Despite all of our modern technology, it’s still possible to become hopelessly and completely lost almost anywhere. And when that happens, the odds of you getting found are beyond your control and almost undoubtedly stacked against you, that includes these cases. (Video is at the end of the post)
Number 10.
When police pull over this van, they find two suspects and one innocent woman inside who is bound by metal. The panic-stricken survivor tells police about her ex-boyfriend, Jack Morgan, and his new boyfriend, Samuel Brown, who pulled her out of her Las Vegas apartment, kicking and screaming, and stuffed her inside of the vehicle.
Jack Morgan and Samuel Brown eventually confess that they had been planning this abduction for over a year, though the details were never made public. Still, the rescued woman has no doubt that they would have taken her life had the police not intervened. And judging from how unhinged her ex-boyfriend was acting in the back of the police car, she was probably right.
Number 9.
Six hours after a two year old girl named Kamiyah Vicks was reported missing by her mother. It’s over 100 degrees outside and police are combing the blistering hot forest in Savannah, Georgia for any remaining traces of the small girl’s whereabouts. The wooded area is covered in dense greenery and it’s difficult to make out anything
in front of them.
It is starting to look like all hope is lost, but there is still plenty of daylight so they march on in a long row. The search team continues calling out to the child for quite some time, encountering tons of snakes and spiders all the while, when finally they get a loud and healthy response.
Leaning against the tree is the dehydrated two-year-old, tired and hungry but still alive. As it turns out, she had been missing since the evening of the day before, but her disappearance was not reported until the next morning. Exactly what happened before Kamiyah went missing is unclear. The mother has not been charged because she was in what police called a “crisis situation” when she lost track of her child. If someone could fill me in on what exactly that legal term means, I would greatly appreciate it.
Number 8.
This dramatic rescue footage was taken during the final hours of a fifty-man search mission in the English village of Brancaster, Norfolk. Peter Pugh is a seventy five year old author who somehow become separated from his group while walking along a beach at five o’clock in the evening. Eventually he accidentally wandered into a dense swamp at night and become more lost than ever before. It kind of looks like he is hiding from the rescue team, but the poor exhausted man is actually trapped in sharp reeds that have latched onto his clothing and skin. The ground gave way from under him and he has remained stuck in this uncomfortable position for the entire night, well into the next day.
It even looks like he is clutching at reeds to keep from sinking any further. A full twenty-two hours pass before he is finally airlifted to safety. If not for the efforts of this police drone, all fifty rescuers could have easily passed over him numerous times. They most likely would have found his remains weeks or even years later without this aerial view.
Number 7.
A YouTuber named Steve Ronin is excited to explore the Ape Cave in Washington with his friends. They are laughing and having a laid-back adventure for most of the video until they find a tiny wall opening that is almost too tight for any of them to fit into. After squeezing their way down a cramped tunnel they find something completely unexpected on the other side. A frightened girl without a flashlight has somehow become lost and missing in the deep underground caverns.
The group of friends eventually help bring her through the maze of tunnels and reunite her with her caretakers. It’s a happy ending, but I can’t help but imagine what would have happened if she wasn’t accidentally rescued. It looked like she was petrified with fear and not going anywhere on her own. With that said, it definitely would have been hard – if not impossible – to locate her in the dark with her tiny voice bouncing off the cave walls from all angles.
Number 6.
A woman is paying her respects to a family member in Brazil when she hears muffled noises coming from a nearby gravesite. She sees the earth moving and realizes with horror that someone is actually struggling to climb out. As it turns out, this person had gone missing for days after getting into an argument.
Someone beat him senseless and then took his unconscious body to the cemetery where they proceeded to bury him alive. Paramedics are able to determine a pulse and quickly excavate him from his shallow tomb just in time to save his life. Judging from this video, the poor man would have been a goner for certain if not for the grieving woman who just happened to be close enough to hear his cries for help.
Number 5.
A group of Vietnamese villagers are busy chopping firewood when they see two wild-eyed men running in the jungle. One of them is middle-aged and the other looks twice as old. It is the first time anyone has seen them in forty years. The older survivor is a villager named Tarn.
In 1973, he disappeared into the jungle to hide from American troops. His wife set off a land mine while holding two of his children, but he managed to escape with his third son, Lang, who was only two years old at the time. Together, Tarn and Lang survived off of the land for four full decades, devouring nothing but rice, fruit and vegetables while dressed in loincloths made of tree bark. They were totally isolated from society until they were discovered in living in a treehouse in 2013. I thought they would be more excited to be rescued, but I can’t help but notice how uncomfortable they both look instead, especially Lang, who truly is in a foreign world and
barely speaks the language. Check out the surprised expressions on their face and let me know if you think they would have preferred living a simpler life in the jungle after all.
Number 4.
A young boy from Weifang City, China goes missing while playing with some friends. The three-year-old somehow gets separated from the group and plunges thirty-three feet down a vertical pipe before getting stuck in a particularly narrow section. Now a dozen firefighters are working hard to get to him before he makes the full 300 foot drop straight down. The stale air is filthy and potentially contaminated down there, so their first step is to pump fresh oxygen to the child using hoses and tanks before he passes out.
With the child able to breathe again, they patiently monitor him with cameras and try to figure out the most safe and efficient way to bring him aboveground. It’s an extremely tense situation because one false move could send him even further below. At the same time, waiting too long would inevitably have the same result. If you happen to speak the language, tell me what this relative is saying here. After more than two hours of careful planning, they finally manage to remove the child using ropes and a safety harness. The child is physically okay but I can’t help but wonder how this intense emotional damage will manifest itself later in life.
Number 3.
Aldi Adilang is nineteen years old and making a living as a fisherman in Indonesia. One night, while fast asleep, his small fishing raft accidentally detaches from the dock and floats out to sea. It looks like a sturdy vessel, but judging from its size, the small raft was probably meant to navigate rivers, never the vast ocean. So imagine his absolute horror when Aldi wakes up miles from land without a clue how to get back home.
It was the beginning of a 49-day journey that almost ended his life. Supplies last only a couple days before dwindling to nothing, after which Aldi survives by eating fish and filtering sea water through his shirt. His tiny craft has no engine or paddles and every day he is forced to travel whatever direction the waters and wind carry him. Many ships pass him by without a second thought. Finally, after traveling more than 80 miles on the Pacific Ocean, this large ship travels close enough to pick up his radio signal.
They immediately turn around to help. Aldi still has to swim a terribly long distance across the open ocean to this boat and grab onto the ladder. It would have been terrible to let go and sink into the ocean after coming this far, but fortunately Aldi hangs strong and lives to tell his entire ordeal in person.
Number 2.
Scientists are measuring snow levels in various locations throughout the Andes Mountains when their helicopter briefly stops at a remote mountain cabin to resupply. Inside they find the emaciated frame of Raul Gomez, a man who has been missing for four months straight. He had been traveling from Chile to Argentina by motorcycle when a mechanical breakdown forced him off the road.
He found shelter and survived on whatever he could find in the months that followed, mostly raisins left behind in the cabin and rats that he caught in a homemade trap. Raul was originally called a hero, but apparently he was trying to escape from a dark history. The crafty survivor was reportedly fleeing the country after being accused of forcing himself upon a child. The last I could find, officials were asking for him to be returned back to Chile for trial. Unfortunately I don’t know if he was ever taken back and put to justice.
Number 1.
Hannah Anderson is a 16-year-old girl who has been the longtime obsession of James Dimaggio, a 40-year-old friend of the family. One day James snaps and takes out Hannah’s entire family before burning her garage down. Next, he takes Hannah all the way from San Diego, California to the backwaters of Idaho against her will.
She is busy fearing for her life when a group of horseback riders randomly spot the two of them in the forest. They don’t think anything of it until later when they receive an alert on their phones warning of Hannah’s disappearance. The horseback riders lead authorities back to the campsite where they last saw Hannah. Now an FBI jet is monitoring their every move from thousands of feet in the air. This is the exact moment when Hannah spots the aircraft and signals for help. She keeps waving for help while James tends to the campfire with his back turned. Relying on her bravery and quick wits, Hannah is able to quietly alert authorities without drawing suspicion. The FBI knows they have found their target and quickly sends in a squad on foot.
There is a short firefight and by the end of it, Hannah is safe and James is no longer alive.
Source credit: Mysterious Stories – Youtube
