{"id":10511,"date":"2024-12-13T12:08:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T11:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=10511"},"modified":"2025-01-09T12:22:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T11:22:00","slug":"the-story-of-the-unluckiest-man-in-the-world-is-full-of-inconsistencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2024\/12\/13\/the-story-of-the-unluckiest-man-in-the-world-is-full-of-inconsistencies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of the (Un)Luckiest Man in the World Is Full of Inconsistencies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Original article<\/em><\/a> (in Serbian) was published on 11\/12\/2024; Author: Teodora Koledin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, can you check if this story is true?\u201d\u2013 wrote a reader, forwarding us a link to a Facebook post<\/a> about the \u201c(un)luckiest man in the world\u201d. The story concerns Frane Selak, a music professor from Dubrovnik, who \u2013 according to his own accounts and media reports \u2013 survived several close encounters with death during his life and, in his later years, won a million dollars in the lottery.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering that Frane Selak passed away several years ago and that the details of the story about him cannot be verified without direct contact with him, these claims are extremely difficult to confirm or refute with evidence. Nevertheless, in the continuation of this analysis, we present numerous inconsistencies we have observed in the articles on this topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First accident<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The British Telegraph<\/a> published an interview with Frane Selak in June 2003 under the following title \u201cDisasters as a way of life\u201d, in which all of his misfortunes were presented and explained. According to the article, the first accident occurred in 1962 when Selak was traveling by train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik. At one point, the train derailed and plunged into a river, after which Frane Selak managed to escape through a window and swim to the shore. According to The Telegraph, 17 passengers drowned in this incident, while the professor sustained minor injuries – bruises, a broken arm, and hypothermia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, some media outlets, such as Jutarnji.hr<\/a> and 072info.com<\/a>, reported that the first accident (this time involving a bus) occurred in 1957, and the second (the train derailment) happened a year later, in 1958. It\u2019s worth noting that these web portals also included direct quotes from the \u201c(un)luckiest man\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in the social media post<\/a>, it is claimed that the train accident happened in 1965 when a rockfall caused the train to derail and plunge into a river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, given the significant number of fatalities mentioned, it would be expected that records of such a tragedy exist. Yet, we have been unable to locate any. In issues of the newspaper Borba from those years, there is no mention of such an event, even though the paper regularly reported on traffic accidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wikipedia<\/a> even has a dedicated page for railway accidents in the former Yugoslavia, but this tragedy is not listed there either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we consider 1958, there was<\/a> indeed an accident near Jablanica in the second half of February when a train plunged into the river Neretva. However, in that instance, two passengers drowned (not 17), while 15 survived. In 1962 – a year more frequently mentioned – the only tragedy of similar scale recorded was near Kumanovo, where 25 passengers died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information about who the professor was traveling with is also relatively inconsistent, and discrepancies arise regarding his injuries. For example, RTS<\/a> reports that he swam to the shore with a broken shoulder. Hercegovina.info<\/a> and several other web portals claim he broke a window with his hand and, holding the hand of the mother of the then-mayor of Ston, swam to the shore. Jutarnji.hr<\/a> and 072info.com<\/a> assert that the woman was the mother of his friend. Regarding his injuries, Nova.rs<\/a>, Net.hr<\/a>, and the British Telegraph<\/a> stated that during this accident, he broke his arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether he broke his shoulder or arm, whether he swam to shore alone or with an older woman, and how he managed to do it with an injured arm remain unresolved questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second accident<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second accident occurred a year after the train derailment, which, according to most sources, happened in 1963. The Telegraph<\/a> writes that Selak was sitting next to a flight attendant in a crowded aeroplane when, at one point, the rear doors opened, causing both him and the flight attendant to fall out of the aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, this is an accident with a high number of casualties, yet we could not find any sources confirming that such a plane crash ever occurred. The website Povijest prava istina <\/a>highlights this gap but adds that in 1962, \u201ca minor aviation accident occurred that was not recorded – specifically, \u201cthe crash of a charter flight that took off from Lucko and crashed in Gorski Kotar, hitting a rock!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it was a charter flight or not, it is almost impossible that there would be no record of an accident in which 19 or 20 people lost their lives. However, we were unable to locate such a record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the website<\/a> of the Aviation Safety Network\u2019s Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives, there were no fatal aviation accidents in Yugoslavia in 1962 or 1963.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third accident<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years later (1966), a bus in which Selak was travelling plunged into a river near Split – four passengers died, while he survived once again. An RTS<\/a> journalist states that this tragedy occurred two years after the plane crash (which would place it in 1965 if the second accident happened in 1963), when the driver lost control of the bus due to icy conditions, causing it to crash through the guardrail and fall into the valley below. The web portal Hercegovina.info<\/a> reports that on the way to Split, the bus plunged into the river Bosna. In an issue of the newspaper Borba<\/a>, we found a report from 1966 about a bus accident in which six passengers died. However, the vehicle did not plunge into a river but instead fell into a ravine near Titograd (modern-day Podgorica).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourth and fifth accident<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the claims, Selak experienced two accidents while driving a car. There is less information about these incidents, and therefore fewer inconsistencies. Most media reports state that the cars caught fire and then exploded <\/strong>(1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>), while other sources claim that the first car caught fire while being driven, and the second caught fire and exploded (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>). Since these accidents involved only Selak and resulted in no fatalities, we were unable to determine which specific incidents these claims might refer to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixth accident<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next incident, according to claims on Facebook and the RTS website, allegedly occurred much later, in 1996. At that time, Frane Selak supposedly collided with a UNPROFOR truck. However, the mandate of UNPROFOR – the United Nations peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia – ended<\/a> in March 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jutarnji list states that the collision happened 19 years before the publication of their article, which would place it in 1995. Media reports claim that Selak’s car, while on its way to Karlobag, collided with a UNPROFOR truck, or that a trailer blocked the road and struck his vehicle, which then \u201cplunged into a 150-meter-deep ravine\u201d. The Serbian public broadcaster<\/a> writes that the truck \u201cforced him off a mountain road\u201d, causing his car to end up in a 300-meter-deep canyon. In the reported post<\/a>, it is stated that Selak was \u201cforced to steer into the guardrail to avoid an oncoming UNPROFOR truck\u201d, after which his car fell into a canyon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alleged lottery winnings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, his streak of \u201cmisfortune\u201d concluded with winning the lottery. According to<\/a> some journalists, this happened in April 2002. However, the reported post states that Selak bought a lottery ticket two days after his 73rd birthday and won – which would place the date as June 16, not April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an article by the British Telegraph<\/a>, it is explained that \u201cMr Selak had been playing the same lottery numbers for years\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cHe derived the numbers 19, 48, and 34 from his phone number, 38 in memory of those who didn\u2019t survive accidents, 14 for a marriage just beginning and for the four previous ones that failed, and 20 because his current girlfriend is 20 years younger than him\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

However, an RTS<\/a> article claims that Selak only purchased his first lottery ticket at the age of 72.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were unable to find adequate evidence to confirm this case either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article (in Serbian) was published on 11\/12\/2024; Author: Teodora Koledin \u201cHello, can you check if this story is true?\u201d\u2013 wrote a reader, forwarding us a link to a Facebook post about the \u201c(un)luckiest man in the world\u201d. The story concerns Frane Selak, a music professor from Dubrovnik, who \u2013 according to his own accounts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[507,28],"class_list":["post-10511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-checks","tag-luck","tag-serbia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10515,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10511\/revisions\/10515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}