Buzz
Dying from freezing is the exact opposite of succumbing to flames. Both are horrifying ways to die, but freezing usually takes much longer, leaving victims to endure a slow, shivering demise. However, hypothermia is more likely to be survived than immolation.
Over time, several humans and animals have been frozen to the point where survival seemed impossible, only to be revived and live on. Most emerged unscathed, though some required amputations. These are their remarkable tales.
10. Jean Hilliard
In December 1980, Jean Hilliard was driving down a road in Minnesota when her car slid into a ditch. It was an exceptionally cold night, with temperatures plummeting well below zero. She left her vehicle in search of help at a nearby house, but no one was home. The next house offered no luck either.
She was just a short distance away from a third house, 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from her car, when she collapsed a mere 4.6 meters (15 feet) from the door. Homeowner Wally Nelson discovered Jean’s lifeless body the next morning. She was frozen solid and encased in ice. Wally initially thought she had passed away. He described her face as 'ghost-white' and her body as 'rigid like a Popsicle.'
Wally soon realized Jean was still alive when he heard her make a faint sound. He carefully carried her to the back seat of his car and drove her to the hospital, unable to place her in the front seat due to the stiffness of her frozen body.
Dr. George Sather noted that even Jean's eyeballs had frozen. Her feet inside her boots were also frozen. The thermometer was unable to measure her temperature because it was too low. Dr. Sather believed she was dead until he, too, heard her moan. He quickly wrapped her body in an electric heating pad and connected her to oxygen. Jean made a full recovery.
9. Justin Smith
In early 2015, Don Smith discovered the frozen body of his 26-year-old son, Justin Smith (center above), by the side of the road, some distance from their home in Tresckow, Pennsylvania. On the night of the accident, Justin had been drinking with friends in honor of another friend who had previously died in a car accident, an accident that John had survived.
At around 9:30 PM, Justin left the group and started walking home when he collapsed. He lay in the snow as the temperature dropped to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 °F) overnight. The next morning, around 7:30 AM, his father, alerted by one of Justin's friends, found him.
When the police and paramedics arrived, they found Don with his frozen son. They presumed Justin had passed away. A coroner was even on the scene to investigate the cause of death. Don also called his wife to inform her of their son's death.
However, medics performed CPR on Justin and airlifted him to a hospital, where his blood was removed, oxygenated, and returned to his body. After 15 days in a coma, Justin awoke. Although he survived, he suffered severe frostbite, requiring the amputation of some toes and both of his little fingers.
8. Ewa Wisnerska
You don’t have to be on the ground to freeze. In February 2007, 35-year-old paraglider Ewa Wisnerska found herself frozen in mid-air while paragliding over Manila, New South Wales, Australia.
Ewa was preparing for the World Paragliding Championships when a storm sucked her into the clouds. The storm relentlessly battered her with rain and hailstones the size of oranges as it swept her from around 760 meters (2,500 feet) to 9,750 meters (32,000 feet) in just 15 minutes.
Ewa lost consciousness as temperatures plummeted to minus 50 degrees Celsius (–58 °F), and she struggled to breathe due to lack of oxygen. About an hour later, she regained awareness but was unable to control her paraglider, as her hands and gloves were frozen. At the time, she was soaring at 6,900 meters (22,600 feet) and was soon engulfed by the clouds again.
The storm finally released Ewa about 64 kilometers (40 miles) from her takeoff point. By the time she landed, she was completely encased in ice. Thankfully, she did not suffer lasting injuries, though she did experience severe frostbite around her ears. She was treated in the hospital for one hour before being discharged.
Another paraglider, 42-year-old He Zhongpin, was not as fortunate. He was caught in the same storm, but tragically, he did not survive. His body was recovered nearly 80 kilometers (50 miles) from his launch point.
7. Beck Weathers
On May 10, 1996, 49-year-old Beck Weathers almost lost his life to frostbite during a failed attempt to summit Mount Everest. Prior to his journey to the Himalayas, Beck had undergone radial keratotomy surgery to correct his nearsightedness, a procedure involving tiny incisions in his corneas.
This became problematic as the shape of Beck's corneas altered with the rising altitude, impairing his vision. Mountain guide Rob Hall advised Beck to stop and wait for his return from the summit. Unfortunately, Hall got stuck farther up the mountain while attempting to assist another climber and tragically passed away the next day.
Weathers descended the mountain with other climbers until a fierce snowstorm caused them to lose their bearings. He lost his right glove, and his hand froze immediately. Soon after, he succumbed to both hypothermia and hypoxia. To make matters worse, strong winds blew him deeper into the storm.
The following morning, some climbers found Weathers buried in snow. His arm remained frozen, and his face was coated with ice. He was in a hypothermic coma, a state usually considered a precursor to death. At the time, no human had ever survived a hypothermic coma.
Weathers’s climbing companions believed he had died and left him behind. However, a mountain guide and doctor frequently checked on him for the next 24 hours, waiting for his death. Miraculously, Weathers woke up from the coma and survived. He later had parts of his face, foot, and arms amputated. Tragically, eight other climbers perished in the snowstorm.
6. Erika Nordby
In the early hours of February 23, 2001, one-year-old Erika Nordby wandered into the freezing cold outside her home in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She was only dressed in a T-shirt and diaper, offering no protection against the minus 24 degrees Celsius (–11 °F) temperature. She soon succumbed to the cold and froze in the snow.
Her mother, Leyla, awoke after 3:00 AM, puzzled that Erika wasn’t crying for food. After searching for her daughter, Leyla found Erika curled up in the snow outside. Fearing that she might injure Erika’s frozen limbs, Leyla carefully wrapped her in blankets.
Paramedics and police arrived shortly after and rushed Erika to the hospital. Doctors were preparing to hook her up to a heart-lung machine that would extract and warm her blood before reintroducing it into her body when, miraculously, Erika’s heart began to beat again. She woke up 24 hours later.
However, the events didn’t play out smoothly for Leyla. While Erika became known as the “Miracle baby,” Leyla became infamous as “the mother who left her baby in the snow.” The negative media attention forced Leyla to leave the area and relocate to a new home.
As for Erika, she would face bullying in school years later. Her peers frequently taunted her, referring to her mother’s struggles with alcohol and poverty. They even sang a mocking song inspired by Canadian musician Stompin’ Tom Connors, who had written about the incident.
5. Dosha The Dog
On April 15, 2013, a ten-month-old dog named Dosha was struck by a car after escaping from her home in Clearlake, California. Although badly injured, she survived the accident. A police officer later shot her in the head, intending to end her suffering when no one could identify her owner.
Mistakenly assumed to be dead, Dosha was taken to an animal shelter, placed in a body bag, and stored in a freezer for disposal. Two hours later, the shelter director was astonished to discover the dog standing up inside the bag when he opened the freezer. Dosha was eventually reunited with her owner and made a nearly full recovery, although she experienced some issues with her right ear due to the gunshot wound to her head.
4. Mitsutaka Uchikoshi
On October 7, 2006, 35-year-old Mitsutaka Uchikoshi fell into a stream while attempting to summit Mt. Rokko in Japan. Although he broke his pelvis, he remained conscious initially but lost consciousness the following day. He was discovered 24 days later by another climber, having been unconscious for the entire duration of his ordeal.
Despite not appearing to be frozen, Uchikoshi’s body temperature had dropped to 22 degrees Celsius (72 °F), maintaining a dangerously low temperature for an extended period. In addition to the hypothermia, he suffered from blood loss and multiple organ failures.
The case intrigued doctors, who considered it the first documented instance of human hibernation. They noted that Uchikoshi’s body had effectively shut down, slowly entering a state of hibernation as temperatures on the mountain dipped as low as 10 degrees Celsius (50 °F). Remarkably, he made a full recovery.
3. Stella Berndtsson
Anna Bagenholm held the record for the lowest body temperature ever recorded in a human until, on December 25, 2010, seven-year-old Stella Berndtsson froze in the ocean off Sweden’s western coast. When Anna was found, her body temperature was just 13 degrees Celsius (55.4°F).
On December 25, 2010, Anna left her home in Lyr, Sweden, with the intention of finding an imaginary treasure marked on a map she had drawn. The outside temperature was a frigid minus 12 degrees Celsius (10 °F). Her parents didn’t realize she was missing until some time had passed without them seeing her.
Neighbors organized a search party. Her father, Peter, traced her footprints to a cliff behind their house, where it was clear she had fallen. However, the tracks continued beyond the cliff, showing she had gotten up and walked toward the shore.
A fisherman, along with three helicopters and the coast guard, joined the search for the missing girl. One helicopter spotted her in the water and airlifted her to the hospital. By that point, Anna’s heart had stopped beating, and doctors believed she had died. They even told her parents there was little hope for her survival.
Doctors carefully began to warm her body. Hours passed before her heart started beating again. Twelve hours later, Anna opened her eyes but quickly shut them. It wasn’t until two weeks after her rescue that she began speaking again. Anna made a full recovery and, three years later, barely remembered the accident or her time in the hospital.
2. Anna Bagenholm
In May 1999, Anna Bagenholm, a 29-year-old radiologist, was skiing in the Kjolen Mountains of Norway with two colleagues when she tragically fell into a frozen stream. Her head was submerged underwater while her legs remained above the surface. Her colleagues attempted to pull her out, but the water was frozen solid, and she became trapped between rocks.
Despite the freezing water, Bagenholm found a small pocket of air beneath the ice. However, she began to sink slowly into the water. After struggling for 40 minutes to free herself, she stopped moving. She remained submerged for another 40 minutes until help arrived, by which time only her feet were visible above the ice.
At the time of her rescue, Bagenholm was frozen solid. She wasn’t breathing, and her heart had stopped. Her body temperature had plummeted to an astonishing 13.7 degrees Celsius (56.7 °F). Such an extreme low body temperature had never been survived by a human before.
Doctors connected Bagenholm to a heart and lung machine. Her blood was drained from her body, warmed, and then pumped back into her system. This process continued until, the following day, her heart began to beat again. She awoke from her coma 12 days after the incident. While she suffered nerve damage that kept her bedridden for a year, she eventually made a remarkable recovery.
1. Fluffy The Cat
On January 31, 2019, Fluffy, a cat from Kalispell, Montana, nearly froze to death after escaping from her owner's home. When her owner found her, Fluffy was covered in thick ice, frozen almost solid. She was rushed to a veterinary clinic, where they could not even measure her temperature because it was too low for the clinic's thermometers, which couldn't register below 32 degrees Celsius (90 °F).
Despite being frozen, Fluffy was not as stiff as expected. The vets carefully warmed her up using heating pads and hot towels. She went on to make a full recovery. Upon further investigation, the vets discovered that Fluffy had been injured, which prevented her from returning home, ultimately leading to her freezing.
