Latest / Crime and Horror / They shouldn’t have slept on Crab Island... - MrBallen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to share three true stories where the
- 0:03Speaker 1: facts in these stories are so bizarre, people today are
- 0:08Speaker 1: still trying to explain them. But before we get into
- 0:11Speaker 1: today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark,
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- 0:35Speaker 1: of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories.
- 0:55Speaker 1: Around 8 p.m. on April 25, 1977, a 31-year-old man
- 1:00Speaker 1: named Apolinario Souza Correa poured water on the campfire that
- 1:03Speaker 1: he had built with his three brothers, Firmino, Aleriano, and José,
- 1:08Speaker 1: on the beach of a small uninhabited island in northeast Brazil.
- 1:11Speaker 1: The island was called Crab Island, and Apolinario and his
- 1:15Speaker 1: family would take their boat there all the time because
- 1:17Speaker 1: they would harvest lumber... that they would then sell to
- 1:20Speaker 1: local construction workers. Now, when they would go out to
- 1:23Speaker 1: Crab Island, pretty much every single time, there was nobody
- 1:27Speaker 1: else on this island. It was all theirs. But there
- 1:30Speaker 1: was a specific reason for that. It was because most
- 1:33Speaker 1: of their neighbors thought that Crab Island was haunted. People
- 1:37Speaker 1: who visited the island would often report hearing these strange
- 1:41Speaker 1: voices coming from the forest, in particular at night, even
- 1:44Speaker 1: though nobody lived on this island. and then sometimes people
- 1:48Speaker 1: even saw lights flashing over the treetops. But Apollinario and
- 1:52Speaker 1: his brothers made really good money by going out to
- 1:54Speaker 1: Crab Island, and also they just were not afraid of
- 1:57Speaker 1: the stories people told. They thought they were all made up.
- 2:00Speaker 1: And so today, they had arrived at Crab Island during
- 2:02Speaker 1: high tide, which had been at about 12 p.m., and
- 2:05Speaker 1: then they had spent the entire afternoon chopping down trees.
- 2:08Speaker 1: But that didn't concern them, because they really hadn't planned
- 2:11Speaker 1: to immediately sail back home. They had planned... to actually
- 2:15Speaker 1: have dinner on the island after they were done working
- 2:17Speaker 1: and then maybe sleep for a few hours actually on
- 2:20Speaker 1: their boat while it was out on the mud. And
- 2:22Speaker 1: then while they were sleeping for a few hours, the
- 2:24Speaker 1: tide would come back in again. It would raise their
- 2:26Speaker 1: boat up. They would wake up, you know, and they'd
- 2:28Speaker 1: be ready to sail home at that point. And so
- 2:31Speaker 1: that's what they did. They had this long day of work.
- 2:33Speaker 1: They had their dinner by the campfire. And then after
- 2:36Speaker 1: Apollinario put out the fire... He and his brothers waded
- 2:40Speaker 1: into the mud over towards their boat, which was literally sitting,
- 2:43Speaker 1: you know, low tide on the mud, and they climbed
- 2:46Speaker 1: on board, they walked into the main cabin, they laid
- 2:48Speaker 1: down their sleeping pads, and it didn't take long for
- 2:51Speaker 1: them all to fall asleep. Now, Apollinario and his brothers
- 2:54Speaker 1: had only intended to sleep until about midnight, but when
- 2:59Speaker 1: Apollinario woke back up again, although it was still dark
- 3:02Speaker 1: in the cabin, he looked out the tiny window and
- 3:05Speaker 1: And he saw that the sky outside was already pink
- 3:08Speaker 1: from the sunrise. And when he saw this, he groaned
- 3:11Speaker 1: because he knew they had overslept and had missed high tide. Basically,
- 3:14Speaker 1: their boat had gone back up and then back down
- 3:17Speaker 1: into the mud. And now they were stuck again and
- 3:20Speaker 1: would have to wait likely until noon to finally be
- 3:22Speaker 1: able to leave. So it was just a nuisance. And
- 3:25Speaker 1: so at this point, Apollinario looked over to see if
- 3:28Speaker 1: his three brothers were still asleep. And he saw that
- 3:31Speaker 1: Firmino and Jose were still asleep on their sleeping pads
- 3:34Speaker 1: with their blankets pulled up over their faces. But his
- 3:37Speaker 1: third brother, Aleriano, his sleeping pad was empty and he
- 3:41Speaker 1: wasn't inside the cabin. And so as Apollinario is realizing,
- 3:45Speaker 1: you know, his third brother is gone, doesn't know where
- 3:47Speaker 1: he is. He hears this just deafening screaming coming from
- 3:51Speaker 1: outside on the boat, but not inside the main cabin.
- 3:54Speaker 1: And so immediately Apollinario, he jumps up, he runs outside.
- 3:58Speaker 1: And he finds his third brother, Aleriano. And his brother
- 4:02Speaker 1: was completely covered in burns. Apollinario was so horrified that
- 4:08Speaker 1: he just froze because it looked like his brother's skin
- 4:11Speaker 1: had literally been set on fire. And then he noticed
- 4:14Speaker 1: something even stranger about the whole thing, which was, you know,
- 4:17Speaker 1: his brother, despite being so badly burned, his clothes didn't
- 4:21Speaker 1: appear burned. It was like literally just his skin, like
- 4:24Speaker 1: somehow his skin had caught fire, but nothing else on it.
- 4:28Speaker 1: And his brother is just screaming in agony. And Apollinario
- 4:31Speaker 1: has no idea what to do. He has no idea
- 4:33Speaker 1: how this even happened. And while this is happening, this
- 4:36Speaker 1: sort of shocked moment, Apollinario begins to hear moaning coming
- 4:40Speaker 1: from back inside the cabin where he came from. And
- 4:43Speaker 1: so just sort of acting on instinct, he ran back
- 4:46Speaker 1: inside the cabin and And remember his two brothers, Firmino
- 4:49Speaker 1: and Jose, their blankets were up over their heads. So
- 4:52Speaker 1: he hadn't seen them yet. And so he runs in,
- 4:54Speaker 1: he knows the moaning is coming from one of them
- 4:57Speaker 1: and he pulls back the blankets and he sees the
- 4:59Speaker 1: moaning is coming from Firmino and his skin is just
- 5:03Speaker 1: horribly burned. Like his skin is literally falling off his body.
- 5:07Speaker 1: But just like his other brother, his clothes didn't appear
- 5:10Speaker 1: to be burned at all. It was like just his
- 5:12Speaker 1: skin had been set on fire and he's He's moaning
- 5:16Speaker 1: in just pure agony. And then Apollinario, he looks over
- 5:19Speaker 1: at his other brother, who's also on a sleeping pad, Jose,
- 5:23Speaker 1: and he was not burned, but he was dead. Now, unfortunately,
- 5:27Speaker 1: because of the tides, Apollinario still had to wait a
- 5:31Speaker 1: full six hours before he could get his brothers off
- 5:35Speaker 1: the island. And so they waited until the tide came in,
- 5:38Speaker 1: and then finally they took off. And then when they
- 5:40Speaker 1: got back to land... Olariano, who was the one who
- 5:43Speaker 1: was screaming outside the main cabin, who had, you know,
- 5:46Speaker 1: burns all over his body, he was badly hurt, but
- 5:49Speaker 1: not maybe critically so. He stayed behind with Jose's body
- 5:53Speaker 1: and Apolinario wound up taking Firmino to the hospital because
- 5:56Speaker 1: his injuries looked like they could be critical. When they
- 6:00Speaker 1: finally got to the hospital, Firmino was like barely conscious,
- 6:03Speaker 1: like his injuries were really taking a toll on him.
- 6:05Speaker 1: It was like his body was shutting down. But as
- 6:08Speaker 1: soon as he was checked in, the doctors asked him like, hey,
- 6:12Speaker 1: just tell us how you got these burns. Give us
- 6:15Speaker 1: some indication of how this happened. And right before Firmino
- 6:19Speaker 1: slipped into a coma from his burns, he was able
- 6:21Speaker 1: to tell them that when he and his brothers were
- 6:23Speaker 1: still out at Crab Island, he had looked out the
- 6:26Speaker 1: window from inside the cabin of his boat when they
- 6:28Speaker 1: were all sleeping in the boat. And outside there was
- 6:31Speaker 1: this inexplicable ball of fire hovering in the air. And
- 6:36Speaker 1: that's all he remembered. He had no idea how he
- 6:39Speaker 1: actually got burned. So the police opened an investigation into
- 6:43Speaker 1: whatever happened that night at Crab Island. And they would
- 6:45Speaker 1: come up with several theories that, you know, maybe could
- 6:48Speaker 1: explain it, including that maybe the men had simply injured
- 6:51Speaker 1: each other and were just sort of lying about it.
- 6:54Speaker 1: Maybe they had taken drugs or were under the influence
- 6:56Speaker 1: of something and you know, while being that way, they
- 6:59Speaker 1: could have hurt themselves or each other or just something
- 7:01Speaker 1: could have happened that they didn't remember. Or another theory
- 7:04Speaker 1: was maybe lightning struck the beach and somehow reflected off
- 7:07Speaker 1: the sand and bolts of lightning made their way out
- 7:10Speaker 1: into the boat and, you know, burned two and killed one.
- 7:14Speaker 1: But the reality was, is these theories, there was no
- 7:17Speaker 1: evidence to support any of them. In fact, the big
- 7:19Speaker 1: takeaway from this investigation is basically that when they went
- 7:23Speaker 1: out to that island, they found nothing. There was just
- 7:27Speaker 1: no evidence whatsoever. Ultimately, the two injured surviving brothers, Firmino
- 7:32Speaker 1: and Olariano, they would make full recoveries, but neither of
- 7:36Speaker 1: them ever could remember any meaningful details of what happened.
- 7:39Speaker 1: And so eventually the case was closed without really any answers.
- 7:44Speaker 1: But strange stories continued to come from Crab Island. People
- 7:47Speaker 1: continued to hear voices and see strange lights. And then finally,
- 7:52Speaker 1: in April of 1986, so nine years after the death
- 7:54Speaker 1: of Jose, A different crew of four men traveled out
- 8:00Speaker 1: to Crab Island to harvest timber, and at some point
- 8:03Speaker 1: they all recalled hearing this loud crashing sound out in
- 8:06Speaker 1: the woods, and then they all just fell unconscious. And
- 8:10Speaker 1: when they woke up again, it was 18 hours later,
- 8:14Speaker 1: one of them was dead, and another one was inexplicably
- 8:17Speaker 1: covered in burns. And just like the brothers nine years earlier,
- 8:21Speaker 1: the survivors of this incident had no memory of what happened.
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- 9:42Speaker 1: first month of therapy. On the night of June 12, 1993,
- 9:54Speaker 1: 69-year-old Deke Slayton climbed into bed in his home in
- 9:59Speaker 1: League City, Texas. And even this small action, you know,
- 10:02Speaker 1: getting in bed, took a lot of effort for Deke
- 10:05Speaker 1: because he was very, very sick. So Deke had a
- 10:08Speaker 1: brain tumor. He'd actually been diagnosed the year before, but
- 10:13Speaker 1: had then quickly gone into remission. So he thought he'd
- 10:15Speaker 1: beaten it. But it had unfortunately come back a few
- 10:18Speaker 1: months later. and this time it was much worse. Deke
- 10:21Speaker 1: knew eventually this thing was going to kill him, and unfortunately,
- 10:25Speaker 1: probably sooner than later. His wife and daughter had been
- 10:28Speaker 1: taking care of him as he got weaker and sicker.
- 10:30Speaker 1: And while he certainly appreciated it, the reality was is
- 10:34Speaker 1: it really bothered him. I mean, he was a tough guy,
- 10:37Speaker 1: and he was used to being the person who took
- 10:39Speaker 1: care of other people, not the other way around. But
- 10:43Speaker 1: more than that, the worst part of him getting sick
- 10:47Speaker 1: was he hadn't been able to fly a plane in months.
- 10:50Speaker 1: So Deke was like a legend in the aviation community.
- 10:54Speaker 1: As a young man, he'd been in the Air Force
- 10:56Speaker 1: and he'd flown in World War II combat missions, some
- 10:59Speaker 1: of the most harrowing aerial combat in recorded history. And
- 11:03Speaker 1: Deke had loved being up high and looking down at
- 11:07Speaker 1: the world from his cockpit so much that after the
- 11:10Speaker 1: war was over, he'd gone one step further. to space.
- 11:14Speaker 1: And he had not just become a regular astronaut. He'd
- 11:18Speaker 1: been on NASA's first team of astronauts to literally ever
- 11:22Speaker 1: go to space. And then after he had gotten too
- 11:24Speaker 1: old for space trips, he continued to work for NASA
- 11:27Speaker 1: in various capacities until his retirement 10 years ago. But
- 11:31Speaker 1: retiring had not meant he just stopped, you know, aerial
- 11:35Speaker 1: travel completely. I mean, he was done flying into space,
- 11:38Speaker 1: but he still flew planes. In fact, he was a
- 11:41Speaker 1: hugely successful amateur air racer. which is a competitive sport
- 11:45Speaker 1: where aircraft race one another through basically an aerial obstacle course.
- 11:49Speaker 1: And so now, as Deke's life was sort of slipping
- 11:52Speaker 1: through his fingers, all he found himself wanting to do
- 11:56Speaker 1: was just go fly. He had this plane called a Stinger,
- 12:00Speaker 1: which he used for racing. It was this red, small
- 12:03Speaker 1: plane that was super loud, pretty unique, but he loved
- 12:06Speaker 1: this plane, and he just constantly fantasized about getting back
- 12:09Speaker 1: in the cockpit and going for a ride. However, Deke
- 12:12Speaker 1: did know that because of his tumor, you know, realistically,
- 12:17Speaker 1: him flying a plane would not be safe. His speech
- 12:21Speaker 1: was shaky and he was tired all the time. Also,
- 12:24Speaker 1: like his balance and decision making were affected. And then
- 12:27Speaker 1: on top of the physical limitations from his tumor, also
- 12:31Speaker 1: there was the reality that his stinger plane was currently
- 12:34Speaker 1: in storage. But as Deke laid in bed that night,
- 12:37Speaker 1: feeling just physically awful and you know, literally feeling his
- 12:41Speaker 1: life sort of slipping away. You know, all he wanted
- 12:44Speaker 1: was just one more time to fly. And it just
- 12:46Speaker 1: became so overpowering, that desire to fly again, that he
- 12:50Speaker 1: decided while he was laying there that tomorrow, first thing
- 12:53Speaker 1: in the morning, whether I am sick or not, I
- 12:56Speaker 1: am getting up, I am taking my stinger out of storage,
- 12:59Speaker 1: and I am going for a ride. Early the next morning,
- 13:02Speaker 1: at the John Wayne Airport in Southern California, which was
- 13:04Speaker 1: over 1,500 miles away from where Deke lived, an airport
- 13:08Speaker 1: manager stepped into his office ready to start his shift.
- 13:11Speaker 1: He worked for the airport's noise abatement department, which was
- 13:15Speaker 1: responsible for making sure that the planes that flew in
- 13:17Speaker 1: and out didn't make too much noise and drive the
- 13:21Speaker 1: neighbors crazy. And usually, this early in the morning, things
- 13:24Speaker 1: were pretty calm and uneventful. But today, as soon as
- 13:27Speaker 1: the manager got into his office, he heard his desk
- 13:30Speaker 1: phone ring. And when he answered it, the person on
- 13:33Speaker 1: the other end said they were a local resident and
- 13:35Speaker 1: they wanted to make a complaint. There had just been
- 13:38Speaker 1: a plane flying low over her house, making a ton
- 13:42Speaker 1: of noise. The manager immediately looked over at the clock
- 13:45Speaker 1: and saw it was just before 8 a.m., which meant
- 13:49Speaker 1: that the plane that this resident was complaining about was
- 13:52Speaker 1: in violation of the airport's curfew. John Wayne Airport had
- 13:55Speaker 1: a policy where they didn't let any planes take off
- 13:58Speaker 1: before 8 a.m. on Sundays. specifically to avoid this, to
- 14:02Speaker 1: avoid bothering the locals too early. And so on the phone, this,
- 14:05Speaker 1: you know, perturbed resident gave a description of the aircraft,
- 14:09Speaker 1: which was a small red racing stinger. And so the
- 14:12Speaker 1: manager took some notes, hung up, and was about to,
- 14:14Speaker 1: you know, start making some phone calls when their phone
- 14:18Speaker 1: rang again. And it was another resident with basically the
- 14:21Speaker 1: exact same complaint. And then after that, this manager got
- 14:25Speaker 1: more and more calls all about this red plane. And
- 14:28Speaker 1: all the people who were complaining basically said they had
- 14:30Speaker 1: heard it, they had seen it. It was like doing
- 14:33Speaker 1: these crazy aerial maneuvers. But now it was gone. So
- 14:36Speaker 1: they were calling sort of after the fact. It's gone now,
- 14:38Speaker 1: but it was really, really disruptive. Some of the callers
- 14:41Speaker 1: actually said that at certain points, this plane, when they
- 14:44Speaker 1: saw it, had flown solo. they were able to read
- 14:48Speaker 1: its identification number and they had written it down to
- 14:50Speaker 1: report it. And so they told the manager that it
- 14:53Speaker 1: was N21X. That was the number on this plane. And
- 14:56Speaker 1: so at some point when the manager had a chance,
- 14:58Speaker 1: you know, in between all these calls they were getting,
- 15:00Speaker 1: they looked up on their computer to see who this
- 15:03Speaker 1: plane was registered to, you know, using that number, N21X.
- 15:06Speaker 1: And when they saw whose plane this was, the manager
- 15:10Speaker 1: was shocked. This was Deke Slayton's plane. The manager knew Deke.
- 15:14Speaker 1: I mean, everybody did. And it was very surprising to
- 15:18Speaker 1: him that somebody like Deke, who was a consummate professional,
- 15:21Speaker 1: would be flying around so recklessly outside of curfew. I mean,
- 15:26Speaker 1: that's crazy. So on his computer, the manager pulled up
- 15:29Speaker 1: the morning's readings from the airport's noise monitors. When the
- 15:32Speaker 1: manager saw the readings, he could see very clearly that
- 15:35Speaker 1: at least three monitors had gone way up at the
- 15:39Speaker 1: same time the residents all said they saw Deke's plane.
- 15:42Speaker 1: And so at this point, the manager knew that because
- 15:44Speaker 1: of these noise recordings, which corroborated the reports, that he
- 15:48Speaker 1: would have to send, you know, the legend himself, Deke,
- 15:52Speaker 1: a formal note about doing this. I mean, he was
- 15:55Speaker 1: basically going to have to reprimand Deke. However, based on
- 15:58Speaker 1: all the reports and also on those monitors, which measured
- 16:01Speaker 1: the noise in the area, it seemed apparent that Deke,
- 16:04Speaker 1: you know, whatever he was doing, he was done doing
- 16:06Speaker 1: it now because he was out of the airspace. And so,
- 16:10Speaker 1: you know, This manager would have to reprimand him, but
- 16:13Speaker 1: there wasn't a huge urgency. But he would have to
- 16:15Speaker 1: do it eventually. So the manager printed out the noise recordings,
- 16:18Speaker 1: put them on his stack of things to do, and
- 16:20Speaker 1: then just went about his day. 15 days later, that
- 16:23Speaker 1: manager finally got around to actually sending that warning to Deke.
- 16:28Speaker 1: And when Deke's wife got that letter and read its contents,
- 16:33Speaker 1: she was so confused. Because what this airport was claiming
- 16:36Speaker 1: Deke did... was literally impossible. It would turn out there
- 16:40Speaker 1: was literally no way Deke Slayton could have been flying
- 16:43Speaker 1: his Stinger over the California skies on that day, because
- 16:47Speaker 1: the storage location that was holding Deke's plane was actually
- 16:50Speaker 1: a museum in Nevada. He'd given the Stinger to them
- 16:54Speaker 1: three years ago, and it hadn't moved since. And just
- 16:56Speaker 1: to make it clear here, they had removed the engine
- 16:59Speaker 1: from the Stinger and then hung the Stinger from the
- 17:02Speaker 1: rafters in this museum. Like, this thing is not flyable,
- 17:06Speaker 1: at least not quickly. But More than the logistics of
- 17:09Speaker 1: how quickly could he get the plane out of the museum,
- 17:12Speaker 1: put the engine back in and make it fly ready.
- 17:15Speaker 1: Beyond that, like that's a huge problem. But the other
- 17:18Speaker 1: far bigger reason that it was truly impossible that Deke
- 17:22Speaker 1: was the one flying that plane, even though clearly it
- 17:24Speaker 1: was his plane, the tail number said as much. The
- 17:27Speaker 1: reason it couldn't have been him is because five full
- 17:31Speaker 1: hours before that recorded flight, Deke had passed away in
- 17:36Speaker 1: his sleep. No one has ever been able to explain
- 17:39Speaker 1: how Deke's Red Stinger plane ended up over the skies
- 17:42Speaker 1: of California that morning. It just doesn't make any sense.
- 17:45Speaker 1: And today, that warning letter that the manager from the
- 17:48Speaker 1: John Wayne Airport sent to Deke, that ultimately his wife
- 17:51Speaker 1: got and was so confused by, that letter actually sits
- 17:55Speaker 1: on display at the Deke Slayton Memorial Space Museum. One
- 18:12Speaker 1: morning in June of 1972, a hospital administrator named Harold
- 18:16Speaker 1: Michaels ran down the hallway of the Alameda Hospital in California.
- 18:21Speaker 1: He was totally out of breath. You know, he was
- 18:23Speaker 1: going as fast as he could. And as he turned
- 18:24Speaker 1: the corner, he nearly knocked over a gurney, but he
- 18:28Speaker 1: didn't even stop to apologize to the person who was
- 18:30Speaker 1: pushing it. He just kept on running as fast as
- 18:33Speaker 1: he could until he got to the cafeteria and where
- 18:36Speaker 1: all the nurses and doctors were eating before they started
- 18:39Speaker 1: their morning shift. And as soon as he got in there,
- 18:41Speaker 1: like totally out of breath, he just yelled out to
- 18:43Speaker 1: everybody to, hey, pay attention, I have a very important announcement.
- 18:47Speaker 1: And so immediately, like the room goes silent, all the staff,
- 18:50Speaker 1: they turn to look to see what's going on here.
- 18:53Speaker 1: And all he said was, the hospital needs to update
- 18:57Speaker 1: its disaster plan. But as Harold paused for a second
- 19:01Speaker 1: to catch his breath and let this information sort of
- 19:03Speaker 1: be soaked in by the audience... He looked around and
- 19:07Speaker 1: he saw pretty much everybody was looking back at him
- 19:09Speaker 1: with just looks of total confusion on their face. And
- 19:12Speaker 1: Harold definitely understood why they might react that way. Because
- 19:16Speaker 1: there really was no clear reason for Harold to be
- 19:19Speaker 1: suddenly barging in here and demanding they update this plan.
- 19:23Speaker 1: Like there hadn't been any recent mass casualty events or
- 19:27Speaker 1: natural disasters or anything. This was just like a normal
- 19:30Speaker 1: day at the hospital. But here Harold was acting like
- 19:33Speaker 1: there was some disaster at hand. And so There was
- 19:35Speaker 1: this moment of like, wait, are you serious? Like, what's
- 19:38Speaker 1: going on here? But before anybody could really ask any questions,
- 19:42Speaker 1: he just said, look, I want to make sure we
- 19:44Speaker 1: are capable of handling like a mass casualty event, an emergency,
- 19:49Speaker 1: like we need to have a better plan in place
- 19:52Speaker 1: in case something really terrible happens. We don't want to
- 19:55Speaker 1: be caught flat footed. And so again, there was like
- 19:58Speaker 1: a sort of pause and everyone's still looking back at
- 20:00Speaker 1: Harold like, what's prompting this? And at some point before
- 20:05Speaker 1: anybody moved, somebody raised their hand and they were like, why?
- 20:09Speaker 1: But Harold, he was like not having it. He just said, stop,
- 20:13Speaker 1: stop everything you're doing. Like put your breakfast away. I
- 20:15Speaker 1: don't care what you think about this. Right now, go
- 20:19Speaker 1: update the disaster plan. Eight months later, on the morning
- 20:22Speaker 1: of February 7th, 1973, Harold sat around a conference table
- 20:26Speaker 1: with the members of the hospital's disaster committee. They'd been
- 20:29Speaker 1: holding meetings every month since the previous summer to update
- 20:33Speaker 1: their emergency procedures. And just two days ago at an
- 20:37Speaker 1: all-staff meeting, they had unveiled the new disaster plan that
- 20:41Speaker 1: Harold had frantically demanded. And so every doctor and nurse
- 20:44Speaker 1: and clerk at the hospital had been briefed on the
- 20:47Speaker 1: new procedures, and there was a drill scheduled for the
- 20:50Speaker 1: very next morning to practice what to do. And Harold
- 20:53Speaker 1: should have felt calmer knowing that they were now, you know,
- 20:56Speaker 1: officially prepared, at least more so than they had been
- 20:59Speaker 1: before he demanded the update. But when the meeting wrapped,
- 21:03Speaker 1: all Harold could focus on was this sort of nameless
- 21:06Speaker 1: feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. But
- 21:09Speaker 1: after work that day, he still drove home, he ate dinner,
- 21:12Speaker 1: and sat on his couch and tried to relax, but
- 21:16Speaker 1: he just couldn't. Fast forward to about 8.30 that night,
- 21:19Speaker 1: and Harold was running out of his house, leaping in
- 21:22Speaker 1: his car, and driving as fast as he could back
- 21:26Speaker 1: to the hospital. He had just gotten a phone call
- 21:29Speaker 1: from the hospital saying that he had to come back
- 21:31Speaker 1: here right away. And when he got to the hospital,
- 21:34Speaker 1: he saw there was a a line of police officers
- 21:37Speaker 1: directing traffic, and there were EMTs and firefighters rushing bleeding
- 21:42Speaker 1: patients into the building on stretchers. I mean, it was madness.
- 21:45Speaker 1: When Harold made it inside, the ER was bustling with
- 21:48Speaker 1: nurses rolling gurneys down the halls and prepping extra beds
- 21:52Speaker 1: and carrying these big boxes of blood packs from the
- 21:55Speaker 1: local blood bank. Harold counted at least six full surgical
- 21:59Speaker 1: teams standing around scrubbed and ready to go before any
- 22:02Speaker 1: patients had even arrived. And then at this point, a
- 22:05Speaker 1: nurse grabbed Harold and told him that the hospital's phone
- 22:08Speaker 1: lines had gone down about 30 minutes ago, but more
- 22:12Speaker 1: than 100 off-duty doctors and staff members had shown up immediately.
- 22:16Speaker 1: when they heard the news, without even waiting to be
- 22:19Speaker 1: officially called in. And when they got to the hospital,
- 22:21Speaker 1: they went straight to their stations and knew exactly what
- 22:24Speaker 1: to do because they'd all been preparing for that big
- 22:28Speaker 1: disaster drill in the morning. And so as Harold is
- 22:31Speaker 1: standing here sort of processing the scene, he watched as
- 22:34Speaker 1: EMTs wheeled in a man with third-degree burns all over
- 22:37Speaker 1: his body, and right away a team of doctors swooped
- 22:40Speaker 1: in and guided him into a trauma room. and the
- 22:43Speaker 1: rest of the doctors all waited in an orderly line
- 22:45Speaker 1: to take over the next patients as soon as they
- 22:47Speaker 1: came through the doors. And Harold couldn't help but feel
- 22:50Speaker 1: really vindicated, and also a little spooked, because this was
- 22:56Speaker 1: all happening exactly as he knew it would. It would
- 22:59Speaker 1: turn out, on that morning, you know, months earlier, when
- 23:02Speaker 1: Harold bolted into the cafeteria and told everybody to stop
- 23:06Speaker 1: what they were doing and update the disaster plan, well,
- 23:09Speaker 1: that morning... Harold had woken up from this incredibly lucid,
- 23:15Speaker 1: vivid dream, perhaps the most vivid dream he had had
- 23:18Speaker 1: in his whole life. In this dream, a plane had
- 23:21Speaker 1: crashed into the middle of the city, leaving hundreds of
- 23:23Speaker 1: people dead and horribly injured, and it was basically up
- 23:27Speaker 1: to his hospital to save people. And so that was
- 23:31Speaker 1: why he'd been so insistent that morning on updating the
- 23:35Speaker 1: emergency plan, because he felt like If that really happened,
- 23:38Speaker 1: like in the dream, if there was a plane crash,
- 23:41Speaker 1: I don't know if we have the capacity to handle it.
- 23:44Speaker 1: Like that many patients all at once, I don't know
- 23:46Speaker 1: if we can do that. And so we better update
- 23:49Speaker 1: things right now. And so fast forward eight months to
- 23:52Speaker 1: February 7th, 1973, literally just hours before Harold's Hospital was
- 23:57Speaker 1: going to conduct a drill to practice the new disaster
- 24:01Speaker 1: plan they'd come up with, a Navy jet plane. had
- 24:04Speaker 1: smashed into a four-story apartment building in the middle of
- 24:08Speaker 1: the city. But because of Harold's dream, which ultimately prompted
- 24:12Speaker 1: him to force his hospital to update their disaster plan,
- 24:15Speaker 1: because of that, well, when this actual plane crash happened,
- 24:20Speaker 1: Harold's hospital and his whole staff were ready. Initial estimates
- 24:24Speaker 1: at the crash scene had predicted at least 50 people
- 24:27Speaker 1: would die. But thanks to Harold's staff and their updated
- 24:31Speaker 1: disaster plan, only 11 people actually did. Thank you so
- 24:43Speaker 1: much for watching. Let me know what you thought of
- 24:45Speaker 1: today's episode in the comments. And remember, we have hundreds
- 24:49Speaker 1: of videos for you to binge right now. But if
- 24:51Speaker 1: you're looking for a recommendation from me of that one
- 24:54Speaker 1: video that's worth your time, well, it's this one right here.
- 24:58Speaker 1: So give it a watch. All right, until next time,
- 25:01Speaker 1: see ya.