Unusual stories of survival are nothing new in natural disasters.  There’s always someone that gets lucky and avoids tragedy.  They might be lucky enough to be on the roof at the right time, or they might just leave an area before disaster strikes.  For students Chris Nel and Tom Gogola, what saved their bacon during the recent Samoan tsunami was their love of surfing.  When the killer wave hit, the two men just surfed their way through it.

Tom Gogolawas the luckier of the two.  He was able to nose his board through the wave, and after drifting out to sea, was picked up by a rescue ship with some other lucky surfers.  Chris Nel, though, had the much more unusal story of survival.  He had to surf the tsunami wave for half an hour, just hoping an errant surge didn’t smash him to bits against the jungle around him!

Image:  Desktop Wallpapers

Tags: Samoa, Western Samoa, tsunami, 2009 Samoa earthquake, Chris Nel, Tom Gogola, stories of survival, unusual stories, man surfs tsunami wave

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