Against All Odds

Life has a way of surprising us with extraordinary tales that challenge our beliefs and leave us astounded. In this article, we delve into two incredible stories of individuals who have defied the odds, braving near-death experiences and experiencing unparalleled strokes of luck. Prepare to be amazed as we unravel these captivating accounts of survival, resilience, and the enigmatic forces of fate.

Now, you know your odds of getting struck by lightning are 530,000 to 1. What you may not have known is that the chances of winning the lottery at least once in your life are five hundred thousand to one. The possibility of winning the lottery twice is almost zero. Now, this incredible story may seem like fiction since its events seem so unreal. It's unlikely that any director would want to make a film about this because the audience wouldn't believe it. You can easily find evidence on the internet if you don't think it either.

So here we are in Australia in 1998, meeting Bill Morgan. He lives on the outskirts of the country in a trailer park. Bill works as a truck driver, so he gets behind the wheel of his car and goes off to work. During the ride, he feels unwell. Bill stops the car and loses consciousness. Somebody notices him and calls an ambulance. They take him to the hospital. Doctors immediately determine that Bill has had a heart attack. They give him the necessary treatment with medications. But Bill's condition worsens because of an allergic reaction. His heart stops. From a medical point of view, if it doesn't beat for seven minutes, it means that a human has passed away.

Bill's heart hasn't been working for about 14 minutes. It seems there's no chance, but doctors continue to fight for his life. And then a miracle happens. Bill comes to life. The heart is beating again, but the patient's brain doesn't show signs of life. Bill is in a deep coma. A few days have passed. Doctors understand that Bill has a risk of remaining in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Even if he regains consciousness, his brain will still be damaged. Twelve days have passed. The doctors offer Bill's family to disconnect him from the life support machine, but they refuse to do it. At this challenging moment, the family meets a specialist from another hospital. He tells them about some experimental treatments that might help. They have no guarantees that Bill will survive, but at least they can try. The family agrees and transports Bill to another hospital.

After being treated with the new medication, Bill spends another 15 days in a coma. Then one day, he comes to his senses and goes on the mend. What happened to him is what doctors call a medical miracle. But absolutely wonders are waiting for him ahead. He returned to his trailer park on Melbourne's outskirts and continued living there with his girlfriend, Linda. Twelve months have passed. Bill works as a driver again. He proposed to his girlfriend and is preparing for the wedding. He gets into the truck and goes to the city on business. On the way, he stops by a store and buys a lottery ticket. He scrapes off the protective layer and realizes he's just won a Toyota Corolla, which costs about thirty thousand Australian dollars. Wow! Bill can't believe his eyes. Considering Bill had health problems after a heart attack and couldn't work much, the new car was a great gift.

A few days later, a local TV channel contacts him. Producers want to make a report about Bill. They were amazed, not because Bill got a lucky lottery ticket, but because he came out of a coma before that. And so, reporters come to him, take a short interview, and then go with him to the city in the new car. The director wants Bill to buy a lottery ticket and erase it on camera so that later, during the editing of these shots, the announcer tells Bill's story. So, Bill buys the ticket, goes to the table, and wipes the protective layer with a coin. His eyes widen. He takes the ticket and reads it several times. "I just won 250,000," he says and doesn't believe it. The cameraman thinks Bill is joking, but he looks pretty serious. This is not a joke, he says. He shows the ticket. Yes, it's true. Bill won the lottery for the second time and did it in front of the cameras. You can easily find the video on the internet and see his reaction to the event. Bill calls his girlfriend and tells her the good news. With this money, he finally moves out of the trailer and buys a real house. Life is getting better. Bill has his real estate, a car, and a beautiful wife. He regularly buys lottery tickets but wins nothing, at least that's what he says.

By the way, the luckiest person on the planet is Frano Selak from Croatia. One day, he was traveling by train. Something went wrong, and the train derailed. Several of the cars fell into the river. Frano miraculously survived. He was able to swim to shore and call for help. A year after these events, Frano was flying on a plane. Right in the sky, an emergency exit door ripped off the plane. Frano flew out with other passengers and was the only survivor. People found him lying in a haystack. They took him to the hospital. Frano has no serious injuries and left the hospital. A few years later, in 1966, the man had an accident on a bus trip. The vehicle left the road and fell into the river. Frano remained alive and unharmed. His adventures didn't end there. In 1970, he was driving his car on the motorway when his gas tank caught fire. Frano left the vehicle in time. It exploded in front of his eyes. Frano realized that some magic had been happening with his life.

He lived quietly for the next three years. All this time, he felt that something else bad was about to happen soon, and he was right. In 1973, a fuel pump spilled gasoline on his car and body at a gas station and caught fire. Frano survived again and got almost no damage. But there were two more severe disasters ahead of him. The first happened in 1995. He wasn't driving the car or sitting inside the plane. He was just walking. He crossed the road and saw a bus moving towards him. It was too late, and the bus hit him. Fortunately, Frano survived. He wasn't surprised anymore and just wanted these accidents to stop. The last thing happened while driving his car on a mountain road. Suddenly, a big truck appeared in the opposite lane. It was moving towards him at great speed. Frano managed to jump out of the vehicle and stay alive. His car exploded, and he got minor scratches and bruises.

It's hard to believe in such luck, or maybe it was bad luck considering that Frano had been in disasters so often. In any case, many people decided to verify the authenticity of these stories. It turned out that nobody could confirm plane and train crashes. There were no reports of these incidents. Perhaps Frano invented all this or added some fantastic details to make his story more unbelievable. We'll never know the truth, but one thing about this man you can know for sure. After all these trials, Frano got really lucky. He won almost half a million dollars in the lottery. He bought a luxury house but then sold it. After all the disasters that he has experienced, he realized that money wasn't the main thing. He married five times in his life. And so, after selling the house, he returned to a modest home to spend the rest of his life with his beloved fifth wife. All the remaining money Frano spent on a complicated hip operation and charity. Wow! Imagine if Frano had been an Uber driver. Would you get in the car with him?