BEST OF (#71 OF 540) 12 INCREDIBLE SOLE SURVIVOR STORIES

1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries Podcast

Jon Hagadorn

Society & Culture, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our 12 stories: 1) Frank Finkel, survived Custer's Last Stand; 2) Vesna Voluvik, sole survivor of terrorist-caused airplane crash over Czech republic 1972; 3) Julieanne Koepcke, when her plane broke up, she fell two miles, strapped in her seat, and landed in the Amazon Rain Forest, where she survived 11 days with multiple injuries until finding help;, 4) Salvador Alvarenga, out for a day of fishing with his friend, was blown further out ton sea in a storm, and survived 438 days at sea with no supplies; 5) Aron Ralston, exploring a remote canyon in Utah, had is arm trapped by a boulder and after 6 days, realizing he could not free himself, cut off his own arm in order to survive; 6) William Bryden, a surgeon with the British Army in Afghanistan, survived an ambush that killed 4,500 of his fellow soldiers and thousands of non-combatants; 7) 13 tear old Bahia Bakari, with a broken collarbone, hung onto a piece of plane wreckage in the Indian Ocean for 9 hours in choppy water, to become the only survivor of that disaster; 8) Peter Siebold civilian astronaut on a Virgin Galactic flight, survived falling from 55,000 feet when the rocket disintegrated; 9) Lt. Col Vivian Statham, serving as a nurse in Indonesia in WWII, survived a massacre by the attacking Japanese as she and her fellow nurses were forced naked into the ocean before being shot in the back; 10) Ben S. Cauley, trumpet player for the Barkays, survived the plane wreck that took mthe lives of Otis Redding and most of the band; 11) Alexander Selkirk complained to his ships captain of the terrible working conditions aboard that ship and was marooned on a deserted island, where he survived for three years ; 12) Marcus Latrell, Navy Seal, survived an ambush by Taliban warriors in Afghanistan and went on to write his biography which became a movie.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Welcome back, everyone to one, the 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories, and Mysteries podcast.
0:36.9	This is your host, John Haggardorn. We're a proud part of the 1001
0:41.0	Stories Podcast Network. And right at the start, I'd like to remind you of two new shows that I think you'll like.
0:47.6	The first is 1001 Best of Jack London. Jack London was one of the most prolific adventure writers ever, and he wrote
0:55.5	more than adventure. Right now, you can catch his story, Unparalleled Invasion, a futuristic short
1:02.1	story that predicts the U.S. and Europe go into war with China in the 1970s, and using
1:07.8	biological weapons to destroy China's population.
1:19.0	London wrote the story in 1906, and it's fascinating, especially when you look at it in the light of current events.
1:23.4	The second is a heads-up for you, listeners, who enjoy a good romance.
1:30.0	Nationally known voice actor Elizabeth Clett has teamed with us at 1001 Greatest Love Stories and is narrating Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice now at 1001 Greatest Love Stories, so don't miss it.
1:38.6	And now, here's our collection of some incredible stories, most being sole survivor stories, that I think you
1:45.0	will enjoy. This topic fits neatly into our mysteries category and makes for some pretty interesting
1:51.0	listing.
1:56.5	The first story is that of Frank Finkel, the only survivor of General George Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
2:04.7	Custer's entire company was wiped out, but Finkel claimed he made it out, and the details he gave could only have been known to those who were there, details which became known in the years after.
2:15.3	We did this story way back when entitled it Custer's Last Stand, the Last Man Standing,
2:21.0	but I thought it was worthy of a short retelling here.
2:24.3	Frank Finkel was an American who rose to prominence late in his life
2:27.5	and after his death for his claims to being the only survivor of George Armstrong Custer's
2:32.5	famed Last Stand at the Battle of Little
2:35.3	Bighorn, June 25, 1876. Historians do disagree over whether Finkel's claim is accurate.
2:43.1	Although he did provide several details that would only have been known by someone who was at the
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