Latest / Crime and Horror / Top 3 places you CAN'T GO & people who went anyways... Part 19
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Today, we're going to look at three places you can't
- 0:02Speaker 1: go and people who went there anyways. But before we
- 0:05Speaker 1: get into those stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
- 0:07Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
- 0:10Speaker 1: the right channel, because that's all we do, and we
- 0:12Speaker 1: upload three or four times every week.
- 0:14Speaker 2: So if that's of interest to you.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Please offer the light button a nice glass of sweet tea,
- 0:18Speaker 1: but instead give them a.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Glass of iced tea.
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- 0:26Speaker 1: All right, let's get into today's stories. In twenty nineteen,
- 0:42Speaker 1: Robert Nishimoto was a seventy one year old retired professor
- 0:45Speaker 1: of sociology from the University of Southern California. After his retirement,
- 0:49Speaker 1: he had moved back home to Hawaii to spend his
- 0:51Speaker 1: twilight years with friends and family. On Saturday, November second
- 0:55Speaker 1: of that year, Robert suddenly felt motivated to go out
- 0:58Speaker 1: into his backyard and finally a huge cleanup. His grass
- 1:01Speaker 1: was fine, he took care of that, but the very
- 1:04Speaker 1: back of his property was totally overgrown with bushes and shrubs,
- 1:07Speaker 1: and the trees were totally long and had not been
- 1:09Speaker 1: trimmed in some time, and.
- 1:11Speaker 2: So he figured he would just go back there and
- 1:12Speaker 2: hack a bunch of it down. And so that morning
- 1:14Speaker 2: he rounded up all of his yardworking tools and.
- 1:16Speaker 1: He headed out to the back of his property and
- 1:18Speaker 1: he got to work, and all day his neighbors saw
- 1:21Speaker 1: him slowly making progress as he kind of hacked his
- 1:23Speaker 1: way towards the back of his property, and by the
- 1:26Speaker 1: evening that night, it looked like he was almost done.
- 1:28Speaker 1: Two days later, on Monday, Robert's friends were at their
- 1:31Speaker 1: favorite restaurant in town waiting for Robert.
- 1:33Speaker 2: To show up for lunch.
- 1:34Speaker 1: This was something they did all the time, but Robert
- 1:37Speaker 1: was running late, so one of them texted Robert to
- 1:39Speaker 1: ask where he was, but he didn't get a response.
- 1:42Speaker 1: After waiting for almost an hour and a half, his
- 1:44Speaker 1: friends grew concerned because Robert was not the type of
- 1:47Speaker 1: guy to just blow off a lunch meeting and not
- 1:49Speaker 1: tell anyone where he was. He was far more likely
- 1:52Speaker 1: to be the guy that showed up early and then
- 1:54Speaker 1: hounded the others about where they were, and so the
- 1:56Speaker 1: friends decided they would just drive by Robert's property to
- 1:58Speaker 1: make sure everything was okay, But when they pulled onto
- 2:01Speaker 1: a street, they saw down the end of the road
- 2:03Speaker 1: in front of Robert's house or fire trucks and police
- 2:06Speaker 1: cars and tons of commotion. It would turn out nobody
- 2:09Speaker 1: had seen or heard from Robert since two days earlier,
- 2:12Speaker 1: when he was out in his backyard doing that yard work,
- 2:15Speaker 1: and when his family had tried to get in touch
- 2:16Speaker 1: with him all weekend, they hadn't been able to And
- 2:19Speaker 1: so finally, on this Monday, right as the lunch friends
- 2:22Speaker 1: are arriving at Robert's property, Robert's own family had called
- 2:25Speaker 1: the police to do a welfare check on Robert, and
- 2:28Speaker 1: what they discovered was horrifying.
- 2:30Speaker 2: A police officer had gone up to Robert's front door
- 2:32Speaker 2: and knocked. There was no answer.
- 2:34Speaker 1: The door was locked, So the officer went around to
- 2:36Speaker 1: the back of the house and knocked on.
- 2:37Speaker 2: The back door again.
- 2:38Speaker 1: There was no answer, but the back door was open,
- 2:41Speaker 1: and so the officer opened it up.
- 2:42Speaker 2: He yelled for Robert. There was no answer.
- 2:44Speaker 1: The officer stepped inside to just have a look around
- 2:47Speaker 1: to make sure Robert was okay, and he went room
- 2:49Speaker 1: by room and there was nothing in there. He's yelling
- 2:51Speaker 1: out for Robert there's no sign of him, there's no
- 2:53Speaker 1: sign of a commotion or anything.
- 2:55Speaker 2: And so he turns around and goes back out the.
- 2:57Speaker 1: Back door into the yard, and he looks towards the
- 3:00Speaker 1: back of the property and he sees there's some yardworking
- 3:02Speaker 1: tools that are just laying on the ground, and next
- 3:05Speaker 1: to it looks like there's some sort of divot in
- 3:06Speaker 1: the ground, and so it intrigued the officer, so he
- 3:09Speaker 1: began walking across the yard towards these yardworking tools and
- 3:12Speaker 1: this divot. And as he got closer and closer to
- 3:15Speaker 1: this divot, he saw there was a small hole in
- 3:17Speaker 1: the center of this divot in the ground. And so
- 3:20Speaker 1: the officer made it right up to the edge of
- 3:22Speaker 1: this strange indentation on the ground, and he looked into
- 3:25Speaker 1: this little hole, and then all of a sudden, the
- 3:27Speaker 1: ground kind of collapsed into itself, revealing a two foot
- 3:30Speaker 1: wide hole where the small hole had been. The officer
- 3:33Speaker 1: jumped back to keep from falling in, and after a
- 3:35Speaker 1: few moments, he stood back up, and he walked very
- 3:37Speaker 1: cautiously to the edge of this hole, and he tried
- 3:40Speaker 1: to shine his light down into it, but he couldn't
- 3:42Speaker 1: see the bottom it was obviously a very deep hole, and.
- 3:44Speaker 2: So he carefully moved forward, testing every.
- 3:47Speaker 1: Step to ensure the ground was not going to a
- 3:49Speaker 1: road underneath his foot. And then finally he got right
- 3:51Speaker 1: to the edge where he could shine his light all
- 3:53Speaker 1: the way down to the bottom twenty two feet below,
- 3:56Speaker 1: and there on the bottom.
- 3:57Speaker 2: Was Robert's body. In cities, people are of falling into manholes.
- 4:02Speaker 2: In parts of.
- 4:02Speaker 1: Hawaii, people are afraid of falling into lava tubes.
- 4:06Speaker 2: These tubes formed during volcanic eruption. When the lava flow is.
- 4:09Speaker 1: Flowing downstream, it begins to cool and the exposed section
- 4:13Speaker 1: of lava starts to harden and creates this sort of
- 4:15Speaker 1: shell around the lava flow that's traveling underneath it, and
- 4:19Speaker 1: that lava will continue to flow for months until it
- 4:22Speaker 1: completely drains and leaves behind this hollowed upshell that makes
- 4:26Speaker 1: this massive tube underground called a lava tube. And over
- 4:30Speaker 1: time nature just kind of reclaims the outside and inside
- 4:34Speaker 1: of these lava tubes, giving the impression from the top
- 4:36Speaker 1: looking down that is just normal earth with trees and
- 4:39Speaker 1: plants growing on top of it, but really underneath it
- 4:42Speaker 1: is this massive underground, hollowed tunnel. Robert fell through what
- 4:46Speaker 1: is called a skylight, which is a small hole at.
- 4:48Speaker 2: The top of one of these lava tubes.
- 4:50Speaker 1: Because Hawaii is known for having lava tubes all over
- 4:54Speaker 1: the island, residents have to be aware of skylights when
- 4:57Speaker 1: they're walking around the island. But luckily, in the high
- 5:00Speaker 1: trafficked areas, they're very easy to identify and nobody scared.
- 5:03Speaker 2: About falling into them.
- 5:04Speaker 1: But if you go off the beaten path on the
- 5:07Speaker 1: island too, areas that are not particularly well trafficked, like
- 5:11Speaker 1: Robert's super overgrown back part of his property, you could
- 5:14Speaker 1: run into an undiscovered skylight. And experts say those skylights
- 5:19Speaker 1: are difficult to identify because a lot of times in
- 5:22Speaker 1: these areas that are totally overgrown and off the beaten path,
- 5:25Speaker 1: the grass and the brush have kind of grown over
- 5:28Speaker 1: the whole and so you.
- 5:30Speaker 2: Wouldn't necessarily see it.
- 5:31Speaker 1: It would look like solid ground, when in reality it
- 5:34Speaker 1: was a death trap. Free diving is one of the
- 5:40Speaker 1: most dangerous sports in the world, even though technically pretty
- 5:44Speaker 1: much anybody who's ever swamm before has then also free dived,
- 5:48Speaker 1: because all free diving is is diving underwater without the
- 5:52Speaker 1: use of a breathing apparatus like a scuba tank. But
- 5:54Speaker 1: when people talk about free diving, they're not talking about
- 5:57Speaker 1: the kids down at the local swim club.
- 5:59Speaker 2: They're talking about the those crazy.
- 6:00Speaker 1: People that go out into the middle of the ocean,
- 6:02Speaker 1: take huge gulps of air and then dive down to
- 6:06Speaker 1: unbelievable depths and stay down there for.
- 6:08Speaker 2: Several minutes before returning to the surface.
- 6:11Speaker 1: And within this already extreme sport, there's an even more
- 6:14Speaker 1: extreme version of it called no limits. Instead of the
- 6:17Speaker 1: diver taking that big gulp of air on the surface
- 6:20Speaker 1: and then turning around and thinning themselves down to depth
- 6:23Speaker 1: or pulling themselves down on a.
- 6:24Speaker 2: Weighted rope, in no limits free diving.
- 6:27Speaker 1: The divers are allowed to use whatever they want to
- 6:29Speaker 1: get as deep as they can possibly handle. Again, the
- 6:32Speaker 1: only rule is you can't use a breathing apparatus. The
- 6:35Speaker 1: most common no limits technique is to grab hold of
- 6:38Speaker 1: this sled that is connected to this bottom weighted vertical cable,
- 6:42Speaker 1: and the free diver holds onto that sled. It's released
- 6:45Speaker 1: from the surface and the sled rockets down to whatever
- 6:48Speaker 1: their desired depth is, and the diver just holds on
- 6:51Speaker 1: and then Once they reach the bottom, the diver then
- 6:53Speaker 1: turns a switch which shoots air into this big balloon
- 6:57Speaker 1: that's attached to the sled, and once the balloon is
- 6:59Speaker 1: filled enough, it will pull the sled and the diver
- 7:02Speaker 1: who's hanging.
- 7:02Speaker 2: On to it back up the cable back up to
- 7:05Speaker 2: the surface.
- 7:05Speaker 1: Normally, a no limits free dive using this technique takes
- 7:08Speaker 1: approximately three minutes start to finish. The reason no limits
- 7:12Speaker 1: is considered a more extreme version of free diving is
- 7:15Speaker 1: because it allows the divers to go to these extraordinary
- 7:18Speaker 1: depths that they physically are not capable of getting to
- 7:21Speaker 1: on their own. We're talking about over one hundred meters
- 7:24Speaker 1: below the surface. There's just no way a person can
- 7:27Speaker 1: just kick themselves down there.
- 7:28Speaker 2: You would need the sled, and then.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Conversely, you would not be able to swim one hundred
- 7:33Speaker 1: meters back up to the surface before you drown.
- 7:36Speaker 2: You would have to use that balloon.
- 7:38Speaker 1: And so in no limits free diving, when you go
- 7:40Speaker 1: down to these crazy depths, if your equipment fails, it's
- 7:44Speaker 1: usually fatal. On October twelve, two thousand and two, twenty
- 7:47Speaker 1: eight year old Audrey Mestrie was sitting on a floating
- 7:49Speaker 1: platform off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The French
- 7:52Speaker 1: native no limits diver was mentally preparing herself for what
- 7:55Speaker 1: she was about to do. Audrey was one of the
- 7:58Speaker 1: best free divers in the world, and this day she
- 8:01Speaker 1: was trying to become the best free diver in the
- 8:03Speaker 1: world by breaking the world record for the deepest depth
- 8:07Speaker 1: achieved by a no limits free diver, which was one
- 8:10Speaker 1: hundred and seventy meters, and that record was actually held
- 8:13Speaker 1: by her husband, pippin Feriras. But as she sat on
- 8:15Speaker 1: that platform, doubt must have crept into her mind because
- 8:19Speaker 1: storm clouds began to roll in. And in the world
- 8:22Speaker 1: of no limits free diving, where so many things can
- 8:25Speaker 1: go wrong, there's no reason to add in another risk
- 8:28Speaker 1: factor like bad weather. It could affect the people on
- 8:30Speaker 1: the surface that are trying to support you, it could
- 8:33Speaker 1: affect the line that you're using to bring you down
- 8:35Speaker 1: to depth.
- 8:35Speaker 2: It's just an unnecessary risk. Also, Audrey was using a
- 8:39Speaker 2: new piece of equipment. She had a.
- 8:41Speaker 1: Slightly thinner cable that was going to bring her down
- 8:43Speaker 1: to the bottom that her sled was attached to. But
- 8:45Speaker 1: she didn't know if it would work for this deep
- 8:47Speaker 1: of a dive, and her husband, who was in charge
- 8:50Speaker 1: of safety for this dive, had been criticized in the
- 8:53Speaker 1: diving community for rushing this record attempt, that he hadn't
- 8:56Speaker 1: done enough preparations. There weren't enough medical staff, there wasn't
- 8:59Speaker 1: enough standby divers that were going to be on site
- 9:01Speaker 1: or on shore at the time of this dive, and
- 9:04Speaker 1: Audrey was aware of these criticisms because her husband was
- 9:07Speaker 1: regularly criticized in the no limits free diving world because
- 9:11Speaker 1: six years earlier he had had two separate people on
- 9:13Speaker 1: staff died during different diving accidents, and people.
- 9:17Speaker 2: Accused Pippin of being very reckless.
- 9:19Speaker 1: But despite all of these red flags and reasons not
- 9:23Speaker 1: to do this dive on this day, Audrey was really
- 9:26Speaker 1: confident and wanted to do this, and so she signaled
- 9:29Speaker 1: to her team that she was ready to start. She
- 9:31Speaker 1: zipped up her yellow wetsuit and then checked her sensors
- 9:33Speaker 1: and video cameras.
- 9:34Speaker 2: She'd be using for the dive, and then she put
- 9:36Speaker 2: on her fence.
- 9:37Speaker 1: Meanwhile, her husband checked the balloon that was there to
- 9:40Speaker 1: inflate and bring her back up to the surface. And
- 9:43Speaker 1: because this piece of equipment was so crucial, Pippin insisted
- 9:47Speaker 1: he was the only one that could touch it, even
- 9:49Speaker 1: though normal procedure was that at least two other people
- 9:52Speaker 1: would inspect the balloon before the no limits dive, but regardless,
- 9:56Speaker 1: After Pippen inspected the balloon bag and determined it was
- 9:59Speaker 1: good to go, so he signaled to Audrey to tell
- 10:01Speaker 1: her it was time to start.
- 10:02Speaker 2: She slipped off the platform.
- 10:04Speaker 1: And weighed her way over to the two hundred pounds
- 10:06Speaker 1: sled that was going to take her the equivalent of
- 10:08Speaker 1: two football fields below the surface. Just before Audrey gave
- 10:12Speaker 1: the final go ahead to actually release the sled and
- 10:14Speaker 1: begin this dive, she did a procedure known as packing,
- 10:18Speaker 1: where free divers basically take a full breath of air
- 10:21Speaker 1: in and then gulp down additional bits of oxygen to
- 10:25Speaker 1: pack their lungs full. And then when Audrey was done
- 10:28Speaker 1: with this process and was ready to go, she did give.
- 10:30Speaker 2: That final signal.
- 10:31Speaker 1: They released the sled and she began rocketing down towards
- 10:34Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean. If all went to plan,
- 10:36Speaker 1: she would be back on the surface in three minutes.
- 10:39Speaker 1: Audrey'scent was going perfectly until she hit the one hundred
- 10:42Speaker 1: and sixty four meter mark. Now, because of the bad
- 10:45Speaker 1: weather on the surface and all the rough water, that
- 10:48Speaker 1: new lightweight cable she had it was too light, and
- 10:51Speaker 1: so the waves caused it to sway and down at
- 10:53Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty four meters. That swaying caused kinks
- 10:57Speaker 1: in the line itself, and so as the sled was
- 10:59Speaker 1: coming down, it caught one of those kinks and stopped
- 11:02Speaker 1: at the one hundred and sixty four meter mark, and
- 11:05Speaker 1: so Audrey just had to sit there for thirty seconds
- 11:07Speaker 1: until finally that kink straightened out and she was able
- 11:10Speaker 1: to continue down past the record setting mark of one
- 11:13Speaker 1: hundred and seventy meters. Now, that thirty second delay might
- 11:16Speaker 1: not have mattered if everything else in the dive went perfectly,
- 11:19Speaker 1: but unfortunately it did not. Once Audrey had set the
- 11:22Speaker 1: record by hitting one hundred and seventy one meters, her
- 11:25Speaker 1: sled came to a stop and now it was time
- 11:27Speaker 1: for her to go back up to the surface. On
- 11:29Speaker 1: the video, you can see Audrey begins following procedure same
- 11:32Speaker 1: as always. She reaches over and turns the valve that's
- 11:35Speaker 1: supposed to inflate the balloon that's going to bring her
- 11:38Speaker 1: back to the surface. But after she turns the switch,
- 11:41Speaker 1: nothing happens. The balloon does not inflate for a second.
- 11:43Speaker 1: You can see a hint of panic in her body language,
- 11:46Speaker 1: as she's almost out of breath. She's already had that
- 11:48Speaker 1: thirty second delay at the beginning, and she's pressing up
- 11:51Speaker 1: against that three minute mark, and she needs to get
- 11:53Speaker 1: to the surface right now, but she stays calm. She
- 11:56Speaker 1: reaches over and she turns the switch again to see
- 11:59Speaker 1: if maybe she hadn't turned it all the way the
- 12:00Speaker 1: first time, but again nothing happens. At this point, a
- 12:04Speaker 1: stand by diver noticed the sled was not moving up
- 12:07Speaker 1: when it should have been, and so he rushed over
- 12:09Speaker 1: and jammed one of his extra hoses with extra air
- 12:12Speaker 1: up into the balloon and tried to inflate it himself.
- 12:15Speaker 1: But there wasn't enough air coming out of this tank
- 12:18Speaker 1: for it to fully inflate, and so the sled began
- 12:20Speaker 1: to move painfully slowly up in the water column. Now
- 12:23Speaker 1: you would think this stand by diver, who did have
- 12:25Speaker 1: all sorts of extra air, would just give the mouthpiece
- 12:29Speaker 1: to Audrey to let her breathe on that.
- 12:31Speaker 2: Forget the world record attempt. Let's just save her life.
- 12:34Speaker 1: But unfortunately Audrey and the stand by diver knew that
- 12:38Speaker 1: because she was so deep, the pressure was so immense
- 12:41Speaker 1: on her lungs that it actually constricted her lungs to
- 12:44Speaker 1: the size of oranges, that if she took even a
- 12:47Speaker 1: tiny gulp of air at depth, that air would expand
- 12:50Speaker 1: so dramatically on the way up it would kill her.
- 12:54Speaker 1: And so all Audrey could do was cling onto the
- 12:56Speaker 1: sled and very slowly ascend and try to hold her
- 12:59Speaker 1: breath as long as she could. But she knew at
- 13:02Speaker 1: some point she was going to drown, and the video
- 13:04Speaker 1: shows her absolutely stoic, just riding that sled, knowing that
- 13:08Speaker 1: that's about to happen on the surface. When the three
- 13:11Speaker 1: minute mark came and went and Audrey did not surface,
- 13:14Speaker 1: her husband immediately threw on scuba gear and leapt in
- 13:17Speaker 1: to try to save her, and by the time he
- 13:19Speaker 1: got down to her and brought her out of the water,
- 13:21Speaker 1: she had been underwater without air for eight.
- 13:23Speaker 2: Minutes and forty seconds.
- 13:25Speaker 1: When she was put on the boat, she had a pulse,
- 13:28Speaker 1: but there wasn't a doctor on standby to treat her
- 13:30Speaker 1: right away, and Pippin had kept her underwater for a
- 13:33Speaker 1: couple additional minutes trying to resuscitate her underwater. Audrey was
- 13:37Speaker 1: ultimately rushed to a hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
- 13:40Speaker 2: The cause of death was drowning.
- 13:42Speaker 1: Some believe Pippen her husband, had intentionally sabotaged her dive
- 13:46Speaker 1: in order to kill her, but the official investigation determined
- 13:50Speaker 1: her death was accidental. In nineteen ninety three, after an
- 13:57Speaker 1: exhaustive review of hundreds of sites around the United States,
- 14:01Speaker 1: executives from the German car company Mercedes Benz had finally
- 14:04Speaker 1: come to their decision. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, would become the site
- 14:08Speaker 1: of the first ever passenger car assembly factory outside of Germany.
- 14:12Speaker 1: This was a historic day, not just for Mercedes, but
- 14:15Speaker 1: also for Alabama. At the time, the state had one
- 14:18Speaker 1: of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and so
- 14:21Speaker 1: residents of Alabama were hopeful this factory would create hundreds
- 14:25Speaker 1: of new jobs, but what actually happened shattered their expectations.
- 14:29Speaker 1: Immediately following this announcement by Mercedes that they were going
- 14:32Speaker 1: to set up shop in Tuscaloosa, three other major automotive giants, Toyota, Honda,
- 14:38Speaker 1: and Hyundai all announced that they too would be setting
- 14:41Speaker 1: up shop in Alabama. And so these four major factories
- 14:44Speaker 1: all came with jobs of their own. And each of
- 14:47Speaker 1: these factories attracted dozens of other smaller factories that supplied
- 14:51Speaker 1: the parts to put together these cars, and so all
- 14:54Speaker 1: these smaller factories came with additional jobs.
- 14:57Speaker 2: And so this one.
- 14:57Speaker 1: Decision by Mercedes didn't just create hundreds of new jobs
- 15:01Speaker 1: in Alabama, it created tens of thousands of new jobs
- 15:05Speaker 1: all across the state. Two years later, in nineteen ninety five,
- 15:08Speaker 1: a little girl named Regina Elsie was born just about
- 15:11Speaker 1: an hour away from the Mercedes factory in Tuscaloosa.
- 15:14Speaker 2: Growing up, the automotive manufacturing industry was a big part
- 15:17Speaker 2: of her life.
- 15:18Speaker 1: Her family worked in the factories, and as a kid,
- 15:21Speaker 1: every day when she went outside, she would see dozens
- 15:23Speaker 1: of these eighteen wheelers come bombing down the road in
- 15:26Speaker 1: front of her house, carrying car parts on their way
- 15:28Speaker 1: to one of the many factories. Regina was a reserved
- 15:31Speaker 1: and quiet kid. She loved to read, She was a
- 15:33Speaker 1: good student, and she loved animals. She would take in
- 15:36Speaker 1: stray animals. Any animals she could find, she would bring
- 15:39Speaker 1: it back home to her house. But her favorite animal
- 15:41Speaker 1: was her dog, who she named Cow. She dreamed of
- 15:44Speaker 1: becoming a pediatrician, and so after high school, she enrolled
- 15:47Speaker 1: in a local community college on a federal grant, with
- 15:50Speaker 1: plans to eventually transfer out to Auburn University, where she
- 15:53Speaker 1: would finish her degree and then hopefully go on to
- 15:56Speaker 1: medical school. But while she was at the community college,
- 15:58Speaker 1: she fell in love with a low boy named Dan,
- 16:01Speaker 1: who she had actually gone to kindergarten with, and before
- 16:03Speaker 1: long the two were engaged to be married. The young
- 16:06Speaker 1: couple wanted to move in together, but they didn't.
- 16:08Speaker 2: Have enough money.
- 16:09Speaker 1: Regina was a full time student, so she didn't have
- 16:11Speaker 1: an income, and Dan barely made minimum wage working as
- 16:14Speaker 1: a shelf stoker at Walmart. The only way they could
- 16:17Speaker 1: get their own place would be if Regina dropped out
- 16:19Speaker 1: of school and got a job too. This was a
- 16:21Speaker 1: difficult decision for Regina because she still wanted to be
- 16:24Speaker 1: a pediatrician, but at the same time, she was really
- 16:27Speaker 1: excited about her future with Dan, and so she thought,
- 16:29Speaker 1: you know, I'm only twenty years old. I can always
- 16:31Speaker 1: come back and get my education later and become a
- 16:33Speaker 1: doctor later. And so in January of twenty sixteen, she
- 16:37Speaker 1: disenrolled from her classes and went out looking for a job.
- 16:39Speaker 1: A month later, she landed a job as an assembly
- 16:42Speaker 1: line worker at a car parts supplier factory where her stepfather.
- 16:46Speaker 2: And one of her sisters currently worked.
- 16:48Speaker 1: It was called Age in USA, and they supplied parts
- 16:50Speaker 1: to Hyundai and to Kia. Regina's mother told her that
- 16:53Speaker 1: it was not a great place to work, that she
- 16:56Speaker 1: had worked at two other similar auto part supplier factories
- 16:59Speaker 1: and the pace and pressure was unbearable. Car parts suppliers
- 17:03Speaker 1: are known for being under intense pressure to reach their
- 17:06Speaker 1: quotas every single day.
- 17:08Speaker 2: Failure to do.
- 17:09Speaker 1: So, even by a slim margin, can lead to massive
- 17:12Speaker 1: finds imposed on them by their customers, like in this
- 17:16Speaker 1: case Hyundai and Kia. This immense pressure on these suppliers
- 17:20Speaker 1: often leads them to overwork their employees like Regina, and
- 17:24Speaker 1: the employees develop a sort of production at all costs
- 17:27Speaker 1: mentality because they see their employer only cares about hitting
- 17:31Speaker 1: their daily quota, and so employees will cut corners and
- 17:35Speaker 1: skirt safety regulations to.
- 17:37Speaker 2: Ensure they stay on their quota.
- 17:39Speaker 1: But after Regina's mother approached her and told her about
- 17:41Speaker 1: all these horrible things about the autopart supplier factories.
- 17:45Speaker 2: Regina said, I got bills to pay.
- 17:47Speaker 1: She had already moved into a house in southeastern Alabama,
- 17:50Speaker 1: near the Agent factory. She was living there with her fiancee,
- 17:53Speaker 1: Dan and her beloved dog, Cow. She had bought herself
- 17:56Speaker 1: a brand new car, which she was very proud of,
- 17:58Speaker 1: and she had found herself the perfect wedding dress that
- 18:01Speaker 1: fit her just right. But it cost four thousand dollars,
- 18:04Speaker 1: and so Regina was not about to walk away from
- 18:07Speaker 1: this job.
- 18:07Speaker 2: She needed the money.
- 18:08Speaker 1: When she first started at Agent, she was put on
- 18:11Speaker 1: temporary status, which meant she only made eight dollars and
- 18:14Speaker 1: seventy five cents an hour. In order for her to
- 18:16Speaker 1: make more money, she would need the company to shift
- 18:18Speaker 1: her to full time status, which came with a one
- 18:21Speaker 1: dollar and seventy five cent per hour race. Determined to
- 18:25Speaker 1: show the company she was worthy of being shifted to
- 18:27Speaker 1: that full time status, Regina volunteered for twelve hour.
- 18:31Speaker 2: Shifts, seven days a week.
- 18:33Speaker 1: But by June of that year, after six months of
- 18:35Speaker 1: this hillatious work schedule, Regina was over it and she
- 18:39Speaker 1: went to her parents' house. She laid on the couch
- 18:42Speaker 1: and she told them that she just couldn't do it anymore,
- 18:44Speaker 1: and in fact, she was going to start looking for
- 18:46Speaker 1: other work, preferably something she could do part time so
- 18:49Speaker 1: she could go back to school and continue to pursue
- 18:51Speaker 1: her career as a pediatrician, and her family was relieved
- 18:54Speaker 1: and excited to see her get her life back to normal.
- 18:56Speaker 1: A few days later, on June eighteenth, Regina, who was
- 18:59Speaker 1: still in deployed at Agent, was working the day shift
- 19:02Speaker 1: at the factory. Her job that day was to oversee
- 19:04Speaker 1: a robot that would weld on these metal pillars onto
- 19:08Speaker 1: the front right and the front left of the car,
- 19:10Speaker 1: where the side view mirrors would attach to. This robot
- 19:13Speaker 1: looked like a giant arm protruding from the ground, where
- 19:16Speaker 1: at the end of the arm where the hand would be,
- 19:19Speaker 1: were two welding tips.
- 19:20Speaker 2: That stuck out about four inches each.
- 19:21Speaker 1: The robot was surrounded by this huge chain link fence
- 19:25Speaker 1: that was there specifically to keep the employees from getting
- 19:28Speaker 1: too close to it. While it was in operation, Regina
- 19:30Speaker 1: would oversee this robot via a computer screen outside of
- 19:34Speaker 1: that cage. At some point in the afternoon, as Regina
- 19:36Speaker 1: is monitoring her computer, it comes across the screen that
- 19:39Speaker 1: there is a stud fault on Robot twenty three. Now,
- 19:42Speaker 1: her robot was not Robot twenty three, it was the
- 19:45Speaker 1: robot adjacent to her station, but the person in charge
- 19:49Speaker 1: of overlooking Robot twenty three was a part of her team,
- 19:52Speaker 1: and her team had a daily quota to hit, and
- 19:55Speaker 1: so having Robot twenty three down directly impacted Regina, and
- 19:59Speaker 1: so Gina stepped away from her computer. She walked over
- 20:01Speaker 1: to the outside of Robot twenty three. She spoke to
- 20:04Speaker 1: the team member and they decided it was best to
- 20:06Speaker 1: just call maintenance and have them come by and try
- 20:08Speaker 1: to clear the fault. A security camera inside of the
- 20:10Speaker 1: factory was aimed down at Regina and her coworkers as
- 20:14Speaker 1: they stood outside of the metal cage.
- 20:16Speaker 2: Around Robot twenty three, waiting for maintenance.
- 20:18Speaker 1: But after quite a while, maintenance still hadn't shown up,
- 20:21Speaker 1: and it was obvious the team was getting very anxious.
- 20:25Speaker 1: They know every second that robot was not operational, they
- 20:28Speaker 1: were hurting their chances of reaching their quota, which the
- 20:31Speaker 1: company would be very upset about because they'd be hit
- 20:34Speaker 1: with a big fine. And so at some point Regina
- 20:36Speaker 1: just kind of says, screw it, I'm going to fix
- 20:38Speaker 1: the fault myself, and so she picks up a small
- 20:40Speaker 1: tool that looks like a screwdriver. She opens up the
- 20:43Speaker 1: cage to Robot twenty three, and she steps inside and
- 20:46Speaker 1: walks right for the stem of the robot. When she
- 20:48Speaker 1: gets over to it, she has her back to the
- 20:51Speaker 1: robot's arm that's behind her, and she begins doing something
- 20:54Speaker 1: with her tool to the stem of the robot, and
- 20:57Speaker 1: whatever she does, it works, because the robotic arm behind
- 21:00Speaker 1: her springs into life and immediately goes back into the
- 21:04Speaker 1: action it had been trying to perform before it failed,
- 21:08Speaker 1: and that action involved swinging back in Regina's direction, and
- 21:12Speaker 1: when it did, those two four inch welding tips at
- 21:15Speaker 1: the end of the robotic arm were driven directly into
- 21:18Speaker 1: Regina's back, impaleling her. Her coworkers saw it happen and
- 21:21Speaker 1: hit the emergency shut off switch, but it didn't power
- 21:24Speaker 1: down the robot until after it had thrust Regina across
- 21:27Speaker 1: the cage and pinned her up against the wall. And
- 21:30Speaker 1: so with this robot now powered down, the welding tips
- 21:33Speaker 1: were now run all the way through her upper back
- 21:36Speaker 1: and pressed up against the wall. She was literally pinned
- 21:38Speaker 1: to the wall, like tacking up a piece of paper
- 21:41Speaker 1: with two tacks in a corkboard.
- 21:43Speaker 2: She slouched over, but her eyes were wide open. She
- 21:45Speaker 2: was conscious, but she didn't make a sound.
- 21:48Speaker 1: Nobody knew how to release Regina from the robot's grasp,
- 21:51Speaker 1: and so the team leader hopped on a forklift and
- 21:53Speaker 1: sped across the factory floor towards the break room. He
- 21:56Speaker 1: ran inside, he found a maintenance worker and he dragged
- 21:59Speaker 1: him out. They got on the forklift, the maintenance worker
- 22:01Speaker 1: had to sit on the team leader's lap, and they
- 22:03Speaker 1: sped back across the factory towards the Robot twenty three cage.
- 22:07Speaker 1: When they got there, they took this maintenance guy and
- 22:09Speaker 1: basically thrust him into the cage and told him to
- 22:12Speaker 1: get Regina out.
- 22:14Speaker 2: But the maintenance worker didn't speak any English. He was
- 22:16Speaker 2: terrified at what he was seeing.
- 22:18Speaker 1: Regina the way she was. He didn't really know how
- 22:20Speaker 1: to fix the situation. Tempers were flaring, and before long
- 22:24Speaker 1: the maintenance worker just got overwhelmed and ran away. When
- 22:27Speaker 1: emergency crews finally arrived several minutes later, Regina was still
- 22:31Speaker 1: pinned by this robot.
- 22:32Speaker 2: She was conscious, her eyes were wide open.
- 22:34Speaker 1: And she was still totally silent, and they were able
- 22:37Speaker 1: to get her off. They sent her to a hospital
- 22:39Speaker 1: and then she was transported to a trauma center, but
- 22:42Speaker 1: it was too late. The damage that had been done
- 22:44Speaker 1: to her by getting impaled by this robot was just
- 22:47Speaker 1: too extensive, and she died at the hospital. It would
- 22:50Speaker 1: turn out Regina's company agent had not properly trained her
- 22:54Speaker 1: or any of her co workers. Agent's policy was to
- 22:57Speaker 1: hire people and as fast as possible get them on
- 22:59Speaker 1: the floor, helping them reach their quota, and so as
- 23:02Speaker 1: a result, Regina and her team members had no idea
- 23:05Speaker 1: about a so called.
- 23:06Speaker 2: Lockout procedure where if you're.
- 23:08Speaker 1: Going to go inside one of these robots cages, you
- 23:11Speaker 1: need to make sure the power switch has been locked out,
- 23:14Speaker 1: meaning it will not turn back on if you fix
- 23:17Speaker 1: the fault that has caused your robot to stop. All
- 23:19Speaker 1: Regina and her coworkers knew is that the most important
- 23:22Speaker 1: thing is hitting your quota at the end of the day,
- 23:25Speaker 1: and so that was the reason Regina went inside of
- 23:27Speaker 1: the cage, and that was the reason Regina was killed.
- 23:30Speaker 2: Agent ultimately pleaded guilty to.
- 23:31Speaker 1: Not having properly trained Regina, leading to her death. And
- 23:35Speaker 1: they paid the family one point five million dollars.
- 23:37Speaker 2: So that's going to do it. Guys.
- 23:39Speaker 1: If you found the secret in today's episode, let us
- 23:41Speaker 1: know in the comments what it is and where you
- 23:43Speaker 1: found it. So give us the timestamp and if you're
- 23:45Speaker 1: the first to do that, we will pin you at
- 23:47Speaker 1: the top of the comments section. If you enjoy today's
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- 24:08Speaker 2: My username for both platforms is the same. It's John
- 24:11Speaker 2: Balin four one six.
- 24:12Speaker 1: I also have a ton of content over on TikTok,
- 24:14Speaker 1: where my username is mister Ballin. I also have a
- 24:17Speaker 1: second YouTube channel called mister Ballin Shorts, where I post.
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- 24:24Speaker 1: our subreddit just called mister Ballin.
- 24:26Speaker 2: It's linked in the description below.
- 24:27Speaker 1: So whether I see you on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, reddit, YouTube,
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- 24:34Speaker 1: support and until next time, that's going to do it,
- 24:36Speaker 1: see it,