Meet the world’s luckiest man

Croatian Music teacher, Frane Selak, is what you’d call a lucky guy. He’s cheated death seven times and won the lottery.

You could say he’s led a charmed life, but Selak doesn’t feel lucky. He explained, “I never thought I was lucky to survive all my brushes with death. I thought I was unlucky to be in them in the first place.”

The born survivor had his first near death experience in 1962. He was traveling on a train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik when it became derailed. It plunged into a freezing cold river. Seventeen passengers drowned. Selak wasn’t one of them. In a state of shock and suffering from hypothermia, he made his way to the riverbank with a broken arm.

A year later, Selak would narrowly escape death again when his plane crashed.

Nineteen other passengers died, but Selak survived. He was thrown clear of the crash when the plane’s door opened. He landed in a haystack.

In 1966, he was again in mortal danger when a bus he was on skidded into a river. Four people drowned, but Selak survived with minor cuts and bruises.

In 1970, Selak’s car caught fire on the motorway. With seconds to spare he left the vehicle before the petrol tank blew up.

In 1973, his fifth accident would leave its mark. A faulty fuel pump set fire to his car and he lost most of his hair.

In 1995, he had another close call. A bus in Zagreb ran him over but he walked away relatively unscathed.

He cheated death again the following year. When driving in the mountains he turned a corner to see a UN truck coming towards him. He swerved to avoid it. Selak leapt clear of the car at the last minute as it went hurtling down the 300-foot drop. He watched as it hit the bottom and exploded into a ball of flames.

After surviving seven disasters, you might have thought Selak’s luck had run its course. It hadn’t. He purchased his first ever lottery ticket when he was 76 years old. He won £600,000.

He decided to give away almost all of his fortune to family and friends. Selak says his health and his wife Katarina is all he needs to be happy.

Selak didn’t just survive 7 near death accidents. He also survived 6 marriages. He says, “I guess all the earlier marriages were disasters too.”