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Transcript

They were awake the WHOLE TIME · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you two stories about people
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Speaker 1: who basically unknowingly risked everything just to travel to their
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Speaker 1: dream locations, and they didn't realize they were in danger
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Speaker 1: until it was already too late. But before we get
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Speaker 1: into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
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Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
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Speaker 1: a luxurious trip to Paris, but don't tell them you're
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Speaker 1: any of our uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories.
1:00
Speaker 1: On the morning of Monday, January seventh, nineteen eighty five,
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Speaker 1: a thirty one year old man arrived at an international
1:07
Speaker 1: airport in order to board his flight to the United States.
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Speaker 1: The man was very nervous. His heart was beating fast
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Speaker 1: and his palms were sweating so much that he could
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Speaker 1: barely hold the handles of his very heavy tan colored suitcase.
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Speaker 1: And the reason he was so nervous is because he
1:21
Speaker 1: was feeling very conflicted about.
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Speaker 2: What he was about to do.
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Speaker 1: On the one hand, this trip was something he'd been
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Speaker 1: dreaming of for months, and it was supposed to represent
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Speaker 1: the start of a great, brand new life. Now, this
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Speaker 1: man hadn't actually packed very many personal items to take
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Speaker 1: with him, but one thing he had brought was a
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Speaker 1: little bound book full of photographs which showed what mattered
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Speaker 1: the most to him, and what mattered the most was
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Speaker 1: waiting for him in America. But on the other hand,
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Speaker 1: the man was terrified because before he could begin this
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Speaker 1: brand new life, he had a huge problem he needed
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Speaker 1: to take care of, and that problem was why he
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Speaker 1: needed to drop off his very heavy suitcase without anybody
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Speaker 1: looking inside of it. Now inside the airport, the very
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Speaker 1: nervous man stopped and readjusted his grip on the suitcase handles,
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Speaker 1: and then made his way over to the ticketing area,
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Speaker 1: where he would check his bag for his almost eleven
2:11
Speaker 1: hour flight to California. And then, you know, once he
2:13
Speaker 1: touched down and they landed in California, he could get
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Speaker 1: off the plane, go to the baggage carousel and get
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Speaker 1: his luggage and then everything would be fine. Now, of course,
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Speaker 1: he knew this was a big gamble. If it had
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Speaker 1: been possible, he would have just brought this bag with
2:27
Speaker 1: him on the plane to stow it in the overhead bin.
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Speaker 1: But he just couldn't do it because the bag was
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Speaker 1: too big, too heavy, and so really his only other
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Speaker 1: choice if he wanted the suitcase to make it to
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Speaker 1: California was to check it like he was doing, because
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Speaker 1: the alternative was leaving it behind, and there was no
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Speaker 1: way he was going to do that. He cared far
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Speaker 1: too much about what was inside of this luggage, and
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Speaker 1: so by the time the man actually got in line
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Speaker 1: in the ticketing and baggage check area, he was so
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Speaker 1: stressed out that he was beginning to feel physically ill.
2:56
Speaker 1: By the time he got to the front of the line,
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Speaker 1: he still felt very sick, but he composed himself enough
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Speaker 1: that he walked up to the counter of the airline
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Speaker 1: he was traveling with, which was Luftansa airline, and the
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Speaker 1: employee who was working behind the counter was very cheerful
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Speaker 1: and they greeted the man and took his passport to
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Speaker 1: verify his information. Then the employee put down the passport
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Speaker 1: and then reached out his hand and gestured for the
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Speaker 1: nervous man to give him his very important suitcase. This was,
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Speaker 1: of course, the moment the man had feared the most,
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Speaker 1: you know, when everything could really go astray. But as
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Speaker 1: calm as he could, he lifted up the suitcase, and
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Speaker 1: for a second he almost panicked because it was just
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Speaker 1: so obviously heavy.
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Speaker 2: He realized the employee might make.
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Speaker 1: Him open it right there, because it just seemed wrong
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Speaker 1: that this suitcase was that heavy, and he knew if
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Speaker 1: that happened, he was done for.
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Speaker 2: He'd be arrested immediately.
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Speaker 1: But instead, the employee just dragged the heavy suitcase over
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Speaker 1: to a conveyor belt behind the counter, and the nervous
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Speaker 1: man watched as the employee heaved the suitcase onto the belt,
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Speaker 1: and the man kept his eyes locked on the suitcase
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Speaker 1: as it rolled down the belt and then disappeared through
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Speaker 1: a pair of rubber flaps at the very end. He
4:00
Speaker 1: was so focused on the bag he almost didn't notice
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Speaker 1: the airline employee returning to try to hand him his
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Speaker 1: boarding pass for the plane. Finally, the employee literally just
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Speaker 1: waved the ticket in the man's face to get his
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Speaker 1: attention and kind of snapped him out of it, and
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Speaker 1: he took the boarding pass and as calmly as he could,
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Speaker 1: he thanked the employee and then he turned and hurried
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Speaker 1: off to catch his flight. About twelve hours later, on
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Speaker 1: the other side of the world, another employee of Lutanza
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Speaker 1: Airlines walked around the baggage claim area at Los Angeles
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Speaker 1: International Airport, which is typically just called LAX. It was
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Speaker 1: about two pm Los Angeles time, and the employee was
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Speaker 1: working in the International terminal. It was his job to
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Speaker 1: monitor these circular carousels where passengers picked up their luggage
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Speaker 1: after their flights, and his job was to make sure
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Speaker 1: no bags were left behind. And as he was making
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Speaker 1: one of these loops, he noticed there was a tan
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Speaker 1: colored suitcase with soft sides sitting all alone on one
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Speaker 1: of the carousels. The employee stopped and checked the monitor
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Speaker 1: above the carousel to see the last time this ca
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Speaker 1: rossel had been used by an incoming plane, and it
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Speaker 1: was quite a while ago, and all the passengers clearly
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Speaker 1: had come through and picked up their luggage except for this.
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Speaker 2: One loan bag.
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Speaker 1: So based on the timing, the employee figured that well,
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Speaker 1: this bag must be unclaimed. But this was not remotely
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Speaker 1: concerning to him. I mean, luggage went unclaimed all the time,
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Speaker 1: sometimes because bags were sent to the wrong airport, or
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Speaker 1: because the suitcase's owner missed their.
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Speaker 2: Flight, or even just forgot to get it.
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Speaker 1: But whatever the reason was, it was this employee's job
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Speaker 1: to simply start the process of identifying the owner.
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Speaker 2: Of the suitcase.
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Speaker 1: So, like he always did, he walked over to the
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Speaker 1: carousel and grabbed the suitcase handle.
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Speaker 2: And went to pick it up.
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Speaker 1: But when he did, he let out a sort of
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Speaker 1: surprised grunt and stumbled because the suitcase was so much
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Speaker 1: heavier than he had expected. So he went back and
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Speaker 1: he grabbed the handle with a better grip, this time
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Speaker 1: with two hands, and braced himself and yanked, and the
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Speaker 1: suitcase kind of toppled over and fell off the carousel
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Speaker 1: onto the floor. And this was also around the time
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Speaker 1: that the employee noticed that this really heavy suitcase had
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Speaker 1: no tags on it. And so now this bag did
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Speaker 1: seem very unusual, the extreme weight and no tags, like,
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Speaker 1: that's not normal. So he knelt down and he began
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Speaker 1: to unzip the suitcase to see what was inside. He
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Speaker 1: was legally allowed to do this because unclaimed bags at
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Speaker 1: airports are subject to search, but he had only unzipped
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Speaker 1: it a little bit before he froze, and for a
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Speaker 1: second he just stared in shock at what was inside
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Speaker 1: of the suitcase. But then he immediately got to his feet,
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Speaker 1: just left the bag there, and ran to go find
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Speaker 1: a phone to call the police. A little less than
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Speaker 1: two hours later, around three forty five pm, Detective Don
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Speaker 1: Ravens of the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division stood
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Speaker 1: in the baggage area of LAX's International Terminal, looking down
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Speaker 1: grimly into the tan suitcase that was lying open on
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Speaker 1: the floor. He was surrounded by officials from the.
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Speaker 2: LAPD as well as the FBI, who had.
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Speaker 1: All been called to the airport because of what was
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Speaker 1: found inside of the suitcase, the dead body of a
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Speaker 1: young woman. Detective Ravens was shocked. He guessed this woman
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Speaker 1: was maybe less than thirty years old, and judging by
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Speaker 1: her features and dark hair, he thought she could be
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Speaker 1: from an Asian or Latin American country, but that was
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Speaker 1: about as far as he could get since she didn't
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Speaker 1: have any identification with her and there were no tags
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Speaker 1: on the bag. There were also no obvious wounds on
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Speaker 1: her body, so he couldn't immediately tell how she died.
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Speaker 1: Ravens spent some time speaking to airline and airport employees,
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Speaker 1: including Customs, which is the government agency that's in charge
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Speaker 1: of inspecting bags that are coming in and out of
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Speaker 1: the country, and he was puzzled as to how a
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Speaker 1: suitcase with a body inside of it had somehow cleared Customs,
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Speaker 1: But an agent explained that they didn't actually open up
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Speaker 1: all the suitcases, which meant whoever checked this bag through
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Speaker 1: Customs had taken a huge risk, because realistically they could
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Speaker 1: have been searched and then the body would have been found.
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Speaker 1: So this suggested a certain level of desperation. But apparently
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Speaker 1: this risk this person took to check the bag had
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Speaker 1: paid off because the bag had gone all the way
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Speaker 1: to California. But despite that, you know, Ravens didn't find
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Speaker 1: much to go on here at this moment. The victim
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Speaker 1: was a Jane Doe, which meant there was no identification
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Speaker 1: for her, and Ravens knew she could really be from
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Speaker 1: anywhere in the world, despite you know, his snap judgment
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Speaker 1: that perhaps she was from an Asian or Latin American country,
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Speaker 1: and because lax was an international airport, you know, whoever
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Speaker 1: checked this bag and potentially even put her into the
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Speaker 1: suitcase could now be anywhere in the world too. Once
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Speaker 1: Detective Ravens and the other investigators had finished examining the
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Speaker 1: body as it was found inside of the suitcase, they
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Speaker 1: didn't actually pull her body out. They sent the suitcase
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Speaker 1: and her body to the corner, hopefully an autopsy would
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Speaker 1: turn up evidence that could tell Ravens and the other
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Speaker 1: investigators who this Jaine Doe was and what happened to her.
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Speaker 1: The following day, on Tuesday, Ravens sat down at his
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Speaker 1: desk and he opened up a middle a folder he
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Speaker 1: had been given. Inside of it was his indo's autopsy report,
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Speaker 1: and when the detective began reading it, he couldn't help
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Speaker 1: but feel sick because what he was reading told him
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Speaker 1: that this poor woman had died a horrible, torturous death.
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Speaker 1: The report said the woman had bruises all over her body,
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Speaker 1: like the kind you would get from repeated heavy blows
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Speaker 1: delivered over a period of at least several hours while
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Speaker 1: she was still alive, and her actual eventual cause of
9:23
Speaker 1: death was ultimately suffocation, which meant she either was suffocated
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Speaker 1: and then put into the suitcase or was in the
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Speaker 1: suitcase trapped inside of there and suffocated. Ravens put down
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Speaker 1: the report and leaned back in his chair and just
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Speaker 1: sort of thought through what he had just learned. Based
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Speaker 1: on the autopsy, he now knew this poor woman had
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Speaker 1: died a brutal, awful death, but the corner had not
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Speaker 1: found any identifying information or anything on her that would
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Speaker 1: give away or help to give away who she actually
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Speaker 1: was or who did this to her, So really he
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Speaker 1: had very little here other than knowing this lady suffered.
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Speaker 1: Ravens had spent the last twenty four hours pouring over
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Speaker 1: all the surveillance footage from the airport's security cameras looking
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Speaker 1: for any suspicious passengers leaving without any luggage, but nothing
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Speaker 1: had jumped out at him. He had also interviewed a
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Speaker 1: bunch of airport employees who would have been in the
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Speaker 1: baggage claim area on the day the body was found,
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Speaker 1: but none of them had noticed anything strange either, And
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Speaker 1: so despite it only having been one day since this
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Speaker 1: woman was found, Ravens was already worried that this case
10:27
Speaker 1: was going to go cold. But what Ravens had not
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Speaker 1: counted on was the huge amount of publicity his Jane
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Speaker 1: Doe would generate. The TV news as well as the
10:36
Speaker 1: newspapers were reporting feverishly on the body that was found
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Speaker 1: in the lax suitcase, and by Wednesday, so forty eight
10:43
Speaker 1: hours after the body was found, the reporting had made
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Speaker 1: it all the way to Peru, where a man named
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Speaker 1: Juan Espinoza contacted authorities to report that the body might
10:53
Speaker 1: actually belong to his wife. Officials in Peru called the
10:56
Speaker 1: LAPD and One's report ended up on raven Ravens opened
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Speaker 1: up that report and began reading. One and his wife
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Speaker 1: lived in Peru's capital city of Lima, but his wife
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Speaker 1: had been trying to leave Peru to escape poverty. She
11:10
Speaker 1: had left their home hoping to basically sneak into the
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Speaker 1: United States so she could get a job there and
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Speaker 1: then send money back to her.
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Speaker 2: Family in Peru.
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Speaker 1: She had promised Juan that she would contact him when
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Speaker 1: she arrived in America, but after she left, One said
11:24
Speaker 1: he never heard from her. This report felt like a
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Speaker 1: promising lead to Ravens.
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Speaker 2: One and his.
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Speaker 1: Wife checked a lot of boxes, especially because you know Ravens,
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Speaker 1: Jane Doe had features that indicated she could be from
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Speaker 1: a South American country like Peru, and so Ravens wondered
11:39
Speaker 1: if Juan's wife had tried to get into America by
11:42
Speaker 1: using a human smuggler, which is someone who transports immigrants
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Speaker 1: across borders illegally. Human smuggling was obviously an unregulated industry,
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Speaker 1: and Ravens knew smugglers could be very violent or reckless
11:54
Speaker 1: and the people they were transporting often had no protection,
11:58
Speaker 1: meaning sometimes when people would go to these smugglers to
12:01
Speaker 1: try to get help to go to these other countries,
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Speaker 1: sometimes the smuggler wouldn't help them. They would just rob
12:08
Speaker 1: them or in some cases rob them and then kill
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Speaker 1: them and dispose of their body. And unfortunately, again because
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Speaker 1: there's no regulation or oversight, a lot of times these
12:17
Speaker 1: horrible crimes would just go unnoticed. And so maybe if
12:20
Speaker 1: that's what had happened to Ravens Jane Do, it would
12:23
Speaker 1: explain why the tags were ripped off the suitcase. The
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Speaker 1: smuggler who committed this crime would not have wanted to
12:29
Speaker 1: leave any id on or around the body that could
12:32
Speaker 1: be traced back to them, And so Ravens picked up
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Speaker 1: his phone to call the Lax Airport operations manager to
12:38
Speaker 1: see if he could get the logs for any flights
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Speaker 1: coming from Peru to lax on the day the body
12:43
Speaker 1: was found, and that was when he discovered there was
12:45
Speaker 1: a big problem with this theory because there were no
12:48
Speaker 1: flights from Peru. The only flights that day that used
12:51
Speaker 1: the luggage carousel where the body was found were from Korea, Japan,
12:55
Speaker 1: and Germany, and there weren't any flights that originated in
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Speaker 1: Peru that had layo in those countries either, which meant
13:02
Speaker 1: it just wasn't possible that his Jane Doe was Jan's wife.
13:06
Speaker 1: And so now Ravens was stumped all over again. He
13:09
Speaker 1: had almost no evidence to go on. All he really
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Speaker 1: had was the suitcase and the body, and the actual
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Speaker 1: crime scene itself was maybe somewhere in Korea or Japan
13:18
Speaker 1: or Germany, and so Ravens really didn't have a good
13:20
Speaker 1: idea of where he should begin looking for more evidence.
13:23
Speaker 1: But then he got an idea. Detective Ravens got up
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Speaker 1: from his desk and headed straight to the evidence room.
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Speaker 1: He put on a pair of disposable gloves and he
13:31
Speaker 1: found the box that contained evidence from Jane Doe's case
13:34
Speaker 1: and he opened it up and there really wasn't much.
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Speaker 1: All that was in there were you know, pieces of
13:38
Speaker 1: jewelry and some clothing that were found on the woman's body,
13:41
Speaker 1: and all of it had already been examined for trace
13:43
Speaker 1: evidence like blood or hair. However, blood and hair were
13:47
Speaker 1: not what Ravens was looking for. One at a time,
13:49
Speaker 1: he lifted out each of the sealed plastic bags that
13:52
Speaker 1: contained Jane Doe's belongings until he got to her blue sweater.
13:56
Speaker 1: He took the sweater out of the plastic and he
13:58
Speaker 1: turned it over in his hands and then checked inside
14:01
Speaker 1: the neckband, and there he found exactly what he was
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Speaker 1: looking for. Immediately, he felt a rush of adrenaline. He
14:07
Speaker 1: was onto something here, and so he reached back into
14:10
Speaker 1: the box and he grabbed another plastic bag with a
14:12
Speaker 1: pair of gray pants in it, and he did the
14:14
Speaker 1: same thing.
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Speaker 2: He looked at the waistband.
14:16
Speaker 1: Then he opened the third bag and he checked inside
14:18
Speaker 1: of her blouse, and each time his hunch had been right.
14:21
Speaker 1: Jane Doe's clothing had labels sewn into them, and the
14:24
Speaker 1: labels were clearly written in some language that was not English.
14:29
Speaker 1: Ravens wasn't sure, but to him he thought maybe the
14:31
Speaker 1: letters looked Middle Eastern. It didn't take long for the
14:34
Speaker 1: FBI to help Ravens and the LAPD identify the origin
14:37
Speaker 1: of Jane Doe's clothing. All of it had been made
14:40
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, in Iran.
14:42
Speaker 2: This meant that.
14:43
Speaker 1: Finally Detective Ravens had a likely country of origin for
14:46
Speaker 1: his Jane Doe. But he also had another problem.
14:48
Speaker 2: Now.
14:49
Speaker 1: Really he had the same problem he'd had when he
14:51
Speaker 1: thought his victim was from Peru, and that was that
14:53
Speaker 1: there were only three international flights that as Jane Doe
14:56
Speaker 1: could have been on, and none of them originated in Iran.
15:00
Speaker 1: There were no connecting flights from Iran that day either,
15:02
Speaker 1: and so Ravens needed the public's help. On Thursday, so,
15:05
Speaker 1: three days after the body was found, he and another
15:08
Speaker 1: detective sat down with a reporter from the city's newspaper,
15:11
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Times, a publication that's read.
15:13
Speaker 2: All over the world.
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Speaker 1: And raven and this other detective's goal was, you know,
15:17
Speaker 1: to give as many updates as they could about the case,
15:20
Speaker 1: you know, hoping that somebody somewhere would read the story,
15:23
Speaker 1: recognize the detail, and come forward. However, that's not really
15:27
Speaker 1: how the interview played out. By the end of it,
15:29
Speaker 1: Ravens was feeling pretty discouraged by all the questions he
15:32
Speaker 1: and his partner just couldn't answer. In fact, the last
15:35
Speaker 1: thing he said to the reporter, which ended up getting
15:37
Speaker 1: printed as the sort of last line of the story,
15:39
Speaker 1: the lasting impression, if you will, was don't be too
15:43
Speaker 1: surprised if you never find out.
15:44
Speaker 2: Where she came from or who she is.
15:47
Speaker 1: The next morning, Detective Ravens got to his office and
15:50
Speaker 1: had barely.
15:50
Speaker 2: Taken off his coat when his phone rang.
15:53
Speaker 1: A police officer from Sacramento, California was on the other line,
15:56
Speaker 1: and he sounded all worked up. He told Ravens that
15:59
Speaker 1: he knew that, you know, the LA investigators had been
16:01
Speaker 1: working on the Airport Jane Doe case, and even though
16:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't going anywhere, he knew it was a big
16:06
Speaker 1: deal for them. But he told Ravens that he actually
16:09
Speaker 1: had this unbelievable development in northern California that was connected
16:14
Speaker 1: to the Airport Jane Doe case. He said, authorities in
16:17
Speaker 1: Northern California had just found another body. But when Ravens
16:21
Speaker 1: heard this, his first reaction was not excitement that there
16:24
Speaker 1: was new evidence or something.
16:26
Speaker 2: It was confusion. He didn't need another body.
16:28
Speaker 1: He needed to find his Jane Doe's name, and so
16:31
Speaker 1: he asked the Sacramento officer. You know what he meant,
16:34
Speaker 1: had they found another woman in another suitcase or something?
16:36
Speaker 1: But the Sacramento officer said no, the body belonged to
16:39
Speaker 1: a man, and this guy's name had never even been
16:42
Speaker 1: on police radar. He had died from a gunshot wound,
16:44
Speaker 1: you know, four hundred miles away from Ravens Jane Doe.
16:48
Speaker 1: But the officer said that the story they had uncovered
16:52
Speaker 1: behind this new body would likely solve Raven's Jane Doe case.
16:58
Speaker 1: This is the story that the Sacramento officer told Ravens.
17:02
Speaker 1: On the evening of Monday, January seventh, just a few
17:05
Speaker 1: hours after Jane Doe's body had been found at Lax,
17:08
Speaker 1: a man named Hadi had picked up his friend and roommate,
17:11
Speaker 1: a thirty one year old man.
17:12
Speaker 2: Named Mahmoud Ayazi, at.
17:14
Speaker 1: The Sacramento Airport, which is about four hundred miles north
17:17
Speaker 1: of Lax.
17:18
Speaker 2: Hadi was excited to see Mahmoud, who had been away
17:21
Speaker 2: for a few weeks.
17:22
Speaker 1: They were good friends and Mahmoud was always very optimistic
17:25
Speaker 1: and fun to be around. But on this day, when
17:27
Speaker 1: Mahmoud got in his car. Haidi immediately noticed that his
17:31
Speaker 1: friends seemed sullen and quiet and just very clearly upset
17:35
Speaker 1: about something, and so Hadi asked him what was wrong,
17:38
Speaker 1: and Mahmud just said, oh, I'm sick with the flu.
17:41
Speaker 2: But to Hadi, Mahmoud did not look very sick.
17:45
Speaker 1: He looked worried and kind of jittery and nervous, and
17:48
Speaker 1: as they started to drive, he kept looking out the
17:50
Speaker 1: windows and out the back of the car, like he
17:52
Speaker 1: was nervous about somebody following them or something. And when
17:55
Speaker 1: they got back to their apartment, Mahmoud went straight to bed,
17:58
Speaker 1: and for the next two days, Mahmod continued acting increasingly
18:02
Speaker 1: weird and paranoid. He asked Hadi to disconnect the phone
18:05
Speaker 1: in their apartment and said he didn't want to see
18:07
Speaker 1: any of their mutual friends. He also kept looking out
18:10
Speaker 1: the windows of their apartment, but whenever Hati asked what
18:13
Speaker 1: was wrong, Mahmoud refused to explain. Then, sometime before six
18:16
Speaker 1: am on Thursday morning, so now three days after Hadi
18:20
Speaker 1: picked Mahmoud up from the airport, Hati woke up to
18:22
Speaker 1: the sound of the front door of his apartment opening,
18:24
Speaker 1: and then shutting, so it felt way too early for
18:27
Speaker 1: Hadi or Mahmoud to be up, and they also lived
18:30
Speaker 1: in a city where break ins were, unfortunately not uncommon,
18:33
Speaker 1: so the sound of the door opening was enough for
18:36
Speaker 1: Hadi to get out of bed and go make sure
18:38
Speaker 1: everything was okay. But when he got to the door,
18:40
Speaker 1: he did not find an intruder or something. He found
18:43
Speaker 1: Mahmood in the process of leaving the apartment. Hadi asked
18:47
Speaker 1: his friend, you know where you're going, but Mahmoud just
18:49
Speaker 1: shook his head and said he was simply going out,
18:52
Speaker 1: and so there was really nothing hat he could do.
18:53
Speaker 1: I mean, he couldn't stop mah Mood from going out.
18:56
Speaker 1: So he watched his friend leave and then Hadi went
18:59
Speaker 1: back to be but as he was in bed, he
19:01
Speaker 1: had this sick feeling in his stomach that something bad
19:05
Speaker 1: was about to happen. About two hours later, somebody called
19:09
Speaker 1: the Sacramento Police Department to report finding a dead body
19:13
Speaker 1: in the driver's seat of a car in a parking lot.
19:15
Speaker 1: The dead man had clearly died from a self inflicted
19:18
Speaker 1: gunshot wound, and on the passenger seat next to the
19:20
Speaker 1: body were two Iranian passports and one Luftanza Airline's plane ticket.
19:26
Speaker 1: When the Sacramento police officer finished telling Detective Ravens the story,
19:31
Speaker 1: he said he believed that one of the passports that
19:33
Speaker 1: were found in the car with the body belonged to
19:36
Speaker 1: ravens Jane Doe. He said he would send it over
19:38
Speaker 1: that afternoon by courier so Ravens could make a positive ID,
19:41
Speaker 1: and when the passport did arrive, Ravens was able to
19:44
Speaker 1: finally give his Jane Doe her name back. She was
19:47
Speaker 1: a twenty year old Iranian woman named Katan Safawi, and
19:52
Speaker 1: after investigators searched Muffmood's apartment, they would find another piece
19:57
Speaker 1: of evidence that would actually explain why Katan Safawi had
20:01
Speaker 1: ended up beaten and pummeled and asphyxiated to death in
20:05
Speaker 1: an abandoned Tan suitcase in Lax. The evidence was a
20:08
Speaker 1: little bound book and it was full of photographs. Back
20:12
Speaker 1: on January seventh, nineteen eighty five, Mahmoud very nervously dropped
20:16
Speaker 1: off the Tan suitcase that contained Katan at the International
20:21
Speaker 1: Airport and then boarded a Luftanza flight to Lax. He
20:24
Speaker 1: was traveling from Frankfurt, Germany, one of the three cities
20:27
Speaker 1: that had flights into Lax that day that specifically used
20:31
Speaker 1: the carousel where the body was found. But Mahmoud's trip
20:34
Speaker 1: had not started in Frankfurt. It had started in a run,
20:37
Speaker 1: but his travel plans had gotten all messed up and
20:40
Speaker 1: he'd gotten stuck in Germany for several days, and so
20:43
Speaker 1: this was him finally getting out. But he was insanely
20:46
Speaker 1: nervous about this leg of the trip because of what
20:49
Speaker 1: was in his suitcase. He had expected to feel much
20:52
Speaker 1: less worried once he had successfully checked the suitcase and
20:55
Speaker 1: got his ticket and boarded his flight, But when he
20:58
Speaker 1: did all that, and when his plane took off, Mahmud
21:01
Speaker 1: only got more and more anxious. Every time the plane
21:04
Speaker 1: had even the tiniest amount of turbulence, he wanted to
21:07
Speaker 1: scream from the anxiety. But finally the flight landed at Lax,
21:12
Speaker 1: and as soon as it touched down, Mahmud got off
21:14
Speaker 1: as fast as he could and practically sprinted to the
21:17
Speaker 1: baggage carousel where he would pick up his suitcase and
21:20
Speaker 1: then board another flight to Sacramento. But when he got
21:24
Speaker 1: to baggage claim and he picked up his suitcase, he
21:27
Speaker 1: knew immediately something was wrong. With a shaking hand, he
21:30
Speaker 1: unzipped the suitcase, and when he looked inside, he felt
21:34
Speaker 1: a wave of grief and horror that was so powerful
21:38
Speaker 1: he almost fainted right there. Because the trip that Mahmoud
21:41
Speaker 1: had been dreaming of for months that he was returning
21:43
Speaker 1: home from now was a journey to his home country
21:47
Speaker 1: of Iran to get married to the woman he loved, Katan,
21:52
Speaker 1: And now inside the suitcase was the dead body of
21:56
Speaker 1: his new wife, Katan, whom Mahmoud had been trying to
21:59
Speaker 1: smuggle into a mat to start their new life together.
22:01
Speaker 1: Katan had run into issues with her visa and Frankfurt
22:05
Speaker 1: and officials wouldn't let her board the plane to America,
22:07
Speaker 1: and so Katan and Mahmud tried for days to fix
22:10
Speaker 1: this problem, but it became clear that only Mahmoud would
22:14
Speaker 1: be able to actually enter the United States, not Katan,
22:17
Speaker 1: and so ultimately Katan willingly got into that suitcase. Mahmoud
22:23
Speaker 1: had not murdered her, or at least not intentionally, so
22:26
Speaker 1: she hadn't been trafficked or anything. She chose to get
22:29
Speaker 1: in that suitcase together, they decided that they would smuggle
22:33
Speaker 1: her in the cargo hold of the plane and that's
22:37
Speaker 1: how they would get her to the United States. But
22:40
Speaker 1: during the flight, when she had boarded, she had been
22:42
Speaker 1: totally alive. When she was in the cargo hold, other
22:46
Speaker 1: luggage had fallen and piled on top of her and
22:49
Speaker 1: slowly crushed her to death. And so when Mahmoud got
22:52
Speaker 1: to Lax and opened up the suitcase and saw what
22:55
Speaker 1: had happened, he panicked. He pulled the tags off the
22:59
Speaker 1: suitcase and left the suitcase and just got on his
23:02
Speaker 1: flight to Sacramento. And then once he landed there, he
23:05
Speaker 1: was so overcome with guilt and grief that three days
23:08
Speaker 1: later he took his own life. When police searched Mahmud's room,
23:14
Speaker 1: they found the little bound book full of photographs that
23:17
Speaker 1: he had so carefully packed for his trip to America,
23:19
Speaker 1: and those photos were of his and Katan's wedding. The
23:23
Speaker 1: following week, Mahmud and Katan's bodies were sent back to
23:26
Speaker 1: Iran via the same route they had taken to get
23:29
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, but this time they traveled together. On
23:51
Speaker 1: the morning of December eleventh, nineteen sixty, a twenty seven
23:54
Speaker 1: year old man named Leonid Rogasov stood on the deck
23:57
Speaker 1: of a Soviet ship that was sailing across a freezing
24:00
Speaker 1: ocean at the very bottom of the world.
24:02
Speaker 2: Up ahead, finally.
24:04
Speaker 1: He could see the enormous, desolate, white land mass of Antarctica,
24:09
Speaker 1: a continent that was too brutally cold for human civilization
24:13
Speaker 1: to last at scale. Basically nobody lived there except for
24:18
Speaker 1: like a handful of scientists and other people who were
24:21
Speaker 1: researching the area like Leonid. Antarctica was about to be
24:25
Speaker 1: Leonid's home for the next year and a half. And
24:28
Speaker 1: Leonette looked around him on the deck of the ship
24:31
Speaker 1: at the other eleven men who made up his team,
24:34
Speaker 1: and he smiled. They were all part of what was
24:36
Speaker 1: called the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition, and they'd been sailing
24:40
Speaker 1: for thirty six days all the way from Leningrad, Russia
24:43
Speaker 1: to get here. Their job was to get to Antarctica, disembark,
24:47
Speaker 1: and then travel nearly fifty miles inland over brutal terrain,
24:52
Speaker 1: where they would eventually build a brand new scientific research
24:55
Speaker 1: facility from the ground up, and then they would stay
24:58
Speaker 1: there and begin studying the local climate. Leonid and the
25:01
Speaker 1: rest of the men had been chosen for this expedition
25:03
Speaker 1: because they all.
25:04
Speaker 2: Had specific skills.
25:06
Speaker 1: That the team needed. Leonid was a meteorologist and also
25:09
Speaker 1: knew how to drive this special all terrain vehicle that
25:12
Speaker 1: they'd brought on the ship. There were a few other
25:14
Speaker 1: meteorologists on the team, as well as several engineers and
25:17
Speaker 1: other scientists, and also one of the men was a doctor.
25:20
Speaker 1: Their work was part of a larger Cold War era
25:22
Speaker 1: effort by the Soviet government to expand scientific research and knowledge.
25:27
Speaker 1: So Leonid saw this job both as a way of
25:29
Speaker 1: having this big adventure and also as a way of
25:33
Speaker 1: serving his country, and so he ultimately felt proud to
25:35
Speaker 1: be here. But as he was actually looking at the
25:39
Speaker 1: vast emptiness of Antarctica right in front of him for
25:41
Speaker 1: the first time, the reality of the situation they were
25:45
Speaker 1: in began to dawn on him, and he began to
25:48
Speaker 1: feel a jolt of fear. Everything on this expedition had
25:52
Speaker 1: to go exactly right or he and the other men's
25:55
Speaker 1: lives would be in danger. I mean, this is not
25:58
Speaker 1: a safe place for people arriving in a place with
26:01
Speaker 1: literally zero infrastructure, and they only had about two months
26:05
Speaker 1: before the polar winter was going to hit Antarctica, which
26:08
Speaker 1: meant they had to construct the entire research facility and
26:12
Speaker 1: make sure it was polar winter proof in those first
26:16
Speaker 1: two months, because that was their shelter, and just to
26:19
Speaker 1: make the stakes clear, if they didn't get it done
26:21
Speaker 1: in time, or if the structure was flawed in some way,
26:25
Speaker 1: they would almost certainly die. When the polar winter came,
26:27
Speaker 1: temperatures would drop as low as negative one hundred and
26:31
Speaker 1: forty degrees fahrenheit and the ocean would literally freeze solid.
26:35
Speaker 1: The closest help would be about one thousand miles away
26:38
Speaker 1: and could take weeks or even months to arrive, and
26:41
Speaker 1: their only way to contact the outside world was with
26:44
Speaker 1: this long range radio that was not always reliable.
26:47
Speaker 2: So essentially, Leonid and.
26:49
Speaker 1: These eleven other men that made up this expedition they
26:52
Speaker 1: were going to be completely isolated, with nobody to rely
26:56
Speaker 1: on except each other until their scheduled pickup, which was
26:59
Speaker 1: in April nineteen sixty two, again a year and a
27:02
Speaker 1: half later. So now, when their ship docked on the
27:05
Speaker 1: coast of Antarctica and the captain called out for everyone
27:09
Speaker 1: to start unloading the ship, Leonid hesitated, and so did
27:12
Speaker 1: some other men.
27:13
Speaker 2: I mean, this was it, This was the real start.
27:15
Speaker 2: But one at a.
27:16
Speaker 1: Time, they began grabbing their supplies and climbing down a
27:19
Speaker 1: ramp on the side of the ship. Leonid watched his
27:21
Speaker 1: fellow scientists step onto the snow, and as he did,
27:24
Speaker 1: he sort of shook off his own fear as a
27:26
Speaker 1: moment of weakness.
27:27
Speaker 2: Right now he needed to be strong.
27:29
Speaker 1: And ultimately, I mean, Leonid was a very strong willed person.
27:33
Speaker 1: He had been born in a remote village in eastern Siberia,
27:36
Speaker 1: so he knew he could handle the isolation and the
27:39
Speaker 1: extreme cold. He had already done that before. He was
27:41
Speaker 1: also the son of a World War Two veteran who
27:43
Speaker 1: had died in combat, and his father had taught him
27:46
Speaker 1: to soldier on at all costs, even under the toughest circumstances.
27:50
Speaker 2: So right now, that's what Leonid did. He soldiered on.
27:53
Speaker 1: He took a deep breath of the ice cold air,
27:55
Speaker 1: then grabbed his things, walked down the ramp and stepped
27:58
Speaker 1: onto the snow with the others. And once they had
28:00
Speaker 1: everything they had packed for the next sixteen months off
28:03
Speaker 1: the ship. The crew on board the ship still wished
28:06
Speaker 1: all the men good luck, and then they lifted up
28:08
Speaker 1: the ramp and then Leonid and the rest of the
28:10
Speaker 1: team watched as that ship began sailing away, leaving them
28:14
Speaker 1: all alone for the first time. At first, things at
28:19
Speaker 1: the new Antarctic Research Center went pretty well. Lionid and
28:23
Speaker 1: the team successfully built the entire research building in time
28:26
Speaker 1: before the polar winter, so when the worst weather came,
28:29
Speaker 1: they were able to hunker down inside and be safe.
28:32
Speaker 1: They'd also set up a whole bunch of atmospheric measurement
28:35
Speaker 1: tools that allowed them to study the Antarctic climate exactly
28:38
Speaker 1: as they wanted to. So by April, so four months
28:41
Speaker 1: after getting dropped off by that ship, and now only
28:44
Speaker 1: about a month or so into the six month long
28:47
Speaker 1: polar winter, the men for the most part, were really
28:49
Speaker 1: just trying to stay warm, conserve their supplies, and gather data. However,
28:54
Speaker 1: they hit their first real snag on the morning of
28:57
Speaker 1: April twenty ninth. Leonid woke up in his bunk that
28:59
Speaker 1: day with a stomach ache. When Leonid woke up, he
29:02
Speaker 1: had that pain in his stomach, but he also he
29:05
Speaker 1: felt nauseous and so weak that he could barely roll
29:08
Speaker 1: over inside of his bed. And this really concerned Leonid
29:12
Speaker 1: because getting a stomach ache back at home was one
29:14
Speaker 1: thing but getting a stomach ache in Antarctica was totally different.
29:19
Speaker 1: For one, there was a huge blizzard going on outside
29:22
Speaker 1: that was making both land and air travel literally impossible,
29:26
Speaker 1: which meant that even if Leonid radioed for help, nobody
29:30
Speaker 1: would be able to get to him for a very
29:32
Speaker 1: long time. And to make matters even worse, at their
29:35
Speaker 1: research station, they didn't have access to most of the
29:38
Speaker 1: regular medical treatments that would have been available back at home. Basically,
29:42
Speaker 1: if this stomach ache was anything serious, Leonid could die.
29:46
Speaker 1: As a result, Leonid would basically not allow himself to
29:50
Speaker 1: even consider the possibility that this stomach ache was serious.
29:54
Speaker 2: Instead, he told.
29:56
Speaker 1: Himself that, you know, he must have just eaten something weird.
29:59
Speaker 1: They were all living off of rations of preserved food,
30:02
Speaker 1: and so he figured he must have gotten a bad
30:03
Speaker 1: batch of something, and maybe he just had a mild
30:06
Speaker 1: case of food poisoning. So he dragged himself out of
30:09
Speaker 1: bed and he went to the kitchen for a glass
30:11
Speaker 1: of water to hopefully settle his stomach. But when he
30:14
Speaker 1: got there, he saw two other men, another meteorologist and
30:17
Speaker 1: an engineer, who were sitting at a nearby table having breakfast,
30:21
Speaker 1: and they took one look at Leonid and immediately asked
30:24
Speaker 1: him like, hey, are you okay? And Leonid didn't want
30:27
Speaker 1: to worry them because again, like any medical emergency, is
30:29
Speaker 1: a huge deal here for everybody, so he quickly forced
30:33
Speaker 1: a smile and said, oh, yeah, everything's fine. Then Leonid
30:36
Speaker 1: quickly grabbed his glass of water, chugged it down, and
30:39
Speaker 1: made his way back to his bunk. And when he
30:40
Speaker 1: got there, he didn't just climb back in bed. Instead,
30:43
Speaker 1: he grabbed some clean clothes and a towel and then
30:46
Speaker 1: walked down the hallway to the shower stalls and he
30:48
Speaker 1: turned one on as hot as it would go, and
30:50
Speaker 1: then got inside. However, before he could even wash his hair,
30:54
Speaker 1: his vision began to go blurry around the edges and
30:57
Speaker 1: his ears began to ring. He was about to faint,
31:01
Speaker 1: and he quickly sat down on the floor of the
31:02
Speaker 1: shower so he wouldn't fall and hurt himself. And as
31:05
Speaker 1: he was sitting there with his head spinning and the
31:07
Speaker 1: hot water raining down on him, the dull aching pain
31:11
Speaker 1: in his stomach suddenly sharpened. It was like a horrible
31:16
Speaker 1: stabbing pain ripping through his stomach. Now Leonid barely had
31:19
Speaker 1: time to wrap a towel around his waist and rush
31:22
Speaker 1: to a toilet before he began to vomit. A few
31:24
Speaker 1: minutes later, Leonid stumbled into a small storage closet where
31:28
Speaker 1: the research team kept a reserve of basic medications like
31:31
Speaker 1: pain relievers and antibiotics. Leonid took some antibiotics and tried
31:36
Speaker 1: to power through the day, but that pain in his
31:39
Speaker 1: abdomen just got.
31:40
Speaker 2: More and more intense.
31:42
Speaker 1: Eventually, he told the other men on his team that
31:44
Speaker 1: he really had to stop, lie down and rest.
31:47
Speaker 2: That something was wrong here.
31:49
Speaker 1: But maybe if he just lays down long enough, it'll
31:51
Speaker 1: go away. Leonid would spend the entire evening going back
31:54
Speaker 1: and forth from his bed to the toilet because he
31:56
Speaker 1: kept vomiting, and he didn't sleep at all that night,
31:59
Speaker 1: and by the next morning, April thirtieth, Leonid was in
32:02
Speaker 1: so much pain that he really couldn't even try to
32:04
Speaker 1: hide it anymore. He was still vomiting, he was still
32:06
Speaker 1: very dizzy to the point where he could barely stand up,
32:09
Speaker 1: and he could tell he was also running a very
32:11
Speaker 1: high fever. However, what really scared Leonid the most was
32:15
Speaker 1: what his belly actually looked like. He had not been
32:17
Speaker 1: able to keep any food down for the last twenty
32:20
Speaker 1: four hours, so he knew his stomach was completely empty,
32:23
Speaker 1: and yet he was so bloated that his belly was
32:26
Speaker 1: sticking out like a balloon. And so lying in bed
32:29
Speaker 1: feeling feverish, nauseous, and dizzy and looking down at his
32:33
Speaker 1: grotesquely swollen abdomen, Leonid had to admit to himself that
32:38
Speaker 1: this was definitely more than just food poisoning. Something was
32:42
Speaker 1: very wrong and he needed help. The scientific research team's
32:45
Speaker 1: doctor took stock of all of Leonid's symptoms and he
32:49
Speaker 1: immediately came up with a diagnosis. And the diagnosis was simple,
32:53
Speaker 1: but the treatment was not. Leonid definitely did not have
32:56
Speaker 1: food poisoning. He was in a life or death situation.
33:00
Speaker 1: This was a very serious thing. But to save him,
33:03
Speaker 1: the doctor was going to have to perform a surgery
33:06
Speaker 1: that had only ever been done successfully two times in
33:09
Speaker 1: all of history, and that was because this surgery required
33:12
Speaker 1: a very risky technique that most doctors refused to even
33:17
Speaker 1: try because it was so dangerous both to the patient
33:20
Speaker 1: and also to the doctor. Basically, Leonid was likely going
33:25
Speaker 1: to die if the doctor attempted the surgery. But Leonid
33:28
Speaker 1: was definitely going to die if he didn't, and so
33:31
Speaker 1: ultimately a decision was made that the doctor would give
33:35
Speaker 1: it his best try. At least that way, they were
33:37
Speaker 1: trying to save Leonid's life even if they were unsuccessful.
33:48
Speaker 2: At two am that.
33:49
Speaker 1: Night, so technically early morning on May first, the doctor
33:53
Speaker 1: took a deep breath and mentally prepared themselves for the surgery.
33:56
Speaker 1: Leonid was lying on a makeshift operating table inside the
33:59
Speaker 1: research enter. He was wearing a surgical gown, and despite
34:03
Speaker 1: the fact he was about to undergo real surgery here,
34:06
Speaker 1: he was wide awake because.
34:09
Speaker 2: He had to be.
34:10
Speaker 1: Due to the nature of this incredibly risky and rare surgery.
34:15
Speaker 1: The doctor couldn't actually give Leonid any real anesthesia to
34:18
Speaker 1: knock him out. Leonid had to be wide awake and
34:21
Speaker 1: fully aware for this entire procedure, which meant all he
34:24
Speaker 1: could get were some local anesthetics which sort of dulled
34:27
Speaker 1: the pain, but did not get rid of it. The
34:29
Speaker 1: doctor looked over at the four other research team members
34:32
Speaker 1: who were in the operating room. There was a driver,
34:35
Speaker 1: a meteorologist, and two aerologists, which are scientists who study
34:39
Speaker 1: the Earth's atmosphere. Now, none of these four had any
34:42
Speaker 1: real medical training, but the doctor needed assistance to do
34:45
Speaker 1: this operation, so he'd recruited them to help him out.
34:48
Speaker 1: Leonid had his head propped up with pillows and his
34:51
Speaker 1: knees were turned to the left, so he was twisted
34:53
Speaker 1: into a position where the lower right side of his
34:56
Speaker 1: abdomen was facing up towards the ceiling. The doctor had
34:59
Speaker 1: already cut a hole in his hospital gown, so Leonid's
35:02
Speaker 1: swollen stomach was visible, and now through that hole, the
35:05
Speaker 1: doctor injected novacane, which is a type of local anesthetic,
35:09
Speaker 1: right into Leonid's abdomen, and then once the novacane took effect,
35:13
Speaker 1: the doctor used a scalpel to carefully make a four
35:16
Speaker 1: inch long incision into Leonid's lower abdomen. Leonid took in
35:20
Speaker 1: a sharp breath, but he did his best to stay
35:23
Speaker 1: perfectly still. The incision began to bleed heavily, and one
35:26
Speaker 1: of the assistants came over and used a pair of
35:28
Speaker 1: metal tongs to spread open Leonid's skin and muscles and fat,
35:34
Speaker 1: revealing Leonid's internal organs. At this point, the doctor was
35:37
Speaker 1: so nervous that his hands began to shake, but he
35:40
Speaker 1: took a deep breath and slowly cut his way with
35:43
Speaker 1: the scalpel through the protective membrane that surrounded Leonid's organs,
35:48
Speaker 1: but as he did, he accidentally poked a hole in
35:51
Speaker 1: Leonid's large intestine, and Leonid noticed right away because he
35:55
Speaker 1: began gushing blood. And when the doctor realized what he'd done,
35:58
Speaker 1: he sort of began to panic, and he began yelling
36:01
Speaker 1: for the assistance to hand him as surgical sewing kit,
36:04
Speaker 1: and when they did, he kind of clumsily began trying
36:07
Speaker 1: to to sow the whole shut. But by the time
36:09
Speaker 1: the doctor had finally closed up the wound, Leonid had
36:13
Speaker 1: already lost a lot of blood. And the real problem,
36:17
Speaker 1: the reason the doctor was doing the surgery in the
36:19
Speaker 1: first place, still had not been solved. Like the surgery
36:22
Speaker 1: had not really even happened.
36:23
Speaker 2: We just had this incision, that's it.
36:25
Speaker 1: And so the doctor knew he really had to hurry
36:27
Speaker 1: before Leonid bled out, and so he threw his standard
36:30
Speaker 1: operating procedures out the window. He just had to go
36:33
Speaker 1: for it here. So he just took one of his
36:34
Speaker 1: hands and reached inside of Leonid's abdominal cavity and started
36:39
Speaker 1: literally feeling around trying to find the source of Leonid's illness.
36:44
Speaker 1: But as he did, it was like all the blood
36:46
Speaker 1: drained out of Leonid's face. I mean, he's feeling this.
36:49
Speaker 1: This must have been horrific. His body went limp and
36:52
Speaker 1: his head kind of rolled back on his pillow. And
36:54
Speaker 1: this was actually the exact moment that this surgery truly
36:57
Speaker 1: became its most dangerous, not just for Leonid, but for
37:01
Speaker 1: the doctor too. Right as Leonid's head rolled backwards, the
37:05
Speaker 1: doctor felt himself go weak and suddenly he was seeing stars.
37:08
Speaker 1: And this was because Leonid and the doctor were actually
37:13
Speaker 1: the same person. In addition to being a meteorologist and
37:16
Speaker 1: a driver of that special vehicle, Leonid was also a
37:19
Speaker 1: recent medical school graduate and he was the one doctor
37:23
Speaker 1: at this research station. So Leonid was performing surgery on himself.
37:27
Speaker 1: He had given himself that novacane shot and then forced
37:31
Speaker 1: himself to stay still as he carved a four inch
37:33
Speaker 1: long incision into his own abdomen, accidentally slicing into his
37:38
Speaker 1: intestines that he had the wherewithal to then stitch up
37:41
Speaker 1: as he's bleeding to death.
37:42
Speaker 2: And then he.
37:43
Speaker 1: Shoved his own hand into his abdominal cavity. But it
37:47
Speaker 1: was at that point that Leonid actually looked like he
37:50
Speaker 1: might die because he began to show signs like he
37:53
Speaker 1: was going to pass out, likely from blood loss or
37:55
Speaker 1: just shock. But he'd given his assistance specific instruction on
38:00
Speaker 1: what to do if he passed out during the procedure.
38:02
Speaker 1: They were supposed to inject him with a specific drug
38:05
Speaker 1: mixture and then give him CPR until he woke up.
38:08
Speaker 1: But just as one of the assistants readied the needle
38:11
Speaker 1: to inject into Leonid because it did appear like he
38:14
Speaker 1: was about to pass out, Leonid suddenly sucked in a
38:17
Speaker 1: huge breath and his head snapped back up. Leonid, with
38:19
Speaker 1: his hands still inside of his abdomen, told his assistance
38:23
Speaker 1: that he was okay. Then he looked over at the
38:25
Speaker 1: mirror that one of his assistants had been holding up
38:28
Speaker 1: this whole time so that he could see what he
38:30
Speaker 1: was doing during the surgery, and with a combination of
38:33
Speaker 1: the mirror and just sort of feeling around inside of
38:36
Speaker 1: his own body, which must have been horrifically painful, Leonid
38:40
Speaker 1: finally found the thing that was making him so sick.
38:43
Speaker 1: It was his appendix. This entire time, Leonid had been
38:46
Speaker 1: suffering from acute appendicitis, then he cleaned out his abdominal
38:51
Speaker 1: cavity with antibiotics and then sutured up the entire incision.
38:55
Speaker 1: When he was finally all done, Leonid examined his appendix
38:58
Speaker 1: that he'd cut out of himself, and he saw there
39:01
Speaker 1: was this dark, diseased looking spot right on the bottom
39:04
Speaker 1: of it. Leonid estimated that if he had not removed
39:06
Speaker 1: this thing, it very likely would have burst in less
39:09
Speaker 1: than twenty four hours, and that definitely would have killed him.
39:14
Speaker 1: Within just two weeks, Leonid was back up on his
39:17
Speaker 1: feet and helping out at the research center like normal.
39:20
Speaker 1: And when the whole team went back home to the
39:22
Speaker 1: Soviet Union in April of nineteen sixty two, so about
39:25
Speaker 1: a year after Leonid's self surgery, he was greeted like
39:27
Speaker 1: a hero. The government actually gave him a medal called
39:31
Speaker 1: the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, which was
39:33
Speaker 1: for extraordinary contributions to Soviet society. And he would go
39:37
Speaker 1: down in history as the third person to ever perform
39:41
Speaker 1: a successful auto appendectomy. And he did it outside of
39:44
Speaker 1: a real hospital, with no other trained medical professionals anywhere nearby.
39:49
Speaker 1: And that's actually not the only way that Leonid's legacy
39:51
Speaker 1: lived on today. Some countries actually require doctors who are
39:56
Speaker 1: stationed in Antarctica to undergo preventative at pdectomies just so
40:01
Speaker 1: that they will never be in a situation like Leonid.
40:04
Speaker 2: Because it turns out the one thing you.
40:06
Speaker 1: Really can't bring to Antarctica is your appendix. Thank you
40:14
Speaker 1: so much for watching today's episode. Let me know what
40:16
Speaker 1: you thought of it in the comments below, And remember,
40:19
Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of places you Can't go
40:22
Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now, So go
40:25
Speaker 1: ahead and click here and give them a watch.
40:28
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya,