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On January 26, 1972, a 22-year-old flight attendant named Vesna Vulovic was not where she was supposed to be. She was cruising at 33,330 feet above Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in a DC-9 airplane, but her schedule had been mixed up with that of another stewardess named Vesna, and she was subsequently placed on the wrong flight. But Vesna was happy for the mistake; it afforded her the opportunity to see Denmark, and to stay in a Sheraton Hotel, which she had always dreamed of doing. But the mix up was not so fortuitous as it seemed.
A terrorist group known as Ustashe had placed a powerful explosive on this particular plane. The Ustache was a far-right nazi/fascist group in Croatia which was implicated in over two dozen terrorist attacks against Yugoslavia after World War 2. Vesna’s flight, JAT Yugoslav Flight 364, was with an airline based in Yugoslavia.
While passing over the city of Srbska-Kamenice, the explosive device detonated. The DC-9 was torn into pieces, and the plane’s wreckage, along with its 28 passengers, fell through the sky for three long minutes before striking a frozen mountainside.
A German man, upon arriving at the crash site, found all of the plane’s passengers dead, save one. Vesna was lying half outside of the plane, with another crew member’s body on top of her, and a serving cart pinned against her spine. The man had been a medic in the second world war, and did what he could for her until further help arrived.
At the hospital, her parents were told that although there was still life in her body, she would not survive. Her skull was broken and hemorrhaging, both of her legs were broken, and she had three crushed vertebrae. But three days later, she awoke from her coma, and asked for a cigarette.
Vesna was paralyzed from the waist down, but she was alive and conscious. Two weeks after the accident, her doctor told her what had happened, and gave her a newspaper to read the story, but the memory of this event would escape her, as did everything from one hour before the accident to one month after, due to amnesia. Later, she underwent surgery that restored movement to her left leg, and a month after that, she regained movement in her right leg. Eventually, she was able to walk again.
By the following September, she was eager to go back to work, but to avoid publicity, the airline gave her a desk job. She never suffered any psychological trauma as a result of the incident, and never experienced any fear of flying. She still flies with some regularity, and she has a positive philosophy on life, stating, “I believe we are masters of our lives – we hold all the cards and it is up to us to use them right.”
Her good fortune in surviving the accident is most likely due to her low blood pressure, which caused her to pass out quickly and prevented her heart from bursting. But despite her positive outlook on life, Vesna does not consider herself lucky. Thirty years after the crash, she said to Philip Baum in an interview, “I’m not lucky. Everybody thinks I am lucky, but they are mistaken. If I were lucky I would never had this accident and my mother and father would be alive. The accident ruined their lives too.” It’s a valid point, along the same lines as arguing that the event wasn’t a “miracle,” given that there were 27 people who didn’t survive. The assertion that “it could be worse” is small comfort to the pragmatic, because certainly, it could also be much better.
Vesna currently holds the Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute, at 33,330 feet.
Update: In 2009 a group of German and Czech journalists released a report alleging that JAT Yugoslav Flight 364 was not destroyed by a terrorist attack. Based on reviews of contemporary reports, newly available documents, and eyewitness accounts, the investigators concluded that it was “extremely probable” that the plane was mistaken for an enemy aircraft and shot down by a MiG fighter from the Czechoslovakian air force.
Czech military experts dismiss the report as a conspiracy theory, noting that hundreds of soldiers would have known the truth, yet none have come forward in the intervening decades. Further, the West German Air Force would have detected the intercepting fighter jets.
Update 2: Sadly, on 28 December 2016, Vesna Vulovic passed away.
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Ironically, Vesna in Russian, Ukrainian and most likely Czech translates as “spring”.
Looking out the window of a commercial airliner…it’s hard to imagine surviving that fall. Wow.
Not really a record I’d like to challenge!
What does it mean that “her low blood pressure … caused her to pass out quickly and prevented her heart from bursting”? If you are in a plane that breaks open at 33,000 feet, will your heart explode?
Dean Booth said: “What does it mean that “her low blood pressure … caused her to pass out quickly and prevented her heart from bursting”? If you are in a plane that breaks open at 33,000 feet, will your heart explode?”
on impact with the ground, the heart is in danger of bursting.
and “spring” means “jump” in Dutch.
mHagarty said: “Looking out the window of a commercial airliner…it’s hard to imagine surviving that fall. Wow.”
Well she did have 27 other people to cushion her fall…
Hm. I’m not entirely sure, but it says that it struck a mountain side. Now, that’s pretty difficult to live through, but by hitting a mountain side, you would lose some speed and velocity. Also the article is unclear. Did the plane crash on a moutain? Was she found on the mountain? Was she in the plane wreckage when found? If so, she didn’t really fall 33,330 feet at all.
However, maybe she did after all. The article needs clarification as to where she was found. And even if she didn’t fall 33,330 feet, she did survive a bomb, the altitude, the cold, hitting a mountain, and having been crushed by a serving cart and another human being. Quite remarkable.
godsgrandson said: “Not really a record I’d like to challenge!”
Wuss!
How did she end up outside of the plane, though? Was she thrown from it as the plane crashed into the mountain? Did the cabin door burst open during the downward arch and suck her out?
I ask because it doesn’t seem like you’d be thrown outside of the plane in a crash into dirt, snow, and solid rock. Of course, I’m basing this assumption on that movie, Alive, so I’m probably wrong.
Archcroc said: “Wuss!
How did she end up outside of the plane, though? Was she thrown from it as the plane crashed into the mountain? Did the cabin door burst open during the downward arch and suck her out?
I ask because it doesn’t seem like you’d be thrown outside of the plane in a crash into dirt, snow, and solid rock. Of course, I’m basing this assumption on that movie, Alive, so I’m probably wrong.”
Perhaps it was the giant explosion which threw her from the plane, as well as throwing the plane into three hundred different directions simultaneously. Oh, and Alive was a cool movie.
The Philip Baum interview link is broken or wrong – did you mean http://www.asi-mag.com/editorials/vesna_vulovic.htm ?
Ustashe are not terroristic group!!!
They were (are ) anti-communistic Croatian liberation organization.
They were cooperating with Hitlers Germany during ww2,becouse they hawe no other option!
At the end of the war,moustly of them were executed (with many inocent Croatian civilians too) on the place called “Bleiburg”!(around 150 000 or more people were executed!!!)
They were executed by communistic terrorists named “partizani”,with Tito as a leader,all that afther end of ww2!!!
Croatian army(and civilians) want to surrended to the Allied forces in Austria(british forces),but british hawe broken Geneva convention and leave them to the “partizani”!
British responsibility is mouch more bigger becouse Ustashe hawe newer fought against Allied forces,youst against communists!
Ustashe DID NOT done that terroristic act becouse simple reason,THEY DID NOT EXIST in the way of military organization after ww2,no mather what communists said!
Real terrorists are communists,they were constantly violating basic human rights duryng yugoslavia,UDBA (something like yugoslavian KGB) has setup up that, and other similar terro. acts to Ustashas.
Ustasha(ustaša) means to stand up (agains terror and injustice).
It has similary meaning like expression “protestantizam”
“Geronimooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…”
schuylercat said: “”Geronimoo…oooooo…””
Very immature, schuylercat–though admittedly amusing.
Mommy! Mommy!…. schuylercat broked the website! *points*
Anonymous User said: “on impact with the ground, the heart is in danger of bursting.”
I thought that the heart is in danger of bursting because of the sheer panic from falling….if it was because of the impact on the ground, why would it help to pass out first??
Haha, no wonder…I was wondering why the page was displayed so differently…
damn you schuylercat =]
In her book “Stiff,” which has a chapter on death (and survival) after high falls, Mary Roach reports that it’s the aorta that bursts upon impact, not during the fall. It’s a very thin/fragile part of the heart, so the sudden deceleration causes it to rupture.
Sheer panic from falling is, oddly, often not reported during these sorts of instances. People who have survived such occurences report feelings of dissociation…They’re aware that the event is occuring, but they feel somewhat separate from it, as if it is happening to someone else.
Archcroc said: How did she end up outside of the plane, though? Was she thrown from it as the plane crashed into the mountain? Did the cabin door burst open during the downward arch and suck her out?
Perhaps, as a result of the explosion, the DC-9 was torn into pieces, and the plane’s wreckage, along with its 28 passengers, fell through the sky for three long minutes before striking a frozen mountainside?
Um…er…uh…well…
OK. I broke the site. Jeez. Sue me.
Meanwhile – sorry, everyone. All I could think while I read the article, though, was “Geronimo!” But look – I remembered to capitalize it!
This was a story I read when I was a kid – it was a short story called “the girl who fell 6 miles” in some book. I never knew the woman’s name, but I recall the story fascinated and terrified me – I never had a REAL fear of heights, but the idea was appalling, especially to a 8-11 year old ( I have no recollection of how old I was – I fell out of an airplane around that time…)
What I read on Wiki was this: “…She remained strapped into her flight attendant’s seat in the tail section of the plane, which remained attached to the washrooms. The assembly struck the snow-covered flank of a mountain.”
The DI article says: “…A German man, upon arriving at the crash site, found all of the plane’s passengers dead, save one. Vesna was lying half outside of the plane, with another crew member’s body on top of her, and a serving cart pinned against her spine. The man had been a medic in the second world war, and did what he could for her until further help arrived.”
I am presuming she was still strapped into the flight attendant’s seat, the cart got wedged behind her, a body landed on top of her, and the German man was sorting through the parts and found the whole mess. Or maybe not.
I am having trouble locating additional information that isn’t already presented here: I thought I read years ago that she hit powdery snow and the entire tail section “shooshed” for a long time before it stopped. Note – someone PLEASE tell me how to spell “shooshed.” Also – for a time, passengers who heard about this refused to ride anywhere but the tail section of airplanes. And finally, I recall reading somewhere that she said she hit hard, icy ground, not snow. It’s a conspiracy!
So I’ll sign off now: Geronimooooooo!
WL said: “Perhaps, as a result of the explosion, the DC-9 was torn into pieces, and the plane’s wreckage, along with its 28 passengers, fell through the sky for three long minutes before striking a frozen mountainside?”
So it was a tiny plane, then? Somehow I had it in my head that it was a huge commuter jet.
Archcroc said: “So it was a tiny plane, then? Somehow I had it in my head that it was a huge commuter jet.”
DC-9s aren’t that tiny. Sounds like it was just a sparsely ocupied flight.
This story was mentioned on an episode of Mythbusters, which attributed her survival to the fact that she was strapped into her flight attendat’s seat, which is not a regular seat like passengers sit in, but is actually a little alcove recessed into the wall.
thats a bit harsh…she falls 33,000 feet and a guy still trys to lay on her :P some guys are just too oppurtunistic, even if he did die.
I mean, surviving a fall from 33,000 feet is very amazing, but what interested me the most was that even though she was considered paralyzed from the waist down, she somehow recovered from that and was eventually able to walk again. How does that work?
Typical Ustasha sympathizer…..have a look at these websites that describe Ustasha terror during WW2 and after and be the judge for yourselves. Even the Nazis were disgusted by their crudeness.
Link 1
Link 2
mfilip62 said: “Ustashe are not terroristic group!!!
They were (are ) anti-communistic Croatian liberation organization.
They were cooperating with Hitlers Germany during ww2,becouse they hawe no other option!
At the end of the war,moustly of them were executed (with many inocent Croatian civilians too) on the place called “Bleiburg”!(around 150 000 or more people were executed!!!)
They were executed by communistic terrorists named “partizani”,with Tito as a leader,all that afther end of ww2!!!
Croatian army(and civilians) want to surrended to the Allied forces in Austria(british forces),but british hawe broken Geneva convention and leave them to the “partizani”!
British responsibility is mouch more bigger becouse Ustashe hawe newer fought against Allied forces,youst against communists!
Ustashe DID NOT done that terroristic act becouse simple reason,THEY DID NOT EXIST in the way of military organization after ww2,no mather what communists said!
Real terrorists are communists,they were constantly violating basic human rights duryng yugoslavia,UDBA (something like yugoslavian KGB) has setup up that, and other similar terro. acts to Ustashas.
Ustasha(ustaša) means to stand up (agains terror and injustice).
It has similary meaning like expression “protestantizam””
mercuryswitch said: “I mean, surviving a fall from 33,000 feet is very amazing, but what interested me the most was that even though she was considered paralyzed from the waist down, she somehow recovered from that and was eventually able to walk again. How does that work?”
im not entirely sure how this works, but i know it’s possible for the brain to “re-wire” itself through therapy such as physio. if it was brain damage that was causing her paralysis, the neurons could have rewired to work again. also sometimes with spinal injuries swelling around the spine can cause temporary paralysis, though im not sure how long that usually lasts….
Shandooga said: “Very immature, schuylercat–though admittedly amusing.”
Oh, come on Shandooga. Loosen up! I like that schuylercat. Do it again some time!
blingblang said: “I thought that the heart is in danger of bursting because of the sheer panic from falling….if it was because of the impact on the ground, why would it help to pass out first??”
passing out first would probably keep her from becoming horribly scared and elevating blood-pressure. Then her low blood-pressure would have helped to keep her heart from bursting. But I’m just guessing.
As far as I’m aware cass is correct think of it like a sucicide jumper its said that they die before they hit the ground the reason being that the heart cant take it as for her being half in the plane and half out the way i see it is it doesn’t matter how plane crashes its going to knock people around look at car crashes people can be thrown many feet from the car so if you think about it the plane was going fast so no matter how they crashed they hit hard an its going to toss people around the hole may have been cuased by the bomb or just from the impact
I don’t care how respected a group may be but if you put a bomb on a plane and kill civilians on purpose – you are a terrorist
I remember this story from book of strange phenomena I had as a kid. The chapter was called “The girl who fell 6 miles” and they theorized that the reason she survived was because she was standing up when the plane’s tail section exploded and she was tossed into the air, whereas everyone else was seated/or in the plane. Because she was unconcious, her body was limp and it slowed her descent just enough. This is really odd, because I just found that book in a box the other day… and this story is pretty obscure.
to-be-betrayed said: “im not entirely sure how this works, but i know it’s possible for the brain to “re-wire” itself through therapy such as physio. if it was brain damage that was causing her paralysis, the neurons could have rewired to work again. also sometimes with spinal injuries swelling around the spine can cause temporary paralysis, though im not sure how long that usually lasts….”
Or it could be caused by blood clots that cut circulation off to her legs… I imagine she was probably pretty banged up both internally and externally after a fall like that. It could have caused blood to clot in her legs, cut circulation off, and temporary paralysis. The only reason I say this is because it’s the only way that I know of that a person can come back from being paralyzed with little or no long lasting damage. Seeing as I’m basing this hypothesis on my extensive medical knowledge garnered mostly from House and Scrubs I could be wrong…
much more likely than a blood clot (which usually ends up killing tissues downstream from the blockage) is that her paralysis was caused by swelling from the blunt force trauma reducing the circulation in parts of her back and legs, as well as compressing and interfering with the operation of the nerves needed to properly operate the legs. As the tissues heal, the swelling will reduce and the affected tissues can heal and return to their proper function. I don’t think that this was an incident of the brain re-wiring itself, as the damage would most likely not be to the brain itself (or many other things would have stopped working, and probably killed her outright), as the brain cannot rewire the connections out in the body.
The one thing that probably did save her is the aerodynamics of the portion of the plane she was in as it fell… all things are affected by gravity, which attempts to accellerate them downwards at 32 feet/second^2. If you drop an iron ball and a wooden block off a roof at the same time, they should hit the ground at the same time. But if you drop a feather, it will fall far slower because wind resistance overcomes a large portion of the accelleration of gravity, and it will not accellerate past a certain speed, regardless of the height you drop it from. If the majority of her fall was spent in a portion of the plane that had sufficient wind resistance, then her speed would not have risen above a certain speed no matter how far she fell.
For everyone else not gifted with such good circumstances, a maximum velocity is reached that is much higher, but there is essentially no difference between falling 50 stories and 150 – once you reach the balance point between gravity and wind resistance you will not accellerate any further (you are at your terminal velocity). Ants can be dropped from just about any height and they will land unharmed – because of the wind resistance created by their shape, they have a very low terminal velocity that is below the threshold of that required to damage them.
Ustashe not terrorist? I don’t think you can refute that fact for a group that places a bomb on a plane. Your argument that they did not exist as a military organization after WWII has no bearing on the issue at all. Being a terrorist only requires performing acts that are intended to cause terror and damage for political or ideological gain. Oklahoma city was McVeigh’s way of getting back at the government for the botched Waco, Texas takedown of David Koresh’s group. The Tokyo subway gassings were preceeded by that cult (Aum Shinri Kyo) gassing the apartment building of a judge that ruled against the cult in some legal proceedings. Military operations are not required to be classified as a terrorist, committing vile acts of violence is sufficient.
Sooooo………if I have low blood pressure …. and plow into the side of a mountain like a lawn dart… there is a chance I will live through it?!? I think not as I would be unconscious from screaming every inch of the way down!!! I do applaud Vesna for surviving this ordeal, however I do question, as I suspect many others do, the actions of a terrorist group….I mean, “Can’t we all just get along”???????????? Okay, that was uncalled for, I know, so I shall end this and let everyone get on with their wonderful day…but NO FLYING FOR ME AGAIN!!!!! :- )
List of other really-long-but-not-fatal falls (near bottom):
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050311.html
Also, I remember reading about an Air Force sergeant who was sucked out of a bomber in the 50’s over the Rockies but survived when he landed on a snow-covered slope. My recollection was that he was at 30,000 feet but that could be my incipient-Alzheimers talking. Googled it but can’t find any references.
Shanachie
PresMatt said: “Or it could be caused by blood clots that cut circulation off to her legs… I imagine she was probably pretty banged up both internally and externally after a fall like that. It could have caused blood to clot in her legs, cut circulation off, and temporary paralysis. The only reason I say this is because it’s the only way that I know of that a person can come back from being paralyzed with little or no long lasting damage. Seeing as I’m basing this hypothesis on my extensive medical knowledge garnered mostly from House and Scrubs I could be wrong…”
But if it was a blood clot cutting off circulation to her legs, wouldn’t it cause muscle death?
(House rocks!!)
An entire web site devoted to free-fall survivors:
http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffresearch.html
Shanachie
Archcroc said: “So it was a tiny plane, then? Somehow I had it in my head that it was a huge commuter jet.”
Just readin’ the article.
I believe there was a tailgunner in WWII who fell from a plane hit by anti-aircraft fire and landed in a swampy area. He was found by the Nazis, who assumed he was a spy, but he eventually convinced them that his story of falling from a British plane was true.
“Duel says;
Typical Ustasha sympathizer…..have a look at these websites that describe Ustasha terror during WW2 and after and be the judge for yourselves. Even the Nazis were disgusted by their crudeness.”
On the link 1 you can see;
“*According to different sources there could have been anywhere from 500,000 to One million people at Jasenovac.”
Ith is total lie,communistic and masonic conspiricy;
Name of myne grandfather,and many other people who have newer been there is on the list of Jasenovac victims(date of birth,first and second name,fake date of death)!!!
I dont expect you to belive my,but you can not belive too anyone and any information you find on the internet or other media(holocaust numbers are too ower exaggerate to give a shield to some organisations,althought the most victims of holocaust were totaly innocent civilians(specially Jewess)
Butt you moust belive my two things;situation around world is noth like situation in USA,and second thing,
everything is not black and white as you imagine.
I think i know a little bit more of you,becouse you have youst read a few biased articles ,and i am living
in the place where all those historycal events happened!
I dont blame you becouse you dont know enought,butt i hate lies!
Thik with your own head brain,dont lett anyone think instead of you!
Regarding Ustashas,
More information you can find here, on Simon Wiesenthal web site:
http://motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org/pages/t081/t08100.html
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp
To call Ustasha anything else but Nazis and butchers of Balkans is preposterous.
Damir
This was on Myth Buster once, they found it to be “Busted.” But whatever weight that holds I don’t know.
Well I don’t know how would you regard people that blew up a plane but terrorist, nothing in the world can justify terrorism, let alone the atrocities they did (my grandmother has witnesed them personally)…
What are you people know about terrorism,ha!
You think that you hawe expirience terroristic act youst becuse two lunatics hawe crushed up
in to the feew buildings!?!?
I dont wish that anyne of you expirience real terrorism like we hawe,
real terrorism is when youre lifes are under constant death treath;
Serbs(not all of them,Vesna was one of feew exception) hewe aggress mine homeland;
They were slaughtering,rapeing to death(including babyes and old womens),massacrig,burning live people and much,much more terrible and disgusting
things THAT YOU CAN NOT EAWEN IMAGINE !(they hawe newer exempt children,babyes,cripples,womans,old people and womens)
Ustashe and other organizations were natural respond to those aevents becouse no one(exept Germans)
want to help us.(during ww2 and “homeland war”)
So if you are not an historical expert,and you are not,DO NOT JUDGE!
Say what you want,i tried to discuss with you people,i dont want to offence anyones feelings and i dont want to anyone offence mynes!(altrought ith is wery patethic to belive to Simon Wiesenthal R.C. and other similar craps)
So ith is better to end up that conversation!
Dont you think soo!?
O just shove it both sides did crimes in the war, blowing up a plane was an act of terrorism, and yes I believe my grandmother who witnessed what Ustashe did in Stara Gradiška, more then whatever ridicoulus right wing propaganda you were fed with…
The Ustache was a far-right nazi/fascist group in Croatia which was implicated in over two dozen terrorist attacks against Yugoslavia after World War 2.
Are you sure they were right-wing? The Nazi’s were left-wing.
Ith is wery hard to distinguish or classificate NSDAP and similar groups!
Newt said: “In her book “Stiff,” which has a chapter on death (and survival) after high falls, Mary Roach reports that it’s the aorta that bursts upon impact, not during the fall. It’s a very thin/fragile part of the heart, so the sudden deceleration causes it to rupture.
Sheer panic from falling is, oddly, often not reported during these sorts of instances. People who have survived such occurences report feelings of dissociation…They’re aware that the event is occuring, but they feel somewhat separate from it, as if it is happening to someone else.”
dude i love that book
Are you sure they were right-wing? The Nazi’s were left-wing.”
This is typical Libertarian obfuscation. Read some Mein Kampf and and see what the Nazis felt about lefties — they were the ones who would let the worthless live and dirty the gene pool, so therefore they were the first target of the Nazi regime. Social Democrats and Communists were the first to be shipped to concentration camps because of they were the political antithesis of the Nazis.
Survival of the fittest and competition (extremely brutal at that too) is a key tenet in most European Fascist doctrines of the early 20th century, but of course, because of convenience, you guys tend to avoid this part of the story. What you are opposed to is totalitarianism and authority of the state, but it can be used to advance any ideology and school of thought, and therefore is not specific to the right-left spectrum of ideas. There are lefty anarchists, you know.
If authoritarianism is taken out of the picture, I don’t see much difference between Nazism of old and where our world is headed currently. The former actively weeds out the weak, the latter simply “allows” them to perish.
And oh yeah, these days survival of the fittest is pushed down to the level of the indidividual instead of the national-racial level it was on during the thirties. Should have remembered to mention that, it is an important point, but a mere question of scale and has to do with the motivation for the authoritarian implementation of the ideology.
Hey.. I live in the area in which the plain crashed.. and it wasn’t really a mountain into which the plane crashed.. more like a hill.. couldn’t have been very much of a direct impact..
So what you’re saying is that Utashe is not a terrorist organization, they’re just following the good ol’ biblical “eye for an eye” concept, eh?
mfilip62 said: “Ustashe are not terroristic group!!!… … …”
mfilip62 said: “Ustashe are not terroristic group!!!
They were (are ) anti-communistic Croatian liberation organization.
They were cooperating with Hitlers Germany during ww2,becouse they hawe no other option!
At the end of the war,moustly of them were executed (with many inocent Croatian civilians too) on the place called “Bleiburg”!(around 150 000 or more people were executed!!!)
They were executed by communistic terrorists named “partizani”,with Tito as a leader,all that afther end of ww2!!!
Croatian army(and civilians) want to surrended to the Allied forces in Austria(british forces),but british hawe broken Geneva convention and leave them to the “partizani”!
British responsibility is mouch more bigger becouse Ustashe hawe newer fought against Allied forces,youst against communists!
Ustashe DID NOT done that terroristic act becouse simple reason,THEY DID NOT EXIST in the way of military organization after ww2,no mather what communists said!
Real terrorists are communists,they were constantly violating basic human rights duryng yugoslavia,UDBA (something like yugoslavian KGB) has setup up that, and other similar terro. acts to Ustashas.
Ustasha(ustaša) means to stand up (agains terror and injustice).
It has similary meaning like expression “protestantizam””
ustashas have violated basic human rights duryng the NDH, and communists have violated the basic human rights after the ww2 in yugoslavia, but i have not heard that ustashas wer terrorists after ww2
i am not a sympathizer of the ustashas, but that they wer an terroristic group after ww2 is a lie
I think what mfilip62 is trying to say is that Ustashe didn’t do it. I’m not saying I believe him, or the people who disagree with him. I have no idea, I’m just pointing it out.
PresMatt said: “Or it could be caused by blood clots that cut circulation off to her legs… I imagine she was probably pretty banged up both internally and externally after a fall like that. It could have caused blood to clot in her legs, cut circulation off, and temporary paralysis. The only reason I say this is because it’s the only way that I know of that a person can come back from being paralyzed with little or no long lasting damage. Seeing as I’m basing this hypothesis on my extensive medical knowledge garnered mostly from House and Scrubs I could be wrong…”
hmmm, the clots thing is a valid point, though i’m a little unsure of the possible side effects, as if the clot broke free and started circulating it could end badly. it would really depend on where the clot is i suppose.
Dani said: “But if it was a blood clot cutting off circulation to her legs, wouldn’t it cause muscle death?
(House rocks!!)”
it would depend on how long the clot was there….plus it would depend on how much of the muscle died, it could be hrown back through therapy [probably…]
mfilip62 said: “What are you people know about terrorism,ha!
You think that you hawe expirience terroristic act youst becuse two lunatics hawe crushed up
in to the feew buildings!?!?
I dont wish that anyne of you expirience real terrorism like we hawe,
real terrorism is when youre lifes are under constant death treath;
Serbs(not all of them,Vesna was one of feew exception) hewe aggress mine homeland;
They were slaughtering,rapeing to death(including babyes and old womens),massacrig,burning live people and much,much more terrible and disgusting
things THAT YOU CAN NOT EAWEN IMAGINE !(they hawe newer exempt children,babyes,cripples,womans,old people and womens)
Ustashe and other organizations were natural respond to those aevents becouse no one(exept Germans)
want to help us.(during ww2 and “homeland war”)
So if you are not an historical expert,and you are not,DO NOT JUDGE!
Say what you want,i tried to discuss with you people,i dont want to offence anyones feelings and i dont want to anyone offence mynes!(altrought ith is wery patethic to belive to Simon Wiesenthal R.C. and other similar craps)
So ith is better to end up that conversation!
Dont you think soo!?”
Someone needs to take the “Hooked on Phonics” video away from this guy.
lawn dart….wuss…hooked on Phonics…Youse guys crack me up.
On a lighter note, I saw a video of a parachutist fall from 10,000 feet, hit the ground
and lived. He bounced…about 6 – 8 feet into the air after hitting. I always imagined
the human body would act like a water melon and split open or just mush up. He
broke about everything he had but he lived.
Ustashe tube…isn’t that inside the inner ear causes people to lean too far to right…
another House lover
Filoviridae said: “Well she did have 27 other people to cushion her fall…”
Giggle that.
mfilip62 said: “Ustashe are not terroristic group!!!…””
Ok honey, now tell us how you [EM]really[/EM] feel.
cerebulon said: “I remember this story from book of strange phenomena I had as a kid. …This is really odd, because I just found that book in a box the other day… and this story is pretty obscure.”
First>> to note cerebulon’s Badder-Meinhoff moment!
Drakvil said: “much more likely than a blood clot (which usually ends up killing tissues downstream from the blockage) is that her paralysis was caused by swelling from the blunt force trauma reducing the circulation in parts of her back and legs, as well as compressing and interfering with the operation of the nerves needed to properly operate the legs. As the tissues heal, the swelling will reduce and the affected tissues can heal and return to their proper function. I don’t think that this was an incident of the brain re-wiring itself, as the damage would most likely not be to the brain itself (or many other things would have stopped working, and probably killed her outright), as the brain cannot rewire the connections out in the body…
Ustashe not terrorist? Military operations are not required to be classified as a terrorist, committing vile acts of violence is sufficient.”
Yep, right on.
“Alan says:”Her skull was broken and hemorrhaging, both of her legs were broken, and she had three crushed vertebrae. paralyzed from the waist down
Later, she underwent surgery that restored movement to her left leg, and a month after that, she regained movement in her right leg. Eventually, she was able to walk again.”
Though not that unusual by todays medical standards; [we have come a long way with the art of repairing spinal injuries following Chris Reeves’ accident]; I suppose back then this would have seemed a miracle. I think this gals personal fortitude and sheer determination went a long way towards her recovery, as well as the skilled hands of her surgeons’. I mean, geeze, the gal fell out of the sky, 33,330 feet. Whether she was teathered to a post or free falling, she had literaly tons of other stuff flying and falling all around her, I think the miracle is that she Made it to the ground in one relatively solid piece!
Oh and yeah, House ROCKS! Wouldn’t you just love it if one of the interns hauled off and slapped the crap outta him,I mean, just once? LOL
schuylercat said: Note – someone PLEASE tell me how to spell “shooshed.”
Do you mean “schussed”? I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds like something you do when you ski. I’m just a spelling dork, don’t blame me!! : / sorry. I’m a n00b.
There was no bomb planted on that flight, it was the work of UDBA (Yugoslav Secret Police at that time, and Czechoslovakian Secret Police, (now Czech Republic) to throw a blame on USTASE, Croatian Terrorist Group. It was found that the civilian plane was a direct hit and downed by a Czechoslovakian missile at that time. (They had military exercise going for 2 hours and their airspace was restricted to civilian flights for two hours). If the DC9 aircraft was blown from inside, it would have been broken in more pieces, but since it was a direct hit from outside, it was a clean break in half on impact, therefore it wasn’t a bomb, it was a missile that downed the plane.
On the other hand, if you know enough history of survivial of Croatian civilians, what happened during and after the WWII, what Yugoslav Partisans have done to Croatians, (for example Bleiburg where hundred of thousands of Croatians were murdered by partisan/russian forces) during the Tito’s rule and after his death, Yugoslavia was trying to stay in one piece, but it was the Serbia’s dream of “Supreme Serbia” and to wipe out every ethnic groups at that time: Slovenians, Croatians, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Kosovars to tell them they’re no longer this and that but Serbs), that in effect destroyed Yugoslavia, thus iginiting civil war. It shows that Serb, at the time of existence of Yugoslavia were not respecting other ethnic group who worked for JAT, basically all flight crew were Serbs, and if you were of other Republic at that time, every step would be taken to have you removed and Serb placed on that position. I remember coming to Canada on JAT flight, and I asked for extra orange, guess what I was told: “there’s no more and rest is for us (flight crew).
I flew with other airlines and received far better service (even flying with Pan Am I got two meals).
In closing this, I would say, for example you are a Pole and Serb comes to you and tell you, “hey you.. you are no longer Pole, you are Serb”. would you accept that or refuse? If you refused, guess what would happen.. you’ll get killed for that. Trust me, that’s the fact.
Get your facts straight and read more. Please don’t jump in conclusion that you know more.
Actually, there are two different proposed explanations, neither confirmed. The “bomb” explanation seems to be the originally accepted one, but the “missile” explanation does have some good evidence for it as well. See:
Wikipedia: JAT Flight 364
PlaneCrashInfo.Com: Entry on Flight 364
Aviation Safety Network: Entry on Flight 364
I remember this story about Vesna Vulovic when I was a little Croatian girl living in Croatia (Yugoslavia).
Amazing story of miraculous survival! Later came across the same story again.
I never heard of the reason of the fatal crash except of : just a crash: VV was in the tail of the plane, it was reported; that was all. Noone mentioned ustashas and the terrorist bomb.
Vesna (goddess of spring in Slavonic folk myths) survived that crash so I can learn NOW (better sooner than never: April, 2008, thanks to the Internet) the ustashas DID that.
The same as they did this >> http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/76dec/brockman.htm
God bless Vesna!
God bless the Internet.
Have you ever thought about this? It is impossible to survive a freefall from 33.000 ft. If this is right, you may doubt that Vesna’s plane crash happened like we were told for 36 years.
And about the Ustashe. It was only a phone call made by a man speaking bad Swedish which is the evidence for blaming Croatian extremists. This man called the Malmö newspaper ‘Äftenposten’ on 27 January 1972, which was enough for a speaker of the Yugoslav government to blame the ‘Ustashe’.
Travis, I was just wondering how people from former Yugoslav area tend to contaminate each and every corner of the Internet with their petty political propaganda, when I stumbled upon your comment that should actually be marked with a huge “CRAP ALERT” sign. Anyway, in all that twisting of facts, at least this:
gave me a good laugh, as did this:
And it comes from a former JAT employee when I tell you, good that they did not give you an extra orange, you’ve been a bad, bad boy.
To mfilip62:
Just one question: did the Ustase want to ethnically cleanse Serbs out of Croatia? Just answer yes or no. If yes, how are they different from Nazis and racists? And you even talk of human rights? They cooperated with a regime that killed 21 million people. Even Ukrainians and Poles who hated Stalin fought with the allies against the Nazis.
Just because Milosevic and other war criminals was a Serb-supremacist, racist despot doesn’t mean that the group should adopt similar methods in armed resistance.
“In closing this, I would say, for example you are a Pole and Serb comes to you and tell you, “hey you.. you are no longer Pole, you are Serb”. would you accept that or refuse? If you refused, guess what would happen.. you’ll get killed for that. Trust me, that’s the fact.
Get your facts straight and read more. Please don’t jump in conclusion that you know more.”
You must be really stupid to say something like this.In which century do you live.I am a Serb.And I’m reaaaally proud of it.I would never change anyhing about my nation.I wouldnt hide it or things like that.so Trevis i cant believe somebady could write something like this.That is so apsurd and its so not like us.WE are not like that.The person who told you that is…i dont know even how to say it.I just cant believe -.-
In soviet Russia ..plane break , not you
There is a road safety advert …’don’t die of a broken heart. I can’t recall the exact details – but is something along the lines of the aortic artery being ripped off the heart at point of impact following a car accident….also guess its a bit like terminol velocity (maybe – not got time to double check this right now) – normally the greater the fall the greater the impact of the impact….a penny dropping from the Eiffel tower striking someone on the head and killing them…..
Always ask questions, information is power, strive to reach the truth – live your own truth and follow your gut instinct. Don’t be ruled by your head!!
What about incidents where people have survived horrendous crashes ‘simply’ because they were relaxed (maybe asleep)
Have u ever noticed injections hurt less when u relax into it – go with the flow – just let it happen??
I myself was punched 3 or 4 times in the eye socket a few days ago. I remained calm, and accepted the situation….ad of yet there is no visible evidence of the event taking place (if I touch my face though it is v v tender!!!)
These days I try to trust in the ‘cosmic forces’, ‘God’, ‘the creator/divine’ – whatever….I trust that I am being looked after and everything happens for a reason, even if I may never find the reason whilst I’m still living a human life.
I appreciate this may sound crazy to many of you….but I know there will be others that ‘get this’
What a shame the lady seems to have ‘given up’ – she tried to stand up to the system, but it beat her down. I trust she will find peace, I hear she has cats….I don’t know what I’d do without mthe ‘fluffy babies’ that live with me…..
Believe in the fairy tales…they might just be true ;-)
What about incidents
Sorry for the mistakes – my phone is going crazy…it wouldn’t let me go back and change stuff…..
Actually a lot of electronical stuff is playing up when I’m near lately………… ;-) wow!!!! (But a bit freaky too! ;-)
Nazi is short for NAZIonal Socialisteche Deutscher Arbeitspartei – National Socialist German Workers Party. They were Leftist/Statist/Fascist. You could look it up.
Mr. Bellows:
Unfortunately, I have nothing wise or witty to say.
I am writing only to tell you that I thought that I had read every article in the Damn Interesting archives. It turns out that I had not. This one is new to me.
As is always the case, this was well written and a fascinating story.
And I am back again, albeit one day late.
Checking back in.
I started not to post again, but I found that I could not resist writing on the third anniversary of my first post.