Buzz
If you believe your day is going poorly, take a moment to consider the misfortunes of some of the world's unluckiest people; it’s sure to brighten your mood. Many of these incidents are akin to having a turtle dropped on your head by a vulture… not once, but twice.
9. An entire village wins the lottery – except for one unlucky individual
Every year during Christmas in Spain, a massive lottery draw takes place, famously known as El Gordo, meaning “the fat one.”
The small village of Sodeto had every reason to celebrate when nearly all 70 households—except one—bought lottery tickets. Their lucky numbers (58268) were drawn, granting them a share of the enormous $950 million jackpot. Do the math: the villagers, mostly farmers and unemployed construction workers, became millionaires overnight.
Except for one unlucky man named Costis Mitsotakis. Poor Costis. The homemakers’ association, responsible for selling the tickets, had somehow missed his door. Tough luck.
8. The Man Who Attracted Lightning
It’s often said lightning never strikes the same place twice, but Roy Sullivan was struck an astonishing seven times. Yes, seven. As a park ranger at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, Roy holds the Guinness World Record for being struck by lightning more than any other person.
Consider this: the chance of being struck by lightning once in your lifetime is approximately 1 in 3,000. The odds of being struck seven times? A staggering twenty-two septillion to one. That’s 22 followed by 24 zeros!
You’d think after the sixth strike, most people would stay indoors or try their luck with lottery tickets—but not Roy! His final encounter with lightning was perhaps the most remarkable.
After being struck while fishing, Roy faced further misfortune when a bear attempted to steal a trout from his line. Despite his injuries, he mustered the strength to fend off the bear with a branch and reclaim his catch. Now that’s resilience.
7. The Cursed Bullet
When it comes to bad luck, few can rival Henry Zeigland—a man who believed he had escaped destiny. However, it might have been a case of poetic justice.
The story began in 1883 when Henry ended a relationship with his girlfriend, who tragically took her own life. Her brother, consumed by rage, swore to kill Zeigland at any cost. He tracked him down, shot him, and believing Zeigland was dead, turned the gun on himself.
But Zeigland wasn’t dead. The bullet had merely grazed his face and embedded itself in a tree behind him. He considered himself extraordinarily fortunate.
However, the tale didn’t end there. Years later, Zeigland decided to remove the tree, which still held the bullet. Finding the task too difficult, he opted to use dynamite to blow it up.
The explosion dislodged the bullet, which flew straight into Zeigland’s head, killing him instantly. Now, that’s either incredibly eerie or just plain unlucky.
6. The World’s Most Hairy Man
Ladies, if you think your partner is too hairy, think again. Consider Yu Zhenhuan, recognized as the hairiest man on the planet.
An astonishing 96% of Yu’s body is covered in hair due to a rare medical condition. He even needed surgery to remove hair from his ears because it was impairing his hearing.
A dense layer of black hair blankets nearly every part of his slender body, except for his palms and the soles of his feet. With an average of 41 hairs per square centimeter, doctors describe his condition as atavism. Clearly, he hasn’t been fortunate in this regard.
Yu has embraced his unique appearance, showcasing photos of himself on his websites, www.maohai.com and the aptly named www.hairboy.com, as part of his effort to secure a recording deal and rise as China’s next rock sensation.
Now, he’s on the hunt for a wife. It makes you wonder how far his journey will take him.
5. America’s Most Unfortunate Woman
Melanie Martinez, who lost four homes to four different hurricanes, is arguably the unluckiest woman in America. From Betsy in 1965 to Juan in 1985, George in 1998, and Katrina in 2005, her misfortune highlights the risks of living on Louisiana’s flood-prone plains.
However, the school bus driver’s fortune took a turn when a reality TV show chose her dilapidated home in Braithwaite, south of New Orleans, for a complete renovation. The crew spent a week and $20,000 upgrading her house with a new kitchen, cabinets, appliances, and even a 50-inch smart TV. “They did an amazing job. I absolutely loved it,” Martinez shared.
But on August 29th, the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, another disaster struck. Hurricane Isaac, a category 1 storm, swept in from the Gulf and devastated her home once again.
Martinez and her family, along with their five kittens and three dogs, were rescued by boat. Everything else was destroyed. “Now I’ve lost five homes to five storms. It’s a complete wipeout every time,” she lamented.
Melanie, maybe it’s time to find a hill to call home.
4. The Unluckiest Man in Britain
John Lyne, often dubbed ‘Calamity John,’ is considered Britain’s unluckiest man, having endured 16 major accidents in his lifetime. These include being struck by lightning, surviving a rockfall in a mine, and three car crashes. One incident even involved a catapult-launched stone smashing eight of his teeth.
Lyne’s misfortunes began at birth. Born into a farming family as one of five children, his survival was uncertain due to underdeveloped lungs. He required steroids and special care but, foreshadowing his resilience, he defied the odds.
His first brush with danger came at just 18 months old. Curious, he wandered into his grandmother’s bathroom and drank from a plastic bottle, unaware it contained disinfectant. He was rushed to the hospital to have his stomach pumped and his system flushed.
Perhaps his most infamous mishap occurred during his teenage years. After breaking his arm falling from a tree, he went to the hospital for treatment. On the way home, the bus he was on crashed, causing him to break the same arm again—in a different spot. To top it off, it happened on Friday the 13th.
Sometimes, reality is more bizarre than anything fiction can conjure.
3. Dog Finds Dynamite
Imagine this: it’s the heart of winter in the remote north. Harry Jenkins and two friends head out for an ice fishing trip at Ten Mile Lake in Akeley, Minnesota. The lake is entirely frozen over.
To speed up the process of creating a fishing hole, Mr. Jenkins lights and throws a stick of illegally acquired dynamite onto the ice.
To his dismay, his Labrador retriever, Jerry, dashes across the ice to fetch the dynamite, mistaking it for a stick thrown by his owner. This situation is clearly not going to end well.
Despite the men’s frantic shouts, the dog grabs the dynamite and happily trots back toward them, tail wagging. Realizing the imminent danger, the three men sprint in the opposite direction, with the dog chasing them.
The men barely escape with their lives, but the explosion not only kills the dog—it also fractures the ice near their truck, causing it to sink into the lake.
Mr. Jenkins faced a double loss: his dog was gone, and the insurance company denied his claim for the sunken truck. Not exactly an ideal outcome.
2. Twice Nuked
Tsutomu Yamaguchi holds the unique distinction of being the only officially recognized survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II.
On August 6, 1945, Yamaguchi, a young engineer, was in Hiroshima. Moments after stepping off a tram at 8:15 a.m., he witnessed a blinding flash of light and was thrown to the ground by the force of the bomb, which detonated 600 meters above the city. He lost consciousness instantly.
Approximately 140,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 residents died immediately. Despite being less than two miles from Ground Zero, Yamaguchi survived with severe burns on his upper body and a ruptured eardrum. He spent the night in an air-raid shelter, surrounded by the cries of the dying. The next day, he made his way through the devastation, past charred and lifeless bodies, to board a train 180 miles back to his home in Nagasaki—another key industrial and military target.
At 11:02 a.m., once again less than two miles from the epicenter, Yamaguchi saw the same terrifying flash of light. This time, a 25-kiloton plutonium bomb exploded above Nagasaki, hurling him to the ground once more.
In addition to near-total deafness in one ear, his skin injuries required bandaging for 12 years, and his wife suffered from radiation poisoning. She passed away in 2008 at the age of 88 due to kidney and liver cancer. Their son, exposed to Nagasaki’s radiation at just six months old, died in 2005 at 59.
Before succumbing to stomach cancer, Yamaguchi became a fervent advocate against nuclear weapons, though he never harbored anti-American sentiments.
1. Indonesia’s Tree Man
Dede Koswara was born without any health issues. However, at the age of 10, after a fall in the Indonesian forests left him with a scraped knee, small warts began to grow around the injury. Over time, these warts spread to his hands and feet.
For years, he could only watch as his limbs became covered in grotesque, bark-like warts that drained his energy and restricted his movement. Today, he shuffles on darkened, swollen feet—trapped in a body that seems to rebel against him.
At one stage, he appeared to grow twisted, yellow-brown branches reaching up to 3 feet long. It seemed as though Koswara was transforming into a half-plant, blending into the lush green jungle surrounding him.
His strange condition led to the loss of his marriage, job, and independence. Driven by poverty, he joined a traveling freak show, where he was advertised as the Tree Man of Java.
He faces a double challenge: the common human papillomavirus, which typically causes small warts, and a rare immune deficiency that allowed these growths to spread uncontrollably. Last year, Indonesian surgeons removed 13 pounds of warts and dead tissue using an electric saw. Unfortunately, the growths returned.
Now that’s what you call bad luck.
