Читать книгу Extreme Survivors: 60 of the World’s Most Extreme Survival Stories - Collins Maps - Страница 7

Having spent my life in so many dangerous and at times unforgiving terrains, I have learnt that to come out the other side alive you have to find the spirit to keep going, whatever the cost. Each of the stories in this book tells of that same spirit in those who endured. As individuals we cannot conquer a mountain or a storm, but we can learn to harness nature’s elements, and our own limitations, to see almost any ordeal through.

Appropriate preparation and experience are essential for any expedition, but they are no guarantee of safety. Even the wariest of adventurers can fall foul to difficult conditions, faulty equipment or lapses in concentration. Only by keeping calm and finding confidence in their own abilities will they stand a chance of passing through the constant threats thrown up by nature. Within this book are stories of those who ventured out with an awareness and appreciation of the danger ahead, but who faltered, rallied and survived: Joe Simpson’s horrific fall on Siula Grande in 1985; Aron Ralston, trapped by rocks and forced to amputate his arm; Ernest Shackleton’s epic South Georgia expedition and his determination to return his stranded men alive.

Alongside these, are the stories of great difficulty and suffering, but endured by those who survived without that experience and equipment. These are the horror stories that defy the statistics. Tales of plane crashes, kidnappings and prison escapes, the stories of ‘everyday’ people unprepared for the hardest conditions: eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad, the sole survivor of a light-aircraft crash, who descended over 8,000 ft engulfed in a blizzard; Cambodian journalist Dith Pran’s four years of starvation and torture under the Khmer Rouge, and his desperate escape when the regime was overthrown; the three young Australian girls who walked for 1,600 km through the desert to find salvation.

There are so many compelling character traits to admire in all the survivors featured in this book, even in the ‘bad-guys’ – the bank robbers and prisoners who escaped or the hijacker who vanished into legend. These people, too, show the enduring spirit for survival, adventure and for freedom. They were motivated to escape whatever it was that restrained them. It is the same motivation felt by many adventurers to avoid the nine-to-five, the desk job and the pension scheme. Fear of injury and death must be ever-present during a daring escape, just as on a dangerous climb, but the fear of the mundane, of accepting the humdrum, can be far more terrifying. And, of course, there is a price to pay for high adventure – in unending sweat, fear, discomfort and pain.

But no one ever said it would be easy.

BEAR GRYLLS