Latest / Crime and Horror / Only one man knew the death recipe for this city

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Only one man knew the death recipe for this city · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One evening in November of twenty sixteen, a professor was
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: sitting outside in his backyard during a torrential thunderstorm. The
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  Speaker 1: sky was black, rain and hail were falling everywhere, and
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  Speaker 1: all around him all he could hear were countless sirens.
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  Speaker 1: The city was in the middle of a full scale disaster.
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  Speaker 1: But this professor was not actually shocked, because the day
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  Speaker 1: before he had predicted this, and he had tried to
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  Speaker 1: warn people, but his warning had not worked, and now
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  Speaker 1: people were dying in the exact way he knew they would.
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  Speaker 1: But before we get into that story, if you're a
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  Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: then you come to the right place, because that's all
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  Speaker 1: At five point thirty pm on November twenty first, twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: Jody Santorro, who was a twenty one year old mother
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  Speaker 1: in Melbourne, Australia, woke up to the sound of her
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  Speaker 1: four month old son crying outside. There was this horrible
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  Speaker 1: thunderstorm going on. All this rain and hail were pelting
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  Speaker 1: the roof, and the wind was so strong that all
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  Speaker 1: the windows in the house were rattling. Jody reached over
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  Speaker 1: and grabbed her phone on the nightstand and checked the time,
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  Speaker 1: and she saw right away that she had overslept. However,
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  Speaker 1: it had been a really hot day that day, and
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  Speaker 1: she was so drained from the heat and also taking
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  Speaker 1: care of a four month old that she wasn't really
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  Speaker 1: surprised she had overslept. But as the sound of her
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  Speaker 1: son's cries intensified, Jody knew, no matter how tired she was,
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  Speaker 1: she needed to get up and go tend to him.
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  Speaker 1: But the instant her legs swung off the bed and
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  Speaker 1: she actually tried to stand up, she knew something was
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  Speaker 1: wrong had nothing to do with being tired. She had
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  Speaker 1: this incredible sense of dizziness come over her, and then
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  Speaker 1: her chest suddenly tightened up to the point where she
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  Speaker 1: could barely even breathe in she found herself grabbing the
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  Speaker 1: bed just to steady herself. However, as alarming as this was,
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  Speaker 1: Jody didn't panic. She knew this feeling. She had been
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  Speaker 1: dealing with asthma for years, and she knew this was
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  Speaker 1: the start of an asthma attack. And so Jody reached
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  Speaker 1: over for her inhaler on the nightstand. She picked it up,
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  Speaker 1: brought it to her lips, pressed it down, and then
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  Speaker 1: took in a measured breath of the medication, expecting to
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  Speaker 1: pretty much immediately feel relief. But she didn't. The inhaler
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  Speaker 1: wasn't working. Jody again pressed down the inhaler harder this
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  Speaker 1: time and took a bigger breath in, hoping that a
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  Speaker 1: bit more medication might do the trick. But again it
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  Speaker 1: just was not working. And so now, with panic rising
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  Speaker 1: inside of her, she's still struggling to breathe. Her son
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  Speaker 1: is still freaking out and she can't tend to him.
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  Speaker 1: And all she was thinking is, I have to get
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  Speaker 1: my nebulizer, which is basically a more robust version of
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  Speaker 1: an inhaler. It provides more medication more quickly into your box. However,
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  Speaker 1: the nebulizer, which was just over in her closet required
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  Speaker 1: some setup, and she knew she felt so frantic right now,
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  Speaker 1: and she was shaking so much that she didn't think
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  Speaker 1: she'd be able to set it up, or even set
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  Speaker 1: it up in time before she passed out. Just then,
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  Speaker 1: her fiance walked into the bedroom, drawn there but the
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  Speaker 1: sound of their son crying. But the second he walked in,
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  Speaker 1: his attention was not on their son, it was instead
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  Speaker 1: on Jody, who by now was clutching the bed and
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  Speaker 1: kind of hobbled over and very clearly having some sort
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  Speaker 1: of medical emergency. Jody turned to him and began to say,
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  Speaker 1: I can't breathe, But her fiance already knew she had asthma.
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  Speaker 1: He knew what these attacks looked like, and so without
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  Speaker 1: even needing to be told, he rushed to the closet,
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  Speaker 1: set up her nebulizer, and then put the mask right
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  Speaker 1: over her face, and as soon as it was Jody
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  Speaker 1: took in the biggest inhale she possibly could, really believing
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  Speaker 1: this was going to stop the asthma attack. But just
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  Speaker 1: like the inhaler, the nebulizer didn't work. It felt like
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  Speaker 1: with every breath she was taking, her lungs were shrinking,
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  Speaker 1: not expanding, and so Jody turned to her fiance and
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  Speaker 1: croaked down call an ambulance, her voice barely audible, and
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  Speaker 1: so her fiance, who also was now beginning to panic,
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  Speaker 1: grabbed the phone and as he was talking to the
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  Speaker 1: dispatcher trying to relay all the details of what was
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  Speaker 1: happening outside, this thunderstorm was only getting worse and worse.
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  Speaker 1: The hail and the rain were battering the sides of
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  Speaker 1: the house and all the windows were shaking. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it was absolute bedlam inside of this house. The next
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  Speaker 1: few minutes were torture for Jody. She laid on the
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  Speaker 1: bed waiting for paramedics. Her breasts at this point were
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  Speaker 1: so small, so shallow, like she knew she was about
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  Speaker 1: to pass out any second. And then finally the paramedics
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  Speaker 1: rushed inside. She knew there were two people in the room,
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  Speaker 1: but it was so chaotic, and all she could say
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  Speaker 1: when they showed up in the room was I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to die. I'm going to die. The paramedics lifted her
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  Speaker 1: off the bed, they put her on the gurney, and
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  Speaker 1: as they wheeled her out the door towards the ambulance,
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  Speaker 1: her world went totally black. We're all looking for a
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• 6:09
  Speaker 1: to the story. The paramedics rushed Jody to Sunshine Hospital
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  Speaker 1: and on the way they tried to stabilize her by
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  Speaker 1: squeezing these oxygen bags, forcing oxygen into Jody's lungs. And
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  Speaker 1: as they were doing that, Jody's fiance was following the
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  Speaker 1: ambulance right behind, white knuckling the steering wheel, praying his
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  Speaker 1: fiance was going to survive this asthma attack. When the
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  Speaker 1: ambulance finally arrived at Sunshine Hospital, the emergency room was mayhem.
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  Speaker 1: Paramedics quickly wheeled Jody in on her gurney, shouting out
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  Speaker 1: her vital signs to the doctors waiting near the door.
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  Speaker 1: Her fiance meanwhile, watched helplessly as the medical staff surrounded
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  Speaker 1: her and inserted ib lines, hooked up monitors, and began
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  Speaker 1: intubating her to force even more oxygen into her lungs.
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  Speaker 1: But fortunately, this rapid medical intervention once Jody got to
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  Speaker 1: the hospital appeared to work, because not long after getting there,
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  Speaker 1: Jody did begin to stabilize, not enough to suggest that
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  Speaker 1: she was actually all better, but her condition basically began
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  Speaker 1: to improve. However, the moment she began to improve, instead
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  Speaker 1: of the medical team, you know, talking to her and
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  Speaker 1: figuring out what happened and making sure she really was
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  Speaker 1: on a path to recovery here, instead the medical team
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  Speaker 1: literally ran out of her room back out to the
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  Speaker 1: front of the er because by this point the Sunshine
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  Speaker 1: hospital er was overflowing with patients. There were all these
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  Speaker 1: people in the waiting room and also outside, and basically
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  Speaker 1: everybody had the same symptoms as Jody. They couldn't breathe.
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  Speaker 1: There were people slumped on the ground against the wall
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  Speaker 1: screaming for help. I mean, the medical team was totally overwhelmed.
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  Speaker 1: And on top of that, there were ambulances literally lined
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  Speaker 1: up around the block waiting to drop off patients. There
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  Speaker 1: just wasn't any more space. But nonetheless, doctors and nurses
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  Speaker 1: and the medical team at the hospital worked furiously, moving
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  Speaker 1: from one patient to the next. Sometime in an exam room,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes out in the waiting room, sometimes outside. It's wherever
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  Speaker 1: the patients were. But the weird thing was is all
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  Speaker 1: these people they had the same symptoms, these severe asthma attacks.
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  Speaker 1: Yet many of the people that were showing up had
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  Speaker 1: never had asthma in their lives before. So how was
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  Speaker 1: this happening? This went on for hours and hours, and
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  Speaker 1: really the situation in the hospital only continued to get worse,
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  Speaker 1: with more and more and more patients showing up with
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  Speaker 1: worse and worse symptoms. And so during this madness, Jody,
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  Speaker 1: who really hadn't gotten better, she just stabilized. She actually
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  Speaker 1: was moved out of the emergency room and over to
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  Speaker 1: the ICU pretty much just to create one more space
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  Speaker 1: for new patients. And so in the ICU, Jody's fiance
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  Speaker 1: sat next to her, gripping her hand, listening to the
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  Speaker 1: sound of the monitors beeping steadily all around her. Outside
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  Speaker 1: the room, he could see doctors and nurses and medical
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  Speaker 1: staff sprinting up and down the hallways, looking frantic and worried.
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  Speaker 1: He had no idea what was happening here. He just
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  Speaker 1: hoped Jody would be okay, but it would turn out
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  Speaker 1: there actually was someone who knew exactly what was going on.
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  Speaker 1: A university researcher named Philip Taylor had actually predicted this
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  Speaker 1: the day before. Professor Taylor was an expert in atmospheric allergens,
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  Speaker 1: a field so niche that barely anybody outside of his
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  Speaker 1: small research circle had even heard of it, and so
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  Speaker 1: on the afternoon of November twentieth, the day before, Taylor
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  Speaker 1: had been at home in his office analyzing data when
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  Speaker 1: he noticed something very alarming. All of the ingredients for
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  Speaker 1: a catastrophic event were aligning in the forecast, and the
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  Speaker 1: patterns were so precise that it stopped him cold. Taylor
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  Speaker 1: was stunned. He'd spent years studying the effects of weather
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  Speaker 1: on public health, but he'd never seen anything like this before.
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  Speaker 1: And at the same time, Taylor also realized that as
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  Speaker 1: alarming as this was, very few other people, if anybody,
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  Speaker 1: would see this as a problem. He was like the
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  Speaker 1: one person in the world that had the expertise to
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  Speaker 1: see how catastrophic this might actually be, and so desperate
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  Speaker 1: to warn others, he wound up posting a very urgent
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  Speaker 1: announcement on this weather website that he managed, but unfortunately
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  Speaker 1: it just wasn't seen by enough people in time, and
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  Speaker 1: so now, as hospitals all across Melbourne overflowed with people
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  Speaker 1: gasping for air, Taylor sat in his backyard watching the
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  Speaker 1: storm unfold. The sky was pitch black, rain and hail
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  Speaker 1: was coming down, The wind was whipping and oft in
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  Speaker 1: the distance. All he could hear was thunder and sirens,
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  Speaker 1: and he knew, unfortunately, his prediction had been right, just
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  Speaker 1: like Professor Taylor's weather models had predicted. On November twenty first,
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Melbourne, Australia, was hit by an extremely rare
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  Speaker 1: event known as thunderstorm asthma. This deadly phenomenon can only
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  Speaker 1: occur when three very specific weather conditions align. One high
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  Speaker 1: heat during the day, two a very powerful thunderstorm, and
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  Speaker 1: three extremely high pollen levels. Melbourne's heat that day had
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  Speaker 1: caused unusually high concentrations of ryegrass pollen to hang in
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  Speaker 1: the air, and then when that huge thunderstorm in the
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  Speaker 1: intense humidity, the wind and the rain shattered the pollen
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  Speaker 1: grains into microscopic fragments. And then these tiny particles, which
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  Speaker 1: were way smaller than regular pollen, were carried by this
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  Speaker 1: storm deep into people's homes and into their lungs. Unlike
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  Speaker 1: normal pollen, these microscopic fragments bypassed the body's typical defenses
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  Speaker 1: and embedded themselves deep into people's lungs, causing severe and
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  Speaker 1: sudden asthma attacks. Now for people who already had asthma,
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  Speaker 1: this was catastrophic, but even perfectly healthy people found themselves
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  Speaker 1: gasping for air, overwhelmed by the sheer density of this
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  Speaker 1: microscopic pollen. The storm had essentially made the air everybody
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  Speaker 1: in Melbourne was breathing deadly. As for Jodie Santorro, she
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  Speaker 1: would spend days in the ICU hooked up to monitors
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  Speaker 1: with machines pumping oxygen into her lungs while her body
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  Speaker 1: fought to heal.
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  Speaker 2: But she was lucky.
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  Speaker 1: She would eventually recover, and in the days that followed
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  Speaker 1: she would learn the full scale of what actually happened
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  Speaker 1: in Melbourn. Nearly ten thousand people had flooded the hospitals
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  Speaker 1: across Australia complaining of the same symptoms that Jody did,
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  Speaker 1: and unfortunately, of those ten thousand, ten people actually lost
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  Speaker 1: their lives, and many of them were totally healthy and
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  Speaker 1: had never had an asthma attack. In their lives before.
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  Speaker 1: For Jody, despite surviving this ordeal, the awful memory of
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  Speaker 1: what happened on that night will forever be on her mind.
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  Speaker 1: She is now all too aware of how fragile life
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  Speaker 1: can be and how quickly things can change. I'm going
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to play you a clip from my other podcast, Mister
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Ballin's Medical Mysteries after you're done listening to it. Be
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: sure to check out Mister Ballin's Medical Mysteries on any
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: podcast platform. Give it a follow, new episodes every Tuesday.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Enjoy.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Early in July of nineteen eighty two, a corrections officer
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: made his rounds at a jail in San Jose, California.
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  Speaker 1: Everything seemed normal as he inspected each in made cell,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: but as the guard appeered into the last cell on
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  Speaker 1: the row, he was startled by.
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  Speaker 2: What he saw. The inmate was sitting on his bunk,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: staring forward, his mouth hanging open. He looked completely frozen,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: almost like something out of a wax museum. The guard
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: gave the cell door a few loud knocks with a splashlight,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: but the inmate didn't move or even blink. The guard
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: was afraid that the inmate was dead, so he unlocked
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the door and stepped into the cell and he got
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: right up next to the inmate, and when he did,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: he could feel breath coming from the man's open mouth,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: so he knew he was alive. He gently touched the
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: inmate to try to get him to react, but he didn't,
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  Speaker 2: and that gentle tap made the man's whole body rock
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: back and forth on the bunk like a rocking chair.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: The guy was stiff as a board. The guard had
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: no idea what was going on, and he was feeling
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: very freaked out. But then he noticed the inmate's eyes.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: They had a look of absolute terror in them, and
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the guard knew this man needed help right now.