The human instinct to survive is what has kept our species alive. We’re all equipped with genetically hardwired behaviors, and when faced with danger or stress, there’s a biological trigger which helps us make vital decisions to ensure our own personal safety.

Luckily, most of us have never had to endure a scenario that has truly tested our survival instincts. However, some people throughout history have found themselves in nearly insufferable circumstances, which only demonstrates the tenacity it takes to survive the impossible.

Here are 12 incredible survival stories about people who managed to beat the odds, proving that there is no force more powerful than the will to live.

1.
[b]The Robertson voyage.[/b]The Robertson family boarded a 43-foot wooden schooner, Lucette, back in 1971, and successfully sailed from port-to-port for 17 months. However, on June 5th, 1972, the family encountered a pod of killer whales that severely holed their vessel and caused it to sink approximately 200 miles west of the Galapagos Islands.

The family, alongside an inexperienced crew member, were forced to escape to a life raft and a small dinghy. They managed to survive by drinking rainwater, hunting turtles, Dorado, and flying fish, but after 16 days, their life raft became unusable. Lost at sea, the family only had a three-meter-long dinghy to rely on to host them and their dismal supplies.

On their 38th day as castaways, the Robertsons were spotted by Japanese fishermen on July 23rd, 1972. The patriarch, Dougal Robertson, kept a journal throughout their nearly fatal misadventure in case they were rescued. The journal was eventually turned into a novel, Survive the Savage Sea, which later inspired a film by the same name.

2.
Trapped under ice Anna Bågenholm was skiing in the mountains outside of Narvik, Norway in 1999 when she lost control of her skis and fell head first onto an ice-covered stream. The frozen water gave in and Bågenholm became trapped under a 20-centimeter thick layer of ice.

The two colleagues she was skiing with found her with only her feet above the ice. They made several attempts to free her to no avail. The duo desperately tried to contact rescue teams as they held Bågenholm’s skis so she wouldn’t submerge any further into the freezing water. Bågenholm managed to find an air pocket underneath the ice and stayed conscious for 40 minutes before circulatory arrest took over her body.

A rescue team eventually managed to cut a hole in the ice with a pointed gardening shovel and pulled her out. Bågenholm had been trapped for 80 minutes where her body temperature decreased to 13.7 ℃ (56.7 ℉), the lowest survived body temperatures ever recorded in a human with accidental hypothermia.

3
Shipwreck air bubble Harrison Odjegba Okene survived for three days in a tugboat that had sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at depths that experts say would have been fatal for even experienced divers.

Okene was the only one of the 12 team members to survive due to an air pocket that had formed in the engine room. The 29-year-old was underwater at freezing depths for almost 60 hours before he heard a team of South African divers scouring the wreck for bodies.

The sailor cautiously followed one of the diver’s lights and touched them. The rescuers were lucky enough to find him before the supply of oxygen had completely diminished. They sent down diving equipment and he was brought to a decompression chamber, where he had to spend two days. Nigerians are born survivals.

Iranu

4.
Alone in the Amazon Juliane Koepcke was the sole survivor of the LANSA Flight plane crash in 1971. The commercial airliner was en route from Lima, Peru to the city of Pucallpa and ended up being struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm.

The plane disintegrated mid-air due to structural failure and crashed into the Amazon rainforest. Koepcke, who was seventeen at the time, made impact while still strapped into her seat and survived the fall with only a broken collarbone, a gash on her arm, and a swollen eye.

Koepcke was forced to fend for herself for 11 days and relied on survival advice her father had previously relayed to her. Koepcke eventually located local lumbermen who tended to her injuries, took her on a seven-hour canoe ride to a lumber station, and had her airlifted to a hospital.

5.
5. 127 hours. Outdoorsman Aron Ralston was trekking by himself through Blue John Canyon in Utah when a slot canyon descent almost ended fatally. While climbing down, a suspended boulder became dislodged and ended up pinning his right hand against the canyon wall.

There was little to no chance of Ralston being found as he never informed anyone of his hiking plans and there was no way to call for help. After 5 days, Ralston ran out of the little food and water he had on him and resorted to amputating his trapped arm using the dull tools he was equipped with.

Ralston was unable to cut through the bone, but after his arm began to decompose, he found a way to break them using torque against his pinned arm. He managed to escape and rappel down a 65-foot wall where he was eventually found by a family on vacation.

6.
Lost in the Sahara Desert. Endurance runner Mauro Prosperi participated in the grueling six-day ultra-marathon, Marathon des Sables, in Morocco in 1994. Halfway through the event, a sandstorm disoriented Prosperi and he began running in the wrong direction.

After 24 hours, he ran out of food and water and, due to the heat, could only continue venturing during the early morning and in the evening. He found an abandoned Muslim shrine where he took shelter and survived by drinking his own urine and consuming the blood and guts of bats on the ceilings.

Prosperi had given up hope and attempted suicide by slitting his wrists, but his blood coagulated due to his dehydration, which ultimately kept him alive. He managed to regain composure and continue walking through the desert and consuming any available resource. He eventually found an oasis and was spotted by some nomads who took him to safety. He ended up 299 km off route and had lost 40 lb in body weight. He re-entered the race eight years after his nearly fatal run and completed it, placing 131st.

7.
76 days adrift Yachtsman Steven Callahan was about seven days out en route from the Canary Islands to Antigua when his vessel became holed by an unknown object during a night storm. All he was left with was an inflatable raft and a survival kit while drifting in the open ocean.

After diminishing the little food he had with him, Callahan resorted to harpooning fish, surviving mostly on mahi-mahi and triggerfish. He managed to conjure up just over a pint of drinkable water each day by using solar stills and jury-rigged devices.

Callahan survived 76 days afloat in the raft and traveled over 2,000 miles despite enduring punctures to the vessel, physical deterioration, unforgiving waves, and even shark attacks. Fishermen off the island of Marie Galante, Guadeloupe eventually spotted Callahan due to the flurry of birds that began to hover over him.

8.
Rough descent. In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates climbed the 20,813-foot-high Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. During their descent, Simpson fell through a cornice and broke his right leg and heel, which required Yates to have to lower Simpson using ropes during the mountain stages.

Disaster struck during bad weather when Yates lowered Simpson over an unseen cliff. Simpson was left dangling over a deep crevasse only connected by a rope attached to Yates. Yates couldn’t hear or see Simpson, but resorted to cutting the rope to prevent himself from falling off of the mountain.

Simpson fell approximately 50 feet into the crevasse below but managed to survive the fall. He then dragged himself across miles of rough terrain until he eventually reached base camp four days later. Simpson was reunited with Yates in the middle of the night, who was planning to break camp the following morning.

9.
Lost in the Outback 35-year-old Ricky Megee was found by farm workers after surviving for nearly three months in the Australian outback. Megee told rescuers that the last thing he remembered was his car breaking down, but the details surrounding how he became lost remain murky.

While stranded in one of the most isolated places in Australia, Megee resorted to eating frogs, snakes, and lizards to keep himself alive. He was lucky enough to have gotten lost during the wet season, which provided him enough water to continue trekking to some sort of civilization.

He initially walked for 10 days with no sense of direction until he found a dam, where he built a shelter using branches. When he was found by local farmers, Megee was in a skeletal state having lost more than half his body weight.

[b][/b]
[b]Bowl of fire.[/b]A film crew was sent via helicopter to capture a shot inside the Pu’u ‘O’o crater of Kilauea, the world’s most active volcano, in Hawaii. However, the helicopter ended up crashing into the wall of the volcano due to the low visibility.

Incredibly, the three men aboard the helicopter were uninjured and they managed to narrowly miss landing in a bubbling pool of lava. The film crew, Michael Benson and Chris Duddy, attempted to climb the volcano walls to no avail while the pilot, Craig Hosking, attempted to radio for help.

Benson and Duddy lost sight of Hosking completely, but the sounds of a helicopter hovering overhead gave them a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, Benson and Duddy were invisible due to the fog and clouds. The two were forced to spend a night in the volcano and the next morning, Duddy decided to risk climbing the walls while Benson decided to stay behind.

Duddy managed to escape the volcano, but Benson still had no idea of the fate of his colleagues. Eventually, after two days without sleep or food, a helicopter spotted Benson through a chance break in the steam and lifted him to safety.

11.
Cut in two. A Texas rail yard worker nearly had his body severed in half after he slipped and fell onto the tracks in June 2006. Truman Duncan was pulled under the rail car and dragged underneath the wheels for 75 feet.

Duncan’s lower body was entangled in the train’s wheels and was almost completely detached from his upper half. Somehow, he managed to remain conscious and call 911 from underneath the train. After, he called his family, which instilled his will to live.

Duncan was eventually airlifted 62 minutes after the accident and managed to stay alive despite losing more than half the blood in his body. He had to endure 23 surgeries once he got to the hospital but now continues to work at the rail yard in an office job.

12.
Crash 17-year-old Katrina Burgess was told that she may never walk again after she survived a nearly fatal 70 mph car crash. The accident left her with a plethora of injuries, including a broken neck, back, and ribs, punctured lungs, and a damaged pelvis.

However, Burgess was able to make a miraculous recovery after doctors put her back together using 11 metal rods. The operation was risky but gave her a chance at life that she would have never had without it. After her story broke in the news, a modeling agency scouted her and ended up signing her.

Who go die go die when his time reach