In nineteen twenty one, Ada Blackjack joined four men on an expedition to remote Wrangel Island, north of Siberia. She was an Iñupiat seamstress and mother who accepted the job largely because she needed money to reunite with her son, Bennett, who was suffering from tuberculosis.

When a relief ship failed to arrive, food became scarce. Three men eventually left across the sea ice seeking help and disappeared. Ada remained behind caring for Lorne Knight, who was seriously ill with scurvy. After Knight died in June nineteen twenty three, Ada was left alone except for the expedition cat, Victoria.

She had not gone north to become an explorer. Now everything between her and her son depended on learning how to survive.

On November twenty third, nineteen forty two, British merchant ship Benlomond was torpedoed by German submarine U One Seven Two in the South Atlantic. Chinese seaman Poon Lim survived the sinking and eventually reached a small wooden life raft. He would become the ship's sole survivor.

The raft initially contained emergency food and water, but Lim remained alone for one hundred thirty three days. As the original supplies disappeared, he collected rain, improvised fishing equipment, caught fish and seabirds, and continually adapted whatever materials remained aboard the raft. Three Brazilian fishermen finally found him near the coast of Brazil on April fifth, nineteen forty three.

His story was not simply about tolerating isolation. It was about repeatedly turning objects designed for one purpose into the next thing he needed to stay alive.

In nineteen fourteen, Ernest Shackleton sailed south aboard Endurance with twenty seven other men. His goal was to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. But before the expedition could even reach the continent, the ship became trapped in pack ice on January nineteenth, nineteen fifteen.

For months, Endurance drifted helplessly with the ice. At first, Shackleton hoped the ship would survive until warmer conditions freed it. Instead, pressure from the moving floes gradually began crushing the wooden hull.

The expedition had come south to cross Antarctica. Now twenty eight men had a simpler problem: survive long enough to escape it.

In November nineteen twelve, Australian explorer Douglas Mawson left Cape Denison with Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz to explore the Antarctic coast. More than five hundred kilometers from base, Ninnis disappeared into a crevasse along with a sledge carrying much of the party's food and equipment.

Mawson and Mertz turned back, surviving on shrinking rations and eventually their remaining sled dogs. Mertz died during the return journey, leaving Mawson to continue alone through extreme cold, injury, hunger, and heavily crevassed terrain. On February eighth, nineteen thirteen, he finally reached Cape Denison.

His survival depended on expedition experience, improvisation, equipment that continued to function, and several moments when chance could easily have produced a different outcome.

In April two thousand three, twenty seven year old mountaineer Aron Ralston was exploring Bluejohn Canyon in Utah when a falling boulder trapped his right arm against the canyon wall. He was alone, far from help, and nobody knew exactly where he had gone.

For more than five days, Ralston rationed his remaining water and tried unsuccessfully to free himself. When he realized that waiting meant almost certain death, he made an extraordinary decision that allowed him to escape the canyon and begin the journey toward rescue.

His survival was shaped by experience, improvisation, physical endurance, an extreme decision, and the chance encounter that finally brought help.

On May twenty sixth, twenty thirteen, the tugboat Jascon Four capsized in heavy seas off the coast of Nigeria and sank upside down to the ocean floor. Ship's cook Harrison Okene became trapped inside the wreck at a depth of about thirty meters, while the other eleven crew members died. ([Maritime Executive][1])

Okene found an air pocket inside the overturned vessel and remained there in darkness, cold, and rising water for roughly sixty hours. Divers later entered the wreck expecting to recover bodies and instead discovered him alive. ([Maritime Executive][1])

His survival depended on the existence of one remaining pocket of air, the structure of the wreck, the timing of the recovery dive, and extraordinary luck.

On July twenty fourth, two thousand two, miners working at the Quecreek Number One Mine in Pennsylvania accidentally broke into the flooded workings of an abandoned neighboring mine. Water rushed through the opening. Nine miners escaped, while nine others became trapped roughly two hundred thirty feet underground and about a mile and a half from the mine entrance. ([MSHA][1])

The trapped crew moved to higher ground and stayed together while hundreds of people above them drilled toward their position and pumped enormous quantities of water from the mine. After roughly seventy eight hours underground, rescuers lowered a capsule through a borehole and brought all nine men safely to the surface. ([MSHA][2])

The investigation later found that inaccurate information about the abandoned mine workings had placed the crew far closer to the flooded mine than they believed. ([MSHA][3])

In nineteen eighty two, sailor Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone when his small sailboat was badly damaged and began sinking west of the Canary Islands. He escaped into a tiny inflatable life raft with only limited food, water, and survival equipment. ([The Guardian][1])

For the next seventy six days, Callahan drifted across the Atlantic, catching fish, producing small amounts of drinking water with solar stills, repairing his damaged raft, and repeatedly watching ships pass without seeing him. ([The Guardian][1])

His survival would eventually depend on experience, improvisation, the continued survival of his equipment, and a small ecosystem that formed around his raft.

On December twenty second, nineteen seventy two, Nando Parrado guided two Chilean Air Force helicopters back toward the wreckage of Flight Five Seven One. The flight into the mountains was difficult, but the crews eventually located the survivors who had been stranded in the Andes for seventy two days. Six were evacuated that day, while the remaining survivors were brought out the following morning. ([HISTORY][1])

Of the forty five people who had boarded the aircraft, sixteen ultimately survived. Their survival depended on improvised shelter, cooperation, difficult decisions about food, an expedition across the mountains, rescue infrastructure, and an extraordinary amount of luck. ([HISTORY][1])

Their story did not end when the helicopters arrived. It became one of the most closely examined survival cases of the twentieth century.

More than two months after Flight Five Seven One crashed, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio Vizintín left the wreckage to search for help. After climbing for three exhausting days, they reached a summit expecting to see the green valleys of Chile. Instead, almost everything ahead was still mountains. ([HISTORY][1])

Vizintín returned to the crash site so the remaining food could support the other two men. Parrado and Canessa continued west, descending toward valleys and eventually following running water until signs of human life began to appear. ([HISTORY][2])

After more than two months of isolation, their survival would come down to reaching one man standing on the opposite side of a river.