3. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
What are the odds? Once is too much. Twice is unheard of. But three times? British couple Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence may just be the world’s unluckiest twosome – or perhaps the luckiest, depending on how you look at it. They have been at the scene of the three highest-profile terrorist attacks of recent times. They were in New York City during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. They happened to be on a London double-decker bus during the 7/7 suicide bombings which killed 52 people and injured 700 more. The next year they took a holiday in Mumbai, when terrorists went on a shooting rampage, leaving 164 people dead. Thankfully, they weren’t personally injured in any of these incidents, but their bad timing is uncanny.
4. Lost in the Amazon
In 1981, 22 year old Yossi Ghinsberg had wrapped up two years of Israeli military service and decided to go on an extended backpacking adventure in South America. He met up with three other travelers, and the four of them naively embarked on an ill-fated journey through the Bolivian rainforest. Weeks in, the young men found themselves tired, hungry and hopelessly lost. Tensions led to the group splitting in two. A makeshift raft Ghinsberg and his buddy had made crashed down a waterfall, separating the two. Lost and now completely alone in the Amazon, Ghinsberg grew even more emaciated, desperate and despondent. He survived encounters with a jaguar, fire ants, a flood, venomous snakes and more. As it happened, his rafting partner had survived the waterfall incident and had been searching for his lost friend on a Bolivian boat. After some time, determining that their efforts were futile, the search party decided to turn back. Out of all the places in the Amazon jungle to randomly turn their boat around, they picked the very spot where Ghinsberg had collapsed unconscious. He turned this harrowing tale of survival into the bestselling book, Lost in the Jungle. Sadly, the two other backpackers were never seen again and are presumed dead.
