Latest / Crime and Horror / One-In-A-Billion-Two-Totally-Bizarre-Med
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell two totally insane medical mystery stories.
- 0:04Speaker 1: But before we get into those stories, if you're a
- 0:07Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
- 0:10Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, because that's all
- 0:12Speaker 1: we do, and we upload once a week. So if
- 0:15Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, the next time the like
- 0:17Speaker 1: button is feeling down, give them a jack in the
- 0:20Speaker 1: box toy to cheer them up. But make sure you
- 0:23Speaker 1: don't give them a normal jack in the box. Instead,
- 0:26Speaker 1: give them one that's filled with angry hornets. Also, please
- 0:29Speaker 1: subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so
- 0:32Speaker 1: you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's
- 0:35Speaker 1: get into today's stories. On November two, eighteen forty eight,
- 0:52Speaker 1: a German doctor named Carl Heinrich August van Buro was
- 0:56Speaker 1: just opening up his private medical practice in East Prussia
- 0:59Speaker 1: when a teenage each boy burst in through the doors,
- 1:01Speaker 1: looking totally frantic. Before the doctor could ask any questions,
- 1:05Speaker 1: the teenager blurted out that another boy in town needed
- 1:09Speaker 1: his help right now. When the doctor asked, you know,
- 1:12Speaker 1: what does the boy need, the teenager would say, well,
- 1:15Speaker 1: the boy is honking like a goose For a second.
- 1:18Speaker 1: Doctor von Buro thought this might be a joke, but
- 1:21Speaker 1: then he saw the look on the teenager's face and
- 1:23Speaker 1: he could tell he was very upset and very serious.
- 1:26Speaker 1: So the doctor grabbed his bag and he ran outside
- 1:29Speaker 1: with the teenager and they hailed a horse and carriage
- 1:31Speaker 1: and they told the driver to hurry up. When doctor
- 1:34Speaker 1: von Buro and this teenager arrived at the honking boy's house,
- 1:38Speaker 1: the honking boy's mother came running outside, looking totally flustered,
- 1:42Speaker 1: and she flagged down the doctor and then brought him
- 1:44Speaker 1: inside her house, and as she led the doctor through
- 1:47Speaker 1: the home towards her son's bedroom, she explained what was
- 1:50Speaker 1: going on. She said, her twelve year old son had
- 1:52Speaker 1: been outside playing with his friends when suddenly he had
- 1:56Speaker 1: developed this really intense coughing fit, kind of out of nowhere.
- 1:59Speaker 1: And finally, when the coughing stopped and the boy tried
- 2:02Speaker 1: to breathe in his throat made this horrible honking sound,
- 2:06Speaker 1: and so her boy had come in the house honking
- 2:09Speaker 1: with every breath, and so kind of in a panic,
- 2:11Speaker 1: the mother had opened up her son's mouth and looked inside,
- 2:14Speaker 1: but she hadn't seen anything, and she knew her son
- 2:16Speaker 1: was not sick. There were no other symptoms really at
- 2:19Speaker 1: all that were concerning about her son. It was just
- 2:22Speaker 1: that he was honking. Now, for a while, the mother
- 2:24Speaker 1: thought this would just kind of clear up, that maybe
- 2:26Speaker 1: it was just kind of some byproduct of coughing really
- 2:29Speaker 1: really hard. But now it had been eighteen hours and
- 2:33Speaker 1: the boy was still honking with nearly every breath, which
- 2:37Speaker 1: is why she had finally told the teen to go
- 2:39Speaker 1: get the doctor. When the mother let doctor von Buro
- 2:42Speaker 1: into her son's bedroom and he got a look at
- 2:45Speaker 1: the honking boy, he couldn't believe how terrible the boy looked.
- 2:49Speaker 1: His face was all swollen and kind of bluish, and
- 2:51Speaker 1: he was sweating profusely. And when the doctor watched him
- 2:55Speaker 1: try to breathe in, not only did he honk, but
- 2:58Speaker 1: also very clearly this was really struggling just to breathe.
- 3:02Speaker 1: So it was more than the sound. It looked like
- 3:04Speaker 1: he was suffocating, and so the doctor rushed over to
- 3:07Speaker 1: the boy and told him to open up his mouth.
- 3:09Speaker 1: The boy did, and the doctor looked into his mouth,
- 3:12Speaker 1: but there was nothing he could see that was blocking
- 3:14Speaker 1: his airway, and so the doctor just put his finger
- 3:17Speaker 1: into this boy's mouth and he reached down inside, and
- 3:20Speaker 1: suddenly he felt something lodged in the boy's throat that
- 3:24Speaker 1: was small and hard, and he couldn't quite grab it.
- 3:27Speaker 1: So he grabbed his forceps, which are kind of like
- 3:29Speaker 1: big tweezers, and he reached back into the boy's mouth
- 3:32Speaker 1: and he tried to grab this object that was clearly
- 3:35Speaker 1: obstructing his throat, but the object was too slippery and
- 3:38Speaker 1: the doctor could not pull it out. And so the
- 3:41Speaker 1: doctor is looking at this boy who's obviously struggling to breathe,
- 3:45Speaker 1: and he's thinking to himself, you know, if I don't
- 3:46Speaker 1: get in there and get this obstruction out, this kid
- 3:49Speaker 1: is going to die. And so the doctor made a
- 3:52Speaker 1: decision right then and there to perform an emergency tracheotomy,
- 3:56Speaker 1: which is a surgery where you basically cut a hole
- 3:58Speaker 1: in someone's neck in order to a hole in their
- 4:00Speaker 1: throat to let air go in. But in this case,
- 4:03Speaker 1: the doctor was just opening up his throat to try
- 4:05Speaker 1: to get to this object. Since the doctor pulled out
- 4:08Speaker 1: his scalpel and he performed the tracheotomy on this boy,
- 4:12Speaker 1: he opened up his throat and when he looked inside
- 4:14Speaker 1: the hole, into this boy's throat. He saw the obstruction.
- 4:18Speaker 1: It was like this pink, small, hard object, and so
- 4:21Speaker 1: the doctor just reached in, scooped it with his finger,
- 4:24Speaker 1: and pulled it out, and right away the boy could
- 4:26Speaker 1: breathe again. He was not honking anymore. It was obvious
- 4:29Speaker 1: that this fixed the problem. But the doctor and the
- 4:33Speaker 1: mother are just looking at this object in the doctor's hand,
- 4:36Speaker 1: having no idea how to react to this, because it
- 4:38Speaker 1: made no sense. The object that was trapped in this
- 4:42Speaker 1: boy's throat that was making him honk like a goose
- 4:45Speaker 1: was a literal goose's larynx. The larynx is a hollow
- 4:48Speaker 1: tube in your throat that helps you make sound. In humans,
- 4:52Speaker 1: we call it the voicebox. And right before this boy
- 4:55Speaker 1: began honking, he was playing a game with his friends
- 4:58Speaker 1: that involved taking recent severed goosenecks and blowing through them
- 5:02Speaker 1: like they were trumpets. And at some point, as this
- 5:05Speaker 1: boy was doing it, he began to cough for some reason,
- 5:08Speaker 1: and on the inhale. During one of these coughing fits,
- 5:11Speaker 1: he had this goose neck in front of his mouth,
- 5:14Speaker 1: and so when he inhaled, suddenly he inhaled the goose larynx,
- 5:18Speaker 1: and so that was why he sounded like a goose.
- 5:20Speaker 1: He literally had a goose's voice box in his throat. Luckily,
- 5:24Speaker 1: the honking boy would make a full recovery. If you're
- 5:31Speaker 1: watching this video, then chances are good you are a
- 5:34Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious. And if that's true,
- 5:37Speaker 1: then you're in luck because we Balin Studios just released
- 5:41Speaker 1: a brand new strange, dark and mysterious podcast called Mister
- 5:45Speaker 1: Balin's Medical Mysteries. Each week, we'll explore new bizarre, unheard
- 5:49Speaker 1: of diseases, miraculous recoveries, strange medical mishaps, and everything in between.
- 5:54Speaker 1: And like all other shows that I host, each episode
- 5:58Speaker 1: of Medical Mysteries will end with a big plot twist.
- 6:01Speaker 1: Mister Ballin's Medical Mysteries is available on all podcast platforms
- 6:05Speaker 1: and it is one hundred percent free. But if you
- 6:08Speaker 1: happen to listen to it on Amazon Music, you can
- 6:11Speaker 1: listen to an entire batch of eight episodes at once,
- 6:14Speaker 1: because we release them eight at a time on Amazon Music,
- 6:18Speaker 1: but on all the other podcast platforms, we just put
- 6:21Speaker 1: out one episode a week, and then once they catch
- 6:24Speaker 1: up to where Amazon Music is, we drop another new
- 6:27Speaker 1: eight episodes on Amazon Music, but continue doing one per
- 6:31Speaker 1: each week on every other platform. The next eight episode,
- 6:34Speaker 1: Binge on Amazon Music, is scheduled for Tuesday, January thirtieth.
- 6:38Speaker 1: So be sure you go check out Mister Ballin's Medical
- 6:41Speaker 1: Mysteries on Amazon Music or wherever else you get your podcasts,
- 6:44Speaker 1: and make sure you stick around till the end of
- 6:47Speaker 1: this YouTube video, because we're going to play a sneak
- 6:50Speaker 1: peek of this coming Tuesday's brand new episode of Mister
- 6:53Speaker 1: Ballin's Medical Mysteries, which is called The Curse of the Neeto.
- 7:06Speaker 1: On the afternoon of February first, twenty thirteen, a retired
- 7:10Speaker 1: Army veteran named Robert Smith limped his way into the
- 7:14Speaker 1: emergency room at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington,
- 7:17Speaker 1: d C. Robert checked in at the triage desk, but
- 7:20Speaker 1: then instead of sitting down with the rest of the
- 7:22Speaker 1: patients who were waiting, he leaned up against the wall
- 7:25Speaker 1: and just grimaced. Robert was in his late sixties, and
- 7:28Speaker 1: up until just a few days ago, he felt like
- 7:30Speaker 1: he was in the best health he had been in
- 7:32Speaker 1: since leaving the service. Robert had gotten a kidney transplant
- 7:36Speaker 1: a year and a half earlier, and after getting that operation,
- 7:39Speaker 1: he really wanted to make sure he stayed healthy, and
- 7:41Speaker 1: so he had been going on regular walks and eating
- 7:43Speaker 1: healthy and so really he was doing great. But a
- 7:46Speaker 1: few days ago, Robert had noticed this throbbing pain in
- 7:50Speaker 1: his right hip that was shooting pain all the way
- 7:52Speaker 1: down his right leg, and he assumed, you know, this
- 7:55Speaker 1: had to be from maybe overdoing it on one of
- 7:57Speaker 1: his walks. But the pain had continued to get worse
- 8:00Speaker 1: and worse over the last few days, and so that
- 8:03Speaker 1: was why he was finally here at the hospital. A
- 8:05Speaker 1: nurse eventually called Robert's name, and so Robert he came
- 8:08Speaker 1: off the wall and hobbled over to her, and she
- 8:11Speaker 1: led him down a hallway into an exam room. Once
- 8:13Speaker 1: they got inside the room, the nurse would take Robert's fdals,
- 8:16Speaker 1: which were all normal, and then after doing that, she
- 8:19Speaker 1: said she was going to go out and get the doctor.
- 8:21Speaker 1: A couple minutes later, the doctor walked into the room
- 8:24Speaker 1: and she reviewed Robert's chart and talked to Robert about
- 8:26Speaker 1: his symptoms, and then afterwards she concluded that very likely
- 8:30Speaker 1: what Robert had was something called sciatica. Sciatica is pain
- 8:34Speaker 1: caused by pressure on the ssiatic nerve, which travels from
- 8:37Speaker 1: the lower back down each leg. And while siatica is
- 8:41Speaker 1: definitely very uncomfortable and very painful, it's not usually a
- 8:46Speaker 1: big deal and it typically clears up on its own
- 8:48Speaker 1: without treatment. And so the doctor told Robert that he
- 8:51Speaker 1: should just go pick up some ibuprofen, so over the
- 8:53Speaker 1: counter pain medication, and take that every couple of hours
- 8:57Speaker 1: and just wait for this thing to pass and then
- 8:58Speaker 1: he'd be fine. Robert was totally relieved. He thanked the doctor,
- 9:02Speaker 1: he thanked the nurse, and then he left and headed
- 9:04Speaker 1: back to his home. But despite doing what the doctor
- 9:07Speaker 1: said and taking pain meds and just kind of taking
- 9:09Speaker 1: it easy, the pain in Robert's leg did not go away.
- 9:13Speaker 1: And then on the morning of February fourth, so three
- 9:16Speaker 1: days after Robert's trip to the er, he woke up
- 9:19Speaker 1: and not only was his right hip and legs still sore,
- 9:22Speaker 1: but now when he tried to stand up, he couldn't
- 9:25Speaker 1: put any weight on his right leg. It just felt
- 9:27Speaker 1: too weak, and it was kind of tingly, you know,
- 9:29Speaker 1: something just felt off about it. And also Robert felt
- 9:32Speaker 1: very nauseous, and so Robert told himself that, you know,
- 9:35Speaker 1: maybe what was going on here is he was taking
- 9:37Speaker 1: too much ibuprofen and it was upsetting his stomach, and
- 9:40Speaker 1: maybe it was also affecting his leg negatively or something.
- 9:43Speaker 1: He didn't know. And so that day he just sat
- 9:45Speaker 1: on the couch and watched TV, trying to tell himself
- 9:48Speaker 1: that he was okay, it's just sciatica, you know, take
- 9:51Speaker 1: a little less pain meds and you'll be okay. But
- 9:54Speaker 1: that didn't work, because the next day when he woke up,
- 9:56Speaker 1: he was in even worse shape. Now he not only
- 9:59Speaker 1: had this pain and weakness in his right leg and
- 10:01Speaker 1: he had nausea still, but also he now had this
- 10:05Speaker 1: new pain in his abdomen that was located right around
- 10:08Speaker 1: where the scar was from his kidney transplant, and Robert
- 10:11Speaker 1: was also starting to spike a fever, and fevers in
- 10:14Speaker 1: transplant patients are a really big deal because a fever
- 10:19Speaker 1: in a transplant patient could mean an infection. People who
- 10:22Speaker 1: get transplants are then given medication that keep their bodies
- 10:26Speaker 1: from rejecting their new organ or organs. This medication works
- 10:30Speaker 1: by basically suppressing that person's immune system. This prevents the
- 10:34Speaker 1: body from mistakenly attacking the new organ. But it also
- 10:38Speaker 1: means that if their body gets a real infection, they
- 10:41Speaker 1: will have a really hard time fighting it off, because again,
- 10:44Speaker 1: this medicine is basically stopping the immune system. And so
- 10:47Speaker 1: when Robert saw he had a fever in conjunction with
- 10:50Speaker 1: these other symptoms that were not going away, he knew
- 10:53Speaker 1: he had to go back to the hospital because obviously
- 10:56Speaker 1: this was not just sciatica. Robert was too sick and
- 10:59Speaker 1: weak to drive himself to the hospital, so he asked
- 11:02Speaker 1: his neighbor to drive him. And as they were driving
- 11:04Speaker 1: to the hospital, you know, Robert basically sat in the
- 11:07Speaker 1: passenger seat, rocking back and forth, not saying anything because
- 11:10Speaker 1: he was so uncomfortable, and the neighbor the whole time
- 11:13Speaker 1: they're driving, they just kept looking over at Robert, because
- 11:16Speaker 1: not only did Robert look totally miserable, but also Robert
- 11:20Speaker 1: was sweating profusely, like so much so that it looked
- 11:24Speaker 1: like he had just sprinted a five K. I mean,
- 11:26Speaker 1: he was drenched in sweat, and so the neighbors looking
- 11:29Speaker 1: at him thinking like, what's wrong with this guy. Finally,
- 11:33Speaker 1: the neighbor arrived at the hospital and Robert he managed
- 11:36Speaker 1: to get out on his own, and he thanked the neighbor,
- 11:38Speaker 1: and then Robert hobbled his way back through the doors
- 11:41Speaker 1: into the er. And then a few minutes later, Robert
- 11:43Speaker 1: was in an exam room and his doctor walked in
- 11:46Speaker 1: and she took one look at him and saw how
- 11:48Speaker 1: horrible he looked, and without any hesitation, she said, you're
- 11:51Speaker 1: getting admitted right now. It was clear to Robert's doctors
- 11:55Speaker 1: that he had some kind of virus or infection that
- 11:58Speaker 1: his body was trying and failing to fight off. When
- 12:01Speaker 1: they tested his blood, they saw his white blood cell
- 12:04Speaker 1: count was elevated, which is a sign that the body's
- 12:06Speaker 1: immune system is launching some kind of a response, but
- 12:09Speaker 1: the doctors didn't know what his immune system was responding to.
- 12:13Speaker 1: Even though Robert had this acute pain in his abdomen
- 12:16Speaker 1: around the site of the kidney transplant, his kidney seemed
- 12:19Speaker 1: to be working just fine, and so whatever was going
- 12:22Speaker 1: on with him didn't seem to be linked to his transplant.
- 12:25Speaker 1: The profuse sweating did seem pretty odd, but considering Robert
- 12:29Speaker 1: had a really high fever, it wasn't totally inexplicable. So
- 12:33Speaker 1: basically Robert's symptoms were weird. But kind of generic. They
- 12:37Speaker 1: didn't tell the doctors specifically what was wrong with him.
- 12:40Speaker 1: They just knew something was wrong. So they just hooked
- 12:43Speaker 1: Robert up to an IV and began administering a broad
- 12:47Speaker 1: spectrum antibiotic, which is something that treats a whole variety
- 12:50Speaker 1: of different infections. And then after that, the doctors just
- 12:53Speaker 1: began testing Robert over and over and over again for
- 12:56Speaker 1: all these different things that could be the cause or
- 13:00Speaker 1: his illness. But every test they ran came back negative.
- 13:04Speaker 1: And at the same time, over the couple of weeks
- 13:07Speaker 1: that they ran all these tests, Robert just kept getting
- 13:10Speaker 1: sicker and sicker and sicker. His fever wasn't going away,
- 13:13Speaker 1: he was still sweating profusely, his blood pressure was all
- 13:17Speaker 1: over the map, and he had even begun drooling almost uncontrollably,
- 13:21Speaker 1: to the point where he didn't even speak because he
- 13:23Speaker 1: was so embarrassed about it. But to the doctor's the
- 13:26Speaker 1: scariest symptom that Robert was now showing two weeks into
- 13:29Speaker 1: staying at the hospital was he was starting to act
- 13:32Speaker 1: really confused, like he didn't know where he was, he
- 13:35Speaker 1: didn't know why he was there, and so that told
- 13:37Speaker 1: the doctors that you know, whatever his body was fighting,
- 13:40Speaker 1: it had made its way up into his brain, and
- 13:42Speaker 1: so the doctors knew, you know, Robert did not have
- 13:45Speaker 1: much time left. But they had tried every test they
- 13:48Speaker 1: could think of, and Robert had tested negative for all
- 13:51Speaker 1: of them, and so, as kind of like a hail Mary,
- 13:53Speaker 1: because they had nothing to lose, the medical staff decided
- 13:57Speaker 1: to just start testing Robert for basically completely random diseases
- 14:01Speaker 1: that he almost certainly did not have. But basically, if
- 14:05Speaker 1: any of these illnesses had a symptom that Robert had,
- 14:08Speaker 1: they would test him for it. And all these tests
- 14:11Speaker 1: came back negative except for one. On February twenty second,
- 14:15Speaker 1: so seventeen days after Robert had been admitted to the hospital,
- 14:19Speaker 1: this test came back positive. And when the doctors saw
- 14:22Speaker 1: what he was testing positive for, they immediately assumed, this
- 14:26Speaker 1: has to be a mistake. There is no way he
- 14:28Speaker 1: has that. However, the only way to truly confirm that
- 14:33Speaker 1: diagnosis was to literally cut into Robert's brain, which would
- 14:38Speaker 1: kill him, and so obviously they were not going to
- 14:40Speaker 1: do that. So the doctors basically just had to take
- 14:42Speaker 1: this diagnosis at face value, and they tried giving various
- 14:46Speaker 1: medications to Robert, but it was obvious none of them
- 14:49Speaker 1: were working, and so the doctors felt like there wasn't
- 14:52Speaker 1: much they could do, and they just began focusing instead
- 14:55Speaker 1: on keeping Robert comfortable. And then finally, on February twenty seventh,
- 14:59Speaker 1: two days into Robert's day at the hospital, he would
- 15:02Speaker 1: die from this mystery illness. During Robert's autopsy, the medical
- 15:06Speaker 1: examiner was able to perform that test that doctors could
- 15:10Speaker 1: not perform on him when he was alive, and that
- 15:13Speaker 1: was to cut into his brain. And when the doctor
- 15:15Speaker 1: cut into his brain, he saw very clearly, without a
- 15:18Speaker 1: shadow of it out that yes, Robert really was positive
- 15:22Speaker 1: for that very very rare virus and it absolutely is
- 15:26Speaker 1: the thing that killed him. But this was not the
- 15:29Speaker 1: end of the case, because the virus that killed Robert
- 15:32Speaker 1: was not just rare, it was also highly contagious, which
- 15:36Speaker 1: meant the doctors needed to figure out how Robert got
- 15:39Speaker 1: this virus to protect other people from getting it too.
- 15:43Speaker 1: But the staff at this hospital knew they were not
- 15:46Speaker 1: equipped to lead this investigation, and so they handed the
- 15:49Speaker 1: case over to the Centers for Disease Control or the CDC,
- 15:53Speaker 1: which is the world's leading Disease Tracking Agency investigators for
- 15:57Speaker 1: the CDC began looking into Robert's case A couple of
- 16:00Speaker 1: days later. They sifted through the days and the weeks
- 16:02Speaker 1: leading up to Robert's hospitalization in an effort to try
- 16:06Speaker 1: to retrace Robert's footsteps to figure out what made him sick.
- 16:10Speaker 1: Now they didn't have any leads. The only thing they
- 16:12Speaker 1: agreed on was that very likely, even though Robert had
- 16:16Speaker 1: that pain around his scar where the transplant was, that
- 16:19Speaker 1: very likely the transplant did not have to do with
- 16:22Speaker 1: whatever killed him, because Robert's kidney had been working fine,
- 16:25Speaker 1: and his transplant had happened seventeen months earlier, and typically
- 16:29Speaker 1: complications from transplants will happen much sooner, and so they
- 16:33Speaker 1: basically had ruled the transplant out as being the cause.
- 16:36Speaker 1: But one of the CDC investigators decided to look into
- 16:40Speaker 1: the transplant file anyways, just to see if maybe something
- 16:43Speaker 1: got missed, or if maybe there was some detail about
- 16:46Speaker 1: the donor that was relevant to what happened to Robert.
- 16:49Speaker 1: And so this investigator got the file and began going
- 16:52Speaker 1: through it. Robert's donor's name was William Edward Small, and
- 16:56Speaker 1: at the time of his death, he was twenty years
- 16:58Speaker 1: old and serving in the Air Force. Now, none of
- 17:01Speaker 1: that stood out to the CDC investigator, but William's cause
- 17:05Speaker 1: of death definitely did. Even though it really did not
- 17:08Speaker 1: appear to have a connection to Robert, it was just
- 17:11Speaker 1: so weird and unexpected. The CDC investigator would read that
- 17:15Speaker 1: back in September of twenty eleven, William was out fishing
- 17:19Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Mexico and he caught a fish
- 17:22Speaker 1: and he ate that fish, and it gave him something
- 17:24Speaker 1: called sigwataro poisoning. Siguataro poisoning is something you get when
- 17:29Speaker 1: you eat a fish that contains microalgae toxins. And so
- 17:33Speaker 1: William he ate this fish that was contaminated, and not
- 17:36Speaker 1: long after that he had died. But when the CDC
- 17:39Speaker 1: investigator read through all of William's symptoms before he died,
- 17:44Speaker 1: they basically exactly lined up with all of Robert's symptoms.
- 17:48Speaker 1: William had developed pain and weakness in his extremities. He
- 17:52Speaker 1: developed a very high fever, he became nauseous. He also
- 17:55Speaker 1: lost the ability to swallow, and then he became totally
- 17:59Speaker 1: confused and then died. And so when the CDC investigators
- 18:03Speaker 1: saw this incredible coincidence. She knew she was onto something,
- 18:07Speaker 1: but first she would need more information about William, and
- 18:10Speaker 1: so very quickly the CDC got in touch with Williams's
- 18:13Speaker 1: family and they asked them all these questions about William,
- 18:17Speaker 1: and finally, after hearing the answers from the family, the
- 18:20Speaker 1: CDC finally figured out what actually happened to Robert and
- 18:25Speaker 1: what actually happened to William. It would turn out William
- 18:28Speaker 1: was not just a fisherman. He was also a hunter
- 18:31Speaker 1: and a trapper, and he had a very specific way
- 18:34Speaker 1: he would go about training his hunting dogs. He would
- 18:37Speaker 1: capture wild raccoons and use them as live bait to
- 18:42Speaker 1: train his hunting dogs how to hunt. Now, William was
- 18:45Speaker 1: always very cautious with these wild raccoons, but in the
- 18:49Speaker 1: year and a half leading up to his death, he
- 18:51Speaker 1: was bit two different times by raccoons, and it was
- 18:54Speaker 1: one of those two raccoon bites, not some toxic fish
- 18:58Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Mexico that killed William and killed Robert.
- 19:03Speaker 1: William did not die from siguatara poisoning. He died from rabies,
- 19:08Speaker 1: and the rabies virus that was in his kidney was
- 19:11Speaker 1: still present when it was taken out of his dead
- 19:13Speaker 1: body and transplanted into Robert's body, and so that was
- 19:17Speaker 1: how Robert got rabies. Rabies can look like the common
- 19:20Speaker 1: flu at first. People feel achy and nauseous, they get fevers,
- 19:24Speaker 1: their stomach starts to hurt. Some people affected by rabies
- 19:28Speaker 1: will drool uncontrollably like Robert, or they'll lose the ability
- 19:31Speaker 1: to swallow, like William. But for everybody who contracts rabies
- 19:36Speaker 1: and who does not get a vaccine right away, because
- 19:39Speaker 1: a vaccine does stop rabies in the early stage. So
- 19:42Speaker 1: if you don't do that, everybody dies. That's what rabies
- 19:46Speaker 1: does to you. It kills you. Now you think, you know,
- 19:48Speaker 1: maybe we should be testing organs for rabies before they
- 19:52Speaker 1: get transplanted. But you got to remember that rabies is
- 19:56Speaker 1: so so rare. Only one or two people a year
- 20:00Speaker 1: in the entire United States will die from rabies, and
- 20:03Speaker 1: so it's just not something doctors are going to screen
- 20:06Speaker 1: for because the percentage chance that they could have rabies
- 20:09Speaker 1: is basically zero. Ultimately, Robert was not the only person
- 20:13Speaker 1: who received an organ transplant from William. There were three
- 20:16Speaker 1: other people that received his organs. Luckily, though, the CDC
- 20:20Speaker 1: was able to track those three people down, and all
- 20:23Speaker 1: of them were totally healthy and not showing any signs
- 20:26Speaker 1: of rabies, So either they didn't have it or they
- 20:28Speaker 1: were super early stage, which meant they were eligible for
- 20:32Speaker 1: the rabies vaccine. They all got the vaccine and they
- 20:35Speaker 1: lived happily ever after as promised. Here is a sneak
- 20:42Speaker 1: peak of this coming Tuesday's brand new episode of Mister
- 20:45Speaker 1: Ballin's Medical Mysteries. The episode is titled The Curse of
- 20:49Speaker 1: vanetto Enjoy. In the summer of nineteen eighty three, a
- 20:54Speaker 1: middle aged Italian man held his mother's hands as they
- 20:57Speaker 1: swayed about on a dance floor. His mother was in
- 20:59Speaker 1: a nineties and was not able to get out very much,
- 21:02Speaker 1: so this was an extremely special occasion, and this particular
- 21:05Speaker 1: dance floor was on a cruise ship sailing on the
- 21:08Speaker 1: Mediterranean Sea. It was an unbelievable experience he knew they
- 21:12Speaker 1: would never forget. Then a slow song came on, and
- 21:17Speaker 1: as they danced together, the man began to feel abnormally hot.
- 21:21Speaker 1: Sweat ran down his chest and underneath his tuxedo jacket.
- 21:25Speaker 1: His hair stuck to his neck, and when he touched
- 21:27Speaker 1: his forehead, his hand came away wet. He told his
- 21:30Speaker 1: mother he'd be right back, and then he left the
- 21:32Speaker 1: dance floor, took off his jacket and walked to the
- 21:34Speaker 1: cruise deck, hoping the ocean breeze would cool him down.
- 21:38Speaker 1: But when he got up there, he didn't cool down,
- 21:41Speaker 1: and instead he just kept on sweating until his dress
- 21:44Speaker 1: shirt was completely drenched. The man finally just ran to
- 21:47Speaker 1: a bathroom in one of the cruise ship's long hallways,
- 21:50Speaker 1: and he ran right over to the sink, turned on
- 21:52Speaker 1: the cold water, and splashed it on his face. But
- 21:54Speaker 1: when he looked up at his reflection, he couldn't believe
- 21:57Speaker 1: what he was seeing, not because of how much he
- 21:59Speaker 1: was sweating, but because.
- 22:00Speaker 2: When he looked at his eyes, he could see his
- 22:03Speaker 2: pupils had shrunk to two tiny pinpricks. Suddenly he knew
- 22:08Speaker 2: exactly what was wrong. He stared at his sweaty reflection
- 22:12Speaker 2: and told himself he would go back out there on
- 22:14Speaker 2: the dance floor and he would enjoy this night with
- 22:16Speaker 2: his mother. He had to make every second count because
- 22:20Speaker 2: he was certain.
- 22:21Speaker 1: He'd be dead within a year. So that's going to
- 22:28Speaker 1: do it. I hope you enjoy the sneak peek. Go
- 22:30Speaker 1: check out mister Ballin's medical Mysteries on Amazon Music or
- 22:34Speaker 1: wherever else you get your podcasts. Wait, don't go anywhere.
- 22:37Speaker 1: If you're looking for more strange, dark and mysterious videos,
- 22:41Speaker 1: click here,