Books and films are often written about unlucky and unhappy people, and we enjoy reading and watching them and empathising with the characters. But in life we want to be lucky. And there are people in the world who are pathologically luckiest. They managed to survive cataclysms which killed a great number of other people or received untold gifts from fate. And sometimes one person might be lucky enough to survive a grandiose “tram-ta-ra-ram” with little or no loss, and receive some solid present from Providence.

Frane Selak

At the Luck Championship, had there been one, this Croatian music teacher would surely have come far from last place, and would probably even have broken through to the top.

In 1962, a train whose passengers included Selak derailed and fell into a river. This tragedy claimed the lives of 17 people, but Frané Selák escaped with hypothermia, a broken arm and minor injuries. A year later, he was on an aircraft in a plane crash that accidentally opened its emergency door, killing 19 passengers. But the teacher escaped with minor injuries as he fell into a haystack.

In the years that followed, the man survived several more gruesome car accidents, fires, a sudden explosion of his own car. But then the string of nightmares came to an end. And in 2002 Frane Selak bought his first ever lottery ticket and won a whopping £600,000. And he gave it all away to relatives and friends. Perhaps he wanted to repay the higher powers for their goodwill by doing good to his family and friends.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi   

The Japanese man was originally from Nagasaki, but was on a mission in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. He survived the atomic bombing there. Unharmed, he returned to his hometown. And there, on August 9, he survived another atomic bombing. He was also unharmed.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi became an anti-war activist after these incidents. The man lived a very long life: He died at the age of 93.

Bill Morgan

The milestone in the life of this American was in 1998, when after an accident he found himself in hospital. He spent 14 minutes in the state of clinical death, stayed in a coma for a long time. He woke up when his relatives had already given up hope and wanted to consent to the man being disconnected from life support.

To the doctors’ enormous surprise it turned out that clinical death and coma had no adverse effects on the patient’s brain.

Shortly after leaving hospital, Bill Morgan bought a lottery ticket that won him a car. He was then invited to a TV show where cash prizes were drawn. And Morgan won $25,000 there.

Joan Ginter   

Between 1993 and 2010, this woman won four times the jackpot in various lotteries, and her total winnings amounted to 20.4 million dollars.

However, people who know Joan personally say it wasn’t just luck. The woman is a mathematician by training and she has an excellent understanding of probability theory.

Roy Sullivan

The man’s luck is of a special kind. He has survived seven lightning strikes that would be fatal for any other person.

The first incident happened to the man when he was a child. Then they happened throughout his life. Sometimes there were repercussions and even hospitalisation. But nothing fatal has ever happened.