Inspirational story of One-Armed Surfer Bethany Hamilton

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22-year-old Bethany Hamilton lost her arm due to shark attack when she was just 13. But that didn't stop her, now Bethany is the most famous one-armed surfer in the world.

Bethany Hamilton has become a source of inspiration to millions through her story of faith, determination, and hope. She was born into a family of surfers on February 8, 1990, on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. 

On October 31, 2003, at the age of 13, Bethany was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark while surfing off Kauai’s North Shore. Bethany had to loose her left arm in the attack. After losing over 60% of her blood, and withstanding several surgeries without infection, Bethany was on her way to recovery with an unbelievably positive attitude. Lifeguards and doctors believe her strong water sense and faith in God helped get her through the traumatic ordeal.

Miraculously, just one month after the attack, Bethany returned to the water to continue pursuing her goal to become a professional surfer.

In October 2004, Bethany shared her life story in her autobiography entitled Soul Surfer. Seven years later, the book was made into a major motion picture bearing the same title which released theatrically in April, and for home entertainment in August, 2011.

Since losing her arm, Bethany’s story has been told in hundreds of media outlets and she has been recognized with numerous awards, public appearances, and various speaking engagements.

credits: bethanyhamilton.com/

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Man with the World’s Largest Biceps – Moustafa Ismail.. Can we say, real-life Popeye? [VIDEO]

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Some call him the real-life Popeye..!!

Moustafa Ismail, a man from Egypt is with the world’s largest biceps. The 24-year-old gas station attendant, "Big Mo" who has 79 cm (31 in) biceps confirmed that he will appear in the 2013, Guinness Book of Records. 

During the last ten years he has been practicing 6 hours a day in two separate training sessions, and his upper arms now have the same circumference as a grown man’s waist.

 'Big Mo' eats 3lbs of chicken and 1lb of meat or fish every day.
  Egyptian bodybuilder can lift 500 lbs.
  His 31 inch biceps are the biggest in the world.

Model, Jessica Jerrard gets a lift from Moustafa Ismail, who is visiting London to launch the new Guinness Book of Records.

VIDEO..  (c) Credits: ITN News

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One-Armed Surfer Bethany Hamilton

#1

22-year-old Bethany Hamilton lost her arm due to shark attack when she was just 13. But that didn't stop her, now Bethany is the most famous one-armed surfer in the world.

Bethany Hamilton has become a source of inspiration to millions through her story of faith, determination, and hope. She was born into a family of surfers on February 8, 1990, on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. 

On October 31, 2003, at the age of 13, Bethany was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark while surfing off Kauai’s North Shore. Bethany had to loose her left arm in the attack. After losing over 60% of her blood, and withstanding several surgeries without infection, Bethany was on her way to recovery with an unbelievably positive attitude. Lifeguards and doctors believe her strong water sense and faith in God helped get her through the traumatic ordeal.

Miraculously, just one month after the attack, Bethany returned to the water to continue pursuing her goal to become a professional surfer.

In October 2004, Bethany shared her life story in her autobiography entitled Soul Surfer. Seven years later, the book was made into a major motion picture bearing the same title which released theatrically in April, and for home entertainment in August, 2011.

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Since losing her arm, Bethany’s story has been told in hundreds of media outlets and she has been recognized with numerous awards, public appearances, and various speaking engagements.

credits: bethanyhamilton.com/

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28 Years in the Jungle: The Shoichi Yokoi Story

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Shoichi Yokoi, the Japanese soldier who held out in Guam

It’s exactly 40 years since a Japanese soldier was found in the jungles of Guam, having survived there for nearly three decades after the end of World War II. He was given a hero’s welcome on his return to Japan – but never quite felt at home in modern society.

For most of the 28 years that Shoichi Yokoi, a lance corporal in the Japanese Army of world War II, was hiding in the jungles of Guam, he firmly believed his former comrades would one day return for him.

And even when he was eventually discovered by local hunters on the Pacific island, on 24 January 1972, the 57-year-old former soldier still clung to the notion that his life was in danger.

“He really panicked,” says Omi Hatashin, Yokoi’s nephew.

Startled by the sight of other humans after so many years on his own, Yokoi tried to grab one of the hunter’s rifles, but weakened by years of poor diet, he was no match for the local men.

“He feared they would take him as a prisoner of war – that would have been the greatest shame for a Japanese soldier and for his family back home,” Hatashin says.

As they led him away through the jungle’s tall foxtail grass, Yokoi cried for them to kill him there and then.

Using Yokoi’s own memoirs, published in Japanese two years after his discovery, as well as the testimony of those who found him that day, Hatashin spent years piecing together his uncle’s dramatic story.

His book, Private Yokoi’s War and Life on Guam, 1944-1972, was published in English in 2009.

“I am very proud of him. He was a shy and quiet person, but with a great presence,” he says.

Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi Displays Clothes to Guam Police

Underground shelter

Yokoi’s long ordeal began in July 1944 when US forces stormed Guam as part of their offensive against the Japanese in the Pacific.

The fighting was fierce, casualties were high on both sides, but once the Japanese command was disrupted, soldiers such as Yokoi and others in his platoon were left to fend for themselves.

“From the outset they took enormous care not to be detected, erasing their footprints as they moved through the undergrowth,” Hatashin said.

In the early years the Japanese soldiers, soon reduced to a few dozen in number, caught and killed local cattle to feed off.

But fearing detection from US patrols and later from local hunters, they gradually withdrew deeper into the jungle.

There they ate poisonous toads, river eels and rats.

Yokoi made a trap from wild reeds for catching eels. He also dug himself an underground shelter, supported by strong bamboo canes.

“He was an extremely resourceful man,” Hatashin says.

Keeping himself busy also kept him from thinking too much about his predicament, or his family back home, his nephew said.

Return to Guam

Yokoi’s own memoirs of his time in hiding reveal his desperation not to give up hope, especially in the last eight years when he was totally alone – his last two surviving companions died in floods in 1964.

Turning his thoughts to his ageing mother back home, he at one point wrote: “It was pointless to cause my heart pain by dwelling on such things.”

And of another occasion, when he was desperately sick in the jungle, he wrote: “No! I cannot die here. I cannot expose my corpse to the enemy. I must go back to my hole to die. I have so far managed to survive but all is coming to nothing now.”

Two weeks after his discovery in the jungle, Yokoi returned home to Japan to a hero’s welcome.

He was besieged by the media, interviewed on radio and television, and was regularly invited to speak at universities and in schools across the country.

Hatashin, who was six when Yokoi married his aunt, said that the former soldier never really settled back into life in modern Japan.

He was unimpressed by the country’s rapid post-war economic development and once commented on seeing a new 10,000 yen bank note that the currency had now become “valueless”.

According to Hatashin, his uncle grew increasingly nostalgic about the past as he grew older, and before his death in 1997 he went back to Guam on several occasions with his wife.

Some of his prize possessions from those years in the jungle, including his eel traps, are still on show in a small museum on the island.

Source: Wikipedia

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