Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

A collection of survival tales includes the story of a teenager who fell two miles from an airplane and trekked through the Amazon jungle to safety and a woman who was trapped under freezing water for so long that her heart stopped.

Nando Parrado regained consciousness to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team, as well as family members and supporters, had crashed deep in the Andes. Many were dead or dying, among them his own mother and sister. Those who remained were stranded on a glacier at nearly 12,000 feet, with no supplies and no means of summoning help. They struggled to endure freezing temperatures, deadly avalanches, and then the devastating news that the search...

Explores the human capacity to survive extreme conditions, noting a phenomenon in which people in life-endangering circumstances often sense an unseen presence who offers encouragement and guidance.

"On May 19, 1942, a U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico stalked its prey fifty miles from New Orleans. Captained by twenty nine-year-old Iron Cross and King's Cross recipient Erich Wurdemann, the submarine set its sights on the freighter Heredia with sixty-two souls on board. Most aboard were merchant seamen, but there were also a handful of civilians, including the Downs family: Ray and Ina, and their two children, eight-year-old Sonny and eleven-year-old...

Nim loves her island home and the animals she shares it with even while her scientist father is away doing research, but trouble is on the way and a new e-mail friend could be the only one who can help.

They were supposed to be attending a volunteer dinner in their honor, but instead, Owen and Gray have been stranded in the middle of a raging blizzard. Once the storm subsides, the boys decide to try to find their way back to civilization. But with no food or water, freezing temperatures, and no help in sight, both boys begin to lose hope. Can they make it safely home, or will the frozen elements become too much for them to handle?

Contains over twenty true accounts by and about firefighters who survived life threatening situations in the course of their work.

Two episodes of the television series I shouldn't be alive. In Lost in the snow, a family is caught in a blizzard and must survive for days with no provisions and little hope for rescue. Jaws of death: after his plane crashes on an African game reserve, an injured pilot's only refuge from predators is his wrecked, fuel-soaked plane, which could ignite at any moment.

Twelve-year-old Kitto Quick, stranded with his stepmother, Van, a Wampanoag girl, and a baby rescued from a slave ship on the very island where Morris hid valuable spices, learns powerful secrets of his past. Includes author's note with historical background.

Marooned on a South Pacific island, Alexander Selkirk survived in complete solitude for more than four years. After his rescue in 1709 he became the real-life model for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.