Kid Hit By Meteor Lives to Tell the Tale

Most parents tell their children that they’re one in a million—and they are, at least, to their parents. But 14-year-old Gerrit Blank of Essen, Germany is the real deal. Gerrit was hit by a falling meteorite and did not die—a chance of one in a million.

The pea-sized rock was burning hot and hurdled straight from space right onto Gerrit’s hand, where it proceeded to bounce off onto the ground—creating a foot-wide crater. Luckily, Gerrit did not suffer the same fate as the ground, but was left with a scar three inches long.

Gerrit said that after he was hit, he suddenly felt intense pain followed by a bang of a sound, like thunder—which caused his ears to ring for hours afterward.

It’s definitely not a teenage prank, either: scientists have proven that it’s from outer space through chemical testing.

The only other person known to survive a meteor hit wasn’t really even hit by a meteor; in 1954, a sleeping woman was hit by the rock’s ricochet in Alabama.

Sort of makes you think about the whole “being killed by a penny being thrown off the Empire State Building” theory all over again, doesn’t it?