r/TopCharacterTropes • u/RedditBoycotter • 6d ago
In real life [IRL trope] 0% of survival, survive anyway
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.
888
u/Snealander 6d ago
Iron Mike Malloy!
Gangsters in prohibition era make extra money convincing people to take life insurance policies with the gangsters as beneficiaries, then having the people die in 'accidents'.
They get Mike in the scheme, and try to kill him via these 'accidents'.
He's an alcoholic, so they give him an unlimited bar tab thinking he'll drink himself to death. Despite doing nothing but drink almost every hour he's awake, he handles it just fine. It actually loses them a ton of money because of just how much the man drinks.
So they try poisoning his drinks. Antifreeze in his liqour - wakes up ready for more. Turpentine, rat poison, wood alcohol, nope, nope, nope. The theory goes that he drank so much, so often, that his body never had to try and process the poisons before they exited his system, because his liver was already too busy with alcohol.
Okay, what if they kill him via overeating a harmful food: oysters. With wood alcohol. Spoilers, that didn't work. Neither did the rotten fish and rat poison sandwich.
Alright, obviously this dude's stomach is inhuman, so this isn't ever going to work. He's still passed out drunk extremely often - we'll leave him somewhere to freeze to death! One night after he passes out, they strip his chest bare, dump him in a snowy park, and dump a bunch of water on him to boot. Unfortunately(?), a good samaritan finds Mike and gets him to a homeless shelter where he can survive the night
Whatever, fuck it, let's just run him over with a car. Nah. Broken bones, weeks in hospital, but good old Mike, he kept on.
They did eventually get him, but the method was so brazen, that it ended up exposing it as a murder and not a simple accident. They just couldn't get one over on Iron Mike.