Coincidences Are Spiritual Puns – Part Two
Frane Selak (1929 – present)
Reviewing Selak’s brushes with death, it is hard to determine whether he was incredibly unlucky or whether he had a guardian angel perched on his shoulder. Either way the Croatian-born music teacher managed to escape with his life from an astonishing array of accidents, as we shall see.
It all started in January 1962 when Selak was travelling by train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik. His journey came to an abrupt halt when the train derailed, plunging into an icy river, killing 17 passengers. Apart from hypothermia and a broken arm, Selak walked away to tell the tale. In 1963 he took his first trip in an aircraft, whilst travelling from Zagreb to Dubrovnik. During the course of the flight the door came off the plane. The sudden drop in pressure forced Selak and the other passengers out of the plane, killing 19. Inevitably, he escaped unharmed, a haystack breaking his fall.
Perhaps considering rail and air travel too dangerous, Selak started to travel by road but ill-fortune continued to dog him. In 1966 he was travelling on a bus. It skidded off the road and plunged into a river, killing four people. Selak, of course, escaped, and swam to the river bank with just a few cuts and bruises to serve as a reminder of his latest dice with death.
Selak fared little better when he was in charge of his own fate, perhaps because he chose particularly unreliable vehicles to drive. In 1970 his car was engulfed in flames, probably due to a faulty fuel pump and he managed to effect his escape before the vehicle blew up. Perhaps even more hair-raising was an incident three years later when the engine of his latest motor caught fire and flames shot through the air vents into the cabin. Again Selak managed to get out just in the nick of time, although he lost most of his hair to the flames.
Even as a pedestrian his luck ran out in 1995 when in Zagreb he was struck by a bus. Apart from sustaining a few minor injuries, he was able to pick himself, brush himself down and curse his bad luck. By this time war was ravaging what was previously known as Yugoslavia and United Nations troops were sent to Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia to put an end to the genocide and restore some kind of order. Selak had a near-death encounter with a United Nations truck on a mountain road. In an attempt to avoid a head-on collision, he swerved and struck a safety barrier. Inevitably, the barrier gave way under the force of the impact, the driver’s door was forced open and Selak, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt – after all, why would he need to take precautions – was thrown out. He hung onto the trunk of a tree as he saw his vehicle plunge over the ravine into the gorge below.
After that Selak’s life seems to have taken on a degree of normality, although he was on his fifth marriage when two days before his 73rd birthday in 2003, he checked his lottery ticket. You’ve guessed it – he discovered that he won some €800,000. He settled into the lifestyle of the rich, buying a couple of houses, including one on a private island. However, in 2010 he saw the light, realising that money can’t buy happiness and decided to live a life of frugality. So he sold his houses and gave most of his fortune to friends and family, although he kept a bit back to fund a hip replacement and to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary who he believes guided him through all his trials and tribulations.
After his lottery win, Selak was invited to fly to Australia to appear in an advert promoting Doritos. Perhaps wisely, given his track record, he declined. He is still going strong!
