Latest / Crime and Horror / Screaming only makes it WORSE... - MrBallen

Transcript

Screaming only makes it WORSE... - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you three stories about places
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Speaker 1: you can't go and people who went there anyways. But
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Speaker 1: before we get into those stories, if you're a fan
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Speaker 1: of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format,
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Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, because that's all
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Speaker 1: we do, and we upload once a week. So if
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Speaker 1: weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. Around ten
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Speaker 1: pm on September ninth, nineteen seventy five, a twenty four
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Speaker 1: year old man named Roger Baldwin and his coworker twenty
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Speaker 1: nine year old Peter Holmes frantically crawled on hands and
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Speaker 1: knees as fast as they could down a hallway towards
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Speaker 1: the door of their apartment. And the reason they were
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Speaker 1: crawling and not standing and walking or running is because
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Speaker 1: this was no ordinary apartment. This apartment was basically like
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Speaker 1: a metal box with a bunch of interconnected metal tubes
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Speaker 1: that was located two hundred miles off the coast of Scotland,
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Speaker 1: basically out in the middle of the ocean, and it
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Speaker 1: was also underwater, and the reason for that is it
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Speaker 1: was connected to an offshore oil rig, and oil rigs
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Speaker 1: often need divers like deep sea divers to work on
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Speaker 1: the rig down deep in the water. But if you
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Speaker 1: know anything about underwater diving, especially deep underwater diving, is
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Speaker 1: that it's not as simple as just throwing on some
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Speaker 1: scuba tanks and going down into the water and doing
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Speaker 1: your work and coming back up again. Now, if you're
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Speaker 1: working on an oil rig down at depth, like an
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Speaker 1: underwater welder or anybody who does work for a while
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Speaker 1: deep underwater, there's lots of risks associated with going from
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Speaker 1: the surface down deep where there's really intense pressures and
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Speaker 1: you're breathing in different mixed gases can interact with your
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Speaker 1: body in sort of very terrible ways. It's dangerous. That's
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Speaker 1: the reality of it. Going down to depth and then
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Speaker 1: coming back up again is a very dangerous process unless
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Speaker 1: you know what you're doing. It's more efficient for owners
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Speaker 1: of oil rigs to construct these pressurized apartments underwater for
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Speaker 1: their deep sea divers to live in, so that when
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Speaker 1: they go out to the rig, they only have to
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Speaker 1: go down to depth once live in the apartment, which
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Speaker 1: imagine a cup that you just push down into water.
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Speaker 1: There's like an air pocket, right you push it deep
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Speaker 1: into the water. They basically would swim up under into
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Speaker 1: this apartment, deep underwater, and they live there and dive
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Speaker 1: back out of there, do their work, come back into
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Speaker 1: their apartment, but their bodies never really leave the working
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Speaker 1: depth until the end of their shift, whether it's weeks
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Speaker 1: or months or however long they're out there, and then
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Speaker 1: they only have to decompress one time. So in essence,
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Speaker 1: you get to work, you go down deep, and you
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Speaker 1: stay there effectively for a long time, and then when
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Speaker 1: you're done working, you go back to the surface. And
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Speaker 1: so that's why that apartment existed, and that's sort of
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Speaker 1: the setup for these two guys. They've been living underwater.
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Speaker 1: But at that moment, Roger and Peter were not thinking
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Speaker 1: about their diving responsibilities. They were rushing down this metal
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Speaker 1: tube hallway that led to their apartment because over the
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Speaker 1: intercom the folks on the surface, their supervisor, had communicated
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Speaker 1: down to them that there was some sort of leak
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Speaker 1: happening in the hallway, and so they basically had to
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Speaker 1: rush into their apartment and seal the door behind them
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Speaker 1: before the air basically vanished in the hallway and they suffocated.
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Speaker 1: So they're crawling as fast as they can. They finally
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Speaker 1: get to their apartment door, they open it up, they
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Speaker 1: go inside, they shut it, and they seal it. And
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Speaker 1: now they're sitting there with their backs against the door,
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Speaker 1: hoping that the leak was contained to the hallway, and
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Speaker 1: they're looking up into the corner of their small metal room,
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Speaker 1: their main living space where there's bunks, and there's also
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Speaker 1: the entrance down into the water basically right in front
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Speaker 1: of them, and there's this camera up in the corner
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Speaker 1: of this room looking down at them. And they know
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Speaker 1: they have no way to directly communicate with their supervisor
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Speaker 1: on the surface, but they know their supervisor has access
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Speaker 1: to that camera, and he's looking at them on his monitor,
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Speaker 1: in his black and white, you know, monitor, And so
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Speaker 1: they're looking up at this camera hoping that their supervisor
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Speaker 1: is watching them and is doing everything he needs to
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Speaker 1: do to officially contain this leak. Basically, Roger and Peter
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Speaker 1: they can shut their door, but they can't fully seal it.
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Speaker 1: The full seal comes when somebody on the surface, their
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Speaker 1: supervisor injects helium into their room, basically adds more pressure
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Speaker 1: to their room, which then sucks the door fully sealed,
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Speaker 1: and then they're safe. And so Roger and Peter they're
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Speaker 1: listening carefully for the sound of that injection of helium
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Speaker 1: into the room, and eventually they hear it, and there's
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Speaker 1: some creaking on the door and it sounds very much
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Speaker 1: like their door is fully sealed, and now they're safe,
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Speaker 1: and so Roger and Peter they step away from the door.
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Speaker 1: They sort of look up at the camera and say
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Speaker 1: thank you, and they're like, all right, you know, I
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Speaker 1: hope that leak out in the hallway is our only
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Speaker 1: issue here. Now. It's worth pointing out that things like this,
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Speaker 1: as terrifying as that would be, you know, you're deep underwater,
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Speaker 1: and over the intercom they're saying, there's a leak, like
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Speaker 1: that would be horrifying, but this is a really dangerous job.
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Speaker 1: And unfortunately, leaks and other things like that just sort
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Speaker 1: of happened, and so Roger and Peter were kind of
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Speaker 1: accustomed to things like this happening, and they just had to,
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Speaker 1: you know, hope that the folks on the surface would
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Speaker 1: do their best to you know, mitigate the problems and
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Speaker 1: you know, keep them safe. At this point, though Roger
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Speaker 1: and Peter knew that, you know, it didn't seem like
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Speaker 1: there were any of the emergencies here. You know, whatever
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Speaker 1: leak was happening in the hallway, that could be dealt with,
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Speaker 1: you know, if they had to, they could actually just
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Speaker 1: leave their apartment with their diving equipment on and make
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Speaker 1: their way back up to the surface, like there were
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Speaker 1: ways for them to get out of here. And they're thinking, Okay,
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Speaker 1: you know, our room has been fully stealed off. We
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Speaker 1: heard the helium be injected into the room. The door
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Speaker 1: shut behind us, like we're good. And again they can't
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Speaker 1: directly communicate to the supervisor. The supervisor's not saying anything
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Speaker 1: over the intercom, and so they think, okay, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's good for us to just take our stuff off
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Speaker 1: and go to bed, and so that's what they do.
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Speaker 1: They take off their diving equipment and they climb into
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Speaker 1: their beds and they turn out the lights. At the
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Speaker 1: same time they were climbing into bed, their supervisor up
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Speaker 1: on the surface, a guy named Reid Arnold, who'd been
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Speaker 1: talking to them over the intercom. He was sitting there
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Speaker 1: looking at this big control panel with all these switches
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Speaker 1: and gages and monitors that controlled their underwater apartment. And
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Speaker 1: unfortunately for him, you know, even though it did seem
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Speaker 1: like the leak in the hallway was relatively contained, although
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Speaker 1: it still was leaking, he was also now noticing that
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Speaker 1: there was another problem that he wasn't telling Roger and
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Speaker 1: Peter about yet, and that was apparently the door to
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Speaker 1: their apartment. Despite them closing it clearly and him injecting
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Speaker 1: helium into the room, you know, following all the steps,
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Speaker 1: it appeared like the door somehow did not fully seal,
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Speaker 1: which meant there was a slow leak, and over time,
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Speaker 1: if this wasn't fixed, the pressure would drop so severely
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Speaker 1: in that room that you know, that could be fail
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Speaker 1: for Roger and Peter. Like this is an emergency, but
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Speaker 1: it's sort of a slow one. And so Reid took
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Speaker 1: a minute and kind of assessed the situation, and you know,
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Speaker 1: the only thing he could do to try to close
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Speaker 1: this door, to fully seal it, let's say, is to
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Speaker 1: inject more helium into Roger and Peter's room, not enough
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Speaker 1: to harm them, but just enough to further push that
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Speaker 1: door closed. And so he did that. He injected a
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Speaker 1: little bit more helium, and he's watching the gauge of
7:18
Speaker 1: their room, you know, become even more pressurized. But the
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Speaker 1: indicator that showed whether or not the door was sealed
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Speaker 1: continued to show that it was not. And so as
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Speaker 1: Reed is sitting there wondering what he's going to do next,
7:30
Speaker 1: he looked over at the monitor that was the live
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Speaker 1: feed into the room where he could actually watch Roger
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Speaker 1: and Peter. That camera in the corner of the room,
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Speaker 1: and he sees the two men are laying in their beds,
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Speaker 1: but then sort of out of nowhere, they both get up,
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Speaker 1: climb off their beds, and they hustle over to the door,
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Speaker 1: the leaky door, and they start trying to open it.
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Speaker 1: But from the feed, as he's looking at it, it
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Speaker 1: seems very apparent that they can't get the door to open.
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Speaker 1: It's like it's stuck. And Reid's thinking to himself, that
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Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. I have this indication light that
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Speaker 1: says the door is in sealed. So even if it
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Speaker 1: was a challenge to open the door, it's not pressure sealed.
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Speaker 1: They should be able to open it, So what is
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Speaker 1: going on here? And so Read like he's beginning to
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Speaker 1: panic a little bit because he just doesn't understand what's
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Speaker 1: happening here. And as he's watching Roger and Peter, they
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Speaker 1: go from frantically trying to open this door to almost
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Speaker 1: in unison, stopping, turning around, walking over to their bunks,
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Speaker 1: and then grabbing their mattresses taking them off, and then
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Speaker 1: Roger and Peter climbed onto their metal bed springs and
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Speaker 1: began rolling around on the metal. Now it's worth pointing
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Speaker 1: out that there are some diving related injuries, like from
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Speaker 1: being at depth for too long, or you know, hypercapnia
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Speaker 1: where you have too much CO two in your system.
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Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of things that can basically mess
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Speaker 1: with your mind. And so Read's thinking, oh, my goodness,
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Speaker 1: something's happened that's given these guys some sort of diving
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Speaker 1: related injury. Like they're acting crazy. This must be a
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Speaker 1: product of something wrong. They're breathing the wrong mixture of gas.
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Speaker 1: Maybe there's too much helium, maybe there's too much Like,
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Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on, but there is an
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Speaker 1: issue here that's messing with their brains like that's the
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Speaker 1: only explanation for why they could be doing something so bizarre.
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Speaker 1: And so at this point, Reid decides all he can
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Speaker 1: do is just continue to put more helium into that
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Speaker 1: room to try to seal that door. You know, maybe
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Speaker 1: there's some sort of toxic gas that's getting into their
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Speaker 1: space that's causing them to hallucinate or go crazy, or
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Speaker 1: who knows what. And so he's just firing off this button,
9:26
Speaker 1: adding more and more helium into the room. And after
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Speaker 1: doing this for several minutes and still watching on the
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Speaker 1: monitor as Roger and Peter continue to do this weird
9:35
Speaker 1: writhing around on their bedframes. That was around the time
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Speaker 1: that Reid really focused on his controls, like am I
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Speaker 1: missing something? Is there some other indication on here that
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Speaker 1: gives away what's going on here? And that's when he
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Speaker 1: realized he had made a terrible mistake. It would turn
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Speaker 1: out Reid had misread the control panel. There really had
9:54
Speaker 1: been a leak in the hallway, and he was right
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Speaker 1: to tell Peter and Roger to rush into their apartment,
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Speaker 1: but they were inside the apartment and they shut the
10:01
Speaker 1: door and then read injected helium into their room. He
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Speaker 1: actually did seal that room off. There was no issue
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Speaker 1: in their apartment. They were totally safe, There was no problem.
10:12
Speaker 1: He was just misreading the control panel. He thought when
10:15
Speaker 1: he saw this additional indication that, you know, the apartment
10:18
Speaker 1: door had not sealed, that that was indicative of a
10:21
Speaker 1: leak in their apartment. But no, the controls were really
10:24
Speaker 1: trying to tell him that, hey, there's still a leak
10:27
Speaker 1: in the hallway right outside of their apartment. And so
10:30
Speaker 1: basically what Reid ended up doing by injecting more and
10:34
Speaker 1: more helium into the apartment where Roger and Peter were
10:37
Speaker 1: is he was creating a deadly pressure chamber. And the
10:40
Speaker 1: reason the men began acting the way they were is
10:42
Speaker 1: because the room was getting hotter and hotter and hotter
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Speaker 1: from all this pressure. They could feel it, you know,
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Speaker 1: building inside of the space, and so they didn't know
10:50
Speaker 1: what was going on. They tried to get out, but
10:52
Speaker 1: they couldn't open the door because it was pressure sealed.
10:56
Speaker 1: And then they took their mattresses off their bed and
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Speaker 1: began rolling around on the metal to try to cooled down.
11:01
Speaker 1: But it was so intensely hot and it was so
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Speaker 1: pressurized that you can imagine the chaos and panic. These
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Speaker 1: two men felt like, yeah, maybe theoretically they could have
11:11
Speaker 1: thrown on all their equipment and dove out of there.
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Speaker 1: But you got to remember, this is happening abruptly, and
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Speaker 1: they're basically boiling alive, and so it's like full blown
11:19
Speaker 1: fight or flight mode, and these men are just trying
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Speaker 1: to cool down, but they can't. And so every time
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Speaker 1: Reid injected more and more helium into that room, he
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Speaker 1: was raising the pressure and therefore the temperature in that
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Speaker 1: small space, and eventually he boiled Roger and Peter alive.
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Speaker 1: In the end, the supervisor Reid did not actually face
11:39
Speaker 1: any criminal charges because one, it was a genuine mistake,
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Speaker 1: but two, the mistake was one that many people would
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Speaker 1: have made. There was basically an issue with this control
11:48
Speaker 1: board that sort of presented problems in a sort of
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Speaker 1: ambiguous way, and so it really wasn't read being negligent.
11:54
Speaker 1: It was just a flaw in the control panel. At
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Speaker 1: eleven forty am on November twenty ninth, nineteen eighty six,
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Speaker 1: a thirty six year old volunteer fire chief named Jack
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Speaker 1: Schafstall parked his firetruck on a country road right next
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Speaker 1: to this huge farm in rural Indiana. Jack was there
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Speaker 1: with his assistant chief named Donald Schnitker. After parking, Jack
12:26
Speaker 1: looked down the road and he saw the owner of
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Speaker 1: this farm, Jeffrey Wolf, was standing on the side of
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Speaker 1: the road, waving to them and turning around and pointing
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Speaker 1: back towards his property. And so Jack and Donald they
12:36
Speaker 1: looked out the window out in the direction that jeff
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Speaker 1: was pointing, and they saw there was this huge storage
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Speaker 1: building off in the distance that clearly was part of
12:43
Speaker 1: the farm, and there appeared to be this thin plume
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Speaker 1: of smoke coming off the top of it. And so
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Speaker 1: Jack and Donald hop out of the fire truck. They
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Speaker 1: hustle over to Jeffrey, and the three of them jog
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Speaker 1: across the property over to this building. And when they
12:55
Speaker 1: get there again, it's very clear that something is burning
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Speaker 1: inside of this building. But this storage building was packed
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Speaker 1: to the brim with stuff, like there was no way
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Speaker 1: to get into the storage building from the front. Really,
13:08
Speaker 1: the only way to actually look inside of this building
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Speaker 1: to see what was burning is by climbing up this
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Speaker 1: ladder that ran to the top of this, you know,
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Speaker 1: eighty foot tall building, or at the very top there
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Speaker 1: was a window that looked down into the storage building,
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Speaker 1: and so basically Jack and jeff said they would climb
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Speaker 1: the ladder up to the top. Donald the assistant chief,
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Speaker 1: he would stay on the ground and Jack and Jeffrey
13:29
Speaker 1: would go up there look inside and see if they
13:31
Speaker 1: could actually figure out what was burning so they could
13:34
Speaker 1: make a decision about how to approach this, you know,
13:36
Speaker 1: what equipment they might need and what to do. And
13:38
Speaker 1: so Jack and jeff they make their way up this
13:40
Speaker 1: ladder to the very top. They get to this window
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Speaker 1: and Jack he looks inside and again it's very clear
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Speaker 1: something is burning in here, but he can't tell where
13:49
Speaker 1: it's coming from. He sees smoke coming out right next
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Speaker 1: to him, but it's just there's so much stuff inside
13:53
Speaker 1: of this building, you just can't tell where it's coming from.
13:56
Speaker 1: But Jeffrey clearly had placed this big piece of plywood
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Speaker 1: on the very top of all the stuff inside of
14:02
Speaker 1: the storage building as sort of like a makeshift platform
14:05
Speaker 1: if you wanted to, you know, I guess, walk inside
14:07
Speaker 1: of this building in the one area you could walk into.
14:09
Speaker 1: And so he turned to look at Jeffrey and he's like, yeah,
14:11
Speaker 1: you can stand on that, and so Jack climbed through
14:14
Speaker 1: the window, and so he gets on there. It's kind
14:15
Speaker 1: of like he's surfing, you know, basically balancing on the
14:18
Speaker 1: top of all this stuff, you know, at the very
14:20
Speaker 1: top of this massive building. And he's looking around. But
14:22
Speaker 1: now Jack has a better vantage point. He's sort of
14:25
Speaker 1: more in the center of this big building. And as
14:28
Speaker 1: he's looking around, he identifies where this fire is coming from.
14:32
Speaker 1: Now this was not some enormous fire, but he really
14:35
Speaker 1: had no way to attempt to put it out without
14:38
Speaker 1: leaving the building, going back down and getting more equipment.
14:42
Speaker 1: And so Jack, who's still standing on this piece of plywood,
14:44
Speaker 1: he pulls out his radio and he radios down to Donald,
14:47
Speaker 1: the assistant chief, who's down on the ground, and he says, hey,
14:50
Speaker 1: you know, we located the fire. We're going to come
14:52
Speaker 1: back down get our equipment. We'll come back up here.
14:54
Speaker 1: We'll put this thing out. We'll be good. But after
14:57
Speaker 1: Jack put the radio back on his belt and he
14:59
Speaker 1: turned to walk back across this plywood back to the window,
15:02
Speaker 1: and you know, down the ladder. Before he got off
15:04
Speaker 1: the plywood, there was this low rumbling sound that came
15:08
Speaker 1: from right underneath his feet. At the same time, Donald,
15:12
Speaker 1: who's back down on the ground and who's just received
15:14
Speaker 1: this radio call from his partner saying, Hey, we're gonna
15:16
Speaker 1: leave right now and get our equipment and put this
15:19
Speaker 1: fire out. You know, Donald, he's down there staring up
15:22
Speaker 1: at the exit up at the top there where Jack
15:24
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey had gone, and so far he hasn't seen
15:27
Speaker 1: either of them come out of this building. It's just
15:30
Speaker 1: been silenced. Like he heard a little bit of a
15:32
Speaker 1: rumbling sound inside of this building and he didn't really
15:35
Speaker 1: know what it was, but you know, no one's coming
15:37
Speaker 1: out of the building, and he's thinking, how strange that is.
15:39
Speaker 1: Like Jack just said he was coming out to get
15:42
Speaker 1: his equipment. Where is he? And so Donald grabs his
15:44
Speaker 1: radio and begins repeatedly calling Jack to say, hey, where
15:48
Speaker 1: are you? He said you were coming out, Where are you? Guys?
15:50
Speaker 1: What's going on? But he didn't get an answer, and
15:53
Speaker 1: so really quickly Donald realized there could be an emergency
15:56
Speaker 1: inside of this building, like for all we know, the
15:59
Speaker 1: fire is way worse and they're trapped or who knows
16:01
Speaker 1: what's going on. But based on protocol, Donald couldn't just
16:05
Speaker 1: on his own go charging up the ladder and go
16:07
Speaker 1: right in there to you know, save the day, because
16:09
Speaker 1: he has no idea what he's walking into. He needs
16:11
Speaker 1: to make sure that he calls for help and gets
16:14
Speaker 1: other people here and then can help explain what's going
16:16
Speaker 1: on here instead of he himself going up there and
16:19
Speaker 1: potentially being another casualty. And so instead of climbing that ladder,
16:23
Speaker 1: Donald began calling for help, and very quickly an entire
16:26
Speaker 1: fleet of additional firefighters and police officers and ambulances showed up.
16:31
Speaker 1: I mean, there's all these people descending on the farm,
16:33
Speaker 1: and really quickly first responders climbed up that ladder. They
16:37
Speaker 1: looked inside of the building, and they figured out what happened.
16:40
Speaker 1: So when Jack climbed through that window at the top
16:43
Speaker 1: of this building, and he stood on top of that
16:46
Speaker 1: piece of plywood that Jeffrey had placed up there, on
16:49
Speaker 1: top of all the stuff in the storage building, and
16:51
Speaker 1: you know, he was standing there balancing himself as he's
16:53
Speaker 1: looking around for where this fire is. Eventually that rumbling
16:57
Speaker 1: under his feet was all the stuff underneath the plywood shifting,
17:01
Speaker 1: and he sort of lost his balance and Jack fell
17:04
Speaker 1: off the plywood into basically the sea of stuff inside
17:09
Speaker 1: the storage building. And Jeffrey when he saw this happened,
17:12
Speaker 1: He had not fallen in, but he turned and basically
17:14
Speaker 1: tried to get in there and grab on to Jack
17:16
Speaker 1: to get him out, but he too, inadvertently fell into
17:21
Speaker 1: what was inside of this building. And what was inside
17:23
Speaker 1: of this building was corn. This was an eighty foot
17:27
Speaker 1: tall grain silo packed to the brim with grain, and
17:30
Speaker 1: so that piece of plywood was resting on the surface
17:33
Speaker 1: of the grain. And so when Jack fell into the grain,
17:36
Speaker 1: it was like it swallowed him whole, like quicksand and
17:40
Speaker 1: then Jeffrey, in an attempt to save Jack, also fell
17:43
Speaker 1: in got swallowed hole, and they disappeared and suffocated. It
17:47
Speaker 1: would ultimately take nearly three hours for bulldozers to basically
17:52
Speaker 1: break apart this building and sift through all the corn
17:56
Speaker 1: to finally locate Jack and Jeffrey. Hey guys, as many
18:06
Speaker 1: of you may already know, our newest graphic novel, Where
18:11
Speaker 1: Nightmares Live, is coming out this fall, and if you
18:14
Speaker 1: have not already pre ordered a copy, while I'm here
18:17
Speaker 1: to tell you I have a special, unique, new way
18:21
Speaker 1: for you to get your hands on one of these things.
18:24
Speaker 1: This October. You'll find me at three different bookstores where
18:27
Speaker 1: we will be selling hand signed copies of this beautiful book.
18:33
Speaker 1: And also you get to take a picture with this guy.
18:37
Speaker 1: If this sounds appealing to you, all you got to
18:39
Speaker 1: do is buy a ticket, and your ticket includes a
18:42
Speaker 1: hand signed copy of the book and the highly coveted
18:46
Speaker 1: picture with me. The stops I'll be making are in Brookline, Massachusetts,
18:52
Speaker 1: Jersey City, New Jersey, and the Big Apple, New York City.
18:56
Speaker 1: You can see the full details of locations times all
18:59
Speaker 1: that on screen somewhere here, or you can just go
19:02
Speaker 1: to book dot ballinstudios dot com and there for sure
19:07
Speaker 1: there is all the information and how to buy a
19:08
Speaker 1: ticket and all that book dot ballinstudios dot com. Thank
19:12
Speaker 1: you all so much for the support, and I can't
19:14
Speaker 1: wait to see you all at one of those bookstores
19:16
Speaker 1: in October. At two am on December second, seventeen fifty five,
19:30
Speaker 1: a ninety four year old man named Henry Hall slowly
19:33
Speaker 1: climbed a flight of stairs inside of a lighthouse that
19:36
Speaker 1: was located on this tiny island off the southwest coast
19:39
Speaker 1: of England. Even though Henry was in his nineties, he
19:42
Speaker 1: was still working as a lighthouse keeper out at this lighthouse.
19:46
Speaker 1: I mean, by the way that is a very rugged job,
19:48
Speaker 1: especially in the late seventeen hundreds. I mean, if there's
19:51
Speaker 1: ever any emergency of any kind out on this island,
19:54
Speaker 1: there's virtually no communication back and forth to the mainland,
19:58
Speaker 1: and help can't really get out to you very easily,
20:00
Speaker 1: so you're kind of on your own. I mean, lighthouse
20:02
Speaker 1: keepers at the time were sort of viewed as these
20:04
Speaker 1: very rugged, sort of survivalist types. And here's Henry at
20:08
Speaker 1: ninety four years old, still doing this job. But it
20:11
Speaker 1: was because he loved it, and in fact, even to
20:13
Speaker 1: this day, he remains on record the oldest active lighthouse
20:17
Speaker 1: keeper ever. On this particular night, the other two lighthouse
20:21
Speaker 1: keepers that were staying on this island with Henry and
20:23
Speaker 1: working with him, they were passed out drunk in their beds.
20:26
Speaker 1: They basically had drank the whole night away and they
20:29
Speaker 1: were out for the count. But you know, Henry sort
20:31
Speaker 1: of expected this. It was his job that night to
20:34
Speaker 1: do the night shift, you know, the kind of the
20:36
Speaker 1: worst shift, if you will, where all night, every thirty
20:39
Speaker 1: minutes he had to one stay sober, then two hike
20:42
Speaker 1: his way up to the very top of the lighthouse
20:44
Speaker 1: and make sure the lighthouse was still emitting light, and
20:47
Speaker 1: so that's what he was doing right now. He was
20:49
Speaker 1: heading up to the so called lantern room at the
20:51
Speaker 1: very top of the spire the actual lighthouse. And you
20:54
Speaker 1: got to remember that this is in seventeen fifty five,
20:57
Speaker 1: so this is before electricity, and so the light that
21:01
Speaker 1: was coming out of this lighthouse were literally a whole
21:04
Speaker 1: bunch of candles that were situated in this big chandelier
21:07
Speaker 1: that kind of hung down from the very top of
21:09
Speaker 1: the spire. And then above you know, where the candles
21:12
Speaker 1: are all resting in the chandelier, was this big dome
21:15
Speaker 1: that was the very top of the lighthouse, and the
21:18
Speaker 1: dome was lined with lead, and there was also lots
21:21
Speaker 1: of windows all around, and so the lead sort of
21:24
Speaker 1: reflected all the light and pushed all the light out
21:26
Speaker 1: all the windows. And so basically Henry's job, or any
21:29
Speaker 1: of these lighthouse keepers when it was their turn to
21:31
Speaker 1: do this, they had to go up to the lantern
21:33
Speaker 1: room and make sure all the candles were lit, and
21:36
Speaker 1: if they weren't lit, you know, relight them. That was
21:38
Speaker 1: basically it. Now, Henry had been checking on lighthouses for decades,
21:42
Speaker 1: you know, doing these every thirty minute checks. Of the
21:45
Speaker 1: candles was completely routine, and so Henry's making his way
21:48
Speaker 1: up thinking nothing of it, like this is going to
21:51
Speaker 1: be completely mundane. I'm going to go up, check the lights,
21:53
Speaker 1: come back down. I'll do it again in thirty minutes
21:55
Speaker 1: all night. That's all it's going to be. Doesn't expect
21:57
Speaker 1: anything to happen on this night at around two am,
22:00
Speaker 1: as he's making his way up the stairs, as he's
22:02
Speaker 1: right near the top of the stairs and he's about
22:04
Speaker 1: to turn the corner and see, you know, this big chandelier,
22:07
Speaker 1: it's called a candelabra. Right as he's turned in the corner,
22:11
Speaker 1: he starts to smell smoke. And then when he turns
22:13
Speaker 1: the corner, he's looking out at this you know, completely
22:16
Speaker 1: lit up chandelier, the candelabra, and he doesn't see where
22:19
Speaker 1: the smoke is coming from until he looks up at
22:22
Speaker 1: the lead dome that sort of sat right above all
22:25
Speaker 1: the candles and reflected the light. And this lead dome
22:29
Speaker 1: had been here for a long time, this was an
22:31
Speaker 1: old lighthouse, and he could see there was all this
22:33
Speaker 1: build up of soot on the underside of this lead
22:36
Speaker 1: dome from the candles being so close to it. And
22:38
Speaker 1: clearly some of the soot that was caked on the
22:41
Speaker 1: underside of this dome was starting to smolder. It was
22:44
Speaker 1: not on fire yet, but it was starting to smolder,
22:47
Speaker 1: and some smoke was filling up the lantern room. And
22:49
Speaker 1: so for whatever reason, Henry decided the best thing for
22:52
Speaker 1: him to do was to open up a window, because
22:55
Speaker 1: all the windows were shut at this point, and he's thinking,
22:57
Speaker 1: you know, get the smoke out, So he opens up
22:59
Speaker 1: a window. But when he does, it creates a vacuum
23:02
Speaker 1: effect and all this air gets pulled into the lantern
23:06
Speaker 1: room and oxygen it sort of acts as an oxidizing
23:09
Speaker 1: agent for fire. It basically accelerates fire, and so oxygen
23:13
Speaker 1: is pulled up and the dome just ignites into flames. Basically,
23:16
Speaker 1: Henry threw a lit match onto the dome. That's the
23:19
Speaker 1: equivalent of what he did. And so suddenly Henry's staring
23:21
Speaker 1: at this wall of fire on the roof of this
23:24
Speaker 1: lighthouse and also above the lead dome. The actual structure
23:28
Speaker 1: itself of the lighthouse was wood, and so Henry has
23:31
Speaker 1: no idea what to do. He knows this is obviously
23:33
Speaker 1: a massive emergency, and so as quick as he can
23:36
Speaker 1: he turns and goes down the stairs down into the
23:39
Speaker 1: bunk room where his two colleagues are who are passed
23:41
Speaker 1: out drunk in their beds, and he's trying to shake
23:43
Speaker 1: them awake, can tell them we have this huge fire,
23:46
Speaker 1: but they're so drunk that they don't wake up. And
23:49
Speaker 1: so Henry's on his own. He needs to do something
23:51
Speaker 1: about this, and so he gives up in his colleagues
23:53
Speaker 1: and he starts walking back up the stairs towards this fire.
23:57
Speaker 1: And he starts making his way up the stairs. But
23:59
Speaker 1: before or he reaches the lantern room, right before maybe
24:02
Speaker 1: five six feet down below, still on the stairs, there
24:05
Speaker 1: was this outcropping like a balcony that jutted outside of
24:09
Speaker 1: the actual lighthouse, and so he stepped out onto this
24:11
Speaker 1: balcony and standing out here, now he's outside, he turned
24:15
Speaker 1: and could look up and basically right in front of
24:17
Speaker 1: him is the roof and it's on fire. It's like
24:20
Speaker 1: right in front of him, and out on this balcony,
24:22
Speaker 1: we're all these buckets that were out there to collect
24:25
Speaker 1: rain water because it rained a lot out here, and
24:28
Speaker 1: so there's all these buckets of water, and Henry decides
24:31
Speaker 1: all he can do is start lobbing this water up
24:33
Speaker 1: onto the roof to hopefully put this fire out. And
24:36
Speaker 1: so one by one he's hauling these buckets of water
24:39
Speaker 1: and chucking the water up on the roof, and it's
24:41
Speaker 1: really not making a difference, and he's so tired and exhausted,
24:44
Speaker 1: and the heat from the flames is so intense, like
24:47
Speaker 1: he knows he's not making much of a difference here.
24:50
Speaker 1: But just then he hears his two colleagues come bounding
24:53
Speaker 1: up the stairs, and they're totally panicked, and even though
24:55
Speaker 1: they're drunk, it's clear they're kind of sobering up when
24:57
Speaker 1: they see the scene here, and so they instinc run
25:00
Speaker 1: out of the balcony with Henry, and all three of
25:02
Speaker 1: them are now grabbing buckets and they're looking up and
25:05
Speaker 1: they're chucking the water up onto the roof, and Henry
25:07
Speaker 1: at one point sort of positioned himself a little bit
25:09
Speaker 1: closer to the edge and was like right underneath the
25:12
Speaker 1: dome throwing water up, and it just it didn't matter.
25:14
Speaker 1: It was like nothing they did could get this fire
25:17
Speaker 1: to go out. And then finally Henry grabbed one last
25:19
Speaker 1: bucket and with the last of his energy, he got
25:22
Speaker 1: right below the dome sort of with his arms out
25:23
Speaker 1: in the balcony, and he looked up and he chucked
25:26
Speaker 1: the water right onto the roof, and as he did,
25:29
Speaker 1: he suddenly felt this blinding pain come over his whole body.
25:33
Speaker 1: But somehow it sort of felt localized in his stomach,
25:36
Speaker 1: but definitely it was his whole body. And he turned
25:38
Speaker 1: and he looked over at his colleagues like in shock,
25:41
Speaker 1: like he can't even believe, like what's causing this pain.
25:44
Speaker 1: And his colleagues they look at him and they see
25:46
Speaker 1: he's smoldering. There's smoke coming off of him, and so
25:48
Speaker 1: clearly he's on fire. And so they start taking their
25:51
Speaker 1: buckets and they're dousing Henry with water, and Henry's like,
25:54
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm on fire, and he feels this
25:56
Speaker 1: horrible pain in his stomach, and finally he just blurts
25:58
Speaker 1: out to them, we got to get out, like leave it,
26:01
Speaker 1: we gotta go. And so the three of them they
26:02
Speaker 1: abandoned the buckets, abandoned the fire, and they bolt out
26:05
Speaker 1: of the lighthouse and they make their way to a
26:07
Speaker 1: cave on the coast of this island. And there they
26:09
Speaker 1: stayed in this cave overnight as their lighthouse burned to
26:13
Speaker 1: the ground and all night Henry, even though now you
26:16
Speaker 1: know the fire that had begun on his clothes, it
26:18
Speaker 1: had obviously been put out, but he still had this
26:21
Speaker 1: awful pain that really felt localized in his stomach. It
26:25
Speaker 1: was like this burning, awful pain, and he just couldn't
26:28
Speaker 1: figure out, like, what is that? Is it from being
26:31
Speaker 1: on fire? Was I not aware of how long I
26:33
Speaker 1: was on fire for? Is this just like the result
26:35
Speaker 1: of an extreme burn? Is this smoke inhalation? Like? He
26:38
Speaker 1: didn't know, but he was just happy to be alive.
26:40
Speaker 1: And finally the sun came up the next morning and
26:43
Speaker 1: these three men are huddled in this cave, and luckily
26:46
Speaker 1: there was a ship on the horizon that spotted this
26:48
Speaker 1: smoldering ruin of the lighthouse, and they came in. They
26:51
Speaker 1: scooped the three men up and they brought them back
26:53
Speaker 1: to mainland England. Once they arrived in England, Henry's two
26:56
Speaker 1: younger coworkers made sure to help get Henry to his home,
27:00
Speaker 1: and then when he was there, they called for a
27:02
Speaker 1: doctor because Henry was still complaining about this really intense
27:05
Speaker 1: feeling in his stomach and just obviously the fire had
27:07
Speaker 1: really taken a toll on him. And so the doctor
27:09
Speaker 1: shows up and they perform an examination on Henry and
27:12
Speaker 1: they see that, yes, you do have significant burns on
27:16
Speaker 1: your body. Clearly you were at one point on fire.
27:19
Speaker 1: And you know, to Henry, he couldn't quite believe it, because,
27:21
Speaker 1: you know, his memory of the night was just you know,
27:23
Speaker 1: throwing water up on the roof and being so frustrated,
27:26
Speaker 1: like he didn't even realize it that at some point
27:28
Speaker 1: he'd been on fire. It was just all of a sudden,
27:30
Speaker 1: he had this sudden, blinding pain and before long he
27:33
Speaker 1: had been doused with water and that was it. But
27:35
Speaker 1: he still just had this awful pain in his stomach.
27:37
Speaker 1: And the doctor told him like, look, I don't know
27:39
Speaker 1: exactly what that pain is from, but very likely when
27:42
Speaker 1: you were on fire, slash, when you were right near
27:45
Speaker 1: the fire, you were inhaling a lot of smoke and
27:47
Speaker 1: that can absolutely cause a really intense burning sensation in
27:51
Speaker 1: your lungs. And so just apply this ointment to your burns,
27:55
Speaker 1: you know, take care of your burns, and eventually your
27:57
Speaker 1: burns will heal, and that feeling in your gut, like
27:59
Speaker 1: in your core from the smoke inhalation will pass. And
28:03
Speaker 1: so for the next several days, Henry did as the
28:05
Speaker 1: doctor ordered. He applied his ointment to all of his burns.
28:09
Speaker 1: You know, he rested and just drank lots of water
28:11
Speaker 1: and just basically waited for all these pains and ailments
28:14
Speaker 1: to go away. But over the coming days he didn't
28:17
Speaker 1: get better. He got worse. Not only would that pain
28:20
Speaker 1: in his stomach just not go away, but also he
28:23
Speaker 1: developed a really bad fever and then finally, twelve days
28:27
Speaker 1: after the fire, Henry died. Now, on one hand, Henry's
28:31
Speaker 1: death was really not shocking. I mean, he was ninety
28:34
Speaker 1: four years old. You know, people die when they're in
28:37
Speaker 1: their mid nineties, it's sort of a natural thing. But
28:39
Speaker 1: at the same time, he was like a really active,
28:42
Speaker 1: rugged guy, and it just seemed like, how is it
28:45
Speaker 1: possible he's died from what appears to be sort of
28:48
Speaker 1: relatively superficial injuries here. I mean, he definitely got burned,
28:52
Speaker 1: he had real burns on his body, and he had
28:54
Speaker 1: clearly some smoke inhalation going on. But the doctor said, like,
28:58
Speaker 1: that shouldn't have been enough to him. He should have,
29:01
Speaker 1: you know, weathered this and been okay. You know, maybe
29:03
Speaker 1: he did dive from natural causes, but this just feels wrong,
29:06
Speaker 1: like something else must have happened here, and so ultimately
29:09
Speaker 1: the doctor decided to perform an autopsy on Henry. And
29:12
Speaker 1: at first, when the doctor began the autopsy, you know,
29:15
Speaker 1: everything kind of checked out that Henry did appear to,
29:17
Speaker 1: you know, have just passed away and you know, he's
29:19
Speaker 1: ninety four. It is what it is. Until he cut
29:22
Speaker 1: open Henry's stomach. When he saw what was in there,
29:24
Speaker 1: he was horrified it would turn out. During the fire,
29:27
Speaker 1: when Henry was out on the balcony lobbing buckets of
29:30
Speaker 1: water onto the roof to try to put the fire out, well,
29:32
Speaker 1: at some point right before he felt that burning sensation
29:35
Speaker 1: in his gut. He looked up as he was throwing
29:38
Speaker 1: the water and his mouth was opened, and at the
29:41
Speaker 1: same time he did that, a piece of molten lead
29:44
Speaker 1: from the dome that was on fire dripped down and
29:48
Speaker 1: fell into his mouth and he swallowed it. A four
29:52
Speaker 1: inch piece of molten lead landed in his gut, destroyed
29:56
Speaker 1: his stomach, and then cooled and hardened in his stomach.
30:01
Speaker 1: That was the pain he was feeling. And then he
30:03
Speaker 1: also caught on fire about at the same time, and
30:06
Speaker 1: so in the chaos of the moment, despite this blinding
30:09
Speaker 1: pain he's feeling in his stomach, everybody else is looking
30:12
Speaker 1: at him saying, oh my gosh, you're on fire, that's
30:14
Speaker 1: what the problem is. They douse him with water, and
30:16
Speaker 1: even after he's had the flames extinguished and he's complaining
30:20
Speaker 1: of this pain in his stomach, no one's thinking it
30:22
Speaker 1: can be anything other than the fact you were just
30:24
Speaker 1: recently on fire. That's got to be it smoke inhalation,
30:27
Speaker 1: you know, connected to your burns. Whatever it is, no
30:30
Speaker 1: one's thinking it could be anything else. Today, that same
30:33
Speaker 1: piece of lead is actually on display at the National
30:36
Speaker 1: Museum of Scotland. Thank you so much for watching. Let
30:46
Speaker 1: me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments.
30:49
Speaker 1: And remember we have hundreds of videos for you to
30:52
Speaker 1: binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation
30:55
Speaker 1: for me of that one video that's worth your time,
30:58
Speaker 1: well it's this one right here, So give it a watch,
31:01
Speaker 1: all right, Until next time, see ya.