Top 5 Unluckiest People Who Ever Lived
Thursday, June 3, 2010#1 – Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence
They have been caught up in three separate terrorist attacks during their vacations.
Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence, from England, were in New York during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Having experienced such a tragic event, they never imagined that they would ever be caught up in another terrorist attack in their lives, but four years later they were.
Jason and Jenny happened to be in London during the worst terrorist attack, the country had ever seen. A series of bombings took place, targeting the underground and overground transport systems, killing 52 people.
By now, Mr and Mrs Cairns-Lawrence could class themselves as the unluckiest tourists in the world, but just three years later, they would be in the wrong place at the wrong time once again.
In 2008, the couple took a vacation to the exotic Indian city of Mumbai. They couldn’t believe it when they were faced with yet another terrorist attack. This time there were more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308.
Jason and Jenny weren’t injured in any of the attacks, so there is a case to say that they are the luckiest couple that ever lived, but I sure hope they warn us about the next time they go traveling.
#2 – Roy Sullivan
He got struck by lightning seven times.
They say lightning never strikes twice, but it stuck Roy Sullivan a whopping seven times.
Roy was a U.S. park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and holds the Guinness World Record for the times lightning has struck one human being. Here’s a timeline of Roy’s strikes.
#3 – Tsutomu Yamaguchi
He was in the only two cities that have ever been hit by an atomic bomb.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb. He suffered serious burns and spent a night there to recover. He then decided to go back home to Nagasaki. Despite his wounds he decided to go back to work on 9 August and on that day, Nagasaki was the second city to be hit by an atomic bomb.
Yamaguchi survived both bombings, but it was not until 24 March 2009 that the government of Japan officially recognised his presence in Hiroshima three days earlier.
#4 – Henry Ziegland
He was shot by a bullet lodged in a tree, 20 years after he was injured by the same bullet in a shooting.
In 1883 Henry Ziegland broke up from his girlfriend. She was so distressed from the break-up that she committed suicide. Her enraged brother did the ‘heroic’ thing, and shot Ziegland and then took his own life with the same gun. Little did he know that the bullet had scraped past Ziegland and lodged itself in a tree behind him.
Ziegland must have thought he was the luckiest man alive. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side when he decided to remove the tree from his property, some 20 years after the original shooting.
Unable to perform the task manually, he decided to use dynamite. In the explosion the bullet became dislodged from the tree with such a force that it flew into Ziegland’s head, killing him instantly.
#5 – Ann Hodges
She is the only person on record to hit by a meteorite.
On November 30, 1954, Ann Hodges was in her living room, taking an afternoon nap on her couch when a meteorite crashed through her roof, bounced off a large wooden console radio, destroying it and hit her on the hip.
Ann Hodges is the only person on record to be hit by a meteorite. As a result, the media attention she got was huge. Offers for the historic piece of rock were coming in from around the country, some of up to $5,000. The whole world knew about the event, but she was uncomfortable with the publicity.
The United States Air Force came and collected the meteorite, but Ann’s husband, Eugene, hired a lawyer to get it back. Unfortunately however, by the time they got the meteorite back, over a year later, public attention had diminished and they were unable to find a buyer.
She decided to donate the 8.5 pound, grapefruit-sized meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, against her husband’s wishes, where it is displayed at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.