On this particular day, Salt Lake City's emergency services call on Sergeant Mitch Vetere. Accustomed to rescuing lost hikers, he goes to the scene they tell him of without any anxiety. In his 35 years of service however, he has never experienced this...

It's September 2nd 2021. A family reports the disappearance of their little boy, Anthony, in the community of Putty, in New South Wales, Australia. Quickly, law enforcement sets up a strategy to find this little tot, but it's not going to be easy. There are 3 major problems. He is only 3 years old, he suffers from autism, and above all, Anthony is alone in the bush, an infertile desert known to be deadly...

Obeying the orders of a superior in the army? Yes! But for how long? This is the question that Hiroo Onoda, born in Kamekawa, Japan, on March 19th 1922, should have asked himself. Growing up with his six brothers and sisters, he began working at the age of17 at the Tajima-Yoko Nail Polish Import and Export Company. At the age of 20, when he was called up for military service, his fate changed. Assigned to the 218th infantry regiment in Nanchang, he underwent several months of intensive...

You can be a hero at any age, at least that is what Saroo Brierley, whose real name is Sheru Munshi Khan, teaches us through his story. Born into a very poor family in Khandwa, India, to a father who forced his mother to work in public works and his children to beg in railway stations, and then abandoned the family. One night in 1986, in order to feed their mother and siblings, Saroo and his brother Guddu, after a day of begging at their city’s train station, hop on a train, and then transfer...

On June 29th 2009, Bahia Bakari, 12 years old, gets on a plane for the first time in her life. Accompanied by her mother, she takes off from Paris to go to the Comoros. Unfortunately, the Airbus A310-300 of the company Yemenia Airways will never land... The crash takes place near Grande Comore, in the Indian Ocean, and 152 people lose their lives.

The doctor and biologist Alain Bombard, 30 years old, decides to prove 2 things to the world. Firstly, that a human being can live at sea, on a lifeboat without food, without water, with only a tent, a sextant, a fishing line, a net and a knife. According to him, mental strength is what makes you survive! Secondly, that a lifeboat can be seaworthy. A year earlier, to confirm his theories, he decided to coat his body with fat to withstand the cold and swim across the English Channel. And he...

The place is Sweden. A few miles from the town of Umeå, close to the Arctic Circle. This municipality is the twelfth largest city in the region and is also known as the capital of Norrland. Two men are riding along on their snowmobile. The temperature outside is -20°F; the men spot, on the forest road in the distance, the roof of a car covered with a thick layer of white powder. They stop and begin clearing the snow, until they discover a man lying on the back seat of the vehicle, in a...

Jack Churchill graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England, in 1926. He left the army in 1936 to become an editor for a daily newspaper in Kenya. Then he branched off into modelling, and even film acting. Indeed, his mastery of medieval weaponry, especially the sword and the bow-and-arrow, landed him roles in 2 movies: Jack Conway’s 1938 comedy “A Yank at Oxford”, and the 1940 adventure film "The Thief of Baghdad".

Some people believe everything that happens in the world has been written in advance. If that’s true, then this titanic story hasn’t finished making the rounds! It all began in Southampton on April 10, 1912. Edmond and Michel, natives of Nice in the south of France, were only 2 and 3 years old when they boarded the TITANIC with their father. Their parents were in the process of divorce, and as the cause was adultery, the separation was ugly. Unable to bear the fact that the custody of his...

In 2013, Nigerian Harrison Okene was working as a cook on a tugboat: along with other vessels, his boat was working to help a supertanker 30km off the coast of Nigeria. The only problem was a storm. In the early morning of a new day of manoeuvering, a gigantic wave capsized the boat he was on and broke the cable that was holding it to the supertanker.

This American woman had already made about thirty parachute jumps when she jumped out of a plane on September 25, 1999, at an altitude of nearly 4400 meters. However, when she realized that her parachute was defective, she struggled to get rid of it and to activate the emergency one. The latter opened only 200 meters from the ground: Joan Murray fell to the ground at a speed of 130 km/h... If the impact did not kill her, it was because the American had just landed on a huge anthill,...

Here is the story of Julian Koepcke : on December 24th, 1971, on board a Peruvian domestic flight, the then 17- year-old girl's life is about to be turned upside down. Juliane and her mother are on their way to join her father at a scientific research station. As the plane flies over the Amazon jungle, it gets caught in a violent storm...

Born in 1918 on a Chinese island, Poon Lim is a young man when the Second World War breaks out. In 1942, he works on a British merchant ship carrying goods across the Atlantic. The ship has left South Africa, heading for Suriname, also known as Dutch Guiana. Although armed, the ship is an easy target because it's not reinforced, it travels alone and it's not adapted for quick manoeuvres in a combat situation...

The date is October 12th 1972, and the rugby team from Montevideo - the capital of Uruguay - is on its way to Chile with the staff and families of the players to play a friendly match. Due to bad weather conditions, the plane makes a stopover in Argentina and the next day, Friday October 13th, the Urugayan Air Force Flight 571 takes off again, heading for the city of Santiago del Chile. However, the weather is still bad, and the pilots have to orient themselves mainly with the aircraft's...

In the world of ultra trail, the Marathon des sables is one of the most famous races but also one of the most feared. Due of its extreme length - nearly 150 miles - the MdS is completed in 6 timed stages spread over 7 days. Moreover, the Sahara desert, where the race takes place, is particularly hostile and unsuitable for running : sand, rocks and dunes, make the travel challenging ; all in extreme heat (over 110 °F during the day) but with negative temperature once night falls. When Mauro...

On August 9th 2006, a Taiwanese ocean liner discovers a boat adrift. Three young men from Mexico were onboard : Salvador Ordonez, Jesus Vidana Lopez and Lucio Rendon. The sailors, aged between 27 and 37, must have been touched by grace : they have been drifting for nearly ten months...

Beginning in the 1990s, so-called commercial ascents of Everest became quite popular. Amateur climbers led by experienced guides set out to conquer the roof of the world at their own peril. Beck Weathers was one of those passionate, sometimes internally tormented, people who want to live an extraordinary experience. Unfortunately, in May 1996, he almost lost his life...

Chris Lemons is professional diver from Scotland. His job : maintenance of underwater gas and oil pipelines and platforms. A hazardous occupation, what with the dangers of decompression and the risks of drowning. In 2012, Chris is with his team in a hyperbaric chamber that would be their home for the next few weeks on board a huge ship : four teams of three divers will take turns on this mission, and Chris is delighted to be reunited with colleagues who have an excellent reputation...

Sergey Ananov is a seasoned adventurer. But nothing could have prepared him for what he endured in the summer of 2015. On July 25th of that year, he boards his helicopter alone, heading for Greenland. It is day 42 of his round-the-world helicopter trip. The Russian wants to become the first person to circle the globe in a helicopter weighing less than a ton. He does not have many miles left to go. Halfway through his 6-hour flight, flying over the icy Canadian Arctic, his helicopter has a...

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It was one of the most powerful hurricanes in the history of the United States, a category 5, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Such intensity caused extensive property damage and cost over 1,800 people their lives. Some of the remaining residents of New Orleans managed to escape. One astonishing case is undoubtedly that of Gerald Martin, 76 years old, found alive 18 days after the the hurricane’s passage.

Barely protected beneath its skull, the human brain is a fragile little thing that does not usually appreciate being pierced. And yet, the American Phineas Gage survived not a simple bullet impact but a 3-foot long crowbar that went straight through his brain. His case has been studied by scientists ever since...

At the end of the 1920s, crossing the Atlantic was a challenge, that only a few daredevils managed to accomplish. Among them were the pioneers of the Aéropostale, the well-known mail-carrying airline of the early days of aviation. Henri Guillaumet was a regular on the South American crossings. Until his 92nd, which proved to be one too many. Poor Henri, would have to be very resistant, indeed, to cross the snowy Andes Cordillera on foot... it was a matter of life or death.

We all know the story of Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on a deserted island. He must have found time very long. But there are worse things than being alone on an island : there is the story of the man who drifted almost alone on a 23-foot boat for over fourteen months. He struggled against hunger, thirst and madness. It was a matter of life or death.

The date is May 23rd 1971. Nicole Viloteau, 25 years old, is a journalist and a photographer. She is also a snake-lover. During a road trip with friends, she takes an inventory of the pet snakes she’s brought along with her. They all look half-stunned by the heat. She opens one of the bags, labeled Elaphe obsoleta, the non-venomous rat snake. But instead, a rattlesnake pops out -- and immediately, it bites Nicole on the lip ! Something has to be done. It's a matter of life and death.