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Beating the odds is always a great feeling Just ask anyone who has been accepted to a selective college, or unexpectedly won an athletic event. But beating the odds is never quite as exhilarating an experience as when the odds are against your survival.

Tami Oldham Ashcraft knows this feeling. At the age of 23, while she was sailing the South Pacific, Ashcraft was caught in a violent hurricane. The 50-foot (15-meter) waves overturned her boat. Ashcraft, who was below deck, was knocked unconscious. When she awoke 27 hours later, the boat had turned right side up again, but the storm had been so violent that the sails were destroyed, the motor was dead, and the radio was lost. Only the rudder, which steers the ship, was intact. Ashcraft was badly injured and disoriented.

Determined to survive, Ashcraft created a sail from scraps of material and charted a path to Hawaii, which was 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away. Traveling only two miles an hour, Ashcraft reached her destination 41 days later. Having lost 40 pounds (18 kilograms) during her ordeal, Ashcraft was thin and haggard when she arrived. However, she was happy and grateful to have beaten the odds. Ashcraft, who still sails, eventually told her tale of survival in a book called Red Sky in Mourning.

Another such tale of survival against the odds can be told by Eric Le Marque, a hockey player who played with the French national Olympic team during the 1994 Olympics. One day in February 2004, Le Marque set out for a day of snowboarding in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. But by the end of the day, Le Marque found himself in a life-or-death situation.

While looking for a good place to snowboard, Le Marque lost his way and ended up in the wilderness at the back of the mountain. Le Marque, who had expected to just be out for a couple of hours, had no food, very few supplies, and his cell phone battery was dead. All he had was a seemingly useless pocket radio. Once he realized he was lost, he decided to keep moving. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong direction and, over the next few days, moved farther and farther away from safety and rescue. Knowing that eating snow lowers body temperature, Le Marque ate only tree bark and pine seeds.

After a few days Le Marque had an idea that may have saved his life. He turned the pocket radio into a kind of compass. He noticed that whenever he pointed the radio in a certain direction, the reception for a local radio station grew stronger. Using this radio reception as a guide, Le Marque switched direction and started walking towards safety and, ultimately, rescue.

For days, Le Marque struggled through hunger, freezing temperatures, and 12-foot (4-meter) deep snow. By the eighth

day, Le Marque was so weak and his legs were so frostbitten that he could no longer walk or even stand. He was in

such bad condition that he began hallucinating that his situation was just a video game. He recalls thinking. "The game

is over. Let's reset it. I give up." Le Marque was at the point of exhaustion and death when he was found by rescuers in

a helicopter. Although he lost his legs to frostbite, Le Marque's survival experience left him with more of an appetite for life than ever before. After being fitted with artificial limbs, he vowed to go snowboarding again. Only in the future, he plans to be much better prepared. ..

Occasionally, some owe their survival not to struggle, but to nature. Take the startling case of Mitsutaka Uchikoshi One ice-cold October day in 2006, Uchikoshi had been with a group on a mountain in western Japan. After wanderi a field on his own, Uchikoshi tripped, hit his head, and was knocked unconscious. As Uchikoshi remembers,

Ministry of Education:

"I was in a field, and I felt very comfortable. That's my last memory." He remained unconscious in almost-freezing temperatures without food or water for more than three weeks.

When he was found in the freezing field 24 days after his fall, he did not seem to be breathing and had no detectable pulse. His body temperature was nearly 30 degrees below normal, and his organs had nearly shut down. Doctors assumed he

was dead. Yet something incredible happened while he was at Kobe City General Hospital: He woke up! Even more incredibly, Uchikoshi, who was treated for severe hypothermia and blood loss, made a full recovery. Doctors believe that Uchikoshi's body went into a state similar to hibernation. In hibernation, the body temperature of an animal is lowered and its breathing and heart rate slow down. Hibernation reduces the need for

food and protects animals from damage to the brain and other organs. Stories like these remind us that even when we are in a situation that seems impossible, we should never give up hope. After all, there is always a chance that you will succeed-against the odds!