From being stranded in the heart of Antartica to three men forced to go further in outer space than any human being has ever gone before, our picks for the most amazing stories of people who pushed the far edges of endurance.
The Robertson Family
For 38 days, the Robertson family was lost at sea. Patriarch Dougal Robertson, a British dairy farmer, just wanted to take his family on a boat trip for the “university of life,” as his son called it. On January 27, 1971, Dougal, his wife, and their four children set out on a wooden schooner called the Lucette, heading to parts unknown.
Douglas, the eldest son, told the BBC his father had made few preparations for the trip, though he had been in the British merchant navy. For 17 months at sea, the family faired well, sailing from port-to-port and seeing the world. But on June 15, 1972, the family encountered a group of killer whales off the coast of the Galapagos Islands.
The whales attacked the boat, splintering it and severely damaging it. The ship was taking in water. All they had was a lifeboat and a small dinghy, and just six days worth of food. They survived on rainwater and hunted turtles, adrift at sea, hoping to ride Pacific currents to the middle of the ocean, which would then push them toward the Americas.
After 16 days, the raft was no longer usable, so the family their one inexperienced crew member fled to a dinghy. It was a 10 foot boat far over capacity, but they managed to cling on until they were discovered by Japanese fishermen on July 23, 1972.
Harrison Okene
On May 28, 2013, divers in the wreckage of the Jacson-4 were attempting a triage of the vessel, which 100 feet down off the coast of Nigeria after capsizing. What they didn’t expect to find was a survivor.
Harrison Okene was the ship’s cook. He was in the latrine when the boat capsized, and tried to reach an emergency exit hatch but failed. The boat began to fill with water with Okene trapped inside. Eventually, he found himself trapped with a four square foot bubble of air.
After three days, he had given up hope. Then he heard a knock. It was the hammer of the divers working on the surface of the ship. Eventually, diving gear was brought to him and he was brought to a decompression chamber, where he had to spend two days. He had been at depths that should have killed him in a situation that took the lives of everyone else on board.
Unsurprisingly, he vowed never to go out to sea again.
Endurance Expedition
Ernest Shackleton had braved the south pole once, and we was ready to face it head on again in 1914, setting out with a group of 28 men. They hoped to make it all the way across the continent, arriving to a waiting ship at the other side. Instead, they became hopelessly trapped in the ice as their ship, the Endurance, fell apart.
Eventually, supplies began to dwindle, and the men took to their lifeboats, floating to an island that took 14 days in bitter Antarctic Seas to reach. From there, they had to mount another expedition to South Georgia Island, the nearest inhabited island, nearly 1,000 miles from their original starting point.
Despite multiple hardships, all 28 men on the mission survived, though some of the dogs weren’t so lucky (and were eaten as food supplies ran low.) Not as fortunate was the ship waiting on the other side of Antartica, the Ross Sea Party, which experienced three deaths.
Its amazing what we act can do when pushed to the limits. Inspirational ,Thanks Dan