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American History

The Real Robinson Crusoe, and Other Fascinating Historic Survival Accounts

Survival - The Marooning Of Alexander Selkirk. Survival And Buschcraft

Saved From a Car Accident by Not Wearing a Seatbelt

Survival - Frano Selak survived many close brushes with the Grim Reaper - then won a lottery
Frano Selak survived many close brushes with the Grim Reaper – then won a lottery. Notinerd

The 1970s were no less hazardous for Frano Selak than the 1960s had been. The decade began with his car erupting into flames while he was driving. He managed to jump out just before the fuel tank exploded. In 1973, a bad pump sprayed his new car’s engine with hot oil while he was driving. It caught fire, and shot flames into the passenger compartment. Selak escaped with no worse than singed hair. The 1980s were uneventful, but then in 1995, he was hit by a bus. He escaped with only minor injuries.

The following year, Selak barely avoided a head on collision with a truck on a mountain road – but only by swerving into and through a guardrail. His car fell 300 feet down a gorge. Luckily for Selak, he was not wearing a seatbelt. He was flung out the door, and in cartoon fashion, managed to hang on to a tree branch, while his car was totaled and incinerated below. Then in 2003, fate finally decided to do Selak a solid with no strings attached: he won €800,000 in the lottery – equivalent to U$1.1 million.

Written by

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.

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