Who Was Frane Salek?
How do you define luck? Is it surviving a disaster or winning the lottery? For Frane Salek, it was both. Born on a boat in 1929, the Croatian music teacher's life was a series of improbable events that made him a global curiosity. Depending on your perspective, he was either the luckiest man in history or the most unfortunate soul to ever live.
Salek lived through the social upheaval of Yugoslavia, the horrors of World War II, and the brutal Balkan Wars. Many would consider surviving these events lucky enough, but for Frane, this was just the backdrop to a much more personal and chaotic story. He famously cheated death seven times in a series of accidents involving almost every form of modern transportation.
A Timeline of Near-Death Escapes
For over four decades, Frane Salek had an uncanny ability to walk away from disasters that claimed the lives of others around him. His string of unbelievable escapes began in his 30s.
1962: The Icy River Train Crash
Salek's first major brush with death occurred when a train he was riding from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik derailed and plunged into the freezing Neretva River. While 17 other passengers drowned, Salek managed to break a window and swim to safety, escaping with just a broken arm and hypothermia. This harrowing incident was only the beginning.
1963: The Fall from a Plane
A year later, on his first-ever flight, disaster struck again. The plane's door was ripped open mid-flight, sucking Salek and a flight attendant out at 800 meters. The plane crashed, killing everyone else on board. In a miraculous twist, Frane Salek landed on a haystack which cushioned his fall, allowing him to survive with minor injuries.
1966-1973: A Series of Vehicle Accidents
Salek's misfortune wasn't limited to public transport. Over the next several years, he survived:
- 1966: A bus he was on skidded off the road into a river, killing four passengers. Salek swam to safety with only minor cuts.
- 1970: His car's fuel tank exploded on the highway. He escaped the vehicle seconds before it was engulfed in flames.
- 1973: A malfunctioning fuel pump sprayed gasoline onto his car's hot engine, shooting flames through the air vents. His only injury was the loss of most of his hair.
1995-1996: The Final Escapes
After a nearly two-decade break, fate came for Salek again. In 1995, he was hit by a bus in Zagreb but sustained only minor injuries. A year later, while driving on a mountain road, he swerved to avoid an oncoming truck. Not wearing a seatbelt, he was ejected from his car as it plummeted 300 feet down a cliff. He managed to grab onto a tree and watched his car explode below.
The Ultimate Twist: A Lottery Jackpot
After surviving seven life-threatening events, one might think Frane Salek's story was complete. But in 2003, just days after his 73rd birthday, his luck took a different turn: he won a 6.5 million kuna ($1.1 million) lottery jackpot.
He concluded that money could not buy happiness and decided to live a frugal life in his old house.
Initially, he bought two houses and a car, but he later had a change of heart. He sold his luxurious home, gave away his fortune to family and friends, and returned to a modest life. He kept only enough for a hip replacement and to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary as thanks for his incredible luck.
Lucky or Unlucky? The Final Verdict
The debate over Frane Salek's story will likely never end. Was he incredibly lucky to survive so many disasters, or profoundly unlucky to be in them in the first place? He himself often felt he was unlucky, questioning why these things always happened to him.
It's also important to note that while his story is compelling, official verification for some of the earlier incidents is scarce, leading some to believe there may be a degree of exaggeration. Records from the 1960s in Croatia are not easily accessible, leaving much of the tale to Salek's own account.
Whether fact or embellished tale, the story of Frane Salek remains a fascinating study in probability, fate, and perspective. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 87, a man who truly looked death in the eye and lived to tell one of the most extraordinary stories of all time.
