Latest / Crime and Horror / Only-one-man-knew-the-death-recipe-for
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: One evening in November of twenty sixteen, a professor was
- 0:03Speaker 1: sitting outside in his backyard during a torrential thunderstorm. The
- 0:06Speaker 1: sky was black, rain and hail were falling everywhere, and
- 0:10Speaker 1: all around him all he could hear were countless sirens.
- 0:13Speaker 1: The city was in the middle of a full scale disaster.
- 0:16Speaker 1: But this professor was not actually shocked, because the day
- 0:19Speaker 1: before he had predicted this, and he had tried to
- 0:22Speaker 1: warn people, but his warning had not worked, and now
- 0:26Speaker 1: people were dying in the exact way he knew they would.
- 0:29Speaker 1: But before we get into that story, if you're a
- 0:32Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
- 0:35Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, because that's all
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- 1:14Speaker 1: At five point thirty pm on November twenty first, twenty sixteen,
- 1:17Speaker 1: Jody Santorro, who was a twenty one year old mother
- 1:20Speaker 1: in Melbourne, Australia, woke up to the sound of her
- 1:22Speaker 1: four month old son crying outside. There was this horrible
- 1:26Speaker 1: thunderstorm going on. All this rain and hail were pelting
- 1:29Speaker 1: the roof, and the wind was so strong that all
- 1:31Speaker 1: the windows in the house were rattling. Jody reached over
- 1:33Speaker 1: and grabbed her phone on the nightstand and checked the time,
- 1:36Speaker 1: and she saw right away that she had overslept. However,
- 1:39Speaker 1: it had been a really hot day that day, and
- 1:41Speaker 1: she was so drained from the heat and also taking
- 1:43Speaker 1: care of a four month old that she wasn't really
- 1:45Speaker 1: surprised she had overslept. But as the sound of her
- 1:48Speaker 1: son's cries intensified, Jody knew, no matter how tired she was,
- 1:52Speaker 1: she needed to get up and go tend to him.
- 1:54Speaker 1: But the instant her legs swung off the bed and
- 1:56Speaker 1: she actually tried to stand up, she knew something was
- 1:59Speaker 1: wrong had nothing to do with being tired. She had
- 2:02Speaker 1: this incredible sense of dizziness come over her, and then
- 2:05Speaker 1: her chest suddenly tightened up to the point where she
- 2:07Speaker 1: could barely even breathe in she found herself grabbing the
- 2:10Speaker 1: bed just to steady herself. However, as alarming as this was,
- 2:14Speaker 1: Jody didn't panic. She knew this feeling. She had been
- 2:17Speaker 1: dealing with asthma for years, and she knew this was
- 2:20Speaker 1: the start of an asthma attack. And so Jody reached
- 2:22Speaker 1: over for her inhaler on the nightstand. She picked it up,
- 2:25Speaker 1: brought it to her lips, pressed it down, and then
- 2:27Speaker 1: took in a measured breath of the medication, expecting to
- 2:30Speaker 1: pretty much immediately feel relief. But she didn't. The inhaler
- 2:34Speaker 1: wasn't working. Jody again pressed down the inhaler harder this
- 2:37Speaker 1: time and took a bigger breath in, hoping that a
- 2:39Speaker 1: bit more medication might do the trick. But again it
- 2:42Speaker 1: just was not working. And so now, with panic rising
- 2:45Speaker 1: inside of hers she's still struggling to breathe. Her son
- 2:48Speaker 1: is still freaking out and she can't tend to him.
- 2:51Speaker 1: And all she was thinking is, I have to get
- 2:53Speaker 1: my nebulizer, which is basically a more robust version of
- 2:56Speaker 1: an inhaler. It provides more medication more quickly into your box. However,
- 3:01Speaker 1: the nebulizer, which was just over in her closet required
- 3:04Speaker 1: some setup, and she knew she felt so frantic right now,
- 3:07Speaker 1: and she was shaking so much that she didn't think
- 3:09Speaker 1: she'd be able to set it up, or even set
- 3:11Speaker 1: it up in time before she passed out. Just then,
- 3:14Speaker 1: her fiance walked into the bedroom, drawn there but the
- 3:16Speaker 1: sound of their son crying. But the second he walked in,
- 3:19Speaker 1: his attention was not on their son, it was instead
- 3:22Speaker 1: on Jody, who by now was clutching the bed and
- 3:25Speaker 1: kind of hobbled over and very clearly having some sort
- 3:28Speaker 1: of medical emergency. Jody turned to him and began to say,
- 3:31Speaker 1: I can't breathe, But her fiance already knew she had asthma.
- 3:34Speaker 1: He knew what these attacks looked like, and so without
- 3:37Speaker 1: even needing to be told, he rushed to the closet,
- 3:40Speaker 1: set up her nebulizer, and then put the mask right
- 3:42Speaker 1: over her face, and as soon as it was Jody
- 3:44Speaker 1: took in the biggest inhale she possibly could, really believing
- 3:47Speaker 1: this was going to stop the asthma attack. But just
- 3:50Speaker 1: like the inhaler, the nebulizer didn't work. It felt like
- 3:54Speaker 1: with every breath she was taking, her lungs were shrinking,
- 3:56Speaker 1: not expanding, and so Jody turned to her fiance and
- 3:59Speaker 1: croaked down out call an ambulance, her voice barely audible,
- 4:03Speaker 1: and so her fiance, who also was now beginning to panic,
- 4:06Speaker 1: grabbed the phone and as he was talking to the
- 4:07Speaker 1: dispatcher trying to relay all the details of what was
- 4:10Speaker 1: happening outside, this thunderstorm was only getting worse and worse.
- 4:14Speaker 1: The hail and the rain were battering the sides of
- 4:17Speaker 1: the house and all the windows were shaking. I mean,
- 4:19Speaker 1: it was absolute bedlam inside of this house. The next
- 4:22Speaker 1: few minutes were torture for Jody. She laid on the
- 4:25Speaker 1: bed waiting for paramedics. Her breasts at this point were
- 4:28Speaker 1: so small, so shallow, like she knew she was about
- 4:31Speaker 1: to pass out any second. And then finally the paramedics
- 4:34Speaker 1: rushed inside. She knew there were two people in the room,
- 4:36Speaker 1: but it was so chaotic, and all she could say
- 4:38Speaker 1: when they showed up in the room was I'm going
- 4:40Speaker 1: to die. I'm going to die. The paramedics lifted her
- 4:43Speaker 1: off the bed, they put her on the gurney, and
- 4:45Speaker 1: as they wheeled her out the door towards the ambulance,
- 4:48Speaker 1: her world went totally black. We're all looking for a
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- 6:09Speaker 1: to the story. The paramedics rushed Jody to Sunshine Hospital
- 6:19Speaker 1: and on the way they tried to stabilize her by
- 6:21Speaker 1: squeezing these oxygen bags, forcing oxygen into Jody's lungs. And
- 6:25Speaker 1: as they were doing that, Jody's fiance was following the
- 6:27Speaker 1: ambulance right behind, white knuckling the steering wheel, praying his
- 6:31Speaker 1: fiance was going to survive this asthma attack. When the
- 6:33Speaker 1: ambulance finally arrived at Sunshine Hospital, the emergency room was mayhem.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Paramedics quickly wheeled Jody in on her gurney, shouting out
- 6:42Speaker 1: her vital signs to the doctors waiting near the door.
- 6:44Speaker 1: Her fiance meanwhile, watched helplessly as the medical staff surrounded
- 6:48Speaker 1: her and inserted IV lines, hooked up monitors, and began
- 6:51Speaker 1: intubating her to force even more oxygen into her lungs.
- 6:54Speaker 1: But fortunately, this rapid medical intervention once Jody got to
- 6:58Speaker 1: the hospital appeared to work, because not long after getting there,
- 7:02Speaker 1: Jody did begin to stabilize, not enough to suggest that
- 7:04Speaker 1: she was actually all better, but her condition basically began
- 7:08Speaker 1: to improve. However, the moment she began to improve, instead
- 7:12Speaker 1: of the medical team, you know, talking to her and
- 7:14Speaker 1: figuring out what happened and making sure she really was
- 7:17Speaker 1: on a path to recovery here, instead the medical team
- 7:21Speaker 1: literally ran out of her room back out to the
- 7:24Speaker 1: front of the er because by this point the Sunshine
- 7:28Speaker 1: hospital er was overflowing with patients. There were all these
- 7:31Speaker 1: people in the waiting room and also outside, and basically
- 7:35Speaker 1: everybody had the same symptoms as Jody. They couldn't breathe.
- 7:38Speaker 1: There were people slumped on the ground against the wall,
- 7:41Speaker 1: screaming for help. I mean, the medical team was totally overwhelmed.
- 7:45Speaker 1: And on top of that, there were ambulances literally lined
- 7:48Speaker 1: up around the block waiting to drop off patients. There
- 7:51Speaker 1: just wasn't any more space. But nonetheless, doctors and nurses
- 7:55Speaker 1: and the medical team at the hospital worked furiously, moving
- 7:58Speaker 1: from one patient to the next, sometimes in an exam room,
- 8:01Speaker 1: sometimes out in the waiting room sometimes outside it's wherever
- 8:04Speaker 1: the patients were. But the weird thing was is all
- 8:06Speaker 1: these people they had the same symptoms, these severe asthma attacks.
- 8:10Speaker 1: Yet many of the people that were showing up had
- 8:13Speaker 1: never had asthma in their lives before, So how was
- 8:16Speaker 1: this happening? This went on for hours and hours, and
- 8:19Speaker 1: really the situation in the hospital only continued to get worse,
- 8:23Speaker 1: with more and more and more patients showing up with
- 8:25Speaker 1: worse and worse symptoms. And so during this madness, Jody,
- 8:29Speaker 1: who really hadn't gotten better, she just stabilized. She actually
- 8:33Speaker 1: was moved out of the emergency room and over to
- 8:35Speaker 1: the ICU pretty much just to create one more space
- 8:38Speaker 1: for new patients. And so in the ICU, Jody's fiance
- 8:42Speaker 1: sat next to her, gripping her hand, listening to the
- 8:45Speaker 1: sound of the monitors beeping steadily all around her. Outside
- 8:48Speaker 1: the room, he could see doctors and nurses and medical
- 8:50Speaker 1: staff sprinting up and down the hallways, looking frantic and worried.
- 8:54Speaker 1: He had no idea what was happening here. He just
- 8:57Speaker 1: hoped Jody would be okay, but it would turn out
- 9:00Speaker 1: there actually was someone who knew exactly what was going on.
- 9:03Speaker 1: A university researcher named Philip Taylor had actually predicted this
- 9:07Speaker 1: the day before. Professor Taylor was an expert in atmospheric allergens,
- 9:12Speaker 1: a field so niche that barely anybody outside of his
- 9:15Speaker 1: small research circle had even heard of it, and so
- 9:18Speaker 1: on the afternoon of November twentieth, the day before, Taylor
- 9:21Speaker 1: had been at home in his office analyzing data when
- 9:24Speaker 1: he noticed something very alarming. All of the ingredients for
- 9:28Speaker 1: a catastrophic event were aligning in the forecast, and the
- 9:31Speaker 1: patterns were so precise that it stopped him cold. Taylor
- 9:35Speaker 1: was stunned. He'd spent years studying the effects of weather
- 9:38Speaker 1: on public health, but he'd never seen anything like this before.
- 9:42Speaker 1: And at the same time, Taylor also realized that as
- 9:45Speaker 1: alarming as this was, very few other people, if anybody,
- 9:49Speaker 1: would see this as a problem. He was like the
- 9:52Speaker 1: one person in the world that had the expertise to
- 9:55Speaker 1: see how catastrophic this might actually be, and so desperate
- 9:58Speaker 1: to warn others, he wound up posting a very urgent
- 10:01Speaker 1: announcement on this weather website that he managed, but unfortunately
- 10:05Speaker 1: it just wasn't seen by enough people in time, and
- 10:08Speaker 1: so now, as hospitals all across Melbourne overflowed with people
- 10:11Speaker 1: gasping for air, Taylor sat in his backyard watching the
- 10:14Speaker 1: storm unfold. The sky was pitch black, rain and hail
- 10:18Speaker 1: was coming down, The wind was whipping and oft in
- 10:20Speaker 1: the distance. All he could hear was thunder and sirens,
- 10:24Speaker 1: and he knew, unfortunately, his prediction had been right, just
- 10:28Speaker 1: like Professor Taylor's weather models had predicted. On November twenty first,
- 10:32Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Melbourne, Australia, was hit by an extremely rare
- 10:36Speaker 1: event known as thunderstorm asthma. This deadly phenomenon can only
- 10:41Speaker 1: occur when three very specific weather conditions align. One high
- 10:45Speaker 1: heat during the day, two a very powerful thunderstorm, and
- 10:49Speaker 1: three extremely high pollen levels. Melbourne's heat that day had
- 10:53Speaker 1: caused unusually high concentrations of ryegrass pollen to hang in
- 10:58Speaker 1: the air, and then when that huge thunderstorm in the
- 11:01Speaker 1: intense humidity, the wind and the rain shattered the pollen
- 11:05Speaker 1: grains into microscopic fragments. And then these tiny particles, which
- 11:09Speaker 1: were way smaller than regular pollen, were carried by this
- 11:12Speaker 1: storm deep into people's homes and into their lungs. Unlike
- 11:17Speaker 1: normal pollen, these microscopic fragments bypassed the body's typical defenses
- 11:22Speaker 1: and embedded themselves deep into people's lungs, causing severe and
- 11:26Speaker 1: sudden asthma attacks. Now for people who already had asthma,
- 11:30Speaker 1: this was catastrophic, but even perfectly healthy people found themselves
- 11:34Speaker 1: gasping for air, overwhelmed by the sheer density of this
- 11:38Speaker 1: microscopic pollen. The storm had essentially made the air everybody
- 11:41Speaker 1: in Melbourne was breathing deadly. As for Jody Santorro, she
- 11:45Speaker 1: would spend days in the ICU hooked up to monitors
- 11:48Speaker 1: with machines pumping oxygen into her lungs while her body
- 11:51Speaker 1: fought to heal. But she was lucky. She would eventually recover,
- 11:55Speaker 1: and in the days that followed she would learn the
- 11:57Speaker 1: full scale of what actually happened in Melbourn. Nearly ten
- 12:01Speaker 1: thousand people had flooded the hospitals across Australia complaining of
- 12:05Speaker 1: the same symptoms that Jody did, and unfortunately, of those
- 12:08Speaker 1: ten thousand, ten people actually lost their lives, and many
- 12:12Speaker 1: of them were totally healthy and had never had an
- 12:15Speaker 1: asthma attack in their lives before. For Jody. Despite surviving
- 12:18Speaker 1: this ordeal, the awful memory of what happened on that
- 12:21Speaker 1: night will forever be on her mind. She is now
- 12:24Speaker 1: all too aware of how fragile life can be and
- 12:26Speaker 1: how quickly things can change. I'm going to play you
- 12:33Speaker 1: a clip from my other podcast, Mister Ballin's Medical Mysteries.
- 12:37Speaker 1: After you're done listening to it. Be sure to check
- 12:39Speaker 1: out Mister Ballin's Medical Mysteries on any podcast platform. Give
- 12:43Speaker 1: it a follow, new episodes every Tuesday. Enjoy. Early in
- 12:47Speaker 1: July of nineteen eighty two, a corrections officer made his
- 12:50Speaker 1: rounds at a jail in San Jose, California. Everything seemed
- 12:54Speaker 1: normal as he inspected eachin made cell, but as the
- 12:57Speaker 1: guard peered into the last cell on the row, he
- 13:00Speaker 1: was startled by what he saw. The inmate was sitting
- 13:03Speaker 1: on his bunk, staring forward, his mouth hanging open. He
- 13:06Speaker 1: looked completely frozen, almost like something out of a wax museum.
- 13:11Speaker 1: The guard gave the cell door a few loud knocks
- 13:13Speaker 1: with his flashlight, but the inmate didn't move or even blink.
- 13:18Speaker 1: The guard was afraid that the inmate was dead, so
- 13:21Speaker 1: he unlocked the door and stepped into the cell and
- 13:23Speaker 1: he got right up next to the inmate, and when
- 13:25Speaker 1: he did, he could feel breath coming from the man's
- 13:28Speaker 1: open mouth, so he knew he was alive. He gently
- 13:31Speaker 1: touched the inmate to try to get him to react,
- 13:34Speaker 1: but he didn't, and that gentle tap made the man's
- 13:37Speaker 1: whole body rock back and forth on the bunk like
- 13:39Speaker 1: a rocking chair. The guy was stiff as a board.
- 13:42Speaker 1: The guard had no idea what was going on, and
- 13:44Speaker 1: he was feeling very freaked out. But then he noticed
- 13:48Speaker 1: the inmate's eyes. They had a look of absolute terror
- 13:52Speaker 1: in them, and the guard knew this man needed help
- 13:55Speaker 1: right now.