway survives:
News story

He is in hospital, of course, but he did live on a freezing, oxygen-starved flight from South Africa to The Netherlands. I'm not sure what they'll do with him if he recovers.
 
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