Frane Selak

Frano Selak or Frane Selak (14 June 1929 – 2016) was a Yugoslav music teacher, or 14 June, However, Der Spiegel wrote in a 2003 article that nothing extraordinary had occurred in Selak's life before his 32nd birthday. A similar incident was alluded to by Der Spiegel, but placed as having taken place following other near death experiences The incident earned him the nickname Srećković ("lucky one") by friends. There are no records for the accident.

In 1963, while teaching at a school in Daruvar as part of his service in a military band of the Yugoslav People's Army, Selak received a call that his mother was hospitalized for complications with diabetes in Rijeka. He headed for Lučko Airfield near Zagreb and boarded a DC-8, which was taking off for its first flight with a total of seventeen passengers and four crew members. According to Selak, this was his first and only plane ride. During the flight, Selak exchanged glances with a flight attendant named Rozika and eventually left his seat to talk with her at the back of the plane, at the emergency door. Selak told reporters in 2006 that while over Čabar he heard a loud noise before the exit behind him opened, with the changing air pressure sucking him out. He fell , losing consciousness before landing in a haystack in Parg. According to Selak, he spent four days in a coma and woke up at the , where he learnt that he had no fractures or other serious injuries. He told the press that the door was blown open when the tailplane hit the hills of Gorski Kotar near Parg, reading in Vjesnik newspaper that the same strike caused a fire aboard, leading to a crash, with 19 of the plane's occupants being found "charred". Selak stated that the stewardess Rozika also survived, found in similar good health in a tree and recovered with military helicopters. He gave no last name for Rozika, but described her as hailing from Futog in Vojvodina, Serbia, and stated that the two remained friends for life. An early account by Der Spiegel claimed that Rozika, who was not identified by name, had also died as the twentieth victim. Freelance journalists Hilmar Poganatz and Stjepan Milcic also separately stated that both Croatian and international physical archives contained no mention of such an accident. Selak claimed authorship of several songs that were popular in 1970s Croatia, but a background check showed that his name never appeared in the credits of any. 6,500,000, After this win, Selak married for the fifth

In 2004, Selak agreed to star in a Doritos commercial for Smith's Snackfood for AU$10,000, but first relented because he did not want to travel to Australia, refusing both aerial and nautical transportation. The 45 second ad, in which Selak recounts his near death experiences and lottery win to advertise the MegaWhat raffle while a fire spread to his curtains, was instead filmed near his home in Croatia. Selak stated that the amount of chips he ate were "enough to last [him] for life" and while driving home from the shoot, he hit a deer with his car.

In 2010, Selak decided to give most of the remaining money away to relatives, friends, music groups, and schools, buying the former 25 cars and several cows while providing instruments and furniture for the latter. He sold the Senj house for €70,000 and the two apartments for €30,000 each. He decided to live a frugal lifestyle and live off of his monthly military pension, which was either 1,800 kuna (€240) Particularly the alleged 1963 plane crash could not be found in any records.

In 2012, a man identifying himself as Selak's son Željko told TheMetaPicture that his father had invented the near-death experiences to receive glory. According to him, Selak only experienced some car accidents and after winning the lottery, he paid a journalist to spread the accounts amongst foreign press correspondents in Croatia. However, the identity of the man claiming to be Željko Selak was also never confirmed. Author was critical of the authenticity of Selak's accounts, citing the anonymous man's allegations, the inconsistencies in Selak's interviews and the lack of records for any of the described incidents. According to Keller, in an interview with Jutarnji list, Selak once talked of only six incidents rather than the usually reported seven, but then added a different seventh near-fatal incident involving a "mule kick" during his military service, never mentioned in previous interviews, apparently to invoke the lucky number seven. Selak's wife confirmed his death in January 2017.