4 incredible cases of survival in desperate situations

None of us is immune from life-threatening emergencies. We will tell you about four terrible cases when people took advantage of a scanty chance to escape and survived. Their experience teaches us not to give up even in the most hopeless cases. As long as a person is alive, he always has a chance of salvation if he fights, but if he gives up, he is already doomed.

Late in the evening of December 18, 1994, 27-year-old South African resident Alison Botha returned home after a party and parked her car in the courtyard. But as soon as she got out of the car, she was attacked by an unknown person with a knife, who pushed her into the passenger seat and ordered her to be silent.

The criminal got behind the wheel and drove the Bot out of town, picking up his accomplice on the way. Two kidnappers, Frans du Toit and Theun Kruger, took Alison to a deserted place, where they brutally raped her. After that, the woman was stabbed 30 times in the stomach and 16 times in the neck and left for dead in a forest clearing.

"No one can survive this," one killer told another before leaving the scene. But the bastard was wrong – Alison was not only alive, but she could move, albeit with great difficulty. She saw the headlights in the distance and started walking toward the highway. Botha crawled the last few meters, but she had enough strength to get to the dividing line of the road to be noticed.

The victim was lucky that she was noticed within a few minutes and the person who found her on the road had a medical education. Veterinarian Tian Eilerd gave Botha first aid and took her to the hospital. Medics later said they had never seen so many serious injuries and that Alison's chance of survival was slim. Nevertheless, the woman survived and was able to identify the rapists-rippers, who went to serve a life sentence in prison.

Alison Botha married, had two sons, and received the Paul Harris Award for Courage and the Femina magazine award for "Brave Woman" for her will to live. She told her story to the residents of 35 countries around the world, and in addition, her case became the basis for the film.

23-year-old American Angela Hernandez was driving on a highway in California to visit her sister when a rabbit jumped out on the road in front of the car. The girl avoided hitting the animal, but lost control of the car due to a sharp maneuver. Her car fell off a 60-meter cliff and smashed into the rocks. Hernandez herself suffered a severe head injury, fractured ribs and collarbone, but survived.

No one saw the moment of the fall, and the place where Angela's car fell was not visible from the road. Therefore, the accident went unnoticed and the seriously injured girl had to rely only on her own strength. While she was unsuccessfully searched throughout the state, she survived on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, using improvised means.

To collect drinking water in the rain, Hernandez used a hose from the radiator, and not to go crazy with pain and fear, she sang her favorite songs. A week after the accident, the girl's crashed SUV was seen from the ocean by surfers who called the police.

Rescuers had to work hard to get the injured girl out from under the cliff. Angela was saved, even though she had almost no chance. Hernandez's car was on the rocks near the water and even a small storm could wash away the wreckage and the victim of an accident deprived of the ability to move into the ocean. In one of the interviews, the rescued woman said:

In the winter of 1912, the polar explorer Douglas Mawson and two companions were returning to their base in Antarctica after a long journey. On December 14, one of the Douglas satellites fell into a crevice and died. Together with him, the small team lost the dog team, which had almost all the provisions of the expedition and a tent.

This happened 500 km from the base camp and the scientists had to overcome this distance in the strongest wind and extreme temperature, which did not rise above -20 degrees. On January 8, 1912, Mawson's companion could not stand the rigors of the transition and died of exhaustion. Douglas continued on alone, making the last team as light as possible. At the very end of the journey, Mawson almost died when he fell through a crack, but managed to get out.

At the end of the journey, the exhausted polar explorer was waiting for another blow – no one met him in the camp. From a note found in the expedition cabin, Douglas learned that the ship "Aurora", which was supposed to pick him up, left only 5 hours ago. Mawson had to wait a long 9 months until he was picked up by a ship of another expedition.

In 2010, Haiti suffered one of the worst disasters in the country's history. The devastating earthquake literally wiped out the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, and several other settlements, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

Evan Munzi was caught in a disaster at work-a man selling rice in the capital's indoor market. After the first tremors, the building collapsed, and the roof buried everyone inside. Munzi was still alive, but he could not get out of the concrete trap – only a few cracks in the concrete slabs connected him to the outside world, through which air and rainwater seeped into the concrete crypt.

For a month, Evan, who suffered several fractures, survived under the rubble. When the rescuers found him, they could not believe their eyes – no one had ever managed to survive for four weeks in such conditions. The rescue came just in time, as the man developed gangrene and could not survive for several more days without medical help. After prolonged treatment, Munzi managed to save his injured legs.

Experts believe that the man was saved only due to the fact that he had water and a firm confidence in his salvation. Munzi told reporters that shortly after the disaster, a man began to come to him, bringing him water and saying words of comfort. The Haitian is sure that it was an angel who gave him hope. Doctors also believe that Munzi was visited by hallucinations associated with pain shock and exhaustion. Somehow, the vision helped the man survive.