Stranded in icy, snowy mountains, lost at sea on flimsy rafts, overboard and swimming alone in the midst of the ocean – there are lots of astonishing stories of people that survived against what seemed to be unimaginable odds.
Many cases are well-known and have been made into Hollywood movies. Yet the role of religion in these encounters is usually underplayed – though many individuals who’ve had apparently miraculous escapes from death will talk of God being with them. Here are six of those stories of astonishing survival:
Alone within the ocean (2022)
James Michael Grimes from Alabama was drinking and collaborating in an “air guitar” competition on a cruise ship. He doesn’t remember how he fell overboard in late 2022, but awoke to seek out himself swimming alone in the midst of the Gulf of Mexico.
His absence wasn’t noticed for 12 hours, by which era the cruise ship was long gone. The US coastguards then had 7,000 square miles to go looking, a seemingly unimaginable task. Yet incredibly, he was found alive after an estimated 20 hours within the cold, merciless sea.
Grimes is certain that God helped him to survive the long ordeal in an area known for sharks.
“I can’t float even after I’m attempting to,” he told ABC News. “The Lord was with me after I was on the market, because something was holding me up the entire time after I was passed out.
“The fall didn’t kill me, sea creatures didn’t eat me, I felt like I used to be meant to get out of there.”
Miracle of the Andes (1972)
One of the very best known, and most incredible, survival stories is what followed the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which left a team of injured and traumatised young people stranded for 72 days in the tough Andes mountains. The more lurid details of the cannibalism of those that died has been the topic of plenty of movies: Alive in 1993 and more recently the Spanish language film Society of the Snow on Netflix.
But they don’t say much of the religion that became a very important a part of the experience of the survivors and their families who prayed fervently after they received the terrible news that the plane was lost.
The survivors also prayed together every night, discussed the religious implications of their actions, and perceived a much deeper intending to the companionship with each other that they needed to survive.
“In the mountains, we got to know a great God,” Gustavo Zerbino told Aleteia.
“Despite all the things that was happening, he was with you, he accepted you, he accompanied you. Our God was love.”
Many miracles happened. Not only surviving multiple challenges – the crash, an avalanche, the freezing temperatures and the dearth of water and food – but their eventual technique of rescue was two young men mountaineering out into unknown, brutal mountains with none of the crucial equipment. Somehow they found the right path and reached help after a 33 mile trek.
Sixteen survived from the unique 45 crew and passengers.
Against the sun (1942)
Harold Dixon and his crew of two, Anthony J Pastula, and Gene D Aldrich, were forced to make an emergency sea landing after their plane got lost within the Pacific Ocean on a routine patrol near Pearl Harbour and ran out of fuel. But despite their best efforts to arrange for the landing, most of their survival gear sank with the plane they usually were left with a 4’x8’ rubber raft, a police whistle, pliers, a pocketknife, a can of rubber cement, patching material, a .45 pistol with three clips of ammunition, two life jackets and the damp clothes they were wearing.
It took five days for the lads, desperately thirsty and hungry, to begin to hope. As soon as they did, it rained they usually could drink.
“In the midst of our trial and tribulation, we felt the necessity for God,” Dixon told Life magazine.
“So, within the blazing sun, pushed by trade winds, surrounded by sharks and rolling waves, we held the primary of what soon became a day by day prayer service.”
They ate passing birds, sharks and fish as they struggled to survive for 34 days. Eventually they arrived at one among the Cook Islands – just days before a hurricane “which actually would have meant sure death had they still been at sea”, in keeping with the US Navy memorial. All men were honoured for his or her courage and fortitude.
Saved by a seal (2022)
Scott Thompson’s work as knowledgeable fisherman gave him loads of experience of the ocean on the California coastline. But nothing could prepare him for his five-hour ordeal when he fell from his boat into the cold ocean.
He saw an oil rig some miles away and decided to swim towards it, with images of his wife and kids motivating him to maintain going. Then surprising encouragement got here in the shape of a harbour seal that he said appeared next to him and swam alongside him.
He believes he was divinely protected.
“I looked up and said ‘God will you please handle my family,’ that is all I asked,” a tearful Thompson told news service KCBS. “And the subsequent thing you recognize, I’m on the oil derrick.”
‘Miracle man’ (2004)
Eric LeMarque had been fit and healthy attributable to knowledgeable sports profession – but he would wish way more than health to survive six days within the ice cold snow on California’s Mammoth Mountain after he got lost while snowboarding.
He was stranded in a snow storm wearing just a skinny layer of garments, with some chewing gum and a bag of meth, a drug that he was hooked on on the time. He hiked for miles, sleeping in caves, aware that he couldn’t feel his feet – which might eventually should be amputated.
Told within the book and film ‘6 Below’, within the means of his battle for survival he would seek God, while his believing mum prayed for him in the course of the search.
“I’ve been humbled, and I’ve needed to go to this depth before I realised why I want to live for God. [Learning] not only who I’m, but whose I’m,” he told reporters.
“I said, ‘all right God, I’m gonna press into you with all of me, no doubt, with a childlike faith’, and he not only showed up but he shows off and he still shows off today.”
Unbroken (1943)
Another story made right into a Hollywood film, though again omitting the vital role that faith played within the story, Louis Silvie Zamperini spent 47 days struggling to survive on a flimsy raft with fellow airmen after his WWII bomber crashed into the center of the ocean 850 miles south of the Hawaiian islands.
Any joy they felt about their incredible survival within the face of shark attacks and few resources was short lived, as they were captured by enemy forces on the Marshall Islands and sent to the notorious Japanese prisoner of war camps.
These traumatic experiences would go away Zamperini bitter and drive him to alcoholism. But his wife became a Christian at a Billy Graham crusade and shortly the previous airman would find the identical faith, eventually becoming an evangelist. He said this prompted memories of all his prayers during his gruelling ordeals.
Heather Tomlinson is a contract Christian author. Find more of her work at https://heathertomlinson.substack.com or via X (twitter) @heathertomli
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