13 tales of survival from around the world

These survivors experienced extraordinary circumstances; hurricanes, tornadoes, and avalanches, and lived to tell the tale.

Snowbound student survives more than a week on two candy bars

In December 2011, Arizona State University student Lauren Weinberg, age 23, was driving in northern Arizona near Winslow when her car got stuck in more than 18 inches of snow. 

She was found nine days later, when US Forest Service employees patrolling on snowmobiles found her car.

Ms. Weinberg was able to survive on two candy bars and by drinking melted snow. She had a cellphone with her, but the battery had died. 

"I am so thankful to be alive and warm," Weinberg said in a statement released by the hospital. "Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and prayers, because they worked. There were times I was afraid, but mostly I had faith I would be found."

Most survival experts recommend that if lost in the desert, people should stay with their car because it will provide shelter – and will be easier for searchers to spot. The only time people should try to hike out would be if they lack water.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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