7 Miracle Falls: How Did They Live to Tell the Story?

May 20, 2009— -- The thumbs up sign skydiver James Boole was waiting for was just two minutes late.

But, when you're thousands of feet in the air, two minutes literally means the difference between life and death.

When he waited too long to open his parachute, the 31-year-old Brit plunged to the snow-covered mountains in a 6,000-foot freefall.

But the skydiving camera man miraculously survived.

Landing was "like being hit by a speeding truck," he said about last month's accident. According to the British Broadcasting Company, Boole was in Russia filming a TV documentary.

He suffered a broken back, a cracked rib, a bruised lung and broken teeth. Now, he's back at home with his family in a body brace.

"What went through my mind was my wife and my daughter," he told the BBC. "I really thought that I was going to die -- incredible feeling of sadness and just how unfair that was."

Every once in a while, against all odds, men, women and children survive death-defying drops.

Here are six other survivors who lived to tell the story.

Abs of steel aren't just good for surfside sunbathing. During a paragliding trip to Andalusia, Spain last month, Peggy Williams learned that they can save your life.

When a gust of wind lifted Williams' paraglider before she could properly lift-off, the active 47-year-old was dragged across rocks on her stomach.

"I got a smack in my abdomen, right across it with a big rock," Williams said. "It didn't wind me but it took the air out of my lungs."

Williams suffered a torn liver and pancreas, a few scratches on her arms and legs and numerous bruises. She spent two days in intensive care, another six days of bed rest before she could sit up in a chair, but she did not require surgery and was not hemorrhaging internally.

"The doctors said someone with my injuries would be sent straight into surgery," Williams said. "But they told me 'you're fit. Your muscles helped you and saved you from anything worse.'"

Strong muscles alone aren't the most important protection for people who suffer serious injuries. But, doctors say, healthy, toned people are better primed to bounce back.

Rescue workers were stunned. Doctors called it a miracle.

After falling 47 stories from a New York City skyscraper, Alcides "Miguel" Moreno not only survived, he walked again on his own two feet.

On a cold December morning in 2007, Moreno, in his late 30s, and his 30-year-old brother, Edgar, were washing windows together when the cables holding their scaffolding snapped and dropped the brothers, at up to 125 mph, to the concrete sidewalk below.

Edgar died instantly. But Moreno held on and rode the scaffolding, like a surfboard, to the ground beneath.

The hospital originally described Moreno's condition as a "complete disaster," that included several broken limbs and severe internal injuries.

But after 18 days in a coma and nine surgeries, he recovered movement in his limbs and was able to talk. Six months after the accident, he was able to walk on his own.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the companies that employed the window washers and installed the scaffolding, fining them a total of $40,000.

"I don't know what adjective you'd care to use, unprecedented, extraordinary," Philip Barrie, a doctor at New York Presbyterian Hospital, said at the time. "If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one."