I Shouldn't Be Alive
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40 free I Shouldn't Be Alive trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
I Shouldn't Be Alive ran for six seasons and 58 episodes, each one a true account of ordinary people caught far from help: adrift at sea, pinned in a ravine, lost in desert heat or stuck on a frozen ledge. The people who lived through it tell the story themselves, which is why the series is still looked up episode by episode. This quiz works through those episodes. It asks where the stories happened, what went wrong, who or what came to the rescue, and what became of the people afterwards, including the films and books their ordeals inspired. A few questions cover the series itself: who made it and where it aired. It suits fans who remember the episodes by title as well as anyone who enjoys true survival stories. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you find out how each ordeal ended even when you miss.
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Q 01Yossi Ghinsberg's Amazon ordeal from I Shouldn't Be Alive became the 2017 film Jungle, starring which actor?
Daniel Radcliffe
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.
Q 02The final I Shouldn't Be Alive episode follows a helicopter crew who ditched at sea during which 1991 weather event?
The Perfect Storm
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.
Q 03Who led rescuers to injured adventure racer Danelle Ballengee, as shown in an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode?
Her dog
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.
Q 04Steven Callahan, whose 76 days on a raft feature in I Shouldn't Be Alive, later advised which sea-survival film?
Life of Pi
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.
Q 05What rammed and sank a family's boat on the Zambezi in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode Blood in the Water?
A hippopotamus
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.
Q 06Climber Lincoln Hall, profiled on I Shouldn't Be Alive, was left for dead in 2006 but survived a night on which peak?
Everest
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.
Q 07I Shouldn't Be Alive executive producer John Smithson later produced 127 Hours, a film about which trapped canyoneer?
Aron Ralston
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.
Q 08The Stolpa family's ordeal, an early I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, was first a 1994 TV movie starring which actor?
Neil Patrick Harris
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.
Q 09How did climber Rachel Kelsey summon help from an Alpine ledge in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode First Date Nightmare?
A text message
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.
Q 10Which American cable network premiered I Shouldn't Be Alive in October 2005 and aired its first two seasons?
Discovery Channel
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.
Q 11Which network revived I Shouldn't Be Alive with new episodes in 2010, three years after its original run ended?
Animal Planet
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.
Q 12What mauled elk hunter Bram Schaffer in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode Nightmare on the Mountain?
A grizzly bear
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.
Q 13In I Shouldn't Be Alive's A Walk into Hell, a scout group runs out of water in which national park?
Grand Canyon
Q 21Darlow Smithson Productions, makers of I Shouldn't Be Alive, also made which 2003 documentary about climber Joe Simpson?
Touching the Void
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.
Q 22Which I Shouldn't Be Alive episode opened the series in 2005 with five sailors on a dinghy after their yacht sank?
Shark Survivor
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.
Q 23An I Shouldn't Be Alive episode follows a US Air Force officer and his son lost skiing in which country?
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.
Q 14Warren Macdonald lost both legs to a falling boulder in an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, then climbed which famous peak?
Kilimanjaro
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.
Q 15Two I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes, about a crashed film helicopter and a lost tourist, unfold on which Hawaiian volcano?
Kilauea
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.
Q 16A helicopter crew filming which Sharon Stone movie crashed inside a volcanic crater, as shown on I Shouldn't Be Alive?
Sliver
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.
Q 17In I Shouldn't Be Alive's Date from Hell, Brandon Day and his date survive by finding whose abandoned camp?
A missing hiker's
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.
Q 18Landmine clearer Chris Moon, featured on I Shouldn't Be Alive, was kidnapped in 1993 by which guerrilla movement?
Khmer Rouge
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.
Q 19Two I Shouldn't Be Alive plane-crash episodes, Fear in Freefall and Vacation Nightmare, are set in which country?
Costa Rica
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.
Q 20Three I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes, including Nightmare Canyon and Chasm of Death, are set in which US state?
Utah
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.
Turkey
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.
Q 24Three I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes strand fishermen and castaways in which body of water off Mexico?
Gulf of California
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.
Q 25In I Shouldn't Be Alive's Killer Crevasse, climber Jim Davidson falls into a glacier on which Washington volcano?
Mount Rainier
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.
Q 26Three British climbers in I Shouldn't Be Alive's Frozen at 20,000 Feet are trapped near the top of which mountain?
Denali
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.
Q 27In I Shouldn't Be Alive's Crushed and Alone, trapper Ken Hildebrand lies pinned for four days under what?
His quad bike
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.
Q 28In an I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, 11-year-old Leia Hunt saves her father after he crashes what in rural Quebec?
A snowmobile
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.
Q 29The sailboat that capsizes in I Shouldn't Be Alive's Ocean Disaster carried a student crew from which university?
Texas A&M
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.
Q 30Three later I Shouldn't Be Alive episodes, including Christmas Horror and Dive of Terror, are set in which country?
New Zealand
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.