Card playing can save your life

All right, I admit that this is a rare case.

Anyone out there ever heard the story of the USS Indianapolis?

The 600-foot-long USS Indianapolis was attacked just days after delivering to a Pacific island the uranium-235 and other components of the atomic bomb that was later dropped on Hiroshima.
The ship's mission was so secret she sailed alone, unescorted by ships better equipped to detect and fight Japanese submarines.
Two days after leaving Guam, two torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-58 struck the cruiser and it sank in minutes.
Blast injuries, shark attacks, drowning and dehydration killed many of the sailors before the crew of an anti-submarine plane accidentally spotted them on Aug. 2, 1945, and radioed for help.
The Indianapolis' death toll --880 members out of a crew of 1,197 died-- is the U.S. Navy's worst single at-sea loss of life.

Well, my father was on the ship, that is until a short time before the torpedoes sank it. He had been transfered off, because, according to him, he was a great card player and lots of people owed him money!

Some people have all the luck!

photo credit