This special five-part series is brought to you by Medical Mysteries, a Parcast Original. For more episodes like it, subscribe to Medical Mysteries on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today we’re discussing José Salvador Alvarenga, a Salvadoran fisherman who spent over 13 months adrift at sea…and survived. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a>

Beating the Odds: Michael Benson

When the stakes are life and death, you'd be surprised at the lengths you’d go to survive. Pain, hunger, and fear can seem like paralyzing obstacles, but in the face of real danger, they’re actually what keeps us alive. ​Every week, we'll follow a different survivor's visceral and inspiring fight for life, and examine how the trauma impacted them forever. ​These are the stories of what happens when the human self-preservation instinct is pushed to its limit, through the eyes of the world's most resilient survivors. Survival is a Spotify Original from Parcast.