That's pretty rare and don't know anyone who was a beneficiary. Heck even country's can't just escape their debts. Look at Greece, it's been in debt ever since it became independent. They'll just get the next government to pay it. If they weren't completely responsible for installing one that promise to pay them back.
On the individual level the only "debt forgiveness" I've seen at least in my country are for taxes. Basically they just tell you that they are willing to forgive part of the interest on tax you missed as long as you finally pay them.
Debt is not all bad. For example, if you own a company, you will always have debts for multiple activities, e.g., investing activities, operational activities, etc. A company might have short term debts for raw materials provided by its suppliers at some point. Hence, if the mentioned company goes default, the effect would spread to other companies. There's no such thing as wiping out the debts or "reset," if not all the affected parties can all agree with it.
Unfortunately today people get in debt for things that don't allow them to get any profit out off. I'm seeing issues about student debts in the US and I think it's unfair for responsible people that have already paid up their's that they'll end up having to pay for those that got vanity courses like gender studies who can't maintain a job to pay their debts.