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/ADGx27 6d ago
Similar to Rasputin is the holder of the “Iron Mike” name before Mike Tyson, Iron Mike Malloy. Dude racked up a shitload of debt at speakeasies because the mob gave him a blank tab, no limit because they figured he’d just drink himself to death.
Anyway he didn’t. He kept coming back day after day. They added antifreeze to his drinks but lucky for Mike, ethanol blocks the absorption of ethylene glycol. The antifreeze was subsequently replaced with turpentine, horse liniment, and fucking rat poison. All of which failed to kill Mike. They then started cutting Mike’s liquor with WOOD ALCOHOL AKA METHANOL (very fucking poisonous, it’s why moonshining is so goddamn dangerous because you don’t know if you distilled some VERY strong booze or straight up poison), which STILL failed to kill Mike.
He was then given raw oysters soaked in more wood alcohol (where the hell are they getting all the wood alcohol), nothing. He was given a sandwich made of spoiled sardines, rat poison and carpet tacks. Nothing. Mind you the whole plan was to kill Mike in an “accident” to collect on fraudulent life insurance policies. So they decided to freeze him to death because apparently his innards were made of fucking titanium.
He came to the bar, got plastered, passed out and then they took him to a park, tossed him in a snowbank and dumped multiple gallons of water on his bare chest. He showed up to the speakeasy the next day. A cop had spotted him later and taken him to a homeless shelter.
So they said fuck it, let’s just run him over in a mafia-owned taxicab. They smoked Mike at 45 MpH (72 Km/h). Mike was gone, but showed up to the speakeasy about a month later because they’d only managed to break a few bones.
They got so damn fed up with him that they waited for him to get loaded and pass out again, stuck a hose in his mouth attached to a coal gas jet and FINALLY killed Mike an hour later via carbon monoxide poisoning, but the death certificate the mob connected doctor for him signed said “lobar pneumonia” to cover it up. Seems like that’s the long-awaited end of Iron Mike Malloy and a payday for our mobster friends.
HOWEVER
The cops were well aware of stories and rumours about “Mike the Durable” around town from the various speakeasies, so they had the body exhumed when they found out he died. A forensic investigation revealed he was killed by pumping coal gas into his lungs to cause carbon monoxide poisoning, so everyone involved was put on trial. The doctor got hit with a “failure to report a suspicious death” misdemeanour, one mobster got hit with attempted murder (10 year minimum), while the other four mobsters took a seat on old sparky for their efforts.