Today's #quizzytime: If you were in a train that plunged into a river, hit by a bus, blown out of an airplane, your car erupted into flames while driving – twice, and once plunged 300 feet off a cliff...and then you won a massive lottery...who would you be?
Ans: Born in Croatia, Frane Selak has often been labeled the world’s luckiest unlucky man. In 1962, Frane Selak kicked off his decades of ducking death when a train in which he was riding skidded off the rails, and plunged down a canyon into an icy river. 17 passengers drowned,
But Selak got away with a broken arm and hypothermia from immersion in the cold water. In 1963, on his first and only plane ride, Selak was blown out of malfunctioning door, but again managed to escape death: he 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. The 1970s began with his car erupting into flames while he was driving. He jumped 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. He escaped with no worse than singed hair. The 1980s were uneventful, but then in 1995, Selak was hit by a bus.
He escaped with only minor injuries. The following year, he barely avoided a head on collision with a truck on a mountain road – but his car fell 300 feet down a gorge. Luckily for him, 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. historycollection.com/a-downed-pilot…
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