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Amazing Survival Stories

January 23, 2012 by · Comments Off on Amazing Survival Stories 

Amazing Survival Stories, The cruise was a 60th-birthday gift from her children. But Nicole Servel ended up receiving the gift of life from her husband, Francis, who died that night. After the cruise ship Costa Concordia crashed on the rocks, he gave their only life jacket to his wife, who couldn’t swim.

According to Emirates247.com, the widow of the sacrificing Frenchman told RTL radio, “I owe my life to my husband.”

Just hours into the Mediterranean cruise, the Italian luxury liner hit rocks. Passengers were told to abandon ship, but the survivor said that the mentality was every man for himself. CNN reported that the scene was chaotic, with “a frantic rush by passengers to get on lifeboats, while the crew appeared helpless and overwhelmed to cope.”

Servel’s husband didn’t make it. He told his wife to “jump, jump!” and added, “Don’t worry, I’ll be all right.” She didn’t see him again. The Toulouse native floated on her back in the frigid, 8-degree water until she washed up on rocks and was rescued by local villagers.

With 4,200 passengers having been aboard the doomed ship, many harrowing stories of survival are emerging. A South Korean couple narrowly escaped death when rescuers heard voices from a cabin two decks down on the half-submerged ship late on Saturday. The newlyweds were on their honeymoon. The BBC reports that the couple, both 29, are in good health.

Shortly after the honeymooners were helped, an Italian crew member, Manrico Giampedroni, was found in the ship’s wreckage with a serious leg injury. Following his cries for help, rescuers located the 57-year-old near a submerged part of the ship; he had been trapped there for 36 hours.

According to Italian news reports, the cabin-service director had stayed behind to assist with the lifeboats, but when the ship began to lean, he fell and broke his leg. The senior crew member said he “never lost hope of being saved.”

A massive search of every cabin is ongoing, with teams of divers deployed to check the underwater rooms. Police are investigating the nature of the accident, given the calm conditions. Evacuating the ship in life boats was made “almost impossible” because the ship listed to one side so quickly, the president of Costa Cruises noted.

Man Survives Nail Brain

January 23, 2012 by · Comments Off on Man Survives Nail Brain 

Man Survives Nail Brain, A man has survived firing a nailgun into his own brain – in what surgeons worryingly said was not an unheard-of occurrence. Dante Autullo of Chicago thought doctors were joking, feeling sure he had only been grazed by the nail when it flew past as he was building a shed. Even when hospital medics produced an X-ray he was sceptical.

Dante Autullo, who thought his skull was only grazed in the nailgun accident, with neurosurgeon Leslie Schaffer. When they brought in the picture, I said to the doctor ‘Is this a joke? Did you get that out of the doctors joke file?'” the 32-year-old said. “The doctor said ‘No man, that’s in your head.'”

His companion, Gail Glaenzer, bathed what looked like a flesh wound after Autullo misfired the gun. He went on with his work, did some snow plowing and only agreed to go to hospital the next day after waking up feeling nauseated.

Autullo had surgery at Advocate Christ medical centre in Oak Lawn, where doctors removed the 3 1/4-inch (7.62cm) nail. It had come within millimetres of the part of the brain that controls motor function.

As he was rushed by ambulance to another hospital for surgery, he posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook.

“It really felt like I got punched on the side of the head,” he said, adding that he continued working. “I thought it went past my ear.”

There are pain-sensitive nerves on the skull but none within the brain itself – so Autello only felt like he had been hit in the head.

“He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he’s talking normal, he remembers everything,” Glaenzer said. “It’s amazing, a miracle.”

Autullo’s neurosurgeon, Leslie Schaffer, said the case was unusual but not extremely rare.

A nail did not go in like a bullet, which would break into multiple pieces, he said.

“This (the nail) is thinner, with a small trajectory, and pointed at the end,” he said. “The bone doesn’t fracture much because the nail has a small tip.”

Schaffer said Autollo’s skull slowed down the nail, which was removed by making holes on either side of its entry point and pulling it out along with a piece of the skull.

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