By Brian Boone

Not just because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, but because you get to read these stories about some of the luckiest people who ever lived.

The World War II Pilot

A member of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force during World War II, gunner Nicholas Alkemade was fighting over Germany when his Avro Lancaster was hit by enemy fire. The plane started to fall from the sky, and Alkemade bailed, ejecting himself from the bomber with a parachute on his back, which quickly proved unusable because it had caught fire. That sent the pilot freefalling 18,000 feet to the earth below. But he didn’t hit the ground — he instead landed on a tall, snow-covered pine tree. That cushioned his fall, as did the accumulated snow on the ground where he wound up. He survived with very little injury, was captured as a prisoner of war, and was released at the end of the war.

The Multi-Lottery Winner

Dr. Joan Ginther was raised in Texas, where she worked as a math professor. Ginther won the Texas Lottery’s biggest jackpot, and then she won it again. And again. And then again. That’s four times between 1993 and 2010, with total winnings of more than $20 million. Some skeptics think luck isn’t to thank at all, as Ginther’s doctorate in statistics somehow helped her beat the incredibly scarce lottery odds.

The Shot President

While on his way to a campaign stump speech in Milwaukee in 1912, President Teddy Roosevelt was shot up close, and in the chest, by a man named John Schrank. The bullet ended its path in one of Roosevelt’s ribs, thus preventing significant or fatal damage to any internal organs. The bullet had been hindered in its pace by an eyeglasses case and a folded-over copy of Roosevelt’s 50-page campaign speech he’d had in his coat pocket. The president refused to go to a hospital and went ahead and delivered his speech. 

The Human Embodiment of Luck

Frano Selak of Croatia was involved in one monumental event after another for 40 years — all of them instances of really bad luck as well as really good luck. In 1962, he was the only survivor of a train accident. Four years later, he suffered just a couple of bruises after he bus he was in ran off the road and into a body of water. In 1968, Selak accidentally shot himself during a gun lesson, but made a full recovery. In the 1970s, he was involved in two fiery car accidents but walked away uninjured. Then in the ‘90s, he sustained little injury in a bus accident and a truck accident. Then in 2003, he won a million euros in the Croatian national lottery. 

The Ring Finder

While baking cookies at her home in Sweden in 1995, Lena Pahlsson took off her ring… and lost it. She couldn’t find it anywhere, and she looked around the kitchen and the home in general for years before declaring it a lost cause. But then one day in 2012, Pahlsson was picking the carrots in her garden that she’d planted from seeds she’d randomly scattered around the yard. She plucked a ready carrot, and nestled snuggly around the vegetable: Her lost wedding ring.