3 days ago
He escaped a train wreck, a plane crash, a cliff fall and more, then won the lottery: The unbelievable life of Frano Selak
Frano Selak
, a mild-mannered
Croatian music teacher
, never dreamt that his name would one day be whispered in awe across continents. Born in 1929 in a quiet corner of Croatia, Selak's life didn't begin with drama. But as fate would have it, his ordinary existence transformed into a bizarre series of brushes with death—each more unbelievable than the last.
The first stroke of fate hit in 1962 when a train he was travelling in derailed and plunged into an icy river canyon. Seventeen passengers drowned, but Selak survived with a broken arm and hypothermia. The world might have already called that a miracle, but fate had only begun its strange game.
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Falling From the Sky
Just a year later, in 1963, Selak boarded a plane for what would be his first and last flight. Mid-air, the plane's door malfunctioned and blew open. In a terrifying twist, Selak was ejected from the aircraft. Miraculously, he landed in a haystack—alive—while the plane crashed, killing 19 people. According to Ripley's
Believe It or Not
, this was just the beginning of his incredible saga.
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Undo
In 1966, a bus he was travelling in careened off the road and into a river. Four lives were lost, but not Selak's. Once again, he swam to shore. By this point, his resilience seemed supernatural.
— alphabravo1947 (@alphabravo1947)
Fire, Flames, and Fortune
The next decade brought fresh threats, this time on wheels. In 1970, his car engine caught fire while he was driving. He escaped just before it exploded. Three years later, another car spat flames through its air vents due to a malfunctioning fuel pump. He lost his hair but not his life.
By 1995, Selak had survived five major accidents. But destiny wasn't done. That year, a city bus hit him in Zagreb. He walked away. The following year, while swerving to avoid a UN truck, his car plunged off a cliff. Selak, unbelted, was thrown from the vehicle and managed to grab a tree branch. Below him, his car exploded 300 feet down. Once again, he lived.
From Cursed to Blessed
After what many would call a cursed life, Selak's fate took an unexpected turn. In 2003, just two days after his 73rd birthday, he won €900,000 in the lottery. He bought a house, a boat, and married for the fifth time. But in 2010, he gave away most of his fortune to family and chose to return to a simpler life.
While Selak's tales have not been independently verified and some details remain inconsistent, his legend endures. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 87, but his story continues to intrigue and inspire.
A Life Too Strange for Fiction
Was Frano Selak truly the world's luckiest man—or simply the most accident-prone with divine protection? Perhaps he was both. His life raises the age-old question: is it luck to have faced death so often, or to have survived it every single time?
Whether fact, fiction, or a bit of both, Selak's extraordinary tale remains one of the most sensational and emotionally charged human stories of survival the world has ever known.
