Beating the odds is always a great feeling. Just ask anyone who has ever won the lottery been accepted to a selective college or unexpectedly won an athletic event. But beating the odds is never quite as exhilarating an experience as when the odds are against your survival.
Tami Oldham Ashcraft knows this feeling. At the age of 23 while she was sailing the South Pacific Ashcraft was caught in a violent hurricane. The 50-foot (15-meter) waves overturned her boat. Ashcraft who was below deck was knocked unconscious. When she awoke 27 hour later the boat had turned right side up again but the storm had been so violent that the sails were destroyed the motor was dead and the radio was lost. Only the rudder which steers the ship was intact. Ashcraft was badly injured and disoriented.Determined to survive Ashcraft created a sail from scraps of material and charted a path to Hawaii which was 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away. Traveling only two miles an hour Ashcraft reached her destination 41 days later. Having lost 40 pounds (18 kilograms) during her ordeal Ashcraft was thin and haggard when she arrived. However she was happy and grateful to have beat the odds. Ashcraft who still sails eventually told her tale of survival in a book called Red Sky in Mourning.
Another such tale of survival against the odds can be told by Eric Le Marque a hockey player who played with the French national Olympic team during the 1994 Olympics. One day in February 2004 Le Marque set out for a day of snowboarding in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. But by the end of the day Le Marque found himself in a life-or-death situation.
While looking for a good place to snowboard Le Marque lost his way and ended up in the wilderness at the back of the mountain. Le Marque who had expected to just be out for a couple of hour had no food very few supplies and his cell phone battery was dead. All he had was a seemingly useless MP3 player. Once he realized he was lost he decided to keep moving. Unfortunately he chose the wrong direction and over the next few day moved farther and farther away from safety and rescue. Knowing that eating snow lowers body temperature Le Marque ate only tree bake and pine seeds.
After a few day Le Marque had an idea that my have saved his life. He turned the radio on his MP3 player into a kind of compass. He noticed that whenever he pointed the player in a certain direction the reception for a local radio station grew stronger. Using this radio reception as a guide Le Marque switched direction and started walking towards safety and, ultimately, rescue.
For day Le Marque struggled through hunger freezing temperatures and 12-foot (4 meter) deep snow. By the eighth day Le Marque was so weak and his legs were so frostbitten that he could no longer walk or even stand. He was in such bad condition that he began hallucinating that his situation was just a video game. He recalls thinking “The game is over Let’s reset it. I give up”. Le Marque was at the point of exhaustion and death when he was found by rescuers in a helicopter. Although he lost his legs to frostbite Le Marque’s survival experience left him with more of an appetite for life than ever before. After being fitted with artificial limbs he vowed to go snowboarding again. Only in the future he plans to be much better prepared.
Occasionally some own their survival not to struggle but to simple luck. Take the starting case of Mitsutaka Uchikoshi. One ice-cold October day in 2006 Uchikoshi had been at a party on a mountain in western Japan. After wandering of into a field on his own Uchikoshi tripped hit his head and was knocked unconscious. As Uchikoshi remembers “I was in a field” and I felt very comfortable. That’s my last memory”. He remained unconscious I almost-freezing temperatures without food or water for more than three weeks.
When he was found in the freezing field 24 days after his fall he did not seem to be breathing and had no detectable pulse. His body temperature was nearly 30 degrees below normal and his organs had nearly shut down. Doctors assumed he was dead. Yet something incredible happened while he was at Kobe City General Hospital: He woke up! Even more incredibly Uchikoshi who was treated for severe hypothermia and blood loss made a full recovery. Doctors believe that Uchikoshi’s body went into a state similar to hibernation. In hibrtnation the body temperature of an animal is lowed and its breathing and heart rate slow down. Hibernation reduces the need for food and protects animals from damage to the brain and other organs.
Stories like these remind us that even when we are in a situation that seems impossible we should never give up hope. After all these is always a chance that you will succeed-against the odds!