40 Fun Facts About I Shouldn't Be Alive

Yossi Ghinsberg's Amazon ordeal from I Shouldn't Be Alive became the 2017 film Jungle, starring which actor?

Daniel Radcliffe played Ghinsberg in Jungle, a thriller about the three weeks the backpacker spent lost and alone in 1981. The series had told the same story in its third episode.

The final I Shouldn't Be Alive episode follows a helicopter crew who ditched at sea during which 1991 weather event?

The Perfect Storm left an Air National Guard rescue helicopter unable to refuel, so its crew ditched off Long Island. The same nor'easter inspired Sebastian Junger's book and the George Clooney film.

Who led rescuers to injured adventure racer Danelle Ballengee, as shown in an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode?

Her dog Taz, a shepherd-retriever mix, turned up alone at the trailhead and led searchers five miles to where she lay. Ballengee had broken her pelvis in a fall while out running.

Steven Callahan, whose 76 days on a raft feature in I Shouldn't Be Alive, later advised which sea-survival film?

Life of Pi director Ang Lee asked Callahan to advise on living aboard a raft, and he made lures and tools seen on screen. His own drift across the Atlantic ended off Guadeloupe in April 1982.

What rammed and sank a family's boat on the Zambezi in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode Blood in the Water?

A hippopotamus capsized the boat, leaving four people standing through the night on a flooding sandbar as crocodiles circled. A fifth swam for help and was mauled by a crocodile on the way.

Climber Lincoln Hall, profiled on I Shouldn't Be Alive, was left for dead in 2006 but survived a night on which peak?

Everest nearly claimed Hall at about 8,700 metres, where his team gave him up during the descent. Climbers heading up the next morning found him alive and abandoned their own summit bid to help.

I Shouldn't Be Alive executive producer John Smithson later produced 127 Hours, a film about which trapped canyoneer?

Aron Ralston cut off his own forearm to escape a boulder in 2003, and the film about him earned a Best Picture nomination. Smithson co-founded the company that made the series.

The Stolpa family's ordeal, an early I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, was first a 1994 TV movie starring which actor?

Neil Patrick Harris played Jim Stolpa, who walked for more than a day through deep snow to fetch help for his wife and baby son. Their vehicle had stuck fast on a snow-covered Nevada road.

How did climber Rachel Kelsey summon help from an Alpine ledge in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode First Date Nightmare?

A text message raised the alarm, in what was publicised as the first rescue to use SMS to draw attention to trapped climbers. A helicopter twice failed to reach the pair in bad weather.

Which American cable network premiered I Shouldn't Be Alive in October 2005 and aired its first two seasons?

Discovery Channel launched the series in 2005, dropped it in 2007 and then filed the old episodes under a Discovery Classics banner. New stories did not appear for another three years.

Which network revived I Shouldn't Be Alive with new episodes in 2010, three years after its original run ended?

Animal Planet picked the series up in 2010 and aired four more seasons, closing with a 2012 finale. The revival mixed new stories with reruns of the earlier ones.

What mauled elk hunter Bram Schaffer in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode Nightmare on the Mountain?

A grizzly bear tore the flesh of Schaffer's thigh from the bone during a 1995 hunt in Montana. Other hunters, his father and his brother then treated him and carried him to a camp.

In I Shouldn't Be Alive's A Walk into Hell, a scout group runs out of water in which national park?

Grand Canyon heat caught the scouts on an off-trail route in June 1996, and their water ran out. Three teenagers pushed on to reach the river, but one of them, aged 15, collapsed just short of it and died.

Warren Macdonald lost both legs to a falling boulder in an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, then climbed which famous peak?

Kilimanjaro fell to Macdonald in 2003, when he became the first double above-knee amputee to reach the top of Africa's tallest peak. A boulder had trapped him for two days in Queensland in 1997.

Two I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes, about a crashed film helicopter and a lost tourist, unfold on which Hawaiian volcano?

Kilauea trapped a film crew inside one of its craters in 1992 and a lost sightseer on its lava plain in 2005. A teenager in a tour helicopter finally spotted the second man after five days.

A helicopter crew filming which Sharon Stone movie crashed inside a volcanic crater, as shown on I Shouldn't Be Alive?

Sliver needed shots of an active crater for its ending, and the helicopter went down inside it in November 1992. All three men aboard survived, though the pilot's licence was briefly suspended.

In I Shouldn't Be Alive's Date from Hell, Brandon Day and his date survive by finding whose abandoned camp?

A missing hiker's camp held food, dry clothes and the matches the pair used to start the fire whose smoke searchers spotted. Its owner, John Donovan, had vanished in the same mountains a year earlier.

Landmine clearer Chris Moon, featured on I Shouldn't Be Alive, was kidnapped in 1993 by which guerrilla movement?

Khmer Rouge guerrillas seized Moon and two colleagues in Cambodia, and all three came out alive. Two years later a mine in Mozambique blew off his right leg.

Two I Shouldn't Be Alive plane-crash episodes, Fear in Freefall and Vacation Nightmare, are set in which country?

Costa Rica saw a skydiving plane go down at sea in 2005 and a tourist flight fall into the jungle in 2001. Will Slattery was the only one of six aboard the first to survive.

Three I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes, including Nightmare Canyon and Chasm of Death, are set in which US state?

Utah is the setting for Nightmare Canyon, Trapped in the Canyon and Chasm of Death. In the last, a hiker fell 70 feet inside a slot canyon while trying to climb out.

Darlow Smithson Productions, makers of I Shouldn't Be Alive, also made which 2003 documentary about climber Joe Simpson?

Touching the Void won the BAFTA for best British film with its account of two climbers' near-fatal descent of a Peruvian peak. Simpson crawled for three days to base camp on a badly broken leg.

Which I Shouldn't Be Alive episode opened the series in 2005 with five sailors on a dinghy after their yacht sank?

Shark Survivor told how the yacht Trashman sank off North Carolina in 1982 and left five crew on an inflatable dinghy. Only Deborah Scaling Kiley and Brad Cavanagh lived to be rescued.

An I Shouldn't Be Alive episode follows a US Air Force officer and his son lost skiing in which country?

Turkey's Kartalkaya ski area was hit by a snowstorm in January 1995, and the pair lost their way. The father then had to choose between staying with his son and going for help.

Three I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes strand fishermen and castaways in which body of water off Mexico?

Gulf of California waters, also called the Sea of Cortez, are the setting for Shipwrecked, Lost at Sea and Death in the Sea of Cortez. In the last, one castaway died a day before rescue came.

In I Shouldn't Be Alive's Killer Crevasse, climber Jim Davidson falls into a glacier on which Washington volcano?

Mount Rainier's ice swallowed Davidson and his partner Mike Price in 1992, when both dropped 80 feet into a crevasse. Price died in the fall, and Davidson had to climb out alone.

Three British climbers in I Shouldn't Be Alive's Frozen at 20,000 Feet are trapped near the top of which mountain?

Denali held the three overnight in May 1999 in cold near −60 °C, and Nigel Vardy lost his toes, parts of his fingers and his nose to frostbite. He later returned to high-altitude climbing.

In I Shouldn't Be Alive's Crushed and Alone, trapper Ken Hildebrand lies pinned for four days under what?

His quad bike rolled onto his legs in January 2008 while he was collecting beaver traps in rural Alberta. A farm stood half a mile away, but wind drowned out his shouts as coyotes circled.

In an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, 11-year-old Leia Hunt saves her father after he crashes what in rural Quebec?

A snowmobile flipped and threw David Hunt into a ravine in March 2003, shattering his knee. With her father unable to go on, Leia had to fetch help while keeping clear of wolves.

The sailboat that capsizes in I Shouldn't Be Alive's Ocean Disaster carried a student crew from which university?

Texas A&M at Galveston owned the Cynthia Woods, which is believed to have lost its keel at night during a 2008 race to Mexico. Safety officer Roger Stone died after getting trapped students out of the cabin.

Three later I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes, including Christmas Horror and Dive of Terror, are set in which country?

New Zealand hosts Christmas Horror, Dive of Terror and Blood on the Mountain. In the first, two hikers sat out ten days on a rock ledge, Christmas Day included.

Three hunters in I Shouldn't Be Alive's Blizzard of Death survive a rescue-helicopter crash in which Asian country?

Kyrgyzstan's mountains trapped the hunters and their local guides in March 2004 when their vehicle sank into a snowdrift. The helicopter sent to fetch them then crashed, killing its pilot and one guide.

Which word appears in three I Shouldn't Be Alive episode titles, set in Alaska, Montana and the Carpathians?

Avalanche features in the titles Alaskan Avalanche, Avalanche! and Avalanche of Terror. In the last, a British climber with a shattered pelvis spent days crawling out of the mountains to reach help.

I Shouldn't Be Alive tells each story by pairing interviews with those who lived it with which other technique?

Staged re-enactments carry most of each episode, with the people who lived through it narrating over the top. Each film also explains the decisions that kept them alive.

Theo Rosmulder, lost for days in the Outback in an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, had been searching for what?

Gold drew Rosmulder, a pest controller, on a prospecting trip in Western Australia in 2008. With no food or water, he stayed alive by eating termites until he was found.

A tourist at Mayan ruins is lost for 19 days on which island in I Shouldn't Be Alive's Lost in the Jungle?

Cozumel swallowed Ken Wilson in 1993 after he wandered away from his tour group into dense jungle. He spent almost three weeks finding his own way out.

Rafter David Whittlesey spends a winter week stranded alone beside which river in I Shouldn't Be Alive's River of Fear?

The Colorado capsized Whittlesey's raft in November 1991, and a fall while scouting from a cliff knocked out four of his teeth. He survived a full week alone on a sandy alcove.

Which British explorer walked 65 miles out of the Amazon with malaria, a story told in I Shouldn't Be Alive in 2010?

Benedict Allen fled renegade miners in 1983, capsized his canoe and walked out with two strains of malaria. He went on to pioneer filming his own expeditions without a camera crew.

Jamie Andrew of I Shouldn't Be Alive's Death Climb lost his hands and feet after a 1999 ordeal in which mountains?

Mont Blanc massif storms pinned Andrew and Jamie Fisher near the top of a French peak for days, and Fisher died of hypothermia. Andrew later climbed the Matterhorn as a quadruple amputee.

The two sailors left alive in I Shouldn't Be Alive's first episode were rescued by a cargo ship from which country?

Soviet Union freighter Olenegorsk came upon the dinghy five days after the yacht sank off North Carolina in 1982. Its crew handed the pair over to US authorities in the middle of the Cold War.

In which South American country did Yossi Ghinsberg's 1981 jungle ordeal, retold on I Shouldn't Be Alive, take place?

Bolivia's uncharted rainforest held Ghinsberg alone for three weeks until a friend and local searchers found him. He later returned to help a community build an ecolodge there.