People Who Survived What Should Have Been Instant Death

Soul Surfer

TOM SERVAIS / AFP / Getty Images

On October 31, 2003, Bethany Hamilton was lying on her surfboard with her left arm dangling in the water. A near 15-foot tiger shark attacked her, severing her left arm just below the shoulder. Luckily, Alana Blanchard’s father, Holt, fashioned a tourniquet out of a surfboard leash and wrapped it around the stump of her arm.

She was rushed to the hospital where she had lost over 60% of her blood and was in hypovolemic shock. She spent three weeks in recovery before being released. Despite the trauma, Hamilton returned to the surfing world just one month after losing an arm.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not has a story of a man and a bullet that went through his head. The mystery to his survival is coming up.