The luckiest men in history

reggie124

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Some men have all the luck. Particularly the 10 guys featured in this list.

We recently told you the amazing tales of 10 of the world's unluckiest men, so we thought we'd flip fortune's coin and take a look at the other side.

Here, in no particular order, is our selection of the world's luckiest men, 10 extremely fortunate so-and-sos whose good luck, in a few cases at least, may leave you feeling seriously cheesed off.


Les Carvell


Romford man Les Carvell had scooped hefty lottery wins of £1,700, £1,500 and £1,700 by picking five correct numbers no less than three times, but his luck hadn't run out yet.

In 1998 he scooped the £1.1 million jackpot, but there was more to come. In 2002 he backed five horses on an accumulator and they all romped home, netting Les another £75,000.



Ernest Pullen


Winning the lottery comes with odds of about 14 million to one against. In other words, it's very unlikely indeed.

The odds of Ernest Pullen pulling off his double lottery win were an astonishing 100 million to one
So you'd think that Ernest Pullen of Missouri in the US might have given up after winning $1 million on a scratch card. Instead, he put one of those dollars to very good use just three months later, when he won another lottery $2 million.

Total odds against the feat: 100 million to one.


Alec Alder



In 2008, aged 90, Alec Alder was given the unofficial title of Britain's luckiest man.

His run of luck began as a child, when he was run over by a car that happened to be driven by a doctor, who saved his life.

Later, at the start of the second world war, his wedding was brought forward by two months, and he was, unusually, given five days leave while his company was sent to Dunkirk. Not one of his comrades survived.

In 1942 his leg was run over by a tank that would have gone on to kill him had the engine not stalled. Later he miraculously survived when a fighter plane crashed into the house he was sleeping in, coming to rest just feet above his head.



Leon "Willy" Wilson


In 2009, during a fierce fire fight with the Taliban in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Private Leon "Willy" Wilson was shot in the head with a 7.62mm AK47 bullet.
Private Leon 'Willy' Wilson escaped being shot in the head by just two millimetres
At least, that's what everybody thought. He was knocked off his feet and landed on his back, and opened his eyes to see medics looking queasily at the hole in his helmet.

But Wilson, who didn't have a mark on him, simply got up, found another helmet, and rejoined the fight. The all-but-impossible trajectory of the bullet meant it had missed his head by a mere two millimetres.



OCD cure


Author Clifford Pickover, in his book Strange Brains and Genius, recounts the story of an American man who had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder so badly that he felt his only way out from the daily torment was suicide. So he shot himself in the head.

The shot didn't kill him, but it cured his OCD. It had achieved the same result as a leucotomy - a less radical version of a lobotomy - in removing part of the left lobe of the brain that caused the disorder.

Miraculously, the bullet's path through his skull also allowed him to make a complete recovery and go on to lead a normal life.



Trent Mongan


Trent Morgan was just walking out of London's King's Cross tube station on 7 July 2005 when a terrorist bomb exploded. So were many others, but none of them had also walked from a nightclub on Kuta Beach in Bali moments before a bomb exploded there in 2002, killing 202 people.

Australian Mongan was also in Sri Lanka when it was devastated by the 2004 Tsunami, and came away unharmed.



Dead man walking


A South African man presumed dead woke up in a morgue last month and is now safely back at home, having apparently suffered no ill effects.
As an unidentified South African man can attest, there are rare occasions when toe tags can be tied prematurely
He'd suffered an asthma attack that had left him so comatose his family - and morgue attendants - assumed he was dead.

He wasn't, and to his great relief he awoke before ongoing funeral preparations had progressed any further.



Bill Morgan


After suffering a heart attack, Australian Bill Morgan was declared clinically dead for 14 minutes but survived. He then spent two weeks in a coma during which his family were advised to turn off life support, but they didn't and he awoke with all faculties intact.

To celebrate his good fortune, he bought a scratch card and won a $27,000 car. Local news media were so entranced by his good luck story they asked him to re-enact the scratch card moment for the cameras.

So Bill bought another card, rubbed it, and won a $250,000 jackpot.


Tommy Allsup


Tommy Allsup is an American musician who worked with Buddy Holly in the 1950s. In February 1959, Allsup was about to board a light plane with Holly and JP "Big Bopper" Richardson, but there was only one seat left and two people wanted it.

Losing a coin toss left Tommy Allsup stranded but it also saved his life
Allsup tossed a coin and lost, and Ritchie Valens took the seat.

The plane crashed killing everyone on board, and Allsup went on to open a bar called The Heads Up Saloon in honour of the toss that saved his life.



Ziona Chana


Is Ziona Chana the luckiest or unluckiest man in the world? We'll leave you to decide.

The pertinent fact is this: Mr Chana gets his own room and his own double bed. That's important, because he has 39 wives who visit him on a nightly rotation, a situation that has lead to Mr Chana being head of the world's largest family, with all his wives, plus 94 children and 33 grandchildren living under one roof. It takes 30 whole chickens to make one dinner.

And he's not done yet. Mr Chana is reportedly looking for more wives.


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