Every person has probably had a moment in their life where they might have died or been lucky to avoid some serious pain. Sometimes the chance of what happens is so small though that you can only believe that an outside force influenced the outcome.

Next time I go into a casino, here are ten people I would like by my side. Below are ten amazing stories of people who have truly cheated death.

1. 33,000 Foot Free-fall

Vesna Vulovic was happily serving drinks 33,000 feet up in the air in 1972. She was living her dream, working as a flight attendant. A few moments later though she was living her nightmare. A Croatian terrorist group had chosen her flight as the one they wished to blow up. So, lovely Miss Vesna found herself free falling from 33,000 feet, but like all the other passengers she

hadn’t packed her parachute. Against all the odds she survived – with just two broken legs, her back broken in three places, and a fractured skull. This is one Guinness World Record I don’t recommend trying to beat.

2. Dead for 78 Minutes

Fabrice Muamba was a soccer player playing in front of 40,000 fans when his heart failed and he collapsed during a game on March 17^th 2012. From that moment, all the way to the hospital and then in the hopsital, he was dead. For 78 minutes his heart didn’t beat. Every minute that passes it becomes less likely that the person can be resuscitated. Miraculously, after 78 minutes Fabrice was brought back to life and within a month he had left hospital. He is now walking around happily with few ill effects from the experience. I wonder if Fabrice could choose my lottery numbers for me?

3. Hit By Lightning

If you fancy competing for another entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, you could try getting hit by lightning 8 times. The record is held by American, Roy Sullivan, who in the period of 25 years managed to get struck by lightning seven times – and he doesn’t even play golf! The result of being struck by lightning so many times: losing a nail, singed eyebrows, burned hair, stomach, chest and shoulder burns. He also lost a couple of hats – which would suggest to me that hat wearers are more likely to be struck by lightning.

4. Shot in the Head

In January 2011, US Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was holding a constituency meeting. A gunman entered the meeting and shot her in the head at point blank range. Miraculously, she didn’t die and is now continuing to make great strides to walk and talk again. A testimony to the resilience of the human brain.

5. Missed Flight

Drinking too much kills, but sometimes it can save your life. Just ask Jaswant Basuta, who was heading back to New York after a wedding in Scotland. He had a few hours to kill and decided to spend them in the comfort of the airport bar. He then looked up to see the gate was closed for his plane and his drunken pleading at the gate wasn’t enough to get him on the flight. While he slept it off, the plane was attacked by terrorists, blowing up over Lockerbie in Scotland. Another demonstration of the health benefits of scotch.

6. Flying Boulders

Sometimes life and death can be a matter of one tenth of a second. Three people travelling along a road north of Kelowna in America were lucky to be alive after a 200kg boulder landed on the front of their car. There were some construction works going on along the route and a huge demolition boulder had gone loose and landed on the car travelling down the road. The vehicle’s hood was crushed in the incident, but the people inside the car managed to escape unhurt. Just two metres further down the road and it would have been a different story.

7. A Meteorite in My House

If you want to stay alive then hiding out in your house ought to be pretty safe, right? Wrong! In Alabama in 1954, Ann Hodges was having a quick nap on her living room couch, just relaxing in a blissful dream. Next thing, a meteor the size of a melon crashed through her roof and proceeded to bounce off the large wooden old-style radio in the lounge on the way to hitting her on her arm and hip. Badly bruised, but still able to walk, legend says she simply went to sleep in another room.

8. 6 Storey Fall

“Your child has fell out of the window, come soon,” is not really the phone call you want to receive when you are at work. However, this guy’s son had tumbled down six stories, landed on a bush, and then rolled out of that bush into some mulch on the ground, which helped soften the impact. However, he had still fallen six stories. When Faazil Syed’s mother looked down out of the window, she saw him getting up and brushing himself off. As she arrived at the bottom of the stairs, she found some maintenance workers trying to get the boy to stop moving. However, the child wouldn’t have any of it. He had just had a fun tumble. He got up, walked over to his mother and cried a little bit. After one day of observation he was released from hospital – a true miracle.

9. A Big Hole in My Head

Perhaps one of the most famous stories of defying the call of death is Phineas Gage. He was a railway worker and was using gunpowder to fill a hole. He added sand, a fuse, and packed the charge down with a big compressing iron. Unluckily for him, the gunpowder blew up while he was doing this and the iron bar powered through his cheek bone and flew out the top of his head – it was later recovered some 25 metres from the site of the incident. A few minutes later legend says he was up and walking. However, the hole in the head removed the part of his brain that controlled social behaviour. He was alive but never quite the same!

10. The Firing Squad

During the Mexican revolution in the late 19^th century many people were executed – but no one witnessed this in quite the same way as Wenseslao Moguel. He was sentenced to execution without trial after being captured by opposing forces. Like all the others he had no choice but to line up for his fate. He was shot nine times, which included a last bullet through his head from close range to ensure his death. Miraculously, Wenseslao survived and was able to escape. More so, he was also able to live a normal life after these events. The moral of the story is to shoot someone ten times if you want them dead.