Truth is stranger than fiction at times.
My favorite quote about that comes from Patrick O'Brien in an author's note at the beginning of the Aubrey/Maturin Novels (or Aubreyad as it's sometimes called) where he writes:
"...it is difficult to avoid understatement; it is difficult do do full justice to one's subject;
for so very often the improbable reality outruns fiction" (emphasis mine)
He then goes on to cite the example of a frail Nelson leaping off the Captain to take both the San Nicolas and San Josef at the same time.
