This article explores the fascinating stories of people who, against all odds, managed to survive dramatic, seemingly hopeless situations. The focus is on Grigori Rasputin, whose life and death have become legendary, and whose extraordinary resistance to poison and injury is astonishing. Alongside him, the story of Kenyon Tuthill, a police officer who survived a gunshot wound to the face, demonstrates that the human will to survive can be astonishing even in the most extreme circumstances. These stories prompt reflection on the fragility of life and the mysteries of the human body.
If you think about it, the human body is quite fragile. Maybe not as fragile as movie makers try to portray, but still far more durable than many other life forms on this planet.
Movies try to make you believe—at least in the case of faceless thugs—that you can die instantly with a good, swift kick to the shins. But if you were a hero (or antihero), you could even survive a nuclear explosion and emerge unscathed.
In real life, of course, it's different. Introducing foreign objects into your body, especially sharp ones, is definitely not advisable. Generally, it's a good idea not to end things with bullets, and most people will tell you not to store knives in your stomach (or back, but that's a story for another article).
The average person has about five liters of blood. This is roughly 7% of their body weight, so the larger you are, the more red tissue you have to carry. Of course, if you experience a leak, you'll have a problem. The same average person can—theoretically—easily survive a loss of 10-15% of their blood (about 1.5 liters), but losses above this limit become risky.
Contrary to popular belief, however, piercing your internal organs with a bullet doesn't necessarily result in death. What actually kills you is the blood loss that leaks through all those holes. Yes, there are other things that happen during the bullet wound, but as your brave sidekick will tell you, you have to stop bleeding.
But you realize that all of this is happening based on the best-case scenario, right? Well, maybe not necessarily the best-case scenario—after all, you just got shot. However, there are many people who defy the rules of survival—people who not only laugh in the face of death, but go all out.
Perhaps the most famous and stunning story of such a mocker is that of Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. However, his story is often misinterpreted.
Rasputin, whom you've undoubtedly heard of, was something of a sensation in Russia in the early 20th century. This most controversial figure was said to be one of the most powerful faith healers who ever lived—and depending on your question, he was also an occult oddity; he was certainly the most influential spiritual guru of the time. In addition, he was a trusted advisor to the tsars and, according to historians, a key catalyst in the downfall of the Russian monarchy.Volumes of books have been written about his life, character, and death. Contrary to popular belief and some films, Rasputin was certainly mortal. Although he certainly clung to this world when the Tsar's family decided to end him You've probably heard the short version: he was poisoned, shot, beaten, and finally drowned at a party in his honor. However, lest you misunderstand, that wasn't how people celebrated in Russia back then. No, it was Rasputin's benefactors, fed up with his meddling in political affairs, who decided to put an end to his influence.
Rasputin's friend (or at least he believed him to be), Felix Yusupov, invited the mystic to a late-night meeting. Let us spare you the details, many of which are disputed – it is known that Rasputin was offered wine and cake laced with cyanide. Most witnesses agree that Rasputin reluctantly drank large quantities of the poisoned wine, though he didn't necessarily have to follow it up with cake. For some reason, however, the toxic drink made little impression on him, except perhaps that he got drunk.
Falling into desperation, Yusupov himself or one of the other conspirators—perhaps Dmitry Romanov—took much more overt measures to eliminate the prude. Rasputin was shot in the left side of the abdomen (in some versions, in the back) and fell to the floor, seemingly lifeless.
Thinking they had succeeded, the conspirators took action to dispose of Rasputin's body, and later came to remove it—only to discover that he was still alive and trying to climb the stairs into the yard. The attempt simply failed, so one of the conspirators, Vladimir Purishkevich, tried again, missing twice and finally hitting Rasputin in the back as he ran. Finally, he was shot in the head and, in an Oscar-worthy manner, collapsed in the snow.
Yusupov, presumably driven mad by the events of the evening, stood over Rasputin with a baton in his hand and began pummeling him about the head and body until he finally exhausted himself. It's hard to believe, but Rasputin was still alive.
Fed up with this endless murder, Rasputin's killers wrapped him in a rug and threw him into the nearby Nina River. Much to the surprise of investigators, when his body was recovered several days later, they discovered traces indicating that Rasputin was still alive and had injured his hands while trying to escape from the ice.
The story certainly sounds incredible, but as already mentioned, his wounds alone would have provided a chance of survival, at least for a short time. Whether he possessed some resistance to the cyanide, or perhaps his hosts had made a mistake, no single event he experienced that night could ultimately have resulted in his death. He only met his end when he drowned.
Rasputin, however, is not the only person to survive after suffering serious injuries at the hands of his attacker.On May 27, 1988, Suffolk County, New York, police officer Kenyon Tuthill was shot with a shotgun by a maniac while sitting in his patrol car. Tuthill was shot directly in the face with the shotgun, which, as you might imagine, resulted in the loss of not only most of his face but also nearly 30% of his head.
Anyone reading this would probably assume that Officer Tuthill's life was over that night, but what if I told you he never even lost consciousness?
The gunman fled the scene immediately after firing the shot, presumably believing the officer was dead, but Tuthill was still alive. The officer called for help on his CB radio, though with most of his mouth gone, he could only utter inarticulate moans. He underwent nine hours of life-saving surgery that day, and his attacker was eventually caught and imprisoned for life.
Officer Kenyon Tuthill survived something unimaginable – since the incident, he has undergone more than seventeen facial reconstructive surgeries and was featured in the 1991 documentary "Ultimate Survivors: Winning Against Incredible Odds," hosted by William Shatner.
These two stories seem to contradict what we read daily in the news headlines. People are killed so often, sometimes in such seemingly benign ways, and almost always for no good reason. Our bodies are damaged on every level, and at first glance, there seems to be no logic to who survives and who dies. The story of Rasputin usually sparks discussions of magic, sorcery, and alchemy, but when an ordinary police officer named Tuthill survives such massive injury through sheer willpower, magic seems unnecessary. One thing is certain, however: of all the ways to destroy life, killing one another is the worst.
