4 People Who Survived Stuff That Would Kill A Terminator

4 The Skyscraper Fall

Alcides Moreno fell from the 47th floor of this Manhattan building and survived:

He did not fall freely though those 500 feet, true. He was on a window-washing platform, because he was a window washer. But this platform measured 16-feet long and 3-feet wide, and when both cables securing it to the building’s scaffolding broke loose, it didn’t offer a great deal of protection as it plummeted and took him with it. The way doctors saw it, this platform raised the chances of his surviving the fall from “impossible” to “impossible, but he survived anyway.” His brother, on the same platform with him, died, which is the usual and obvious outcome when you hit the ground at 120 miles per hour.

Firefighters moved Alcides “like a fragile egg” from the spot where he landed, and in the hospital, he received a dozen quarts of blood. He spent the next three weeks with limited consciousness, his wife periodically stroking him in hopes of bringing him back. Then, on Christmas Day 2007, he reached out and touched the face of the woman next to him. Unfortunately, this woman was a nurse, not his wife, but this mistake wasn’t considered a huge deal in the grand scheme of things.

Doctors started out by hesitantly announcing that the man would live, while conceding that he’d likely never walk again. He did go on to walk again, including doing organized walks to raise money for charity. He himself received a large enough settlement from the scaffolding company that he never had to work again, which he thought was a bit of a shame. He went on to say that he missed washing windows. He liked looking at how clean windows were right after he wiped them. 

3 Skydiving into the Asphalt

Our next survivor fell from slightly higher than 47 stories up. Shayna Richardson fell from 10,000 feet up, because she was skydiving. Like most skydivers, she wore a parachute, which is generally a good idea in such situations, but hers failed to deploy. Her reserve chute opened only partially. That second chute saved her from hitting the ground at terminal velocity, but she did hit it at 50 miles per hour, with her face and pelvis striking the ground first. 

Some of the few people who survive skydiving accidents land on springy grass. Richardson hit an asphalt parking lot. Surgeons had to cut open her face to chuck out all unsalvageable bits of shattered skull, which they replaced with steel plates. The pelvic and leg fractures were slightly easier to treat, and as for the six teeth she lost, we hope whoever found them used them in some cool arts and crafts project. 

Then, while she was in the hospital, doctors discovered she had been pregnant when she jumped out of that plane. If she’d known she was pregnant, she wouldn’t have gone skydiving, and pregnancy’s also a concern when being subjected to all the CAT scans and MRIs she went through, but the doctors didn’t pay much heed to it now, since there was no chance the pregnancy was ending with a live baby either way, right?

But that pregnancy did end with a live son in the end. So, we guess we can ignore all those instructions doctors give about taking precautions when pregnant. If high-velocity pavement impacts don’t hurt a fetus, surely a little vodka or MMA fighting can’t either. 

2 Stabbed 54 Times

Alison Brotha was also told she wouldn’t give birth following her injury. In her case, it wasn’t so much because any specific pregnancy had been affected but because she’d been stabbed in the abdomen 37 times, which meant her uterus was just one of several organs that might never work again. 

The abdominal stabs were actually some of the less severe injuries she suffered during her encounter with two rapists in South Africa in 1994. While those stabs would presumably kill anyone, it was the 17 additional stabs to her neck that left the attackers fully confident that they’d murdered their victim. But then she got up. With one hand, she held her head upright, because she had otherwise been nearly decapitated. With the other, she held a shirt to her torso to keep her intestines from tumbling out. 

She made it from the wilderness to a road, where a passing driver took her to the hospital. She recovered, she went on to have a kid a decade later, and she’s still alive today. Most recently, she’s been seeking donations for medical expenses — not for anything related to that attack, since it’s been 30 years since then.

As for the two men responsible, authorities found them:

Their names are Frans du Toit and Theuns Kruger, and they offered a novel defense — the devil made them do it. Well, it wasn’t entirely novel perhaps, as South Africa was having its own Satanic panic around this time. Du Toit then claimed that an exorcism cured him of his demon possessing him, but that didn't save the two of them from being sentenced to life in prison. 

Like Brotha, they are both alive today. They were both paroled in 2023. 

1 Impaled by a Pole

Elsewhere in South Africa is the world’s deepest gold mine, called Western Deep Levels. A gold mine offers all sorts of dangers, of course. Maybe you’ll blow yourself up with dynamite. Maybe you’ll inhale dust that destroys your lungs over time. Maybe you’ll try smuggling gold out by hiding flakes of it in your mouth, and then the inspector will catch you and hit you with his club.

Daniel De Wet was two miles underground in 2015 when he fell on a crowbar. “Crowbar” is the object’s official name, but this was five feet long and sharpened on one end, and De Wet was using it to stir up mud for a dam they were working on. When he landed on the metal, it speared him through his groin and went right through his body, coming out high in his back. 

The other miners scrambled to fetch the supervisor, but it turned out De Wet was the supervisor. So, he supervised them, telling them to calm down and radio for help. According to him, he felt zero pain at this point, and we’re just going to go ahead and let him say that. Once he was raised to the surface — slowly, as he was so deep that rising quickly could give him decompression sickness — he thankfully lost consciousness so he didn’t next have to supervise the doctors who operated on him.

The pole obliterated one kidney and tore apart a lot of his guts. But the operations succeeded, and he was out of the hospital in three weeks.

A couple years later, he ran a marathon. So, if you’re planning on just relaxing this weekend, what’s your excuse exactly? 

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