The World’s Unluckiest Lucky Man?
Frano Selak of Croatia has often been labeled the world’s luckiest unlucky man. Unlucky because he faced more than his fair share of horrific mishaps and accidents. Lucky because he survived those mishaps and accidents, some of which were of a type that nobody has any business surviving. His record of mishaps includes being in a train that derailed and plunged into a river. He was in a bus that skidded off a road and fell into a river. He was blown out of an airplane. His car erupted into flames while he was driving – twice. He was hit by a bus. His car hit a guardrail and plunged 300 feet off a cliff.
Selak’s decades of ducking death began in 1962, when a train in which he was riding skidded off the rails, and plunged down a canyon into an icy river. Seventeen passengers drowned, but Selak escaped with only a broken arm, plus hypothermia from immersion in the cold water. In 1963, on his first and only plane ride, in shades of twenty first century Boeing mishapas, Selak was blown out of malfunctioning door, and landed on a haystack. The plane crashed, killing nineteen people. Three years later, he was on a bus whose driver lost control, plunging it into a river. Four passengers drowned, but Selak survived with just some cuts and bruises. Selak’s unlucky lucky streak was not over.
