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Short Stuff: The Amazing Tale of Juliane Koepcke · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave, which makes this
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the traditional arrangement for short stuff.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, A tale of survival of a young German woman.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know why, but Julianne Kopka started making
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  Speaker 1: the Rounds like a year ago, and since then everybody's
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  Speaker 1: written on her story because it's an amazing story. But
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out what it was that set it off.
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  Speaker 1: I heard about her on like some Quora thread that
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  Speaker 1: was suggested to me, and I don't know if that's
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  Speaker 1: the one that kicked it off or not. But she's
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  Speaker 1: made the rounds and.
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  Speaker 3: She may have just opened up for business.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, I don't think so, because she released a
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  Speaker 1: memoir and but that was back in twenty eleven, so
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. But she suddenly became part
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  Speaker 1: of the zeitgeist. And I understand why for two reasons. One,
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  Speaker 1: Zeitgeist is a German word, and she was a German
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  Speaker 1: national by birth. And secondly, the story is just so
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  Speaker 1: frankly amazing that everybody should know it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, there's a great verner Herzog documentary about it.
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  Speaker 2: That's a pretty quick watch for such a harrowing story,
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  Speaker 2: but as all things for in our Herzog, I highly recommended.
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  Speaker 1: It's called Wings of Hope or yeah, Wings of Hope.
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  Speaker 3: It's really good.
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  Speaker 2: So she was a young woman that was raised in
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  Speaker 2: the jungle. Her dad was a zoologist and her mom
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  Speaker 2: was an ornithologist, and she was raised in the jungles
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  Speaker 2: of Peru because they were researchers in the Amazon, and
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  Speaker 2: she sort of grew up with this, I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: think kind of idyllic life of you know, being this
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  Speaker 2: nature girl living in the jungle.
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  Speaker 3: She said.
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  Speaker 2: She went to the school of the jungle and it
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  Speaker 2: was a really unique upbringing for a young German woman.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean her parents were like hardcore. They were
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  Speaker 1: in Germany. They met in Germany. They were like, where's
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  Speaker 1: a place that's just so biodiverse, it's not really on
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  Speaker 1: the map. And they went there and they founded a
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  Speaker 1: research station called Panguana And that place is still there today.
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  Speaker 1: It's a large nature preserve now. But her parents founded
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  Speaker 1: that and she was raised there starting in her tweens,
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  Speaker 1: I believe, and then eventually moved on to private school
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  Speaker 1: in Lima. But yeah, in between that time, like she
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  Speaker 1: learned all of the animals, she learned what sounds they made,
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  Speaker 1: she learned how to avoid who She basically just learned
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  Speaker 1: how to survive in the jungle, which really set her
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  Speaker 1: up nicely for one of the most significant events in
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  Speaker 1: her young life that came later.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a very sad event. Christmas Eve nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy one. She was a seventeen year old. She was
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  Speaker 2: on a flight with her mom and looking to go
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  Speaker 2: celebrate Christmas with dad, and this flight turned really scary.
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  Speaker 2: There's a very bad storm and one of the sort
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  Speaker 2: of one of the few times where you can point
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  Speaker 2: to an actual plane being struck by lightning in the
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  Speaker 2: air hasn't happened that much. I think this one's regarded
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  Speaker 2: as kind of the worst of all the times that's happened.
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  Speaker 2: And with about twenty minutes to go in the flight,
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  Speaker 2: this plane is hit and all of a sudden plumbing
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  Speaker 2: toward the ground with ninety two people on board.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's said is apparently her mom was not a
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  Speaker 1: fan of flying, she found it unnatural. And before it
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  Speaker 1: got hit by lightning, it had started to hit some
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  Speaker 1: horrible turbulence, like luggage was falling down on people from overhead,
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  Speaker 1: and her mom said, she's like, I hope this goes okay.
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  Speaker 1: So when the plane did start to break up, apparently
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  Speaker 1: Julianne heard her mom say, now it's all over. So
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  Speaker 1: that's pretty horrible, right, this is not just a regular
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  Speaker 1: plane crest. They were at ten thousand feet and the
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  Speaker 1: plane broke up so thoroughly that Julianne said that essentially
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  Speaker 1: she didn't leave the plane. The plane left me. She
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  Speaker 1: was still strapped to the bench seat that she had
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  Speaker 1: been sitting next to her mother in, but all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden it was just her mother and the other passenger.
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  Speaker 1: I guess we're just sucked right out of their seats.
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  Speaker 1: And she found herself totally alone, ten thousand feet in
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  Speaker 1: the air, headed straight down toward earth.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, just hurtling toward the ground. She said that, and
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  Speaker 2: this is the only thing that saved our life, basically,
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  Speaker 2: was this really thick jungle canopy.
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  Speaker 3: And she said she.
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  Speaker 2: Remembers literally remembers being in the air, falling toward the
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  Speaker 2: ground and seeing that the tree tops looked like heads
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  Speaker 2: of broccoli. Next thing you know, she wakes up on
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  Speaker 2: the ground. She's alive. She got a broken collar bone,
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  Speaker 2: she's concussed, cut up pretty badly, got kind of you know,
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  Speaker 2: beat in the face obviously, so one eye was swollen shut.
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  Speaker 2: So she's in bad shape, kind of going in and
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  Speaker 2: out of consciousness.
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  Speaker 3: But eventually he wakes up.
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  Speaker 2: She had pretty poor eyesight and was missing her glasses,
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  Speaker 2: which was no good, and she would soon learn that
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  Speaker 2: she was the only survivor out of the ninety two
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  Speaker 2: passengers and crew.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I say we take a break and come back,
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  Speaker 1: because as bad is falling out of the sky two
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  Speaker 1: miles down and surviving alone in the Amazon is it
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  Speaker 1: actually just went from bad to worse for her at
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  Speaker 1: this point, So you said, Flight five awaits considered the
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  Speaker 1: worst lightning strike disaster in aviation history. Ninety one of
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  Speaker 1: the ninety two people on board died, including her mother.
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  Speaker 1: At this time, though when she'd landed miraculously survived falling
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  Speaker 1: two miles down to earth from midair, she didn't know this,
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  Speaker 1: so she started looking immediately for her mother. She spent
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  Speaker 1: the first day of looking for her mom, looking for
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  Speaker 1: anybody really, but in particular her mom, and she didn't
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  Speaker 1: find anything. I don't know what day it was, I
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  Speaker 1: think perhaps the fourth day of walking around in the Amazon.
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  Speaker 1: I guess we can say she walked by herself in
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  Speaker 1: the Amazon, surviving for eleven days. Day four, she came
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  Speaker 1: around the bend and found a really grizzly piece of
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  Speaker 1: wreckage that I can't imagine seeing this.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was two men and a woman who landed
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  Speaker 2: headfirst so forcefully that they were buried three feet into
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  Speaker 2: the ground.
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  Speaker 3: And this is the part I don't quite get.
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  Speaker 2: She checked the feet to see if it was her mother,
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  Speaker 2: and saw that the toenails were painted, so she knew
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't. But and I'm not nickpicking, she was clearly traumatized.
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  Speaker 2: But I thought her mom got ripped apart or ripped
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  Speaker 2: out of the seat next to her on the bench,
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  Speaker 2: and so she wouldn't be strapped into another bench.
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  Speaker 3: But I guess that's a nippicky.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I know, I had the exact same thought, and
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  Speaker 1: I chalked it up to trauma too, or just maybe
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  Speaker 1: hope or something like that.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, sure, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I mean three people exactly, But I
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  Speaker 1: mean imagine seeing three people still strapped to their bench seat,
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  Speaker 1: all headfirst into the ground with their legs sticking up.
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  Speaker 1: That's just I just can't imagine that stuff like that
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  Speaker 1: actually happens sometimes in the world. And this poor girl
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  Speaker 1: saw that on day four of wandering around the Amazon,
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  Speaker 1: totally lost. But like we said, she was just about
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  Speaker 1: as prepared for this experience as a person can be
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  Speaker 1: from her upbringing. And she remembered after a while, like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: what did I learn as a kid about living in
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  Speaker 1: the jungle. And one of the things that came to
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  Speaker 1: her was her father telling her, if you're ever lost
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  Speaker 1: in the jungle, find water and just follow it one
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  Speaker 1: way or the other, because eventually you're going to find
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  Speaker 1: humans living around that water.
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  Speaker 2: Totally And that's a smart rule of thumb period, if
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  Speaker 2: you're ever you know, lost in the woods or something,
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  Speaker 2: and at the very least you have some water. And
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  Speaker 2: she lived on that water because she didn't have much food.
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  Speaker 2: She had a little bit of candy. It was a
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  Speaker 2: wet season there, so there wasn't like low hanging fruit
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  Speaker 2: literally that she could get a hold of. It was
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  Speaker 2: obviously because it was wet season. It was super hot, superhumid,
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  Speaker 2: but she did get some water from that river, which
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  Speaker 2: kept her alive.
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  Speaker 3: And like you.
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  Speaker 2: Said, for eleven days, she tried that creek, then stream,
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  Speaker 2: then it became bigger into a river. Eventually she was
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  Speaker 2: basically at the point where she had given up hope
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  Speaker 2: and she was, you know, kind of succumbing to the
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  Speaker 2: idea that she might die. And she saw a boat
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  Speaker 2: on the river bank and thought it was a mirage,
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  Speaker 2: but she went over and touched it to make sure
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  Speaker 2: it was real. Followed a path from that boat to
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  Speaker 2: a shack, where she found some forest workers who immediately
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  Speaker 2: were like, you know great. They gave her some fruit
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  Speaker 2: and started taking care of her and taking care of
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  Speaker 2: her wounds right away.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think when she came in the shack, their
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  Speaker 1: famous quote was what the what? Yeah, this was gross.
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  Speaker 1: I can't remember which article. I think it might have
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  Speaker 1: been for the New York Times. Article by a guy
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  Speaker 1: named Franz Litz, and he said that they poured gasoline
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  Speaker 1: on her wounds that had maggots sprouting from it like
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  Speaker 1: asparagus tips. I mean, she was in bad shape. Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: just put yourself in this girl's mind for a second.
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  Speaker 1: You don't need glasses, do you just like some reading glasses?
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  Speaker 3: Maybe? Yeah, reading glasses?
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  Speaker 1: So you've never needed glasses.
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  Speaker 3: Except to read.
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  Speaker 1: One of the worst things that can happen to you
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  Speaker 1: if you wear glasses and are significantly nearsighted, in particular,
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  Speaker 1: is to lose those classes. This girl wandered around the
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  Speaker 1: Amazon for eleven days nearsighted without her glasses, and that
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  Speaker 1: was one of the east of her concerns at that time.
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  Speaker 1: I just when I think about that, it just sends
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  Speaker 1: a chill down my spine because it's so awful to
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  Speaker 1: not be able to see like that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine.
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  Speaker 2: So she, you know, she survived, she got flown to safety,
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  Speaker 2: she got reunited with her father. The real obviously huge
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  Speaker 2: tragedy here for her personally and her for her father
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  Speaker 2: was they lost their mother and wife. And so you know,
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  Speaker 2: she comes back home, you know, obviously elated to be saved,
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  Speaker 2: but instantly mourning her mom's loss.
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  Speaker 3: She avoided the media.
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  Speaker 2: And that's why I think she maybe didn't you know,
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  Speaker 2: was open for business more recently, because she very famously
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  Speaker 2: avoided the media, except for Bernard Hertzog, who was supposed
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  Speaker 2: to be on that flight because he was scouting stuff
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  Speaker 2: for a either movie or documentary. I couldn't tell which
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  Speaker 2: and he reached out. You know, he's very moved by
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  Speaker 2: the story. Obviously because his close connection and reached out
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  Speaker 2: to her, and again because of his Eastern European heritage,
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  Speaker 2: they might have bonded or at least she trusted him,
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  Speaker 2: and that's when he made wings of hope.
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  Speaker 1: Man, it's just nuts. So yeah, in that documentary, apparently
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  Speaker 1: he got her to go back to the wreckage site
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  Speaker 1: and there's still yeah, man, plenty of wreckage just sitting
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  Speaker 1: there in the jungle from that plane crash. Because it
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  Speaker 1: crushed in such a remote area, there's just no way
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  Speaker 1: they were ever going to remove it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was tough stuff. She also talked to some
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  Speaker 2: of the people who saved her. It's really amazing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got to see that.
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  Speaker 3: Then it's not long. You can watch it on YouTube.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: Cool.
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  Speaker 1: There was something else that I thought was really great
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  Speaker 1: about her. She apparently made one of those deals with
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  Speaker 1: God or the universe or whatever and said, like, if
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  Speaker 1: I make it through this, I promised to dedicate myself
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  Speaker 1: to nature and humanity, And after she was saved, she
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  Speaker 1: made good on it. She's she's been She's used a
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  Speaker 1: lot of her spotlight to help drum up. I guess
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  Speaker 1: contributions and donations to preserve the Amazon, particular to preserve Peguana.
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  Speaker 1: That the preserve appropriately enough. It started out I think,
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  Speaker 1: around four hundred and forty five acres, and it's grown
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  Speaker 1: to four thousand plus because of her, just through private fundraising.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if God was like, oh, I thought you
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  Speaker 2: were going to say, like in service of me, but
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  Speaker 2: that's cool, like that that's good too, or.
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  Speaker 1: But first God said, how are you alive? So yeah.
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  Speaker 1: One of the other sweet things I think about this
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  Speaker 1: is she returned to Peguana. She got her own doctorate
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  Speaker 1: in biology. She focused on bats and worked with her dad,
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  Speaker 1: and then her dad died in two thousands, so she
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  Speaker 1: took over the Panguana Biosphere Preserve in research station, and
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  Speaker 1: as far as I know, still runs the show there
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  Speaker 1: and she considers it her sanctuary, just like it was
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  Speaker 1: for her parents.
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  Speaker 3: Amazing.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if she has shirts that says not that biosphere.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Amazing Tales Survival. I'll tell you that much, buddy.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: And does that mean short stuff? Is it?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I would say so?
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 13:09
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