Inspirational, powerful people. You have their power and inspiration an your disposal.
Nick Vujicic: a man with no limbs who teaches people how to get up
The wonderful Nick Vujicic was born in Melbourne, Australia with the rare Tetra-amelia disorder. Meaning he was limbless, missing both arms at shoulder level, and having one small foot with two toes protruding from his left thigh. Despite the absence of limbs, he can surf, swim, play golf and football. He is now a motivational speaker. See him speak here:
Nando Parrado: survived airplane crash and 72 days in the Andes
It was 72 days of horrific ordeal, Nando Parrado and other survivors of a plane crash in the Andes had to endure before being rescued.
When the plane crashed, 13 passengers were instantly killed. The 32 others were badly wounded. Hoping to be rescued, the survivors were subjected to temperatures of minus 37 degrees centigrade.
Nine days after the crash, the situation was desperate. The survivors had to call a meeting. One of them proposed that they have to eat the dead. The 2 hours meeting ended with a conclusion. If any of them died in the Andes, the rest had the permission to use the corpse as food.
After 2 weeks, their hope of being found completely diminished when they found out via their radio transistor that the rescue effort was called off.
On the 60th day, Nando Parrado and 2 other friends decided they had to leave the top of the mountain. By the time they left, Nando Parrado said, the crash site was “.. an awful place, soaked in urine, smelling of death, littered with ragged bits of human bone and gristle”.
The team endured frozen snow, exhaustion, starvation, walking and climbing for ten days before finding their way to the bottom of the mountain.
The team was finally helped by a Chilean farmer. After phoning for further emergency help, Parrado then guided the rescue team via a helicopter to the crash site.
On the 22nd December 1972, after enduring 72 brutal days, the world found out that there were 16 survivors who cheated death. 8 of the initial survivors died when an avalanche cascaded down on them as they slept in the fuselage.
During the heart wrenching ordeal, Nando Parrado lost 40 kg of his weight. He also lost half his family in the crash. He is now a motivational speaker.
Jessica Cox: became the first pilot with no arms.
Jessica Cox suffered a rare birth defect and was born without any arms. None of the prenatal tests her mother took showed there was anything wrong.
The psychology graduate can write, type, drive a car, brush her hair and talk on her phone simply using her feet. Ms Cox, from Tuscon, Arizona, USA, is also a former dancer and double black belt in Tai Kwon-Do. She has a no-restrictions driving license, she flies planes and she can type 25 words a minute.
She took three years instead of the usual six months to complete her lightweight aircraft license, had three flying instructors and practiced 89 hours of flying, becoming the first pilot with no arms. Simply amazing.
Sean Swarner: first cancer survivor to complete the 7 highest peaks of each continent on the planet.
Mount Everest tortures its challengers with the risk of death extremely high. If you’ve ever read the book, ‘Into Thin Air’ you’ll know just what we mean. But for Sean Swarner the obstacles he overcame prior to his summiting make his story even more compelling.
Sean isn’t just a cancer survivor; he is a medical marvel. He is the only person in the world ever to have been diagnosed with both Hodgkin’s disease and Askin’s sarcoma. He was diagnosed in the fourth and final stage of Hodgkin’s disease at the age of thirteen, doctors expected him to live for no more than three months.
He overcame his illness only to then be stricken a second time when a deadly golf ball-sized tumor attacked his right lung. After removal of the tumour, Sean was expected to live for less than two weeks. A decade later and with only partial use of his lungs, Sean became famous for being the first cancer survivor to climb Mount Everest.
After the summit of Everest, Sean had the desire and dream to continue moving forward and reaching people around the world. Climbing the highest mountain on each continent became his next goal. Proving to others that anything is possible, Sean successfully summited Mt. McKinley, to be the first cancer survivor to complete the seven summits. You can read more about Swarner’s story on his 2007 book.
Ben Underwood: The boy who could “see” with his ears
Ben Underwood was a remarkable teenager, who loved to skateboard, ride his bicycle, play football and basketball. For the most part, the Californian 14-year-old was just like other kids his age. What made Ben remarkable was his ability to master these activities despite the fact that he was blind.
Underwood had both eyes removed after being diagnosed with retinal cancer at age two. To most people’s amazement upon meeting him, he seemed completely unfazed by his lack of sight, defying common stereotypes about blindness as a disability.
How was this even possible? The answer is echolocation: the sonar navigation technique used by bats, dolphins, several other mammals and some birds. As Ben moved about, he habitually made noises with his tongue; these sounds bounced off surfaces and, with each return, added to Ben’s perception of his surroundings. Astounding.
He was so good at it that he could distinguish between parked cars and trucks, and — if you took him to a building he had never been to before — he would tell you he could ‘see’ a staircase in that corner and a kitchen in the other. He could even distinguish between different materials.
Watch Ben here…