WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. As the story of the story of Air India Flight 171 survivor Vishwash Ramesh leaves people stunned, the Mirror takes a look at five other cases of individuals who have survived against all odds
People from all around the world have been fascinated by the story of Vishwash Ramesh, the British passenger who walked away from the site of the Air India Flight 171 with just a few minor injuries.
The 40-year-old Londoner had been on the doomed Boeing jet when it crashed shortly after taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in western India. It was initially assumed that all 242 people onboard had perished, but then, Vishwash emerged from the wreckage, revealing how the section of the plane he had been seated in landed on the ground, rather than hitting the roof of a building.
Tragically, it’s believed Vishwash, who had been travelling with his brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh, 45, is the sole survivor of a disaster which has sent shockwaves across the world. A total of 270 bodies were recovered from the crash site over the weekend, 241 of which had been on the plane when it nosedived into a medical college in a residential area of Ahmedabad. The other victims would have been on the ground when the terror unfolded.
As remarkable as Vishwash’s story undoubtedly is, he isn’t the only person to have survived when all hope appeared to have been lost. Here, the Mirror takes a look at five instances when individuals appeared to cheat death itself under extraordinary circumstances.
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Shannon Malloy
On January 25, 2007, a Nebraska resident by the name of Shannon Malloy suffered ‘internal decapitation’ after a car crash sent her slamming into the dashboard. The then 30-year-old woman was left without control over her own head after her skull became separated from her spine, but amazingly survived the horror incident without paralysis.
In an interview with Denver station KMGH-TV, Dr. Gary Ghiselli, an orthopaedic spine surgeon from the Denver Spine Centre, revealed that he had never seen such an injury in a person still living. Shannon’s loved ones were advised that they should prepare for the worst, but, to the wonder of medics, she stayed alive long enough for screws to be inserted in her head and neck, while a halo was attached to minimise movement.
Shannon recalled: “My skull slipped off my neck about five times. Every time they tried to screw this to my head, I would slip.”
As well as her neck injury, Shannon suffered a fractured skull, a bleed to the brain, and nerve damage, which left her cross-eyed. Medics view the fact that she was able to survive at all as a “miracle”. Dr Ghiselli remarked: “It really is a miracle. I’ve seen this type of injury once before. Unfortunately, the patient didn’t make it. It’s a miracle that Shannon survived the actual accident. It’s a miracle that she’s made the progress she has.”
Vesna Vulovic
On January 26, 1972, the doomed JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367, which had been travelling between Stockholm in Sweden and Belgrade in Serbia, exploded above the mountains of the Czech Republic, breaking into three pieces.
The Czechoslovak Civil Aviation Authority later determined that this was caused by a briefcase bomb which had been placed in the baggage compartment; however, no arrests were ever made.
Almost all of those who’d been onboard that day, some 27 passengers and crew, died in the catastrophe. To the astonishment of all those who read about the story at the time, however, one young woman managed to survive against all odds – a 23-year-old flight attendant by the name of Vesna Vulovic.
Vesna plunged 33,333 feet (10,160 metres; 6.31 miles) to the snowy ground below, a feat that would later earn her a Guinness World Record for the highest fall she had ever survived without a parachute. Her terrified screams thankfully reached the ears of heroic woodsman Bruno Honke, who rescued her from the debris field.
The stewardess was taken to the hospital, where she slipped into a coma for 10 days. It was found that she’d suffered a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae, and breaks to her pelvis, ribs and both legs. Her survival naturally left doctors baffled, and it was concluded that her being pinned down by a food cart at the tail end of the fuselage had ultimately offered her some protection.
Although initially paralysed from the waist down, Vesna went on to make a near-full recovery and became something of a celebrity and symbol of resilience in Serbia. Many, understandably, also viewed her as extremely lucky. She once told The New York Times: “People always want to sit next to me on the plane.”
Ludger Sylbaris
On May 7, 1902, labourer Ludger Sylbaris was thrown into a solitary cell in a prison in the vibrant port city of Saint-Pierre, Martinique, then referred to as the ‘Paris of the West Indies’, after getting himself into a brawl. Although at the time, it was no doubt vexing to be trapped in a half-underground cell, this positioning ultimately proved fortuitous, with the events that transpired next ultimately earning him the nickname “the man who lived through Doomsday”.
As Ludger languished in his dungeon-like cell, with a narrow slit in the door offering the only view out, the Mt. Pelée volcano, which loomed over the cosmopolitan city, exploded, killing almost 30,000 residents. There was no escape for those caught in the 1,075-degree pressure wave, which destroyed every building, ship, and human being in its path.
Even those who sought refuge in shelters were not safe, with their lungs burned from the inside out as oxygen was replaced with lethal gases. In his isolated stone cell, Ludger was afforded a degree of protection that those walking free sadly didn’t have.
As detailed by Historic Mysteries, Ludger did suffer horrific burns after the inside of his cell rapidly heated up to 1000 degrees. However, he was able to avoid breathing in the toxic air by urinating on his clothes and using them to plug up the door grating.
It would be four long days before rescuers came to his aid. By then, Saint-Pierre was in ruins, with only a handful of survivors having weathered the destruction. With the city where he’d lived and worked now a ghost town, Ludger was forced to begin again. He went on to find celebrity status after joining up with the Barnum & Bailey circus, where punters were captivated by his incredible tale of survival.
Martunis
Little Martunis was just seven years old when he survived the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, which saw a 30 m (100 ft) high wave wreak devastation along coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.
At least 225,000 people across 11 countries died in the tragedy, including Martunis’ own mother and sisters. Recalling that terrible day in December 2024, 20 years on, Martunis remembered: “I was playing football with my friends when suddenly an earthquake struck.
“I rushed home and gathered with my mother, older sister, and younger sister, and we hugged each other. Then someone shouted that the sea water was rising and I ran together with my mother, my little sister and older sister.”
The family desperately attempted to escape in a pickup truck, but when it overturned, they got separated. Martunis, now 27, shared: “At that moment, I picked up my little sister and handed her to my mother.
“I also picked up my older sister and helped her when she was drowning in the water. I tried to lift my sisters who were drowning, but we got separated. “I found myself on a mattress. As the mattress started to sink, I grabbed onto a school bench, but that also sank.
“Then I saw a coconut. I hugged it like hugging a football until I climbed onto another mattress. I passed out several times… I was drowning. Suddenly, I found myself on a big tree and was carried towards the sea.
“When I woke up, I didn’t see a single person anymore. I couldn’t find anyone who was alive. I just saw a lot of corpses around me. I was lost in the mangrove swamp for 21 days, trying to find food.
“Sometimes I found biscuits and also some other food, like instant noodles, bottled water, as well as other drinks. On day 20, I ran out of food and had to drink rainwater.”
Eventually, Martunis was found on a beach by a Sky News TV crew, and taken to the hospital. By this point, he was dehydrated, malnourished and covered in mosquito bites, but miraculously, alive.
He was thankfully reunited with his father, Sarbini, on the hospital wards, thanks to Save The Children through their Family Tracking and Reunification programme.
The counterfeit Portugal football top Martunis had been wearing at the time of his rescue brought his story to the attention of professional footballers, including Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly paid for Martunis’ education.
Martunis even went on to enjoy significant footballing success in his own right and went on to sign an academy contract for Ronaldo’s old club, Sporting Lisbon.
Alcides Mareno
On the morning of December 7, 2007, window cleaner Alcides Moreno and his younger brother Edgar took the lift to the top floor of the 47-storey Solow Tower building in Manhattan, New York City. Just as they stepped out onto the scaffold to wash the glass, the cables holding the 16ft wide (4.9m) washing platform in place “slipped from their attachment point”, as per the United States Department of Labour accident report.
Sadly, Edgar, 30, fell instantly to his death, striking the top of a wall at an estimated speed of 124 mph. Alcides, then 37, clung tightly to the aluminium platform, which acted almost like an airborne surfboard, slowing his descent. When emergency services went to rescue Alcides from a heap of twisted metal, he was still breathing and even made attempts to stand up, BBC News later reported.
Alcides’ injuries were severe, and he had to undergo 16 different operations to repair the extensive damage to his body, including his kidneys, brain, bones, and lungs. He also received 24 pints of blood and 19 pints of plasma, enough to replace all his blood twice over.
Experts were left amazed that Alcides had lived to tell the tale. As reported by the New York Post, Dr. Sheldon Teperman, director of trauma and critical-care surgery at Jacobi Medical Centre in The Bronx, made the following comments at the time: “Fifty per cent of people who fall four to five stories die. By the time you reach 10 or 11 stories, just about everyone dies. This guy absolutely should have died.”
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