The Extraordinary Life of Frane Selak: Seven Deadly Accidents and One Million-Dollar Miracle

Frano Selak was born on June 14, 1929 — two months premature, aboard a small boat on the Adriatic Sea, while his parents were traveling toward the island of Lokrum near Dubrovnik. His father, Martin, cut the umbilical cord with a fishing knife. It was as though fate had sent a signal from the very start: this man's life would never be ordinary.

At eleven months old, he faced a life-threatening intestinal illness. At age eleven, he nearly lost his eyesight. Growing up, he moved to Bosnia, where he taught music in schools, learned to play the piano, and started composing. He led a jazz group called “Mellody,” which he later claimed was the forerunner of the Dubrovački trubaduri. He also said he composed the song “Stan' Neretvo,” which was used in the 1969 partisan film The Battle of Neretva. He married, had a son, divorced, then married again. He was an ordinary man — until the ordinary stopped.

On June 5, 2002, Selak, then 73 years old, buys a lottery ticket. He wins roughly 7 million Croatian kuna — around €900,000, or about $1.1 million. The news goes global in 2003, when Germany's Der Spiegel magazine publishes an extensive profile on him under the headline “Stirb Langsam” — Die Hard.

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Media outlets around the world call him “the luckiest-unluckiest man alive.” Selak himself reacts with typical composure:

With the winnings, he buys a house in the coastal town of Senj, a boat, and builds a small chapel as a gesture of gratitude. In 2004, he stars in a Doritos television commercial for the Australian market — but refuses to fly to Australia, so the ad is filmed near his home in Croatia. On the drive back from the shoot, he hits a deer with his car.

But generosity was always part of his character. In 2010, Selak gives most of his remaining money away to relatives, friends, music groups, and schools — buying them cars, instruments, and furniture. He sells the Senj house for €70,000 and chooses to live simply on his military pension of €400 per month. “Money doesn't bring happiness — life does,” he says.

Selak married five times. He divorced four. Beyond teaching music at schools and in military bands, he led the jazz ensemble “Mellody,” which he described as the predecessor to the acclaimed Dubrovački trubaduri. Music was the constant in his life — no matter what chaos swirled around him.

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With his fifth wife, he finally found calm. They married after the lottery win and lived quietly in Zagreb. Selak kept teaching music, kept drinking wine at local taverns, kept telling his stories to anyone who would listen — always with a smile, as if recounting the misadventures of somebody else.

Once the international fame arrived, so did the skeptics. Journalists from Britain, Germany, and the United States tried to verify each incident. The 1962 train derailment into the Neretva was confirmed. The plane crash was another matter entirely: PlaneCrashInfo.com lists no aviation accident in Croatia in 1963 matching Selak's narrative, and no corroborating records have ever surfaced.

Selak's own accounts also contained contradictions. In interviews with Večernji list in 2006, he described the car incidents differently than he would in a 2010 Daily Telegraph interview — shifting dates and details. He never recanted any of it, though. “The scars on my body are proof enough,” he repeated, pointing to the burns and marks on his hands and face.

Whether or not every detail holds up to scrutiny, Selak's story captures something deeper: a man who never stopped trusting life, no matter what it hurled at him.

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In 2014, Selak suffered a heart attack while out for a walk. He spent 18 days in the hospital in Sisak. Even that did not slow him down — he was discharged, resumed his walks, his coffees, his music.

Frano Selak died on November 30, 2016, at the age of 87 — in his bed, peacefully. No trains, no planes, no fires, no cliffs. Just sleep. His wife later told Croatian media that he “helped everyone but died disappointed” — a reference to the meager pension on which a man who once won millions had spent his final years.

His story reminds us that luck is not something we control. But our attitude toward it — that always belongs to us. Selak never stopped laughing, never stopped traveling, never stopped loving. And perhaps that — far more than anything else — was his real luck.