The (un)happiest man in the world
The (mis)happenings of Fran Selak, the luckiest man in the world who cheated death many times.
The arrival of Frane Selak into the world was an accident in itself. Franjina's father and mother decided to go fishing. Mother Slavica entered the boat when she was seven months pregnant. On the way to the islet of Lokrum near Dubrovnik, she went into terrible labor. Frano, as he said, fell flat on his head. Martin, her husband, had no choice but to cut the umbilical cord with a fisherman's knife and bathe the little boy in the sea.
When he was less than a year old, Fran had problems with his intestines. The doctors were sure that the child would die in the hospital, and the mother took off his shirt and ran to the church, where she fervently prayed to Saint Teresa for his life. The shirt was blessed by the priests. Back at the hospital, Franu put on his shirt again. The doctors gave the child an injection of calcium bromate and Frano survived.
At the age of eleven, the boy almost went blind. The mother prayed to the same saint again, while the nuns put various herbs on his eyes. The boy soon recovered.
After graduating from university, Frano got a job as a music teacher. His first accident happened on a trip to Odžak in 1957. Only he and the driver remained in the bus and they decided to toast with brandy. The first round was followed by the second, the second by the third, and the cups continued to line up. At one turn, something strange happened.
The road led to the right, and the bus continued straight, despite the driver turning the steering wheel. The bus broke through the fence and fell into the Bosna River. Fortunately, it was shallow in the place where they fell, so the duo did not drown. Frano survived the accident without major injuries.
The following year, he traveled by train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik, and the mother of one of his friends was in the cabin with him. They drove through a terrible storm. Suddenly, a huge rock fell on the tracks, and the train jumped out and fell into the cold Neretva River. Frano and his mother managed to swim out of the wagon, and they were pulled out of the water by residents of the village near which the accident happened. Seventeen passengers died in the terrible accident.
Fran's mother Slavica fell seriously ill in Rijeka in 1962. Frano was working for Daruvar at the time and decided to visit his mother by plane. He took off from Zagreb. Just in case, he sat next to the exit door, which was located in the tail of the plane. He happened to talk to the stewardess Rozika and, in the heat of the conversation, stopped by the door. The plane exploded, the door opened, and the pressure pulled him and Rozika out of the plane. She fell into a tree, and he fell into a haystack. They were the only survivors of the accident. Frano survived the fall from a height of 800 meters without serious injuries.
In 1972, Frano was driving on the highway. His car suddenly, for unknown reasons, caught fire. Frano came out of it with only burnt hair, alive and well. A year later, the car caught fire again. At the last moment, Selak got out of the car, which immediately exploded.
In 1995, the indestructible Selak was driving along the road towards Karlobag. A UNPROFOR tugboat ran into it. Selak's car crashed into an abyss more than 150 meters deep and exploded. Selak was not tied down and, thanks to that, he fell out of the car and remained hanging between a tree and a rock.
Selak's long years of a succession of unfortunate situations, those that earned him the title of "unluckiest" or "luckiest" man in the world, ended in June 2002. Then Frani finally got lucky! And a good one.
He won even seven million kunas in the lottery! Happy that, despite all the misfortunes, he lived to be so old, Frano distributed most of the money he earned to his acquaintances. He died of natural causes at the age of eighty-seven, having survived a dozen fatal accidents.
