Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb. He suffered serious burns and spent a night there to recover. He then decided to go back home to Nagasaki. Despite his wounds he decided to go back to work on 9 August and on that day, Nagasaki was the second city to be hit by an atomic bomb.
Yamaguchi survived both bombings, but it was not until 24 March 2009 that the government of Japan officially recognised his presence in Hiroshima three days earlier.
#4 – Henry Ziegland
He was shot by a bullet lodged in a tree, 20 years after he was injured by the same bullet in a shooting.
In 1883 Henry Ziegland broke up from his girlfriend. She was so distressed from the break-up that she committed suicide. Her enraged brother did the ‘heroic’ thing, and shot Ziegland and then took his own life with the same gun. Little did he know that the bullet had scraped past Ziegland and lodged itself in a tree behind him.
Ziegland must have thought he was the luckiest man alive. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side when he decided to remove the tree from his property, some 20 years after the original shooting.
Unable to perform the task manually, he decided to use dynamite. In the explosion the bullet became dislodged from the tree with such a force that it flew into Ziegland’s head, killing him instantly.
#5 – Ann Hodges
She is the only person on record to hit by a meteorite.
On November 30, 1954, Ann Hodges was in her living room, taking an afternoon nap on her couch when a meteorite crashed through her roof, bounced off a large wooden console radio, destroying it and hit her on the hip.
Ann Hodges is the only person on record to be hit by a meteorite. As a result, the media attention she got was huge. Offers for the historic piece of rock were coming in from around the country, some of up to $5,000. The whole world knew about the event, but she was uncomfortable with the publicity.
The United States Air Force came and collected the meteorite, but Ann’s husband, Eugene, hired a lawyer to get it back. Unfortunately however, by the time they got the meteorite back, over a year later, public attention had diminished and they were unable to find a buyer.
She decided to donate the 8.5 pound, grapefruit-sized meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, against her husband’s wishes, where it is displayed at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
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