A hundred years ago, steamships employed coal stokers to shovel coal into the boilers that kept the vessel going. It was hard, dirty, and dangerous work, but someone had do it. Arthur John Priest became possibly the most famous coal stoker on any steamship for his eventful career. He survived two ship collisions and four sinkings, including that of the Titanic! Of course, he was very lucky to have survived all that, but there comes a point when steamship crews start to look at such a person as a bad omen. But perhaps Priest was more like Adrian Carton de Wiart, and refused to give up his profession even as fate kept telling him to retire.
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Priest was only 24 when he survived the sinking of the Titanic. He jumped into the water and was picked up by a lifeboat. Then came World War I, and Priest joined the British military. He was stoking coal on the HMS Alcantara when it was sunk by a German ship disguised as a Norwegian merchant ship. Priest then served on the hospital ship HMS Britannic, sunk by a German mine in the Mediterranean. He survived that sinking alongside two other Titanic survivors. Then in 1917, he was serving as a fireman on the hospital ship SS Donegal, which was attacked and sunk by a German U-boat. Read about the many adventures of the unsinkable Arthur John Priest at Amusing Planet. -via Strange Company
Source: neatorama