By The Survivors Club Staff
July 9, 2009

Here's our survivor story of the day drawn from the Salem News in Massachusetts.  As you'll see, the story cites research from The Survivors Club. Above all, it's a remarkable account of a woman who died from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and then was revived.

By The Survivors Club Staff
July 8, 2009

It all started one Sunday when a Virginia man read his church bulletin.  A stranger in his parish needed a kidney so Thomas F. Koontz offered one of his own.  Koontz was grateful to God that his teenage daughter Sage had recently been saved from brain cancer.  When Koontz's fellow parishioner found a more suitable donor, he called Johns Hopkins Hospital, asking if anyone else needed a kidney.

With this single action, the 54-year-old Marine's started a chain of events, as The Baltimore Sun describes, that allowed eight - yes, eight -- people to get new kidneys, enabling them to survive and thrive in the face of kidney failure and other life-threatening kidney problems.

"God helped me, so I was trying to give something back to God," he told The Sun.  "You only need one kidney."

By The Survivors Club Staff
July 7, 2009

Between 40 to 60 percent of new marriages will eventually end in divorce, according to the experts.  Indeed, for every two marriages that occurred in the 1990s, there was one divorce.  Within the first five years of marriage, the probability of divorce is 20 percent.  Within the first 10 years, the chances are 33 percent.  Every year in the US, more than one million children face the challenge of parents splitting up.

How does a family survive? 

Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, has just written a thoughtful and revealing essay about her 12th anniversary.  "That's how long we've been divorced," she writes, "one year longer than we were married."

"While we did not survive as a couple," she continues, "at least we've survived in the joint parenting of our daughters. We have gotten to the point where there is really nothing left to work out -- and it feels completely natural to be able to sit on a beautiful beach or stroll through the lovely streets of Agios Nikolaos (in Crete, Greece) together."

"God," our youngest daughter said the other day, "it's hard to remember you guys are divorced."

By The Survivors Club Staff
July 6, 2009

It's a good time to be a mouse with Alzheimer's disease...

New research on mice suggests that caffeine, the chemical in tea, coffee and soft drinks might have potential as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. 

Specifically, the research found that drinking the equivalent of five cups of coffee per day (or, gulp, 20 soft drinks) could reverse memory problems associated with Alzheimer's.

By The Survivors Club Staff
July 6, 2009

Including the recent Indian Ocean crash of Yemenia Flight 626, there have been 13 commercial plane crashes with just one survivor, according to Dr. Todd Curtis of Airsafe.com and CNN.  Five of those sole survivors were minors and four were crew members, accounting for around 75 percent of the total.

One of the most extraordinary sole survivor stories involves Julianne Koepcke, a 17-year-old flying in South America on a stormy Christmas Eve in 1971.  Indeed, Julianne's survival story might belong in The Survivors Club "Hall of Fame," if there were such a thing.

By The Survivors Club Staff
Updated Thursday, July 2, 2009

The sole survivor of a plane crash in the stormy Indian Ocean is a 13-year-old girl named Bahia who could barely swim and didn't have a life jacket.  Bahia's plane - an Airbus 310 with 153 people on board - crashed in rough weather while preparing to land in the Comorros, the tiny island nation.  Bahia was rescued after clinging to debris for around 12 hours in shark-infested waters.  She is reportedly "doing well," according to a nurse who treated her.

Bahia returned home to France on Thursday where she is recovering in an unnamed hospital.  She has cuts on her face and a fractured collarbone, according to The Guardian of London.  Bahia's father, Kassim, said he spoke with her by phone after the crash.  "Bahia was ejected, she found herself beside the plane," her father told France's RTL radio. He described her as "fragile" and said she could "barely swim".

"She is a very, very shy girl. I would never have thought she would have survived like this. I can’t say that it’s a miracle, I can say that it is God’s will," he said.

"When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and she said, 'Daddy, I don't know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water . . . surrounded by darkness. I could not see anyone,' " Kassim said. "She could hear people talking, but in the middle of the night she couldn't see a thing. She managed to hold on to a piece of something."

Bahia was found bobbing in the ocean, according to Sergeant Said Abdilai on Europe 1 radio.  She could not grab the life ring rescuers threw to her, so Abdilai said he jumped into the sea. He said rescuers gave the trembling girl warm water with sugar.

The crash of Yemenia Flight 626 came two years after aviation officials reported faults with the plane.

Key questions and answers below, including: How often do airplane crashes have only one survivor?  Is it safe to fly an Airbus?  What's the safest seat on an airplane?

By The Survivors Club Staff
June 29, 2009

What killed TV pitchman Billy Mays?  The answer appears to be heart disease, not a bump to the head, according to the Hillsborough County (Florida) medical examiner.  The final cause of death will not be known until after toxicology results are available, Dr. Vernard Adams said at a Monday news conference.

Mays, 50, was declared dead at his home near Tampa Sunday morning after his wife Deborah found him unresponsive. The autopsy conducted this morning revealed Mays suffered from hypertensive heart disease (see below for Q&A).  "It's not uncommon to have a sudden death with this kind of disease," Adams said.

Billy Mays had told a friend before he went to sleep Saturday he was not feeling well.  "He said he was groggy, he wasn't feeling that great. He wanted to get some sleep," Todd Schnitt said. 

Hypertensive heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death associated with high blood pressure and is actually a group of disorders that include heart failure, ischemic heart disease, and left ventricular hypertrophy (excessive thickening of the heart muscle), according to WebMd. 

To calculate your risk of heart attack or heart disease in the next 10 years, click here for the Mayo Clinic's excellent tool

By The Survivors Club Staff
June 29, 2009

It's the biggest scandal to hit South Carolina in decades.  Over Father's day weekend, Governor Mark Sanford sneaks away to Argentina to visit his mistress, leaving his wife and four sons behind. 

"Am I O.K.?” Jenny Sanford, the governor's wife, told reporters as she drove away from their home the day after her husband confessed to his wandering ways.  “You know what? I have great faith and I have great friends and great family. We have a good Lord in this world, and I know I’m going to be fine. Not only will I survive, I’ll thrive.”

[When asked if he plans to resign, Governor Sanford also chose the language of survival, telling reporters "I'm just trying to survive today is what I'm trying to do."]

So, how is the governorn's wife doing?  According to Philip Rucker in The Washington Post, Jenny Sanford "seems to have drawn a new path for the aggrieved spouse of a philandering politician, an episode that has become something of a ritual in American politics."

"She is not a victim," The Post says quoting her friends, "but a survivor."

"Jenny is the hero in this story," said Cyndi Mosteller, a longtime friend and a prominent Republican operative here. "She's the hero to her children, and I think she's the hero to this state. In the midst of this tragedy, she is standing strong to who she is and what she believes in. . . . I think Jenny has not had these types of ambitions, but I think every woman in South Carolina would vote for Jenny Sanford for governor right now."

The answers may surprise you...

By Ben Sherwood
The Survivors Club
June 26, 2009

Every twenty seconds, a heart attack strikes someone in America, killing five hundred thousand a year. That's fifty-seven deaths every hour, almost one per minute. In the United States and many nations, it's the leading cause of death among adults over age forty.

The most lethal kind of heart problem--called sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) --occurs when your ticker's electrical system goes haywire and stops pumping blood to the rest of your body. SCA accounts for an estimated 325,000 deaths every year in the US and -- according to news accounts -- it appears to have killed Michael Jackson.

The Survivors Club mourns the loss of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, who died of cardiac arrest today at the age of 50, according to news services.  The Survivors Club also bids farewell to Farrah Fawcett, the "Charlie's Angels" star who died today after battling anal cancer.  She was 62.

Details are sketchy about Jackson's death.  News outlets report that he was rushed to the hospital after paramedics found him unconscious and not breathing.

One thing is for sure: Survivorship isn't about living forever.  It's about living fully with the precious time you have left whether that's four months, four years or forty years.  Indeed, some of the world's most effective survivors ultimately succumb to their challenges.  Farrah Fawcett is a shining example of survivorship - living fully no matter the adversity.

Ryan O'Neal, Fawcett's longtime companion, was at her side when she died, along with close friend Alana Stewart.  The TV star - famous for posing in a red bathing suit for an iconic poster - died shortly before 9:30 a.m. in a Santa Monica hospital.

"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."