A human being is a fragile creature. All it takes is a nasty bump or a wrong meal to finish us off. Still, as we have previously pointed out, under the right circumstances people can be borderline invincible. There are a few men and women who have been able to survive things that could and by all rights should kill a horde of elephants. Let’s take a moment to celebrate these unkillable supermen.

5. The Man Who Was Trapped Underwater (for Three Days)With hindsight, Harrison Okene probably should have seen the signs. All of the ingredients were in place: He was young, happy, and gainfully employed as a cook on a Chevron service tugboat. Also, he was about to get married in a few days. All he had to do before his wedding was finish this one . last . mission.

Don’t worry, he lives. She’s crying about catering.

Of course, said mission turned into the most terrifying disaster movie this side of the SS Poseidon. In the early morning of May 26, 2013, Okene had just gotten up and was in the bathroom. Suddenly, his ship was hit by what a spokesman later called a “sudden ocean swell” (which is presumably corporate speak for “Shit, we accidentally summoned Cthulhu again”).

Okene could only watch helplessly as his daily life turned into a trip to Rapture. The tugboat capsized and plummeted 100 feet below the surface, with him still inside. Trapped in the dark abyss with no one else in sight and wearing nothing but his boxers, Okene waded through the ship’s corridors (which were slowly filling with icy water). He managed to locate a source of light, some Coca Cola, and a few tools, and he made it to a relatively safe corner of the ship.

That dissolved gas is oxygen, right? Right?!

Okene ended up bunking in a 4 foot air pocket under the surface, holding back the water as best he could and stacking mattresses as the cold water rose to keep dry. To make things worse, sharks and barracudas soon started roaming the ship’s interiors in search of a meal. He could hear them fighting for the remains of his shipmates in other rooms and swimming in the water just below him. He had no food. The salt water and the bumps from the accident were wearing his skin raw. There was far too little air for him to breathe, and he was ruining it with every breath by puffing out carbon dioxide. He would not last beyond a couple of hours.

Except that he totally did. In fact, he managed to stay alive for 62 hours. Here’s how:

That little beauty is called Boyle’s law. It states that when you increase atmospheric pressure (say, by sinking 100 feet underwater), gases become denser. This meant the tiny air pocket actually contained a lot more oxygen than it would on land. Meanwhile, that lethally cold water aided Okene by absorbing the murderous carbon dioxide he was breathing out, so the CO2 levels never built up to toxic levels, either.

When the company finally got around to sending a recovery team (they had, understandably, been assuming everyone was dead), Okene Air Jordan 15s gave a diver the shock of a lifetime: The second he heard human sounds, he announced his presence by pounding the shit Air Jordan 8s out of a wall with a hammer.

The divers fled, fearing pirate ghosts, but they returned with backup.

After a quick rescue operation and a stint in a decompression chamber, Okene emerged back in the land of the living, as good as new. Divers all over the world marvel at his tenacity, as those depths can only safely be dived for about 20 minutes at a time.

4. The Man Who Rode a TornadoIf there’s one thing to be learned from notable documentaries such as Twister and Sharknado, it’s that tornadoes are as disastrous as tornado movies are terrible. Getting caught near one means a collapsed house Air Jordan 10 Retro on your head or worse. Getting caught in one means a quick, nasty, flying trip at NASCAR speeds, with lethal winds and flying debris in a heated contest to see who can pulverize you first. There’s no surviving a ride like that. That is, unless you’re Matt Suter.

In 2006, the 19 year old Missouri native was in his grandmother’s trailer home when the weather became rowdy. In an attempt to shield himself from the storm, Suter was just standing on the sofa and attempting to close the living room window. Suddenly, things got 10 kinds of crazy. The noise became unbearable. The floor of the trailer started “moving just like Jell O.” A massive force hit the trailer, tearing the doors from their hinges and generally wrecking shit. Furniture went into Poltergeist mode, flying around and smacking into Suter.

Mobile homes are not particularly known for their stability.

At this point, it was clear that the storm was a twister. This became even clearer when Suter, wearing only his underpants, was sucked out of the trailer through a collapsing wall into the raging darkness beyond. As death scenes go, this was both extremely cinematic and utterly unsurvivable.

Except that he totally survived. By the time Suter regained consciousness, he was lying four football fields away from the remains of the trailer. The twister had been hurling him around until he ended up in a grass field almost a quarter mile away and across a barbed wire fence. He survived the 150 mph ride with just minor cuts and bruises.

He used this diagram in traffic court to contest his speeding ticket.

The astonished agents of the National Weather Service measured the precise distance of his flight at 1,307 feet, which is the longest tornado aided flight a human being has ever survived, especially with such minor injuries. Really, the only reason we’re not thinking Suter is secretly Superman is the fact that in 1955, a 9 year old girl also miraculously survived a 1,000 Air Jordan DMP foot tornado ride. That she took with her pony.

3. The Kid Who Survived a Plane Crash and Tamed a Mountain

Fish and Wildlife Service/Wikimedia

To say that Norman Ollestad Jr. got into extreme sports at a young age would be a severe understatement. His dad, Norman Sr. a notorious adrenaline junkie started pushing him into the scene about five minutes after Mama Ollestad popped Junior out.

Junior’s umbilical cord made bungee jumping an obvious choice.

So while most of us were Air Jordan 1s busy building booger constructs and pissing ourselves at the thought of rides at Six Flags, Ollestad was deep sea fishing and going on jungle safaris to find secret surfing spots.

Ollestad didn’t always enjoy daddy’s lessons, but they did make him tough. He became a master at everything extreme, from comfortably riding on his father’s back while he was surfing at age 1 to effortlessly skiing impossibly difficult slopes at freaking 4.