January 26, 1972. The Yugoslavian DC-9 was cruising at 33,000 feet when a bomb exploded in the cargo area. The plane broke in two and the pieces spiraled to the ground. After falling at least three minutes, the rear section impacted on a snow-covered slope and slid to a stop.
A bystander who happened to have been trained as a medic in the German army during the war found a body half out of the wreckage. It was pinned inside by a food cart and another body. The 22-year-old flight attendant was unconscious but alive. Her name was Vesna Vulović. She was the sole survivor.
Ironically, she wasn’t even supposed to be onboard. She shared a first name with another attendant and mistakenly took her place. Vesna suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae that left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, and two broken legs. She was in a coma for 27 days. But she had survived. After months of therapy, she regained all her physical abilities.
Vesna is in the Guiness Book of World Records for the highest fall without a parachute. If this had happened to you, no doubt you would consider it a miracle. But it is more complicated than that. At least 54 other people are the sole survivors of plane crashes. At least one person has fallen three miles from an airplane without a parachute and survived (he also hit a snowy slope). Some of these survivors may have been Christians but most probably were not.
Vesna Vulović once commented, “I’m not lucky. Everybody thinks I am lucky, but they are mistaken. If I were lucky I would never had this accident and my mother and father would be alive. The accident ruined their lives too.” She has also said that she does not think her survival was a miracle since 27 others died in that crash.
Psalm 91 says God can, and will, protect and deliver those who believe in him. This is not a guarantee that we will always be the sole survivor. But it is a Biblical truth that if we believe in Jesus as our Savior, nothing can ultimately harm our soul. When we have placed ourselves in the hands of Jesus, he will never let go of us.
________
Adapted by David Holwick from various sources, including:
Wikipedia.org articles on “Vesna Vulović” and “List of sole survivors of airline accidents or incidents.”
“Free Fall: The Free Fall Research Page” < http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffresearch.html >
“40 years on, woman who survived 33,000 foot fall still faces questions,” Matthew Day, Telegraph newspaper, January 26, 2012, < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepublic/9040863/40-years-on-woman-who-survived-33000-foot-fall-still-faces-questions.html > (article suggests that Vesna’s plane was not at 33,000 feet but was shot down by Czech interceptors at a much lower altitude; other sources say this theory is untenable, though Guiness apparently removed her name from the record because of it).
“Vesna’s Fall, Article #4,” Alan Bellows, < http://www.damninteresting.com/vesnas-fall/ >.