These people tested the limits of their humanity to survive. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be looking at the most agonizing instances in which people went to unimaginable lengths to survive the harsh conditions they found themselves in.
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00:00My name is Aaron Ralston.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:05And today we'll be looking at the most agonizing instances
00:08in which people went to unimaginable lengths
00:10to survive the harsh conditions they found themselves in.
00:13I was aware that I was now all on my own
00:17and that I could no longer expect any outside help.
00:21Rikki Meggi.
00:22In 2006, Australian bailiff Rikki Meggi
00:25landed in a perilous situation while driving through the outback
00:28to start a new job.
00:29I was traveling through the centre of Australia, which is very desolate,
00:33and I stopped to help some people
00:35who were pretending to be broken down on the side of the road.
00:38After picking up a hitchhiker,
00:40he was reportedly drugged and left for dead.
00:42When Meggi regained consciousness,
00:44he had been wrapped in black plastic
00:46and buried in a shallow grave in the outback's wilderness
00:49with dingoes clawing at him.
00:51I actually started collecting rocks from around the dam
00:53and every night when I went inside my Humpty to go to bed,
00:56to go to sleep,
00:57I used to pack rocks up around the entrance,
00:59so if I did die during my sleep or overnight,
01:03then the dingoes wouldn't be able to get in and eat my body.
01:05Over the next 71 days,
01:07Meggi was stranded in the harsh desert
01:09and mainly lived off eating lizards,
01:11snakes, insects and ants,
01:13and even drinking his own urine.
01:15By the time a group of local station hands found him,
01:18Meggi had become, quote,
01:19just a walking skeleton,
01:21having lost a staggering 130 pounds,
01:24more than half his original body weight.
01:26Everybody should cherish each other and every day
01:28like it's your last.
01:30And to my mother, I love you very much
01:32and thank you for all your support.
01:34Joe Simpson.
01:35In 1985, British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates
01:39became the first to scale the west face of the Ciula Grande,
01:43but their heroic achievement quickly turned into a nightmare.
01:46We knew a number of expeditions had failed on it.
01:51If no one had tried, it wouldn't be quite the same.
01:53It was the fact that people had tried and they'd failed,
01:56so we knew it was hard.
01:59And my feeling was, well, we'll just do it.
02:03We're better than them.
02:04Simpson shattered his leg on the descent,
02:07forcing Yates to lower him slowly.
02:09However, Yates inadvertently dropped him over a cliff edge
02:13and was unable to pull him back up.
02:15Simon!
02:18I was absolutely convinced by 10,
02:21totally convinced that I was on my own,
02:24that no one was coming to get me.
02:27After hanging for over an hour, Yates had to cut the rope,
02:31sending his partner plunging over 200 feet.
02:34But Simpson miraculously survived.
02:36With a badly injured leg, no food and little water,
02:40Simpson crawled through brutal weather for three days
02:43before reaching their base camp.
02:45I remember Simon grabbing my shoulders and holding me.
02:54I remember that.
02:56That feeling of being held.
02:58Though doctors said he would never climb again,
03:00Simpson was back on a mountain just two years later.
03:04Mauro Prosperi.
03:05The Maratón de Sabla,
03:07a grueling seven-day race through the Sahara Desert,
03:10is considered one of the toughest foot races in the world.
03:13But perhaps nothing exemplifies its difficulty
03:15more than the story of Mauro Prosperi.
03:31In 1994, Prosperi got caught in a severe sandstorm
03:35that blew him off course,
03:37leaving him to survive alone in the extreme desert.
03:40Prosperi resorted to eating bird eggs,
03:42beetles, lizards, and even bats.
03:44And when his water ran out,
03:46he drank his urine and sucked on wet wipes for hydration.
03:49As his situation grew dire,
03:51Prosperi decided to take his own life.
03:54But the severe dehydration caused his blood to clot quickly,
03:57preventing his death.
03:59I was lying on this chapel,
04:01and I was covered.
04:02As I was covering myself,
04:03I came out.
04:04The rope slipped and went in the middle of the dunes.
04:08At that point, I said,
04:10at the beginning, it was my destiny.
04:14I even lost my faith.
04:16He was eventually found after 10 days,
04:19having wandered nearly 200 miles off course.
04:22Those nine days,
04:24it was as if those were the days
04:26when I was in the belly of the desert,
04:29and then I was reborn.
04:33Louis Zamperini.
04:34Years after representing the U.S.
04:36at the 1936 Berlin Olympics,
04:38Louis Zamperini joined the Army Air Force
04:41and served as a bombardier in World War II.
04:43In 1943, during a search and rescue mission,
04:46Zamperini's plane suffered mechanical difficulties
04:49and crashed into the ocean,
04:50killing everyone but him and two other men.
04:53This plane was barely flying with four motors,
04:56and with two gone, it just dropped like a rock.
04:59For 47 days, they drifted on a raft,
05:02managing to stay alive by eating fish and birds
05:05and fending off shark attacks.
05:07When they finally reached land,
05:08they discovered they were in enemy Japanese territory,
05:11kicking off another harrowing ordeal.
05:14They took great joy in telling us
05:16we were going to be executed, you know,
05:19and they'd always go through the motion.
05:21Zamperini spent the next two years
05:23as a prisoner of war,
05:24where he was singled out and tortured
05:26due to his Olympic fame.
05:27He was finally released in August 1945
05:30when the war ended.
05:32Oh, God, look at you.
05:38Hugh Glass.
05:39It's a widely told and harrowing tale of survival
05:42that even inspired an Oscar-winning film
05:44starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
05:52In 1823, while on a fur trading expedition,
05:55Hugh Glass was mauled by a grizzly bear,
05:58leaving him severely injured.
06:00Believing he was going to die anyway,
06:02Glass was abandoned by his companions
06:04in a shallow grave.
06:05Glass is to be cared for as long as necessary.
06:08And a proper burial when it's time.
06:10He's earned it.
06:11But he defied all odds.
06:13Glass regained consciousness
06:15and crawled over 200 miles through rugged terrain,
06:18driven by sheer willpower and a thirst for revenge.
06:22I ain't afraid to die anymore.
06:25I've done it already.
06:27To stay alive, he ate raw bison meat,
06:30wild berries and roots,
06:32and even used maggots to clean his wounds.
06:35Remarkably, he made it to safety and recovered,
06:38though he ultimately chose to forgive
06:40those who left him behind.
06:42Uruguayan Flight 571 survivors.
06:45On October 13, 1972,
06:47Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
06:50departed Uruguay for Chile
06:52with 45 people on board,
06:54including an amateur rugby team.
06:56Tragically, the plane crashed into the Andes Mountains,
06:59killing 12 people instantly.
07:01Yeah, it was a very strange impression
07:04to see your friends dead.
07:06I mean, they were lying there on the snow.
07:08They had the same clothes you had.
07:10But there was an invisible line of life and death
07:12between you and him.
07:14The survivors were left stranded
07:15in the remote, snowy wilderness
07:17with barely any food.
07:19As the days passed, more lives were lost.
07:21And those remaining faced a dire situation.
07:24After exhausting their limited supplies,
07:26they made the agonizing decision
07:28to consume the remains of their deceased friends
07:31to stay alive.
07:32And the taste?
07:33The taste is like raw meat,
07:35raw meat from cow or whatever.
07:37For 72 days, they endured extreme cold,
07:40an avalanche, dehydration, malnourishment,
07:44and the constant fear of death.
07:46They were ultimately rescued
07:47after two survivors managed to trek
07:49through the mountains and reach a village.
07:51Yeah, life is more simple than what we think.
07:53We really make it complex.
07:57Jose Salvador Alvarenga.
07:59This traumatic ordeal began on November 17, 2012,
08:03when Jose Salvador Alvarenga
08:05embarked on a fishing trip from Mexico
08:07with a younger, inexperienced companion
08:09named Ezequiel Cordoba.
08:11Fishermen are known to tell a tale,
08:13but this survival story defies belief.
08:17Not long after, their boat was hit by a storm
08:20that knocked them off course,
08:21forcing them to dump their catch
08:23in order to navigate better.
08:24Now stranded at sea,
08:26the men survived by eating raw fish and turtles
08:29and drinking their own urine.
08:30Alvarenga describes drifting at sea for 13 months,
08:34helpless, beaten by sun and salt,
08:37struggling to stay alive.
08:39However, after about four months,
08:41Cordoba fell into deep despair
08:43and eventually died of starvation.
08:45Alvarenga was devastated by this loss
08:47and spoke to his partner's corpse for six days
08:50before finally letting him go overboard.
08:53In January 2014, after 438 days adrift,
08:58Alvarenga finally reached land,
09:00in surprisingly good shape given the circumstances.
09:03Describing the moment he saw land for the first time,
09:05he says,
09:06I pushed myself away from the boat
09:08so it wouldn't hit me on the head.
09:10Aaron Ralston.
09:11In April 2003,
09:13Aaron Ralston embarked on a solo expedition
09:15to the Blue John Canyon in Utah.
09:17During his descent,
09:18a large boulder got dislodged
09:20and trapped his arm against the canyon wall.
09:23He would spend the next five days
09:25stuck in this position,
09:26rationing his limited food and water
09:28as he faced what seemed like certain death.
09:31My parents are Donna and Larry Ralston
09:33of Englewood, Colorado.
09:36Whoever finds this,
09:37please make an attempt to get it to them.
09:40After exhausting his supplies
09:42and experiencing a hallucination,
09:44Ralston realized he had no choice
09:46but to amputate his own arm
09:48with a dull two-inch knife.
09:50I felt pain,
09:52and I coped with it.
09:55I moved on.
09:56Once free,
09:57he rappelled down a 65-foot drop
09:59and hiked several miles
10:01before being found by a family
10:02who helped him get to safety.
10:04Ralston's incredible story of survival and determination
10:07was later depicted in the critically acclaimed film
10:10127 Hours.
10:12It's been without circulation for 24 hours,
10:16so I think it's pretty well gone.
10:20Juliana Kopka.
10:22Born to two zoologists,
10:23Juliana Kopka developed a passion
10:25for wildlife early on
10:27and gained survival skills in her teenage years
10:30while her parents were stationed
10:31in the Amazon rainforest.
10:33Those skills proved vital in 1971
10:36when Kopka and her mother were in a plane crash
10:38on their way from Lima to Iquitos, Peru.
10:42I remember that we started the day with mixed feelings.
10:45On the one hand,
10:46we were glad we had managed to get this flight.
10:49On the other,
10:50we were worried and anxious
10:51because Lanza had such a bad reputation.
10:54Kopka was the sole survivor,
10:56falling 10,000 feet into the Amazon rainforest,
10:59where she had to fend for herself for 11 days alone.
11:02When I came to,
11:04I realized pretty quickly
11:05what must have happened to me.
11:07I had crashed down in the middle of the jungle
11:09and the plane was gone.
11:11I tried to get up
11:12and could barely manage
11:13because my concussion must have been very severe.
11:16Despite severe injuries,
11:18including a broken collarbone,
11:20a deep gash on her arm,
11:21and a swollen eye,
11:23Kopka survived the harsh conditions of the rainforest.
11:26The mosquitoes were particularly bad.
11:28They almost ate me alive
11:30as I wore only a tiny and by now torn miniskirt.
11:34She was eventually discovered
11:35by a group of lumberjacks,
11:36who treated her wounds with gasoline
11:39and transported her to safety.
11:41He was the first person I saw,
11:43and it was as if an angel had come unto me.
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12:02The Donner Party,
12:03led by brothers Jacob and George Donner,
12:06this group of American pioneers
12:07left Springfield, Illinois in the spring of 1846,
12:11bound for California.
12:12Their journey took a tragic turn
12:14when they opted for a new untested shortcut
12:17called the Hastings Cut-Off.
12:19Hastings Cut-Off had proved
12:20not only more treacherous than the older route,
12:23it was 125 miles longer as well.
12:27This route led them into dangerous terrain,
12:30causing significant delays
12:31and leaving them trapped
12:32in the Sierra Nevada mountains
12:34by heavy snowfalls.
12:35The farther we went up,
12:37the deeper the snow got.
12:41The wagons could not go.
12:42As the group found themselves cut off from any help,
12:45their supplies quickly dwindled
12:47and desperation began to set in.
12:49In their struggle to stay alive,
12:51the survivors resorted to the unthinkable,
12:53consuming the remains of those
12:55who succumbed to starvation and exposure.
12:58They had fallen from their highest state,
13:02though compelled by the fell hand of dire necessity.
13:05Of the 87 original members of the Donner Party,
13:08only 48 survived,
13:10forever scarred by the horrors they endured.
13:13Don't let this letter dishearten anybody.
13:17Remember, never take no cut-offs,
13:21and hurry along as fast as you can.
13:25Virginia Reed.
13:26How far do you think you will go
13:28to survive situations like these?
13:30Let us know in the comments below.
13:32You know, the only thing I say that I can't do is clap,
13:35but that's kind of my own little joke,
13:37which maybe isn't that funny, apparently.