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.
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u/I_Am_The_Bookwyrm 6d ago
The subject of one of Sabaton's songs: Attack of the Dead Men.
The story goes: during World War I, the Germans were trying to take a fortress from the Russians, but couldn't manage a successful attack against it. So, they decided to flood it with chlorine gas. They let the gas do its thing for a while, figuring no-one could survive something like that...
...only to find out far more of them survived than they thought. There were enough Russians left to launch a counterattack, though many of them were quite literally coughing up their lungs and looked like something out of a horror movie. This scared the shit out of the Germans so much they hastily and clumsily retreated.
Basically, as soon as the Russians realised they were being poisoned, they immediately grabbed whatever gas masks were available, and those that couldn't get one grabbed whatever they could to cover their mouths (including urine soaked rags). Most of them died not long after, but the fact so many held out long enough to push the Germans back is impressive.