Latest / Crime and Horror / They were awake the WHOLE TIME - MrBallen

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They were awake the WHOLE TIME - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you two stories about people
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Speaker 1: who basically unknowingly risked everything just to travel to their
0:07
Speaker 1: dream locations, and they didn't realize they were in danger
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Speaker 1: until it was already too late. But before we get
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Speaker 1: into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
0:16
Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
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Speaker 1: a luxurious trip to Paris, but don't tell them you're
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Speaker 1: any of our uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories.
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Speaker 1: On the morning of Monday, January seventh, nineteen eighty five,
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Speaker 1: a thirty one year old man arrived at an international
1:07
Speaker 1: airport in order to board his flight to the United States.
1:09
Speaker 1: The man was very nervous. His heart was beating fast
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Speaker 1: and his palms were sweating so much that he could
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Speaker 1: barely hold the handles of his very heavy tan colored suitcase.
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Speaker 2: And the reason he was so nervous.
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Speaker 1: Is because he was feeling very conflicted about what he
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Speaker 1: was about to do. On the one hand, this trip
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Speaker 1: was something he'd been dreaming of for months, and it
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Speaker 1: was supposed to represent the start of a great, brand
1:31
Speaker 1: new life. Now, this man hadn't actually packed very many
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Speaker 1: personal items to take with him, but one thing he
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Speaker 1: had brought was a little bound book full of photographs
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Speaker 1: which showed what mattered the most to him, and what
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Speaker 1: mattered the most was waiting for him in America. But
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Speaker 1: on the other hand, the man was terrified because before
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Speaker 1: he could begin this brand new life, he had a
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Speaker 1: huge problem he needed to take care of. And that
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Speaker 1: problem was why he needed to drop off his very
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Speaker 1: heavy suitcase without anybody looking inside of it.
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Speaker 2: And now inside the.
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Speaker 1: Airport, a very nervous man stopped and readjusted his grip
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Speaker 1: on the suitcase handles, and then made his way over
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Speaker 1: to the ticketing area, where he would check his bag
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Speaker 1: for his almost eleven hour flight to California. And then,
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Speaker 1: you know, once he touched down and they landed in California,
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Speaker 1: he could get off the plane, go to the baggage
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Speaker 1: carousel and get his luggage and then everything would be fine. Now,
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Speaker 1: of course, he knew this was a big gamble. If
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Speaker 1: it had been possible, he would have just brought this
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Speaker 1: bag with him on the plane to stow it in
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Speaker 1: the overhead bin. But he just couldn't do it because
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Speaker 1: the bag was too big, too heavy, and so really
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Speaker 1: his only other choice if he wanted the suitcase to
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Speaker 1: make it to California was to check it like he
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Speaker 1: was doing, because the alternative was leaving it behind, and
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Speaker 1: there was no way he was going to do that.
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Speaker 1: He cared far too much about what was inside of
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Speaker 1: this luggage, and so by the time the man actually
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Speaker 1: got in line in the ticketing and baggage check area,
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Speaker 1: he was so stressed out that he was beginning to
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Speaker 1: feel physically ill. By the time he got to the
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Speaker 1: front of the line, he still felt very sick, but
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Speaker 1: he composed himself enough that he walked up to the
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Speaker 1: counter of the airline he was traveling with, which was
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Speaker 1: Lufthansa Airline, and the employee who was working behind the
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Speaker 1: counter was very cheerful and they greeted the man and
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Speaker 1: took his passport to verify his information. Then the employee
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Speaker 1: put down the passport and then reached out his hand
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Speaker 1: and gestured for the nervous man to give him his
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Speaker 1: very important suitcase. This was, of course, the moment the
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Speaker 1: man had feared the most, you know, when everything could
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Speaker 1: really go astray. But as calm as he could, he
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Speaker 1: lifted up the suitcase, and for a second he almost
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Speaker 1: panicked because it was just so obviously heavy. He realized
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Speaker 1: the employee might make him open it right there, because
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Speaker 1: it just seemed wrong that this suitcase was that heavy,
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Speaker 1: and he knew if that happened, he was done for.
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Speaker 2: He'd be arrested immediately.
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Speaker 1: But instead, the employee just dragged the heavy suitcase over
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Speaker 1: to a conveyor belt behind the counter, and the nervous
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Speaker 1: man watched as the employee heaved the suitcase onto the belt,
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Speaker 1: and the man kept his eyes locked on the suitcase
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Speaker 1: as it rolled down the belt and then disappeared through
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Speaker 1: a pair of rubber flaps at the end. He was
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Speaker 1: so focused on the bag he almost didn't notice the
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Speaker 1: airline employee returning to try to hand him his boarding
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Speaker 1: pass for the plane. Finally, the employee literally just waved
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Speaker 1: the ticket in the man's face to get his attention
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Speaker 1: and kind of snapped him out of it, and he
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Speaker 1: took the boarding pass and as calmly as he could,
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Speaker 1: he thanked the employee and then he turned and hurried
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Speaker 1: off to catch his flight. About twelve hours later, on
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Speaker 1: the other side of the world, another employee of Lutanza
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Speaker 1: Airlines walked around the baggage claim area at Los Angeles
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Speaker 1: International Airport, which is typically just called LAX. It was
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Speaker 1: about two pm Los Angeles time, and the employee was
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Speaker 1: working in the International terminal. It was his job to
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Speaker 1: monitor these circular carousels where passengers picked up their luggage
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Speaker 1: after their flights, and his job was to make sure
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Speaker 1: no bags were left behind. And as he was making
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Speaker 1: one of these loops, he noticed there was a tan
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Speaker 1: colored suitcase with soft sides sitting all alone on one
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Speaker 1: of the carousels. The employee stopped and checked the monitor
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Speaker 1: above the carousel to see the last time this carrol
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Speaker 1: had been used by an incoming plane, and it was
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Speaker 1: quite a while ago, and all the passengers clearly had
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Speaker 1: come through and picked up their luggage except for this.
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Speaker 2: One loan bag.
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Speaker 1: So based on the timing, the employee figured that well,
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Speaker 1: this bag must be unclaimed. But this was not remotely
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Speaker 1: concerning to him. I mean, luggage went unclaimed all the time,
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Speaker 1: sometimes because bags were sent to the wrong airport, or
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Speaker 1: because the suitcase's owner missed their flight, or even just
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Speaker 1: forgot to get it. But whatever the reason was, it
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Speaker 1: was this employee's job to simply start the process of
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Speaker 1: identifying the owner of the suitcase. So, like he always did,
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Speaker 1: he walked over to the carousel and grabbed the suitcase handle.
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Speaker 2: And went to pick it up.
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Speaker 1: But when he did, he let out a sort of
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Speaker 1: surprised grunt and stumbled because the suitcase was so much
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Speaker 1: heavier than he had expected. So he went back and
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Speaker 1: he grabbed the handle with a better grip, this time
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Speaker 1: with two hands, and braced himself and yanked, and the
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Speaker 1: suitcase kind of toppled over and fell off the carousel
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Speaker 1: onto the floor. And this was also around the time
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Speaker 1: that the employee noticed that this really.
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Speaker 2: Heavy suitcase had no tags on it.
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Speaker 1: And so now this bag did seem very unusual, the
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Speaker 1: extreme weight and no tags, like that's not normal. So
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Speaker 1: he knelt down and he began to unzip the suitcase
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Speaker 1: to see what was inside. He was legally allowed to
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Speaker 1: do this because unclaimed bags at airports are subject to search,
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Speaker 1: but he had only unzipped it a little bit before
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Speaker 1: he froze, and for a second he just stared in
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Speaker 1: shock at what was inside of the suitcase. But then
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Speaker 1: he immediately got to his feet, just left the bag there,
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Speaker 1: and ran to go find a phone to call the police.
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Speaker 1: A little less than two hours later, around three forty
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Speaker 1: five pm, Detective Don Ravens of the Los Angeles Police
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Speaker 1: Department's Specific Division, stood in the baggage area of LAX's
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Speaker 1: International Terminal, looking down grimly into the tan suitcase that
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Speaker 1: was lying open on the floor. He was surrounded by
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Speaker 1: officials from the LAPD as well as the FBI, who
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Speaker 1: had all been called to the airport because of what
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Speaker 1: was found inside of the suitcase, the dead body of
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Speaker 1: a young woman. Detective Ravens was shocked. He guessed this
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Speaker 1: woman was maybe less than thirty years old, and judging
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Speaker 1: by her features and dark hair, he thought she could
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Speaker 1: be from an Asian or Latin American country, but that
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Speaker 1: was about as far as he could get since she
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Speaker 1: didn't have any identification with her and there were no
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Speaker 1: tags on the bag. There were also no obvious wounds
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Speaker 1: on her body, so he couldn't immediately tell how she died.
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Speaker 1: Raven spent some time speaking to airline and airport employees,
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Speaker 1: including Customs, which is the government agency that's in charge
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Speaker 1: of inspecting bags that are coming in and out of
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Speaker 1: the country, and he was puzzled as to how a
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Speaker 1: suitcase with a body inside of it had somehow cleared Customs,
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Speaker 1: But an agent explained that they didn't actually open up
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Speaker 1: all the suitcases, which meant whoever checked this bag through
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Speaker 1: Customs had taken a huge risk, because realistically they could
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Speaker 1: have been searched and then the body would have been found.
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Speaker 1: So this suggested a certain level of desperation. But apparently
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Speaker 1: this risk this person took to check the bag had
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Speaker 1: paid off because the bag had gone all the way
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Speaker 1: to California. But despite that, you know, Ravens didn't find
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Speaker 1: much to go on here at this moment. The victim
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Speaker 1: was a Jane Doe, which meant there was no identification
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Speaker 1: for her, and Ravens knew she could really be from
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Speaker 1: anywhere in the world, despite you know, his snap judgment
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Speaker 1: that perhaps she was from an Asian or Latin American country,
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Speaker 1: and because lax was an international airport, you know, whoever
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Speaker 1: checked this bag and potentially even put her into the
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Speaker 1: suitcase could now be anywhere in the world too. Once
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Speaker 1: Detective Ravens and the other investigators had finished examining the
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Speaker 1: body as it was found inside of the suitcase, they
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Speaker 1: didn't actually pull her body out. They sent the suitcase
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Speaker 1: and her body to the corner, hopefully an autopsy would
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Speaker 1: turn up evidence that could tell Ravens and the other
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Speaker 1: investigators who this Jaine Doe was and what happened to her.
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Speaker 1: The following day, on Tuesday, Ravens sat down at his
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Speaker 1: desk and he opened up a middlea folder he had
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Speaker 1: been given. Inside of it was his chain Indo's autopsy report,
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Speaker 1: and when the detective began reading it, he couldn't help
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Speaker 1: but feel sick because what he was reading told him
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Speaker 1: that this poor woman had died a horrible, tortuous death.
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Speaker 1: The report said the woman had bruises all over her body,
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Speaker 1: like the kind you would get from repeated heavy blows
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Speaker 1: delivered over a period of at least several hours while
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Speaker 1: she was still alive, and her actual eventual cause of
9:23
Speaker 1: death was ultimately suffocation, which meant she either was suffocated
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Speaker 1: and then put into the suitcase, or was in the
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Speaker 1: suitcase trapped inside of there and suffocated. Ravens put down
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Speaker 1: the report and leaned back in his chair and just
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Speaker 1: sort of thought through what he had just learned. Based
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Speaker 1: on the autopsy, he now knew this poor woman had
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Speaker 1: died a brutal, awful death, but the coroner had not
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Speaker 1: found any identifying information or anything on her that would
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Speaker 1: give away or help to give away who she actually
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Speaker 1: was or who did this to her, So really he
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Speaker 1: had very little here other than knowing this lady suffered.
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Speaker 1: Ravens had spent the last twenty four hours pouring over
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Speaker 1: all the surveillance footage from the airport's security cameras looking
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Speaker 1: for any suspicious passengers leaving without any luggage, but nothing
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Speaker 1: had jumped out at him. He had also interviewed a
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Speaker 1: bunch of airport employees who would have been in the
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Speaker 1: baggage claim area on the day the body was found,
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Speaker 1: but none of them had noticed anything strange either, And
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Speaker 1: so despite it only having been one day since this
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Speaker 1: woman was found, Ravens was already worried that this case
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Speaker 1: was going to go cold. But what Ravens had not
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Speaker 1: counted on was the huge amount of publicity his Jane
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Speaker 1: Doe would generate the TV news as well as the
10:36
Speaker 1: newspapers were reporting feverishly on the body that was found
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Speaker 1: in the lax suitcase. And by Wednesday, so forty eight
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Speaker 1: hours after the body was found, the reporting had made
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Speaker 1: it all the way to Peru, where a man named
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Speaker 1: Juan Espinoza contacted authorities to report that the body.
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Speaker 2: Might actually belong to his wife.
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Speaker 1: Officials in Peru called the LAPD and One's report ended
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Speaker 1: up on Ravens. Ravens opened up that report and began reading.
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Speaker 1: One and his wife lived in Peru's capital city of Lima,
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Speaker 1: but his wife had been trying to leave Peru to
11:09
Speaker 1: escape poverty. She had left their home hoping to basically
11:12
Speaker 1: sneak into the United States so she could get a
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Speaker 1: job there and then send money back to her family
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Speaker 1: in Peru. She had promised Juan that she would contact
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Speaker 1: him when she arrived in America, but after she left,
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Speaker 1: One said he never heard from her.
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Speaker 2: This report felt like a promising lead to Ravens.
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Speaker 1: Onan and his wife checked a lot of boxes, especially
11:31
Speaker 1: because you know, Ravens, Jane Doe had features that indicated
11:35
Speaker 1: she could be from a South American country like Peru,
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Speaker 1: and so Ravens wondered if Juan's wife had tried to
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Speaker 1: get into America by using a human smuggler, which is
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Speaker 1: someone who transports immigrants across borders illegally. Human smuggling was
11:48
Speaker 1: obviously an unregulated industry, and Ravens knew smugglers could be
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Speaker 1: very violent or reckless, and the people they were transporting
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Speaker 1: often had no protection, meaning sometimes when people go to
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Speaker 1: these smugglers to try to get help to go to
12:03
Speaker 1: these other countries, sometimes the smuggler wouldn't help them. They
12:07
Speaker 1: would just rob them or in some cases rob them
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Speaker 1: and then kill them and dispose of their body. And unfortunately,
12:13
Speaker 1: again because there's no regulation or oversight, a lot of
12:16
Speaker 1: times these horrible crimes would just go unnoticed. And so
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Speaker 1: maybe if that's what had happened to Ravens Jane Do,
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Speaker 1: it would explain why the tags were ripped off the suitcase.
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Speaker 1: The smuggler who committed this crime would not have wanted
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Speaker 1: to leave any id on or around the body that
12:32
Speaker 1: could be traced back to them, And so Ravens picked
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Speaker 1: up his phone to call the Lax Airport operations manager
12:37
Speaker 1: to see if he could get the logs for any
12:39
Speaker 1: flights coming from Peru to lax on the day the
12:42
Speaker 1: body was found, and that was when he discovered there
12:45
Speaker 1: was a big problem with this theory because there were
12:48
Speaker 1: no flights from Peru. The only flights that day that
12:51
Speaker 1: used the luggage carousel where the body was found were
12:54
Speaker 1: from Korea, Japan, and Germany, and there weren't any flights
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Speaker 1: that originated in Peru that had layover in those countries either,
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Speaker 1: which meant it just wasn't possible that his Jane Doe
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Speaker 1: was Wan's wife. And so now Ravens was stumped all
13:08
Speaker 1: over again. He had almost no evidence to go on.
13:11
Speaker 1: All he really had was the suitcase and the body,
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Speaker 1: and the actual crime scene itself was maybe somewhere in
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Speaker 1: Korea or Japan or Germany, and so Ravens really didn't
13:20
Speaker 1: have a good idea of where he should begin looking
13:22
Speaker 1: for more evidence.
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Speaker 2: But then he got an idea.
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Speaker 1: Detective Ravens got up from his desk and headed straight
13:28
Speaker 1: to the evidence room. He put on a pair of
13:29
Speaker 1: disposable gloves, and he found the box that contained evidence
13:32
Speaker 1: from Jane Doe's case and he opened it up and
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Speaker 1: there really wasn't much. All that was in there were,
13:37
Speaker 1: you know, pieces of jewelry, and some clothing that were
13:40
Speaker 1: found on the woman's body, and all of it had
13:42
Speaker 1: already been examined for trace evidence like blood or hair. However,
13:46
Speaker 1: blood and hair were not what Ravens was looking for.
13:48
Speaker 1: One in a time, he lifted out each of the
13:50
Speaker 1: sealed plastic bags that contained Jane Doe's belongings until he
13:54
Speaker 1: got to her blues sweater. He took the sweater out
13:57
Speaker 1: of the plastic and he turned it over in his
13:59
Speaker 1: hands and then checked inside the neckband, and there he
14:02
Speaker 1: found exactly what he was looking for. Immediately, he felt
14:05
Speaker 1: a rush of adrenaline. He was onto something here, and
14:08
Speaker 1: so he reached back into the box and he grabbed
14:11
Speaker 1: another plastic bag with a pair of gray pants in it,
14:13
Speaker 1: and he did the same thing. He looked at the waistband.
14:16
Speaker 1: Then he opened a third bag and he checked inside
14:18
Speaker 1: of her blouse, and each time his hunch had been right.
14:21
Speaker 1: Jane Doe's clothing had labels sewn into them, and the
14:24
Speaker 1: labels were clearly written in some language that was not English.
14:29
Speaker 1: Ravens wasn't sure, but to him he thought maybe the
14:31
Speaker 1: letters looked Middle Eastern. It didn't take long for the
14:34
Speaker 1: FBI to help Ravens and the LAPD identify the origin
14:37
Speaker 1: of Jane Doe's clothing. All of it had been made
14:40
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, in Iran. This meant that finally
14:43
Speaker 1: Detective Ravens had a likely country of origin for his
14:46
Speaker 1: Jane Doe. But he also had another problem.
14:48
Speaker 2: Now.
14:49
Speaker 1: Really he had the same problem he'd had when he
14:50
Speaker 1: thought his victim was from Peru, and that was that
14:53
Speaker 1: there were only three international flights that as Jane Doe
14:56
Speaker 1: could have been on, and none of them originated in Iran.
15:00
Speaker 1: No connecting flights from Iran that day, either, and so
15:02
Speaker 1: Ravens needed the public's help. On Thursday, so, three days
15:05
Speaker 1: after the body was found, he and another detective sat
15:09
Speaker 1: down with a reporter from the city's newspaper, The Los
15:11
Speaker 1: Angeles Times, a publication that's read.
15:13
Speaker 2: All over the world.
15:14
Speaker 1: And raven and this other detective's goal was, you know,
15:17
Speaker 1: to give as many updates as they could about the case,
15:20
Speaker 1: you know, hoping that somebody somewhere would read the story,
15:23
Speaker 1: recognize a detail, and come forward. However, that's not really
15:27
Speaker 1: how the interview played out. By the end of it,
15:29
Speaker 1: Ravens was feeling pretty discouraged by all the questions he
15:32
Speaker 1: and his partner just couldn't answer. In fact, the last
15:35
Speaker 1: thing he said to the reporter, which ended up getting
15:37
Speaker 1: printed as the sort of last line of the story,
15:39
Speaker 1: the lasting impression, if you will, was don't be too
15:43
Speaker 1: surprised if you never find out where she came from
15:46
Speaker 1: or who she is. The next morning, Detective Ravens got
15:49
Speaker 1: to his office and had barely taken off his coat
15:51
Speaker 1: when his phone rang. A police officer from Sacramento, California
15:55
Speaker 1: was on the other line, and he sounded all worked up.
15:58
Speaker 1: He told Ravens that he knew that, you know, the
16:00
Speaker 1: LA investigators had been working on the Airport Jane Doe case,
16:03
Speaker 1: and even though it wasn't going anywhere, he knew it
16:06
Speaker 1: was a big deal for them. But he told Ravens
16:08
Speaker 1: that he actually had this unbelievable development in northern California
16:13
Speaker 1: that was connected to the Airport Jane Doe case. He said,
16:16
Speaker 1: authorities in Northern California had just found another body. But
16:20
Speaker 1: when Ravens heard this, his first reaction was not excitement
16:23
Speaker 1: that there was new evidence or something.
16:26
Speaker 2: It was confusion. He didn't need another body.
16:28
Speaker 1: He needed to find his Jane Doe's name, and so
16:31
Speaker 1: he asked the Sacramento officer. You know what he meant,
16:34
Speaker 1: Had they found another woman in another suitcase or something?
16:36
Speaker 1: But the Sacramento officer said no, the body belonged to
16:39
Speaker 1: a man, and this guy's name had never even been
16:42
Speaker 1: on police radar. He had died from a gunshot wound,
16:44
Speaker 1: you know, four hundred miles away from Ravens Jane Doe.
16:48
Speaker 1: But the officer said that the story they had uncovered
16:52
Speaker 1: behind this new body would likely solve Raven's Jane Doe case.
16:57
Speaker 1: This is the story that the Sacramento Office Sir told Ravens.
17:02
Speaker 1: On the evening of Monday, January seventh, just a few
17:05
Speaker 1: hours after Jane Doe's body had been found at Lax,
17:08
Speaker 1: a man named Hadi had picked up his friend and roommate,
17:11
Speaker 1: a thirty one year old man named Mahmoud Ayazi, at
17:14
Speaker 1: the Sacramento Airport, which is about four hundred miles north
17:17
Speaker 1: of Lax. Hadi was excited to see Mahmoud, who had
17:20
Speaker 1: been away for a few weeks. They were good friends,
17:22
Speaker 1: and Mahmoud was always very optimistic and fun to be around.
17:26
Speaker 1: But on this day, when Mahmoud got in his car,
17:29
Speaker 1: Haidi immediately noticed that his friends seemed sullen and quiet
17:33
Speaker 1: and just very clearly upset about something, and so Hadi
17:36
Speaker 1: asked him what was wrong, and Mahmud just said, oh,
17:40
Speaker 1: I'm sick with the flu. But to Hadi, Mahmoud did
17:43
Speaker 1: not look very sick. He looked worried and kind of
17:46
Speaker 1: jittery and nervous, and as they started to drive, he
17:49
Speaker 1: kept looking out the windows and out the back of
17:52
Speaker 1: the car like he was nervous about somebody following them
17:54
Speaker 1: or something. And when they got back to their apartment,
17:56
Speaker 1: Mahmoud went straight to bed, and for the next two days,
17:59
Speaker 1: mah Mood continued acting increasingly weird and paranoid. He asked
18:03
Speaker 1: Hadi to disconnect the phone in their apartment and said
18:06
Speaker 1: he didn't want to see any of their mutual friends.
18:08
Speaker 1: He also kept looking out the windows of their apartment,
18:11
Speaker 1: but whenever Hati asked what was wrong, Mahmoud refused to explain. Then,
18:15
Speaker 1: sometime before six am on Thursday morning, so now three
18:19
Speaker 1: days after Hadi picked Mahmoud up from the airport, Hati
18:22
Speaker 1: woke up to the sound of the front door of
18:23
Speaker 1: his apartment opening, and then shutting, so it felt way
18:26
Speaker 1: too early for Hadi or Mahmoud to be up, and
18:29
Speaker 1: they also lived in a city where break ins were,
18:31
Speaker 1: unfortunately not uncommon, so the sound of the door opening
18:35
Speaker 1: was enough for Hadi to get out of bed and
18:37
Speaker 1: go make sure everything was okay. But when he got
18:40
Speaker 1: to the door, he did not find an intruder or something.
18:43
Speaker 1: He found Mahmod in the process of leaving the apartment.
18:46
Speaker 2: Hadi asked his friend.
18:47
Speaker 1: You know where you're going, but Mahmoud just shook his
18:49
Speaker 1: head and said he was simply going out, and so
18:52
Speaker 1: there was really nothing hat he could do. I mean,
18:54
Speaker 1: he couldn't stop Mahmood from going out. So he watched
18:57
Speaker 1: his friend leave and then Hadi went back to bed,
19:00
Speaker 1: But as he was in bed, he had this sick
19:03
Speaker 1: feeling in his stomach that something bad was about to happen.
19:06
Speaker 1: About two hours later, somebody called the Sacramento Police Department
19:11
Speaker 1: to report finding a dead body in the driver's seat
19:14
Speaker 1: of a car in a parking lot. The dead man
19:16
Speaker 1: had clearly died from a self inflicted gunshot wound, and
19:19
Speaker 1: on the passenger seat next to the body were two
19:22
Speaker 1: Iranian passports and one Luftanza Airlines plane ticket. When the
19:26
Speaker 1: Sacramento police officer finished telling Detective Ravens the story, he
19:31
Speaker 1: said he believed that one of the passports that were
19:33
Speaker 1: found in the car with the body belonged to ravens
19:36
Speaker 1: Jane Doe. He said he would send it over that
19:38
Speaker 1: afternoon by courier so Ravens could make a positive ID,
19:41
Speaker 1: and when the passport did arrive, Ravens was able to
19:44
Speaker 1: finally give his Jane Doe her name back. She was
19:47
Speaker 1: a twenty year old Iranian woman named Katan Safawi, and
19:52
Speaker 1: after investigators searched Muffmood's apartment, they would find another piece
19:57
Speaker 1: of evidence that would actually explain why Katan Safawi had
20:01
Speaker 1: ended up beaten and pummeled and asphyxiated to death in
20:04
Speaker 1: an abandoned Tan suitcase in Lax. The evidence was a
20:08
Speaker 1: little bound book and it was full of photographs. Back
20:12
Speaker 1: on January seventh, nineteen eighty five, Mahmoud very nervously dropped
20:16
Speaker 1: off the Tan suitcase that contained Katan at the International
20:20
Speaker 1: airport and then boarded a Luftanza flight to Lax. He
20:24
Speaker 1: was traveling from Frankfurt, Germany, one of the three cities
20:27
Speaker 1: that had flights into Lax that day that specifically used
20:31
Speaker 1: the carousel.
20:32
Speaker 2: Where the body was found.
20:33
Speaker 1: But Mahmoud's trip had not started in Frankfort.
20:36
Speaker 2: It had started in a run, but his travel plans had.
20:39
Speaker 1: Gotten all messed up and he'd gotten stuck in Germany
20:41
Speaker 1: for several days, and so this was.
20:43
Speaker 2: Him finally getting out.
20:44
Speaker 1: But he was insanely nervous about this leg of the
20:47
Speaker 1: trip because of what was in his suitcase. He had
20:51
Speaker 1: expected to feel much less worried once he had successfully
20:54
Speaker 1: checked the suitcase and got his ticket and boarded his flight,
20:57
Speaker 1: But when he did all that, and when his plane
20:59
Speaker 1: took off, Mahmud only got more and more anxious. Every
21:04
Speaker 1: time the plane had even the tiniest amount of turbulence,
21:06
Speaker 1: he wanted to scream from the anxiety. But finally the
21:10
Speaker 1: flight landed at Lax, and as soon as it touched down,
21:13
Speaker 1: Mahmud got off as fast as he could and practically
21:16
Speaker 1: sprinted to the baggage carousel where he would pick up
21:19
Speaker 1: his suitcase and then board another flight to Sacramento. But
21:23
Speaker 1: when he got to baggage claim and he picked up
21:25
Speaker 1: his suitcase, he knew immediately something was wrong with a
21:29
Speaker 1: shaking hand, he unzipped the suitcase, and when he looked inside,
21:33
Speaker 1: he felt a wave of grief and horror that was
21:37
Speaker 1: so powerful he almost fainted right there. Because the trip
21:40
Speaker 1: that Mahmoud had been dreaming of for months that he
21:43
Speaker 1: was returning home from now was a journey to his
21:46
Speaker 1: home country of Iran to get married to the woman
21:49
Speaker 1: he loved, Katan, And now inside the suitcase was the
21:55
Speaker 1: dead body of his new wife, Katan, whom Mahmud had
21:58
Speaker 1: been trying to smuggle into a marria to start their
22:00
Speaker 1: new life together. Katan had run into issues with her
22:03
Speaker 1: visa and Frankfurt and officials wouldn't let her board the
22:06
Speaker 1: plane to America, and so Katan and Mahmud tried for
22:09
Speaker 1: days to fix this problem, but it became clear that
22:13
Speaker 1: only Mahmud would be able to actually enter the United States,
22:16
Speaker 1: not Katan, and so ultimately Katan willingly got into that suitcase.
22:23
Speaker 1: Mahmoud had not murdered her, or at least not intentionally,
22:26
Speaker 1: so she hadn't been trafficked or anything. She chose to
22:29
Speaker 1: get in that suitcase together, they decided that they would
22:32
Speaker 1: smuggle her in the cargo hold of the plane and
22:36
Speaker 1: that's how they would get her to the United States.
22:39
Speaker 1: But during the flight, when she had boarded, she had
22:42
Speaker 1: been totally alive. But when she was in the cargo hold,
22:45
Speaker 1: other luggage had fallen and piled on top of her
22:49
Speaker 1: and slowly crushed her to death. And so when Mahmud
22:52
Speaker 1: got to lax and opened up the suitcase and saw
22:55
Speaker 1: what had happened, he panicked. He pulled the tags off
22:59
Speaker 1: the suitcase and left the suitcase and just got on
23:01
Speaker 1: his flight to Sacramento.
23:03
Speaker 2: And then once he landed.
23:04
Speaker 1: There, he was so overcome with guilt and grief that
23:08
Speaker 1: three days later he took his own life. When police
23:13
Speaker 1: searched Mahmud's room, they found the little bound book full
23:16
Speaker 1: of photographs that he had so carefully packed for his
23:18
Speaker 1: trip to America, and those photos were of his and
23:22
Speaker 1: Katan's wedding. The following week, Mahmud and Katan's bodies were
23:26
Speaker 1: sent back to Iran via the same route they had
23:28
Speaker 1: taken to get to Los Angeles, but this time they
23:31
Speaker 1: traveled together. On the morning of December eleventh, nineteen sixty,
23:53
Speaker 1: a twenty seven year old man named Leonid Ragasov stood
23:57
Speaker 1: on the deck of a Soviet ship that was sailing
23:59
Speaker 1: across a freezing ocean at.
24:01
Speaker 2: The very bottom of the world. Up ahead, finally he.
24:04
Speaker 1: Could see the enormous, desolate, white land mass of Antarctica,
24:09
Speaker 1: a continent that was too brutally cold for human civilization
24:13
Speaker 1: to last at scale.
24:14
Speaker 2: Basically nobody lived.
24:16
Speaker 1: There except for like a handful of scientists and other
24:20
Speaker 1: people who were researching the area like Leonid. Antarctica was
24:24
Speaker 1: about to be Leonid's home for the next year and
24:27
Speaker 1: a half, and leonett He looked around him on the
24:30
Speaker 1: deck of the ship at the other eleven men.
24:32
Speaker 2: Who made up his team, and he smiled.
24:34
Speaker 1: They were all part of what was called the sixth
24:37
Speaker 1: Soviet Antarctic Expedition, and they'd been sailing for thirty six
24:41
Speaker 1: days all the way from Leningrad, Russia to get here.
24:44
Speaker 1: Their job was to get to Antarctica, disembark, and then
24:48
Speaker 1: travel nearly fifty miles inland over brutal terrain, where they
24:52
Speaker 1: would eventually build a brand new scientific research facility from
24:55
Speaker 1: the ground up, and then they would stay there and
24:58
Speaker 1: begin studying the local climate. Leonid and the rest of
25:01
Speaker 1: the men had been chosen for this expedition because they
25:04
Speaker 1: all had specific skills that.
25:06
Speaker 2: The team needed.
25:07
Speaker 1: Leonid was a meteorologist and also knew how to drive
25:10
Speaker 1: this special alterrain vehicle that they'd brought on the ship.
25:13
Speaker 1: There were a few other meteorologists on the team, as
25:15
Speaker 1: well as several engineers and other scientists, and also one
25:18
Speaker 1: of the men was a doctor. Their work was part
25:21
Speaker 1: of a larger Cold War era effort by the Soviet
25:23
Speaker 1: government to expand scientific research and knowledge. So Leonid saw
25:28
Speaker 1: this job both as a way of having this big
25:30
Speaker 1: adventure and also as a way of serving his country,
25:34
Speaker 1: and so he ultimately felt proud to be here. But
25:37
Speaker 1: as he was actually looking at the vast emptiness of
25:40
Speaker 1: Antarctica right in front of him for the first time,
25:43
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation they were in began to
25:46
Speaker 1: dawn on him, and he began to feel a jolt
25:49
Speaker 1: of fear. Everything on this expedition had to go exactly
25:53
Speaker 1: right or he and the other men's lives would be
25:56
Speaker 1: in danger. I mean, this is not a safe place
25:58
Speaker 1: for people diving in a place with literally zero infrastructure,
26:02
Speaker 1: And they only had about two months before the polar
26:06
Speaker 1: winter was going to hit Antarctica, which meant they had
26:09
Speaker 1: to construct the entire research facility and make sure it
26:13
Speaker 1: was polar winter proof in those first two months, because
26:17
Speaker 1: that was their shelter, and just to make the stakes clear,
26:20
Speaker 1: if they didn't get it done in time, or if
26:22
Speaker 1: the structure was flawed in some way, they would almost
26:25
Speaker 1: certainly die. When the polar winter came, temperatures would drop
26:28
Speaker 1: as low as negative one hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit
26:33
Speaker 1: and the ocean would literally freeze solid. The closest help
26:36
Speaker 1: would be about one thousand miles away and could take
26:38
Speaker 1: weeks or even months to arrive, and their only way
26:41
Speaker 1: to contact the outside world was with this long range
26:45
Speaker 1: radio that was not always reliable. So essentially, Leonid and
26:49
Speaker 1: these eleven other men that made up this expedition they
26:52
Speaker 1: were going to be completely isolated, with nobody to rely
26:56
Speaker 1: on except each other until their scheduled pickup, which was
26:59
Speaker 1: in April of nineteen sixty two, again a year and
27:02
Speaker 1: a half later. So now, when their ship docked on
27:05
Speaker 1: the coast of Antarctica and the captain called out for
27:08
Speaker 1: everyone to start unloading the ship, leon had hesitated, and
27:12
Speaker 1: so did some other men.
27:13
Speaker 2: I mean, this was it, This was the real start.
27:15
Speaker 2: But one at a.
27:16
Speaker 1: Time they began grabbing their supplies and climbing down a
27:19
Speaker 1: ramp on the side of the ship. Leonid watched his
27:21
Speaker 1: fellow scientists step onto the snow, and as he did,
27:24
Speaker 1: he sort of shook off his own fear as a
27:26
Speaker 1: moment of weakness. Right now he needed to be strong
27:29
Speaker 1: and ultimately, I mean, Leonid was a very strong willed person.
27:33
Speaker 1: He had been born in a remote village in eastern Siberia,
27:36
Speaker 1: so he knew he could handle the isolation and the
27:38
Speaker 1: extreme cold. He had already done that before. He was
27:41
Speaker 1: also the son of a World War Two veteran who
27:43
Speaker 1: had died in combat, and his father had taught him
27:46
Speaker 1: to soldier on at all costs, even under the toughest circumstances.
27:50
Speaker 2: So right now, that's what Leonid did. He soldiered on.
27:53
Speaker 1: He took a deep breath of the ice cold air,
27:55
Speaker 1: then grabbed his things, walked down the ramp and stepped
27:58
Speaker 1: onto the snow with the others. And then once they
28:00
Speaker 1: had everything they had packed for the next sixteen months
28:02
Speaker 1: off the ship. The crew on board the ship still
28:05
Speaker 1: wished all the men good luck, and then they lifted
28:08
Speaker 1: up the ramp and then Leonid and the rest of
28:10
Speaker 1: the team watched as that ship began sailing away, leaving
28:14
Speaker 1: them all alone for the first time. At first, things
28:19
Speaker 1: at the new Antarctic Research Center went pretty well. Leonid
28:22
Speaker 1: and the team successfully built the entire research building in
28:26
Speaker 1: time before the polar winter, so when the worst weather came,
28:29
Speaker 1: they were able to hunker down inside and be safe.
28:32
Speaker 1: They'd also set up a whole bunch of atmospheric measurement
28:35
Speaker 1: tools that allowed them to study the Antarctic climate exactly
28:38
Speaker 1: as they wanted to. So by April, so four months
28:41
Speaker 1: after getting dropped off by that ship, and now only
28:44
Speaker 1: about a month or so into the six month long
28:47
Speaker 1: polar winter, the men for the most part, were really
28:49
Speaker 1: just trying to stay warm, conserve their supplies, and gather data. However,
28:54
Speaker 1: they hit their first real snag on the morning of
28:57
Speaker 1: April twenty ninth.
28:58
Speaker 2: Leonid woke up in his.
28:59
Speaker 1: Bunk that day with a stomach ache. When Leonid woke up,
29:02
Speaker 1: he had that pain in his stomach, but he also
29:05
Speaker 1: he felt nauseous and so weak that he could barely
29:07
Speaker 1: roll over inside of his bed. And this really concerned
29:11
Speaker 1: Leonid because getting a stomach ache back at home was
29:14
Speaker 1: one thing, but getting a stomach ache in Antarctica was
29:18
Speaker 1: totally different. For one, there was a huge blizzard going
29:22
Speaker 1: on outside that was making both land and air travel
29:25
Speaker 1: literally impossible, which meant that even if Leonid radioed for help,
29:29
Speaker 1: nobody would be able to get to him for a
29:32
Speaker 1: very long time. And to make matters even worse, at
29:35
Speaker 1: their research station, they didn't have access to most of
29:38
Speaker 1: the regular medical treatments that would have been available back
29:41
Speaker 1: at home. Basically, if this stomach ache was anything serious,
29:45
Speaker 1: Leonid could die. As a result, Leonid would basically not
29:49
Speaker 1: allow himself to even consider the possibility that this stomach
29:53
Speaker 1: ache was serious. Instead, he told himself that, you know,
29:57
Speaker 1: he must have just eaten something weird. They were all
29:59
Speaker 1: living off a rations of preserved food, and so he
30:02
Speaker 1: figured he must have gotten a bad batch of something,
30:04
Speaker 1: and maybe he just had a mild case of food poisoning.
30:07
Speaker 1: So he dragged himself out of bed and he went
30:10
Speaker 1: to the kitchen for a glass of water to hopefully
30:12
Speaker 1: settle his stomach. But when he got there, he saw
30:15
Speaker 1: two other men, another meteorologist and an engineer, who were
30:18
Speaker 1: sitting at a nearby table having breakfast, and they took
30:22
Speaker 1: one look at Leonid and immediately asked him like, hey,
30:25
Speaker 1: are you okay? And Leonid didn't want to worry them
30:27
Speaker 1: because again, like any medical emergency, is a huge deal
30:30
Speaker 1: here for everybody, so he quickly forced a smile and said, oh, yeah,
30:34
Speaker 1: everything's fine. Then Leonid quickly grabbed his glass of water,
30:37
Speaker 1: chugged it down, and made his way back to his bunk.
30:40
Speaker 1: And when he got there, he didn't just climb back
30:42
Speaker 1: in bed. Instead, he grabbed some clean clothes and a
30:45
Speaker 1: towel and then walked down the hallway to the shower
30:47
Speaker 1: stalls and he turned one on as hot as it
30:49
Speaker 1: would go, and then got inside. However, before he could
30:53
Speaker 1: even wash his hair, his vision began to go blurry
30:56
Speaker 1: around the edges and his ears began to ring. He
30:59
Speaker 1: felt like he was about to faint, and he quickly
31:01
Speaker 1: sat down on the floor of the shower so he
31:03
Speaker 1: wouldn't fall and hurt himself. And as he was sitting
31:05
Speaker 1: there with his head spinning and the hot water raining
31:08
Speaker 1: down on him, the dull aching pain in his stomach
31:12
Speaker 1: suddenly sharpened. It was like a horrible stabbing pain ripping
31:17
Speaker 1: through his stomach. Now Leonid barely had time to wrap
31:20
Speaker 1: a towel around his waist and rush to a toilet
31:23
Speaker 1: before he began to vomit. A few minutes later, Leonid
31:25
Speaker 1: stumbled into a small storage closet where the research team
31:29
Speaker 1: kept a reserve of basic medications like pain relievers and antibiotics.
31:33
Speaker 1: Leonid took some antibiotics and tried to power through the day,
31:38
Speaker 1: but that pain in his abdomen just got more and
31:41
Speaker 1: more intense. Eventually, he told the other men on his
31:44
Speaker 1: team that he really had to stop, lie down and rest.
31:47
Speaker 2: That something was wrong here.
31:49
Speaker 1: But maybe if he just lays down long enough, it'll
31:51
Speaker 1: go away. Leonid would spend the entire evening going back
31:53
Speaker 1: and forth from his bed to the toilet because he
31:56
Speaker 1: kept vomiting, and he didn't sleep at all that night,
31:59
Speaker 1: and by the next morning, April thirtieth, Leonid was in
32:02
Speaker 1: so much pain that he really couldn't even try to
32:04
Speaker 1: hide it anymore. He was still vomiting, he was still
32:06
Speaker 1: very dizzy to the point where he could barely stand up,
32:09
Speaker 1: and he could tell he was also running a very
32:11
Speaker 1: high fever.
32:12
Speaker 2: However, what really scared.
32:13
Speaker 1: Leonid the most was what his belly actually looked like.
32:17
Speaker 1: He had not been able to keep any food down
32:19
Speaker 1: for the last twenty four hours, so he knew his
32:21
Speaker 1: stomach was completely empty, and yet he was so bloated
32:25
Speaker 1: that his belly was sticking out like a balloon. And
32:28
Speaker 1: so lying in bed feeling feverish, nauseous, and dizzy and
32:32
Speaker 1: looking down at his grotesquely swollen abdomen, Leonid had to
32:36
Speaker 1: admit to himself that this was definitely more than just
32:40
Speaker 1: food poisoning. Something was very wrong and he needed help.
32:44
Speaker 1: The scientific research team's doctor took stock of all of
32:47
Speaker 1: Leonid's symptoms and he immediately came up with a diagnosis.
32:51
Speaker 1: And the diagnosis was simple, but the treatment was not.
32:54
Speaker 1: Leonid definitely did not have food poisoning. He was in
32:58
Speaker 1: a life or death situation. This was a very serious thing.
33:02
Speaker 1: But to save him, the doctor was going to have
33:04
Speaker 1: to perform a surgery that had only ever been done
33:07
Speaker 1: successfully two times in all of history, and that was
33:10
Speaker 1: because this surgery required a very risky technique that most
33:15
Speaker 1: doctors refused to even try because it was so dangerous
33:19
Speaker 1: both to the patient and also to the doctor. Basically,
33:22
Speaker 1: Leonid was likely going to die if the doctor attempted
33:26
Speaker 1: the surgery. But Leonid was definitely going to die if
33:30
Speaker 1: he didn't, and so ultimately a decision was made that
33:34
Speaker 1: the doctor would give it his best try. At least
33:36
Speaker 1: that way, they were trying to save Leonid's life even
33:39
Speaker 1: if they were unsuccessful. At two am that night, so
33:49
Speaker 1: technically early morning on May first, the doctor took a
33:53
Speaker 1: deep breath and mentally prepared themselves for the surgery. Leonid
33:57
Speaker 1: was lying on a makeshift operating table inside the research set.
34:00
Speaker 1: He was wearing a surgical gown, and despite the fact
34:03
Speaker 1: he was about to undergo real surgery here, he was
34:07
Speaker 1: wide awake because he had to be. Due to the
34:11
Speaker 1: nature of this incredibly risky and rare surgery. The doctor
34:15
Speaker 1: couldn't actually give Leonid any real anesthesia to knock him out.
34:19
Speaker 2: Leonid had to.
34:20
Speaker 1: Be wide awake and fully aware for this entire procedure,
34:23
Speaker 1: which meant all he could get were some local anesthetics
34:26
Speaker 1: which sort of dulled the pain, but did not.
34:28
Speaker 2: Get rid of it.
34:29
Speaker 1: The doctor looked over at the four other research team
34:31
Speaker 1: members who were in the operating room. There was a driver,
34:34
Speaker 1: a meteorologist, and two aerologists, which are scientists who study
34:38
Speaker 1: the Earth's atmosphere. Now, none of these four had any
34:42
Speaker 1: real medical training, but the doctor needed assistance to do
34:45
Speaker 1: this operation, so he'd recruited them to help him out.
34:48
Speaker 1: Leonid had his head propped up with pillows and his
34:51
Speaker 1: knees were turned to the left, so he was twisted
34:53
Speaker 1: into a position where the lower right side of his
34:56
Speaker 1: abdomen was facing up towards the ceiling. The doctor had
34:59
Speaker 1: already cut a hole in his hospital gown, so Leonid's
35:02
Speaker 1: swollen stomach was visible, and now through that hole, the
35:05
Speaker 1: doctor injected novacane, which is a type of local anesthetic,
35:09
Speaker 1: right into Leonid's abdomen, and then once the novacane took effect,
35:13
Speaker 1: the doctor used a scalpel to carefully make a four
35:16
Speaker 1: inch long incision into Leonid's lower abdomen. Leonid took in
35:20
Speaker 1: a sharp breath, but he did his best to stay
35:22
Speaker 1: perfectly still. The incision began to bleed heavily, and one
35:26
Speaker 1: of the assistants came over and used a pair of
35:28
Speaker 1: metal tongs to spread open Leonid's skin and muscles and fat,
35:33
Speaker 1: revealing Leonid's internal organs. At this point, the doctor was
35:37
Speaker 1: so nervous that his hands began to shake, but he
35:40
Speaker 1: took a deep breath and slowly cut his way with
35:43
Speaker 1: the scalpel through the protective membrane that surrounded Leonid's organs,
35:48
Speaker 1: but as he did, he accidentally poked a hole in
35:51
Speaker 1: Leonid's large intestine, and Leonid noticed right away because he
35:55
Speaker 1: began gushing blood. And when the doctor realized what he'd done,
35:58
Speaker 1: he sort of began to panic, and he began yelling
36:01
Speaker 1: for the assistance to hand him as surgical sewing kit,
36:04
Speaker 1: and when they did, he kind of clumsily began trying
36:07
Speaker 1: to sow the whole shut. But by the time the
36:09
Speaker 1: doctor had finally closed up the wound, Leonid had already
36:13
Speaker 1: lost a lot of blood. And the real problem, the
36:17
Speaker 1: reason the doctor was doing the surgery in the first place,
36:20
Speaker 1: still had not been solved. Like the surgery had not
36:22
Speaker 1: really even happened. We just had this incision, that's it.
36:25
Speaker 1: And so the doctor knew he really had to hurry
36:27
Speaker 1: before Leonid bled out, and so he threw his standard
36:30
Speaker 1: operating procedures out the window.
36:32
Speaker 2: He just had to go for it here.
36:33
Speaker 1: So he just took one of his hands and reached
36:36
Speaker 1: inside of Leonid's abdominal cavity and started literally feeling around
36:41
Speaker 1: trying to find the source of Leonid's illness. But as
36:44
Speaker 1: he did, it was like all the blood drained out
36:46
Speaker 1: of Leonid's face. I mean, he's feeling this. This must
36:49
Speaker 1: have been horrific. His body went limp and his head
36:52
Speaker 1: kind of rolled back on his pillow. And this was
36:54
Speaker 1: actually the exact moment that this surgery truly became its
36:58
Speaker 1: most dangerous, not just for Leonid, but for the doctor too.
37:02
Speaker 1: Right as Leonid's head rolled backwards, the doctor felt himself.
37:06
Speaker 2: Go weak and suddenly he was seeing stars.
37:08
Speaker 1: And this was because Leonid and the doctor were actually
37:13
Speaker 1: the same person. In addition to being a meteorologist and
37:16
Speaker 1: a driver of that special vehicle, Leonid was also a
37:19
Speaker 1: recent medical school graduate and he was the one doctor
37:22
Speaker 1: at this research station. So Leonid was performing surgery on himself.
37:27
Speaker 1: He had given himself that novacane shot and then forced
37:31
Speaker 1: himself to stay still as he carved a four inch
37:33
Speaker 1: long incision into his own abdomen, accidentally slicing into his
37:38
Speaker 1: intestines that he had the wherewithal to then stitch up
37:41
Speaker 1: as he's bleeding to death. And then he shoved his
37:44
Speaker 1: own hand into his abdominal cavity. But it was at
37:48
Speaker 1: that point that Leonid actually looked like he might die
37:51
Speaker 1: because he began to show signs like he was going
37:53
Speaker 1: to pass out, likely from blood loss or just shock.
37:56
Speaker 1: But he'd given his assistance specific instruction on what to
38:00
Speaker 1: do if he passed out during the procedure. They were
38:03
Speaker 1: supposed to inject him with a specific drug mixture and
38:06
Speaker 1: then give him CPR until he woke up. But just
38:09
Speaker 1: as one of the assistants readied the needle to inject
38:12
Speaker 1: into Leonid because it did appear like he was about
38:14
Speaker 1: to pass out, Leonid suddenly sucked in a huge breath
38:17
Speaker 1: and his head snapped back up. Leonid, with his hands
38:20
Speaker 1: still inside of his abdomen, told his assistance that he
38:23
Speaker 1: was okay. Then he looked over at the mirror that
38:26
Speaker 1: one of his assistants had been holding up this whole
38:28
Speaker 1: time so that he could see what he was doing
38:31
Speaker 1: during the surgery, and with a combination of the mirror
38:34
Speaker 1: and just sort of feeling around inside of his own body,
38:37
Speaker 1: which must have been horrifically painful, Leonid finally found the
38:41
Speaker 1: thing that was making him so sick.
38:43
Speaker 2: It was his appendix.
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Speaker 1: This entire time, Leonid had been suffering from acute appendicitis,
38:49
Speaker 1: then he cleaned out his abdominal cavity with antibiotics and
38:53
Speaker 1: then sutured up the entire incision. When he was finally
38:56
Speaker 1: all done, Leonid examined his appendix that he had cut
38:59
Speaker 1: out of himself, and he saw there was this dark,
39:01
Speaker 1: diseased looking spot right on the bottom of it. Leonid
39:04
Speaker 1: estimated that if he had not removed this thing, it
39:08
Speaker 1: very likely would have burst in less than twenty four hours,
39:11
Speaker 1: and that definitely would have killed him. Within just two weeks,
39:16
Speaker 1: Leonid was back up on his feet and helping out
39:18
Speaker 1: at the research center like normal. And when the whole
39:20
Speaker 1: team went back home to the Soviet Union in April
39:23
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty two, so about a year after Leonid's
39:26
Speaker 1: self surgery, he was greeted like a hero. The government
39:29
Speaker 1: actually gave him a medal called the Order of the
39:31
Speaker 1: Red Banner of Labor, which was for extraordinary contributions to
39:35
Speaker 1: Soviet society. And he would go down in history as
39:38
Speaker 1: the third person to ever perform a successful auto appendectomy.
39:43
Speaker 1: And he did it outside of a real hospital, with
39:46
Speaker 1: no other trained medical professionals anywhere nearby. And that's actually
39:50
Speaker 1: not the only way that Leonid's legacy lived on today.
39:53
Speaker 1: Some countries actually require doctors who are stationed in Antarctica
39:57
Speaker 1: to undergo preventative A tomies just so that they will
40:01
Speaker 1: never be in a situation like Leonid, Because it turns
40:05
Speaker 1: out the one thing you really can't bring to Antarctica
40:08
Speaker 1: is your appendix. Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
40:16
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of it in the
40:17
Speaker 1: comments below, And remember, we have a whole playlist of
40:21
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40:27
Speaker 1: them a watch.
40:28
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya,