Buzz
Lightning strikes, bee stings, snake bites... some individuals experience an extraordinary amount of bad luck, while others seem to have a particular fondness for suffering. Nevertheless, the capacity of a select few to withstand such overwhelming pain is both awe-inspiring and, frankly, uncomfortable to witness.
Here are some individuals who have achieved records of unbearable pain. Most of them find themselves in these situations by accident, while a few have deliberately chosen this path—perhaps, 'insane' might be a fitting description. In the words of Pepper Brooks from Dodgeball: “Ouchtown, population you, bro.”
10. Fang You Very Much
Tim Friede, a man in his mid-50s from Wisconsin, who previously worked as a truck mechanic, has redefined the phrase “draining the snake.” As a part of his work with the California-based vaccine research company Centivax, Friede has intentionally been bitten by venomous snakes over 200 times.
Friede’s extensive list of potentially deadly bites includes encounters with cobras, mambas, vipers, taipans, rattlesnakes, and kraits. The goal of Centivax is to create a universal antivenom, which would replace the current snake-specific solutions that are prone to misidentification and stock shortages.
Friede is one of the few individuals capable of performing his hazardous job. In his youth, he kept a collection of venomous snakes and began extracting their venom. He realized that it was essential to develop some form of immunity in case something went wrong. To do so, he diluted the venom and injected himself to build tolerance.
This process, Friede admits, was far from perfect. In 2001, while extracting venom from his Egyptian cobra, it bit his finger. Friede, partially immune at the time, would have survived, but just an hour later, a monocled cobra bit him on the bicep. “Two cobra bites, back to back, within one hour,” he recalls. “I basically flat-lined and died.”
He fell into a coma for four days. However, to the benefit of both himself and science, Friede survived to continue his work. He describes his job, painful yet rewarding, as feeling like “a bee sting times a hundred.” Videos of him intentionally getting bitten have garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
9. To Be or Two Thousand Bees
On January 28, 1962, Johannes Relleke was working at the Kamativi Tin Mine near the Gwaii River in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). There, he experienced his first bee sting.
Then he was stung by 2,442 more bees.
Several remarkable things occurred next. Most importantly, Relleke survived, which raises the question of how many bee stings a person can endure before death. According to the U.S. Agricultural Research Service, a non-allergic person can survive up to 10 stings per pound, meaning a 200-pound individual could withstand more than 2,000 stings. Relleke came close to that threshold, surviving the ordeal with impressive resilience.
Still, the feat prompts curiosity about how 2,443 bees managed to find separate spots on Relleke’s body to sting—so much so that each stinger was carefully removed and counted in the hospital, earning Relleke the official Guinness World Record for the Most Bee Stings Survived. Though details are scarce, it is assumed that Relleke, working in a mine—a confined space where escape is difficult—disturbed a honeybee hive. Such an overwhelming number of stings likely wouldn’t have occurred outdoors.
In Zimbabwe, the incident has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname “The Relleke Massacre” because the area where he was found was littered with thousands of dead bees.
8. Mama-Rama
Ah, childbirth. As a proud father, I can attest that it’s wonderfully, beautifully…
… miserable. It’s a chaotic, painful, exhausting experience that no woman should ever have to go through. Even worse, the intensity of the pain is often downplayed on medical websites because, if it weren’t, people might stop having children altogether—a questionable decision even without the agonizing suffering. For instance, Healthline reassures expectant mothers that “pain is subjective… This means you may experience pain very differently from your mother or sister.” Translation: Ignore their brutal honesty about how unbearable it was. The site goes on to suggest pain relief strategies like massage (which feels pointless when your lower body is on fire) and visualization (which seems ineffective, full stop).
Valentina Vassilyeva, however, had no such digital reassurances because she was born in 1707. She and her husband Feodor were from Shuya, Russia. And it seems like there wasn’t much to do in Shuya because Valentina became pregnant 27 times between 1725 and 1765.
That’s not even the most jaw-dropping part—because those 27 pregnancies resulted in… wait for it… sixty-nine children, including 16 sets of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. Miraculously, all but two of the babies—one of the twin sets—survived, another remarkable feat in an era plagued by high infant mortality rates.
Feodor wasn’t done yet. After Valentina passed away, he remarried and fathered 18 more children with his second wife. They didn’t call him Feisty Feodor for nothing.
7. Ice Breaker
Hockey is brutal. It’s a sport filled with crashing wooden sticks, razor-sharp skate blades, brutal crosschecks, and, of course, semi-permitted brawls. It’s the only major sport where teams regularly employ an “enforcer,” whose job is basically to pummel the other team, penalties be damned.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of hockey players sport jack-o’-lantern smiles. Those who manage to go through their entire careers with all their teeth intact are considered lucky. But in 2010, one player, Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks, found himself less fortunate. During the second period of a playoff game, Patrick Marleau of the San Jose Sharks tried to clear the puck from his team’s zone. He launched the puck high and fast… straight into Keith’s mouth.
“I just knew immediately,” Keith said later. “I took one breath, and it felt like my whole mouth was gone, so I knew some teeth were missing.”
Broken teeth flew out of his mouth, one even lodging in the back of his throat. Keith lost an astonishing seven teeth from a single shot—three on top and four on the bottom (though the dentist ultimately replaced ten). While there is no official statistic for “most teeth lost on a single shot,” it is believed that Keith holds the NHL’s dental record.
Remarkably, Keith actually returned later in the same game, though a few ounces lighter. His unfortunate luck and immense toughness earned him the nickname “Duncan Teeth.”
6. Choking Hazard
Sports can scar not only the body but the soul, raising hopes before inevitably crushing them. On the field, the other shoe—or cleat—always seems ready to fall.
In 2004, the New York Yankees were leading a best-of-seven series by three games to none. With one out left in the final inning, the game’s best reliever was pitching. They went on to blow the series in what is considered the greatest collapse in baseball history. Interestingly, the 2022 Yankees had a 15½-game lead that evaporated. If they fail to win their division, they’ll hold unwanted records for choking in both the playoffs and regular season.
In American football, the most infamous postseason meltdown belongs to the 1992 Houston Oilers, who held a commanding 35-3 lead over the Buffalo Bills in the third quarter. They went on to lose, 41-38. Ironically, the Bills were in the middle of their own historic nightmare, having lost four consecutive Super Bowls between 1990 and 1993.
Individual chokes are equally fascinating psychological mysteries. Golf, a seemingly trivial game played by serious players, is a prime example, as even the most skilled golfers sometimes manage to turn victory into defeat: At the 1966 U.S. Open, Arnold Palmer squandered a five-stroke lead with only four holes remaining.
But the most devastating golf collapse belongs to French golfer Jean van de Velde at the 1999 British Open, who only needed a six—or a double-bogey—on the final hole to win. In what remains one of the most tragicomic sequences in golf history, he shot… a seven.
5. Lucky Shot
In the United States, getting shot is unfortunately all too common. After all, for every 100 Americans, there are 120 guns. That’s 20% more guns than people… with a population of 330 million… that comes out to… let’s see… carry the 1…
...just under 400 million guns. For perspective, the country with the second-highest firearm-per-person ratio is Yemen, the supposed liberal utopia, with 53 guns per person, followed by the war-torn Syria, where there are 39 guns per person. USA! USA!
So yeah, it’s pretty easy to get shot—and even easier to get killed by one in the U.S. Nearly 50,000 Americans died from gun-related incidents in 2021. With this level of gun activity, it's no surprise that the record-holder for surviving the most gunshots is American.
In August 2010, 23-year-old Angel Alvarez was leaving a party in New York City when he was confronted by another man, Luis Soto. One of them (it’s unclear who) had a gun, and they struggled. When several police officers intervened, the gun discharged. The officers assumed the shots were meant for them and fired back… a total of 46 times.
One officer accidentally shot another officer. Soto was struck multiple times and died. Alvarez, however, survived despite being shot twenty-three times. He was cleared of any wrongdoing, aside from a weapons charge.
4. Feel the Burn
A quick Google search for "worst burn survivor" leads to one name: Jacqueline Saburido. In 1999, Saburido, a 20-year-old passenger in a car in Caracas, Venezuela, was involved in a horrific crash when a drunk driver collided with their vehicle in his SUV. The driver of Saburido’s car died instantly, as did another passenger.
The impact caused the car to catch fire, trapping Saburido inside. She sustained second- and third-degree burns on 60% of her body. Doctors didn’t hold out much hope for her survival, but against the odds, she lived, despite being severely disfigured. Remarkably, Saburido turned her traumatic experience and altered appearance into a platform for advocating against drunk driving.
Saburido’s fame may be the reason she’s the top search result for burn survivors. However, in recent years, another survivor has likely surpassed her in terms of severity. In May 2017, a Colorado couple, Jamie and Troy Ketchum, were traveling with Jamie’s parents when a dump truck’s tire blew out and crashed head-on into their SUV. Jamie’s father died on impact, and while the rest of the passengers were injured, none as severely as Jamie, who endured burns over a staggering 95% of her body.
Both of Jamie’s legs and one arm had to be amputated. She spent over a year in the hospital’s burn unit—425 days, to be exact. But despite her extensive injuries, Jamie survived and is determined to walk again after receiving prosthetic limbs.
3. Unlucky Seven
Roy Sullivan was born in 1912 in Greene County, Virginia, and grew up during the hardships of the Great Depression. He developed a deep love for the national parks, especially as they were undergoing extensive improvements thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s public works initiatives. In 1936, Sullivan became a park ranger at Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. A strong, rugged figure who resembled actor Gene Hackman, Sullivan could have easily been cast in a Western.
In April 1942, while seeking refuge from a thunderstorm, Sullivan took shelter in a newly constructed fire tower. But the tower was struck by lightning, setting it ablaze and forcing him to flee. He managed to get only a few yards before another lightning strike hit him, singeing part of his leg and toe, and burning a hole in his shoe. He survived.
Things seemed fine for about 27 years, until 1969, when Sullivan was struck by lightning again. And then again, and again. Over the next eight years, he was hit by lightning a total of six more times—seven strikes in all—and survived each one.
The circumstances of these lightning strikes are downright bizarre. One happened while he was sitting in his truck, which, being made of metal and with rubber tires, should have been a safe refuge. He was also struck in his own front yard and even inside his ranger station, an incident that left his hair on fire.
By the time Sullivan was struck for the fourth time, he was thoroughly convinced that storm clouds were tailing him wherever he went. This idea was so ingrained that many people began to avoid him at the slightest sign of bad weather, fearing that a lightning bolt might strike them too.
2. Testicle Fortitude
Amandeep Singh is the epitome of toughness. The 40-year-old stuntman is capable of smashing beer bottles with his bare hands and hoisting two motorcycles simultaneously, one on each side of a weight bar. As if that’s not enough, he can also lift two people, totaling 330 pounds, using only his teeth.
In his native Punjab, Singh has earned the well-deserved nickname of “India’s Steel Man.” Just this past July, he set a new record in international bodybuilding by winning his 28th competitive medal.
However, it was a series of extraordinary stunts performed by Singh in 2016 that truly set him apart—not necessarily as the world’s strongest or toughest man, but perhaps the most daring. Among his feats, he shattered 53 beer bottles with his bare hands, used ropes to halt 20 speeding motorcycles, allowed cars to drive over his abdomen, let a commercial truck roll over his lower back, and even allowed full-grown men to jump off ladders and land on his chest with a heavy stomp.
However, one particular stunt left spectators both stunned and cringing. Amandeep Singh became the first known person to endure being struck in the groin with a sledgehammer… not once, not twice, but an astounding ten times. To prove that the hammer made direct contact with his most sensitive area, Singh placed a brick over his private parts and allowed the sledgehammer to smash it in half. That is, without a doubt, nuts.
1. Miracle Miles
In June 2017, a 14-year-old girl survived a 25-foot (7.6-meter) drop at an amusement park, thanks to the quick actions of bystanders who cushioned her fall. The whole incident was captured on video and broadcast on various news outlets. The girl hung in the air for a moment before finally dropping, giving the good samaritans below a chance to position themselves beneath her. Would she have made it without their intervention?
“The odds of surviving a 25-foot fall… depend on several factors, including the speed at which you’re falling,” explained Dr. Robert Glatter of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He went on to mention that falls from heights of over 30 feet (9.1 meters) often result in severe injuries to the spleen, liver, and lungs, along with blunt chest trauma and broken ribs.
The median lethal fall distance is 48 feet (14.6 meters)—roughly equivalent to four stories. This means that 50% of people who fall from that height are unlikely to survive. The likelihood of death rises to 90% when the fall reaches seven stories or more.
So, what’s the highest recorded fall survived? Maybe twelve stories? Fifteen? Or could it be a miraculous 25-story drop into a cushion of soft snow?
Wrong… the true record is more than two-thousand stories. In 1972, Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulović was aboard JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 when a bomb exploded in the luggage compartment, believed to be a terrorist attack. The explosion occurred while the plane was cruising at an altitude of over 33,000 feet. Everyone perished… except for Vulović, who plummeted a staggering six miles (77 kilometers) without a parachute—setting a Guinness World Record. Despite suffering a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, shattered legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis, she made an astonishing recovery.
