Weird news - Man gets lucky, falls 13,000 feet and survives

From time to time, one hears of stories where people fall from higher levels in high rise buildings and survive, sometime with minor injuries, and yet you can also hear of cases where people fell from a few meters and suffered horrific injuries or died. But, can you imagine that you could fall from a sky-jump, not have your main chute fall and the reserve one only open when you are very close to the ground, and yet survive. Such a person is incredibly lucky, since even some injuries are unprecedented in such a fall, and yet if you fall from a height of 13,000 feet and not have your main parachute not open, the fear of dying is itself bad enough to cause a heart attack.
Consider this case where a skydiver fell from a height of 13,000 feet, reserve chute opened pretty close to the ground but fell in a soft area that caused injuries but prevented the fatality that would normally happen from such a height (link to article):

His reserve parachute opened at the last moment on the horrifying descent at a festival in Moteuko, New Zealand, but it was still too late to prevent him suffering serious injury, the Daily Telegraph reported. Dunne, originally from St Annes, Lancashire, was treated at the scene by medics and taken to a specialist spinal unit in Christchurch where doctors have said he should walk again. Since the accident two weeks ago, he has astonished doctors with his recovery after undergoing surgery to insert metal pins into his shattered spine. Speaking from his hospital bed, Dunne said: "Those last 1,000 feet it was like 'here we go, this is it' . It wasn't nice. But that said, it was a one in a million accident and a one in a million save.

Brother and sister reunited after 67 years

Now this is a story that warms the heart. After being separated during the second world war (remember how long ago that was?), a brother was reunited with his sister through his niece. Jack Allen was fostered as a baby and then brought up by adopted parents, and for a long time his sisters were trying to find their lost brother; he on the other hand did not know that he had siblings, and it was a chance comment on an accent that helped make the connection:

Born Joseph McIver to unmarried mum Josephine McIver and father Douglas MacDonald, Jack was fostered as a baby, before eventually being adopted at the age of seven by Frank and Christine Allen from Birmingham. Jack's sister Pat Collins, 75, remembers her last few moments with her baby brother in 1940, before losing all contact with him until now. Pat and two of her sisters have always remained curious about their missing brother and have spent years searching for him.
Pat, who lives in Grimsby, was stunned when her daughter phoned her up telling her she had found her long-lost brother. Pat said: "Two of my sisters have been trying to trace Jack and it was Carole who found him. I could not believe it when I took the call from her. "I was the oldest child and I was brought up by Josephine's parents.
"I used to go and see her, but I thought she was my sister. After Jack was taken away I never heard of him any more."

This is a good story, and displays an incredible amount of luck.

Foetus falls on track, but safe

In an extremely weird incident, a pregnant mother was relieving herself in the toilet of a moving train when she lost consciousness and delivered her baby over there itself, 2 months early. The 7 month old foetus fell through the drain pipe and onto the track while the train passed over. It is only when the mother recovered consciousness that she realized that baby had been delivered; in the meantime the baby had been found by railway workers. Soon the 2 were re-united:

Call it good fortune or just the will of God. But the life in a seven-month-old foetus, that fell through the toilet bowl of a running train when the mother went to ease herself, still lives on! Call it a miracle, perhaps. This tiny bundle weighing just 1.4 kg, which slipped from the womb into the toilet tube and crash-landed on rocks between two steel tracks, is from the top drawer of survival tales.
The railwaymen wrapped the baby in a cloth and called the local doctor. While the child was being examined, a call came, saying the parents were traced. The mother could not believe her eyes when she was reunited with the baby two hours later at the Kalol Civil Hospital. And she just can't take her eyes off this baby ever since.

Man looking for birth mother finds her in the same shop

For people who are adopted, there is a quest to try and locate their natural parents; sometimes it is successful, sometimes not. In many cases, you have to go great distances in this quest. Here is a case where the natural mother was a colleague, and the child only discovered after some amount of intensive searching:

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. --
Steve Flaig's long search for his birth mother ended at an incredible place: the checkout line of the home-improvement store where he works. Flaig had met Christine Tallady after she started working at Lowe's several months ago, but it was only recently that the 22-year-old delivery driver figured out she was the woman who had given him up for adoption. It took him a few weeks, and some help from the adoption agency, to give her the news.
Tallady, head cashier at the Lowe's, was astonished to learn that the son she had given up for adoption 22 years earlier was a co-worker. "I started crying," the 45-year-old said. "I figured he would call me sometime, but not like this."

This is a good story for a time like Christmas, and shows the strong emotions due to human bonds.

Clerk's mistake turns into money

In a town in North Carolina, a store clerk mistakenly rang up 2 duplicate Powerball tickets for a customer by mistake instead of one, she bought the second ticket for herself at the end of the day after she was not able to sell it to any other customer. Normally this would have counted as money lost, and that would be a natural reaction.
The next day when she reached back to the store, she found that the ticket that was extra and which she had bought matched all the numbers, and she was entitled to the jackpot, and get this right, she won $200,000. Think of this as the equivalent of a costly mistake, but in the reverse way. Wouldn't you also want to get lucky like this ?