This is the strange but true story of Frane Selak.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video through and note down the timeline of the lucky-unlucky events in Frane's life. Also, note down the different means of transport involved in each accident.
After checking the answers, retell Frane's story in your own words.
You can check your answers by reading the transcript below.
Meet Frane Selak, an elderly music teacher from Croatia. And depending on how you look, at it either the world’s unluckiest or the world’s luckiest person to ever live.
His unbelievable yet true story begins on a cold winter’s day in 1962. Traveling from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik, a fault with the line caused his train to jump the track and plunge into the freezing river below. While other passengers were killed in the crash or drowned in the sinking wreckage, suffering a broken arm, Frane managed to escape and swim to shore. Little did Frane know at the time, but this incident marked the beginning of a series of bizarre events that would occur over the next 40 years of his life.
The following year while travelling aboard a small plane bound for Rijeka, disaster struck for a second time. Mid-flight, both engines stopped working, cabin pressure dropped, and the plane began losing altitude.
You might have thought that this was probably the worst thing that could have happened, but you’d be wrong. While the plane plummeted towards the ground, a malfunctioning door blew off, and poor Frane was sucked out of the aircraft. Tumbling through the air without a parachute, Frane must have thought he was a goner. But while the plane crashed into the side of the hill, killing all 19 on board, Frane somehow managed to land in a haystack and survived with only minor injuries.
Another two years went by before Frane’s next brush with death. This time while travelling by bus, ice on the road caused the wheels to lockup and the vehicle skidded through the safety guard and into the valley below. Four passengers were killed, but not Frane.
Tired or perhaps terrified of public transport, Frane began to travel mostly by car but that didn’t seem to help either. In 1970, his car engine burst into flames, but Frane was able to jump free before it exploded. Then three years later in 1973, the fuel pump in his new car ruptured causing another engine fire. But this time the flames were blown straight at him through the air vents, needless to say he survived this too albeit with less hair than he began with.
In 1995, he survived being hit by a bus. And in 1996, a careless truck driver forced him off the side of a mountain road. His car plunged 300 feet and exploded in a ball of flames but Frane wasn’t in it, having somehow jumped out of the window, he was found clinging to a tree, somewhere down the cliff face.
Now Frane’s story may have ended there, as since then Frane hasn’t been involved in any other death defying incidents, however there is one last twist to this man’s incredible story.
In 2003 at the age of 72, Frane bought a lottery ticket. His first one in over 40 years, he won the jackpot, safely securing his place as the luckiest, unlucky person to ever live.
