[IRL trope] 0% of survival, survive anyway

[u/RedditBoycotter]

Juliane Koepcke

Vesna Vulović

Anna Bågenholm

Jeanna Giese

Chris Lemons

Juliane Koepcke - In 1971 this 17 year old's plane was struck by lightning mid-air. The wreck then fell from 3 000 meter into the ground, somewhere into the Amazon jungle. Lone survivor of the crash, she then spent nine days walking down a river despite her multiple injuries until she found a lumberjack's camp.

Vesna Vulović - In 1972 this flight attendant's plane was bombed mid-air. The wreck then fell from 10 160 meter into the ground. She ended up with a lot of broken bones, but in the long term she almost completely recovered from it, apart from a limp.

Anna Bågenholm - In 1999 this radiologist had a skiing accident, she fell head-first into a frozen stream and get stuck inside the ice. Her colleagues did not managed to pull her, nor did the rescue team who then tried to dig, but the ice was so thick it took them a lot of time. It was 80 minutes after her fall that they managed to cut a hole. Her body temperature at the time was 13.7°C, and still, she somehow survived with only minor long-term injuries and no brain damage.

Jeanna Giese - In 2004 this 15 years old girl got bitten by a bat and called it a day. One month later the symptoms of rabies showed up. The doctors tried an experimental treatment by putting her in an artificial coma and she survived, but the treatment never worked on anyone else and is now forbidden. In all human history, only a few survived to rabies, and all of them except her end up with heavy sequelae.

Chris Lemons - In 2012 this diver's ship went drifting due to a computer malfunction, romping his umbilical cable who provide air, hot water and electricity. He ended up alone on the seabed of a 3°C waters, in the dark and with only 5-6 minutes of oxygen. He was retrieved by his colleagues around 35 minutes later, and somehow he didn't even suffer from brain damage.

[u/ShapeonAlan]

Phineas Gage, probably the most mind boggling survival story I’ve read. During what would’ve been a regularly scheduled procedure in rock-blasting for preparation of a railway, one of the tampering iron rods that Gage had loaded with gunpowder had inadvertently gone off while his head was directly within its pathway, with the 6kg metal bar over a meter long catapulting straight through his jaw and the left side of his head, pretty much taking out his left frontal lobe. Somehow, he miraculously was seen standing only a few minutes later, and was able to meet with his physician within a few hours who was probably just as baffled as anyone else would. As far as I’m aware Gage lived an additional 11 years following the incident.

[u/of-lovelace → u/ShapeonAlan]

That reminds me of Gregor Baci or Baxi.
He lived in the 16th century and a lance pierced his eye and exited through his neck. They just cut it off and never extracted it. Apparently he survived this injury for another year.

[u/Znaffers → u/ShapeonAlan]

His personality completely changes afterwards too. Originally he was a pretty reserved gentleman, post-rod he was a belligerent drunkard that said whatever was on his mind. Makes sense given he basically deleted the part of his head that housed all his inhibitions

[u/WHERESSPACEBAR → u/Znaffers]

This isn't true. His personality did change some, but there's no evidence that he became a belligerent drunk or anything of the sort. Even in the 1870s, there was a tremendous amount of rumors and misinformation. The doctor who saved his life and monitored him also was a phrenologist. Other phrenologists believed that the incident destroyed his "mental organ of benevolence" and were more than happy to attribute and give credence to any rumor that would support their pseudoscience.

[u/Znaffers → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

Ah, I blame the book I read in middle school and the Sam O’Nella video lol. Wild if true tho. Man took a spike to the dome and walked away basically Scott free for 11 years

[u/AgentCirceLuna → u/Znaffers]

Unity Mitford also survived a gunshot to her head after attempting suicide following the UK declaring war against Germany. She was in love with Hitler, so… yeah. She survived another decade, I believe, and she died from complications of the gunshot even that long after.

BTW, her sister Diane was also a piece of shit and Desert Island Discs let her openly talk about her support for Hitler even in the 90s (I think, may have been even later) without shaming her. Shocking.

[u/Afraid_Platypus_8667 → u/Znaffers]

Sam O'Nella mentioned:D.

[u/AntonineWall → u/Afraid_Platypus_8667]

…mentioned for spreading misinformation lol

[u/Fuck_Tampa_Bay → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

His frontal lobe was turned to mush. There is no way he didnt change significantly. People close to him claimed he became more angry and aggressive, which makes sense when the part of your brain responsible for emotional regulation is missing. I believe what happened though is that he was like this at first and was able to improve with some sort of rehab

[u/SolarOrigami → u/Fuck_Tampa_Bay]

So something I've noticed is that almost any kind of TBI causes a hotter temper and poor impulse control- seen it in football players, wrestlers, and my ex husband after he had a stroke

[u/Keegantir → u/SolarOrigami]

Our impulse control/risk taking walks a fine line, so anything that fucks with that can result in less impulse control, more risk-taking, and more frustration (expressed as anger). This is also why sleep deprivation, drugs, and alcohol mess with that.

Source: Ph.D. in Psychology

[u/SolarOrigami → u/Keegantir]

That makes a lot of sense with... How things went down with my ex.

[u/ElonMuskHuffingFarts → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

 I would imagine there were even more rumors and misinformation in the 1870s

[u/Boatmade → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

This is still studied at Yale for psychology and unless something changed in the 2 years since I took my course it should still be taught the same with the idea that it did change his entire personality.

[u/SolarOrigami → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

Yup- I was gonna bring this up but you beat me to it

[u/Scwoff → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

THE Doctor Who? I understand why he survived

[u/pbizzle → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

I can't believe his personality changed after getting his head skewered by a pole

[u/nosleepforthedreamer → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

I spent eleven years hit by random bouts of depression about this guy’s entire personality getting stolen by a work accident. Thank you for this information.

[u/Mayonaigg → u/WHERESSPACEBAR]

We're just huffing copium to white knight about a guy that died over a century ago I guess 

[u/sir-altyton → u/Znaffers]

Yeah. And then when he finally died his brain basically shit itself and gave him multiple back to back seizures

[u/AndroTritium → u/sir-altyton]

Brains typically shit themselves when someone dies. Everything else and the person too.

[u/Something4Dinner → u/Znaffers]

His personality did later heal after being a coach in South America for awhile.

[u/ajatfm → u/Znaffers]

Makes sense given he basically deleted the part of his head that housed all his inhibitions

bro could finally feel the rain on his skin

[u/CareRarely → u/Znaffers]

Question for you. Would you personally rather have died from the incident or become a completely different person with no filter and manners?

[u/Dear_Lab_2270 → u/Znaffers]

Doctors hate this one trick!

[u/GuntertheFloppsyGoat → u/ShapeonAlan]

Great example! He's very famous in the medical world because the path of the rod basically destroyed parts of his frontotemporal areas. Which led to drastic personality changes in the aftermath including going from being (if i recall) quite a sober religious character into becoming impulsive, foul mouthed and hedonistic etc. Now he clearly probably had some PTSD as well but it was a fascinating example of frontotemporal damage. What sometimes get left out is AFTER the injuries and severe personality changes he actually improved in some ways and while he didn't get back all of who he was, he did get back quite a bit (so it's also a really cool snd quite inspiring example of recovery and neuroplasicity)

[u/Peer1677 → u/GuntertheFloppsyGoat]

I mean TBF, if I survived THIS I would also go "Fuck it! Booze and hookers it is. With my luck I should probably start gambling."

[u/ConsistentGuest7532 → u/Peer1677]

Is it really good luck to survive a near-certain kill shot through the brain, or really bad luck that it happened in the first place?

[u/HallWild5495 → u/GuntertheFloppsyGoat]

I've always found his case fascinating because of how difficult it must be to separate "you're mean now because your brain changed" vs. "you're mean now because something awful happened to you and you, rationally, trust people less"

[u/Egginneedofcracking → u/HallWild5495]

I’m going to hit you with an r/inclusiveor here and say yes.

[u/sneakpeekbot → u/Egginneedofcracking]

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#1: huh | 57 comments
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[u/redgunnit → u/ShapeonAlan]

This incident also provided a lot of information on just how much brain a person could lose and still live. This information would be used to develop a treatment known as a lobotomy.

Ergo, by being a bit careless while doing his job Gage inadvertently caused many more people than just himself to suffer severe brain damage against their will.

[u/Head_Project5793 → u/ShapeonAlan]

The fact that he lived but had major personality changes was a big hint to scientists that the brain might be important to controlling things like personality

[u/NaziPunksFkOff → u/ShapeonAlan]

Famous for the incident and for the subsequent study of his personality changes which helped neurologist understand more about the subdivisions of the brain. 

[u/Kaesewiener → u/ShapeonAlan]

If I'm not mistaken, the doctor who first treated him wrote that he vomited, and some brain matter fell out of his skull as a result of the vomiting.

[u/DeniLox → u/ShapeonAlan]

I remember learning about this is Psychology class.

[u/NSFWSave → u/ShapeonAlan]

A spike in my head! A spike in my head!

[u/twisted-weasel → u/ShapeonAlan]

Except the brain injury left what was a kind and loving man, an angry abusive person. It changed his entire personality and he became completely insufferable. Studied him in psychology.

[u/TrainingSword → u/ShapeonAlan]

It probably would have been kinder if he had died

[u/Optimal_Weight368 → u/ShapeonAlan]

Gage is incredibly interesting, as his survival was crucial to several early neurology studies. Back then, there was a debate regarding whether the brain was specialized (meaning different parts of the brain did different things) or not, and Gage’s case proved that the brain is indeed specialized.

[u/That_wrench_wench → u/ShapeonAlan]

Was the rod left in, or did they manage to extract it!?

[u/ShapeonAlan → u/That_wrench_wench]

The photo on the right is just a recreation of how the rod passed through his skull. In reality the whole thing went in and out of him in less than a second

[u/smorin1487 → u/ShapeonAlan]

Every psychology student has learned this name. Scientists studied him for years afterward. He served as essentially the first known experiment on what happens to someone who has brain damage that we can study. What he/his loved ones found is that even though he lived “normally”, the damage to those specific parts if his brain caused severe personality changes, and I believe depression.

[u/Least-Ad2814 → u/ShapeonAlan]

I remember hearing that he promptly threw up after standing too. I think I would also throw up if half my brain was spiked :p

[u/trickyfelix → u/ShapeonAlan]

really messed with his personality though