I Am the Luckiest Man In The World

I am the luckiest man in the world. I'm 76 years old, and I've already spent eight of my 9 lives I'm currently enjoying Life Number 9 in Croatia as a retired music professor. Every week, I'm just happy that my luck appears to be holding.

For me, it is normal to survive terrible circumstances. I have already learned what it feels like to survive an airplane crash, a train "flying" into a cold river, not to mention various car and bus accidents.

My first lucky escape happened on the very first day of my life, June 3, 1929, in the ancient town of Dubrovnik on the southern Adriatic Sea. My father Martin and mother Slavka, who was seven months pregnant, went on a one-day fishing trip in a tiny boat close to the island of Lokrum. While my father was fishing, my mother unexpectedly gave birth.

It was a miracle I stayed alive because my father, in a panic, washed me, a newborn baby, in the cold seawater. He also tied my belly button with fishing line; it took hours before we got back to Dubrovnik and entered a hospital. On arriving at the hospital, I was already stiff from cold an exposure, but the doctors still saved me.

That was the first time when my family realized I was a special person protected with some kind of "lucky umbrella".

The 1960s might have been the era of peace and love, but it was a decade of trouble for me. I survived one accident after another, starting with the train crash in January,1962 that I count as Life Number 2.

The train slipped from the track and we ended up in the cold water of the river Neretva that flows through Bosnia and Herzegovina.