Isn't He Dead by Now? Trivia Quiz

Answer: He was discovered by the Japanese Navy

Lt. Louis Zamperini was a long-distance runner who had formerly competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he finished eighth in the 5,000 meter race. After crashing into the ocean on a search and rescue mission, he and Lt. Russell Phillips survived on rainwater and fish for 47 days before reaching the Marshall Islands and being discovered by Japanese forces, who took them prisoner and tortured Zamperini. Zamperini survived that trauma, was transferred to another prison, and eventually liberated in 1945.

Answer: 4,000

Rawicz escaped with six other prisoners and the assistance of the warden's wife. They hiked south. Three prisoners died as they worked their way across the Gobi desert and the Himalayas. By the time he reached India, Rawicz was a mere seventy pounds. He lived until the age of 88, and his story has been told in the movie "The Way Back."

Answer: 133

A British merchant ship set sail from Cape Town in November of 1942. One of the seaman on board was Poon Lim. A few hundred miles off the South American cost, the ship, the Benlomond, was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat. Poon Lim was the sole survivor. The Chinese seaman got aboard one of the ship's rafts and clung to life for 133 days. His source of clean water was a water tank he miraculously found floating in the wreckage. Eventually, however, he lost his water, and at one point, he resorted to catching a bird and drinking its blood.

Lim was rescued by fishermen off the coast of Brazil, and found to be horribly sunburned, 30 pounds lighter than when he set out, and a bit sick to his stomach after all the raw fish he'd eaten.

Answer: The World Trade Center in New York City

The 270-poiund, six-foot-two structural engineer was one of only 23 people in or below the towers to survive the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He was rescued by fire fighters who tied a rope around his waist to help lead him through the debris and down beams before placing him on a stretcher.

Answer: Cut off his own arm

Ralston was making a solo descent of Utah's Bluejohn Canyon when a dislodged boulder pinned his wrist to the side of the canyon wall. He was trapped there for five days before he resorted to cutting off his own arm with his pocketknife. He then manage to rappel down a 65-foot-drop before hiking seven miles to safety.

The 2010 movie, "127 Hours," is based on his story. The near-death experience did not prevent him from returning to mountaineering, however.

Answer: A train

While working in the rail yards in Cleburne, Texas, Duncan slipped and fell on the tracks. He was pulled under a rail car, dragged 75 feet, and cut almost in half at the waist. One of his legs remained attached by only a single muscle. He was taken to Texas Health Hospital in Fort Worth and underwent 23 surgeries. Both his legs were amputated, but he survived.

Answer: An appendectomy

The sixth Soviet Antarctic expedition, held in the midst of the Cold War in 1960 to 1961, was manned by twelve researchers including Dr. Rogozov. He diagnosed himself with acute appendicitis. Using only a shot of Novocain for the initial incision (he had to remain sharp during the procedure), he operated on himself.

Answer: Grigori Rasputin

The mystical Russian monk Rasputin was at Flexi Yusupov's home on December 30, 1916. According to Yusupov's account, he ate two poisoned tea cakes and drank three glasses of poisoned wine without much effect. Yusupov later shot him in the chest. He was left for dead while Yusupov and his fellow conspirators covered their tracks, but when Yusupov returned to check on him, Rasputin leapt up and attacked him. One of the other conspirators shot Rasputin, and then they all bound his body and dropped it into the Malaya Nevk River just to be extra sure.

Prior to his murder, Rasputin had also survived an attempted assassination by stabbing in 1914.

Answer: Alive

In Strauch's own account of the incident, "Out of the Silence: After the Crash," the survivor describes his time being stranded in the Andes as an experience that "united me with the universe and with other living beings in a profound way." At the time of the crash, Strauch was on a flight transporting an amateur rugby team from Uruguay to Chile.

Answer: Life of Pi

In 1981, the naval architect departed Rhode Island onboard the sloop the Napoleon Solo, which he had designed and built himself. He sailed the sloop to Bermuda and then La Coruņa, Spain. Then he sailed out to the Canaries. After departing the Canary Islands on January 29, 1982, the Napoleon Solo was holed and took on water during a storm. Callahan made his escape in an inflatable life raft after managing to secure some survival gear from the boat, including a spear gun, some food, navigational charts, flares, and even solar stills for producing drinking water. Once he ran out of food from the ship, he survived by catching fish. Finally, on April 21, 1982, he was picked up by fishermen and taken to a local hospital on the island of Marie Galante.