Sometimes, the human capacity to endure trauma and pain seems endless, and what appears insurmountable can be overcome in astonishing ways.
In 1983, 18-year-old Kimberly Lotti suddenly crashed her pickup truck into a barbed-wire fence in Quincy, Massachusetts, USA. A 5 cm diameter metal post pierced through the windshield and impaled her chest… Lotti remained conscious as rescuers worked to saw off the part of the post embedded deep within her. The remainder was extracted in the hospital.
In 1985, motorcyclist Richard Topps from Derbyshire, England, collided with another motorcycle, was thrown into the air, and impaled from his chest to hip on a post—hanging helplessly for over an hour until his brother found him.
Both Lotti and Topps were fortunate: their internal organs were not harmed. In 1987, a man in Colorado fell from a window and suffered even more damage. A metal pole pierced his abdomen, reaching his heart. Fortunately, rescuers decided it was best not to remove the pole, as it prevented blood from pouring out. His heart continued to beat steadily while surgeons addressed the injuries.
Even more astonishing is the case of 74-year-old Forthman Murff, a logger from Mississippi. In 1984, a branch fell, causing him to fall backward into his own sawmill. The saw blade cut through his throat but did not touch his spine or arteries. Murff remained alert, tilting his head every few minutes to let blood from his lungs drain, and drove several miles to a hospital an hour away. The doctors who stitched him up could hardly believe their eyes: his neck was nearly severed.
But perhaps you won’t believe the story of a baby who could only crawl and survived being abandoned during a freezing winter for 10 days.
After a fierce argument with her husband, Natalia Galimova stormed out with her toddler daughter Karina and headed to the train station to return to her sister’s home in Kurgan.
The young mother missed her daytime train and had to wait for the night train, which wouldn’t arrive for another eight hours. To kill time and drown her sorrows, Galimova went into the station bar and ordered a large bottle of vodka.
Seeing the young woman drinking alone, a group of rough-looking young men came over to join her. The atmosphere became lively. Karina was placed on a nearby armchair, playing quietly by herself.
She was hungry but didn’t dare complain. Occasionally, she glanced towards the drinking table with pleading eyes. A kind waitress threw her some scraps of cake. Then everyone went back to their own activities, and when they looked again, the chair was empty—no one knew when the little girl had left.
The waitress asked the mother, “Where is your daughter?” Galimova, bleary-eyed, looked around carelessly and shrugged indifferently. The party continued. Galimova only remembered her daughter when she was tossed out like a rag on the train platform.
She shouted: “Kara! Kara!” Her angry and cold calls made waiting passengers think she was looking for a dog, unaware that it was a nickname for Karina.
Some kind-hearted individuals helped Galimova to the police station. There, she filed a report about her missing child and boarded the train to Kurgan, never asking about her daughter’s fate again.
In stark contrast to the mother’s indifference, the Chelyabinsk police dispatched their best officers to search for the little girl. They scoured every nook and cranny, even checking the tents of homeless people, but found no sign of her.
A week passed.
The investigators concluded that Karina had been kidnapped and taken to another region, possibly even abroad. They did not rule out the possibility that she had fallen into the hands of “black market” doctors specializing in trading children’s tracheas. The girl’s grandmother and father had also lost hope of finding her, as some claimed to have seen a girl being run over by a truck.
On the tenth day of the search.
Konstantin Sobolev, a traffic police officer, was on his way home after a day’s work. Having walked about 200 meters from the train station, he suddenly noticed a strange creature moving slowly in the darkness about 20 steps away on the asphalt. Upon closer inspection, it resembled a small child sitting down. Feeling a chill, Sobolev hurried his pace.
As he approached, he realized that the filthy object was indeed a child. She was wearing a tattered, dirty, and wet onesie. Her hood had slipped off, and her hair was soaked. The child was freezing, her tiny fingers almost numb and stiff.
Sobolev reached out to her, but she barely reacted. However, from her pale lips, the tiny girl managed to utter the word “Karina.” Sobolev’s eyes filled with tears as he scooped her up.
Five minutes later, Karina was taken to the police station at the train station. Adults gathered around, trying to feed her hot tea and a bit of cake.
Station chief Leonchev stated: Based on her condition, the girl showed no signs of being beaten or abused. However, from the rips in her sleeves and pants, one could guess she had been “exploring” the city by crawling. Bite marks from dogs on her clothing indicated that she had likely spent days with stray dogs.
Perhaps she had not starved, as she might have eaten leftovers from the dogs. As for why the dogs did not eat her, no one could say. It is unimaginable what powerful survival instinct led her back to the station where her heartless mother had abandoned her. A baby who could only crawl, wandering the city for over 10 days in the freezing cold of November, and still surviving, is indeed a rare occurrence.
Shortly after, Karina was admitted to the hospital. She needed to be treated for about two weeks until she fully recovered and was then sent home to her father and grandmother.
As for the cruel mother Galimova, she is expected to face trial soon. She has been charged with child neglect and is almost certain to lose her custody rights over the girl.
