Latest / Crime and Horror / They faced death… and walked away - MrBallen

Transcript

They faced death… and walked away - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you four stories about people
0:02
Speaker 1: who thought their day could not get any worse, but
0:06
Speaker 1: they were wrong. But before we get into today's stories,
0:10
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious
0:12
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place,
0:15
Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three,
0:18
Speaker 1: even four times every week. So, if that's of interest
0:21
Speaker 1: to you, please ask the like button to come over
0:23
Speaker 1: and help you fix your roof. And then once they
0:25
Speaker 1: get up on your roof, tell them you'll be up
0:27
Speaker 1: in a second, but instead just take the ladder down
0:31
Speaker 1: and leave. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn
0:34
Speaker 1: on all notifications so you don't miss any of our
0:37
Speaker 1: weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. On the
1:01
Speaker 1: afternoon of March 7, 1946, a 10-year-old boy named Sipo
1:06
Speaker 1: led a team of eight oxen across an open, grassy
1:09
Speaker 1: field in the Heiveld region of South Africa. The wind
1:13
Speaker 1: was really starting to pick up, and the clouds were gathering,
1:16
Speaker 1: so Sipo knew a storm was on the way, and
1:18
Speaker 1: so what he was doing was hurrying to finish plowing
1:21
Speaker 1: this field before it hit. He was walking ahead of
1:23
Speaker 1: his oxen, steering them with a rope that was tied
1:26
Speaker 1: to a lead pair. And then behind the lead pair
1:28
Speaker 1: came three more pairs of oxen. And then beyond that
1:32
Speaker 1: was a chain going back to this really heavy plow.
1:35
Speaker 1: So basically all the oxen were working in tandem, pulling
1:38
Speaker 1: this heavy plow. And so as Sipo is leading his
1:41
Speaker 1: oxen team and plowing this field, he's looking around, he's
1:45
Speaker 1: watching for signs the storm's going to hit, you know.
1:47
Speaker 1: And then at some point he actually hears off in
1:49
Speaker 1: the distance some thunder rumbling. And then he noticed raindrops
1:52
Speaker 1: hitting the ground. So he tugged at the rope, you know,
1:55
Speaker 1: trying to get them to speed up. the oxen were
1:58
Speaker 1: just slow. They just kept walking at their normal, slow pace. Now,
2:02
Speaker 1: at first, Sipo's thinking, okay, we can get through this.
2:05
Speaker 1: We'll plow the field. It'll be slow and steady, but
2:08
Speaker 1: it looks like the storm's going to hold. But really quickly,
2:11
Speaker 1: once the rain began, it just picked up really fast. Like,
2:14
Speaker 1: the drops began falling faster and faster. The thunder got
2:17
Speaker 1: more and more pronounced. And so Sipo began to wonder
2:20
Speaker 1: if maybe he ought to just abandon this and just
2:23
Speaker 1: go home and, you before Sipo could do anything. There
2:28
Speaker 1: was this blinding flash, and then something hit him and
2:32
Speaker 1: literally threw him into the air. Then he slammed down
2:35
Speaker 1: onto the dirt really hard, and for a few seconds,
2:39
Speaker 1: everything just went black. And then slowly, things began to
2:42
Speaker 1: come back into focus, and Sipo found that he was
2:45
Speaker 1: lying flat on his back in the wet dirt. And
2:48
Speaker 1: as he lay there gasping, it dawned on him. He'd
2:52
Speaker 1: just been struck by lightning. Sipo, who was now starting
2:55
Speaker 1: to panic, tried to sit up to check himself for injuries,
3:00
Speaker 1: but his arms and legs wouldn't move. It was like
3:02
Speaker 1: he was paralyzed. And then, to his horror, he heard
3:06
Speaker 1: the sound of his oxen's hooves getting closer to him.
3:10
Speaker 1: And Sipo realized that where he'd ultimately fallen after being
3:14
Speaker 1: struck was right in their path. And if he didn't move,
3:19
Speaker 1: they were going to trample him. Sipo's like trying and
3:22
Speaker 1: trying to will him, but nothing happened. And the sound
3:25
Speaker 1: of those oxen's hooves are getting closer and closer. So finally,
3:28
Speaker 1: he just shut his eyes and accepted his fate and
3:31
Speaker 1: waited to be crushed by his own oxen. But then
3:34
Speaker 1: when the oxen literally came right up to him, despite
3:38
Speaker 1: walking effectively right over him, he didn't feel anything. And
3:42
Speaker 1: so Sipo, whose eyes were closed, you know, he's bracing
3:44
Speaker 1: for impact here. He's hearing the oxen pass over him.
3:48
Speaker 1: He opens his eyes. And he sees, here are the oxen,
3:52
Speaker 1: but they're not stepping on him. It's like they're avoiding him.
3:55
Speaker 1: And so Sipo, he watches the lead pair pass over
3:58
Speaker 1: him without stepping on him. There's more to come. More
4:01
Speaker 1: oxens are coming along their way. And they too, you know,
4:04
Speaker 1: one by one, it's like they knew he was there
4:06
Speaker 1: or something, or it was just an incredible coincidence. Who knows?
4:09
Speaker 1: But they didn't step on Sipo. They all avoided him
4:13
Speaker 1: and basically spared him. And so Sipo, he doesn't know
4:16
Speaker 1: how badly hurt he is from the lightning strike. He
4:19
Speaker 1: doesn't really even know if he's going to recover here.
4:21
Speaker 1: He's currently paralyzed on the ground. But he breathed a
4:24
Speaker 1: sigh of relief after the final oxen passed by him
4:27
Speaker 1: without crushing him to death. He couldn't believe it. But
4:30
Speaker 1: then he realized there was another problem. The oxen, despite
4:33
Speaker 1: not stepping on him, were continuing to walk as if
4:37
Speaker 1: nothing had happened. They're just going right along here. And
4:41
Speaker 1: what were they pulling? The plow. And the plow, if
4:45
Speaker 1: the oxen didn't stop, was going to literally, this big
4:49
Speaker 1: metal sharp plow, was going to be pulled right across
4:54
Speaker 1: where Sipo was laying. And there was nothing he could do.
4:57
Speaker 1: And so Sipo is in full panic mode. He can
4:59
Speaker 1: hear the sound of this huge, heavy plow crushing its
5:03
Speaker 1: way through the earth, you know, getting ready to cut
5:06
Speaker 1: right through him. And he's doing everything he can to
5:08
Speaker 1: try to move his body. But he just can't. He's paralyzed.
5:13
Speaker 1: And he's only able to look straight ahead because that's
5:15
Speaker 1: the way he landed. And he starts to see the
5:18
Speaker 1: frame and the chain that's connected to the plow and
5:20
Speaker 1: it's moving across him. And he knows any second now
5:24
Speaker 1: this plow that's getting louder and louder is literally going
5:27
Speaker 1: to cut him in half. And there was just nothing
5:30
Speaker 1: he could do. And so once again, he found himself
5:32
Speaker 1: just accepting fate. He's about to die here. And so
5:36
Speaker 1: right as he knows he's about to be cut in half,
5:37
Speaker 1: there was this other really bright flash of light in
5:41
Speaker 1: the sky. Except this time, Sipo didn't feel himself being
5:45
Speaker 1: chucked through the air. It was just this really bright flash.
5:49
Speaker 1: And then everything went still. The plow stopped. There was just,
5:53
Speaker 1: there was no noise. Everything was still. And Sipo, he
5:56
Speaker 1: still can't move, right? He has no idea what's going on.
5:59
Speaker 1: But as he would eventually find out, there was a
6:03
Speaker 1: second lightning strike. It didn't strike Sipo. It struck his
6:08
Speaker 1: oxen and killed all of them. So they all get
6:12
Speaker 1: killed and they fall to the ground, stopping the plow
6:16
Speaker 1: literally inches from his head. Ultimately, Sipo would recover from
6:21
Speaker 1: being struck by lightning. He would actually regain feeling in
6:24
Speaker 1: his limbs. He would get up and, you know, despite
6:26
Speaker 1: the tragedy of losing all of his oxen, he would
6:30
Speaker 1: walk away and go back home. And so what we're
6:33
Speaker 1: left with at the end of the story is the
6:36
Speaker 1: idea that sometimes lightning does strike twice. This segment is
6:46
Speaker 1: brought to you by WhaleFall. You might remember a handful
6:49
Speaker 1: of years back, I told you the incredible story of
6:52
Speaker 1: Michael Packard, a lobster diver off Provincetown, Massachusetts. One day
6:56
Speaker 1: in June of 2021, about 45 feet down in the
6:59
Speaker 1: water checking his traps, something slammed into Michael so hard
7:03
Speaker 1: it knocked the regulator right out of his mouth. For
7:06
Speaker 1: a moment, everything went black, and his first thought was
7:08
Speaker 1: that a shark had him, that this was now how
7:10
Speaker 1: he was going to die. But there were no teeth,
7:13
Speaker 1: just darkness and pressure closing in. Because Packard was not
7:18
Speaker 1: inside of a shark. He was inside of a whale.
7:21
Speaker 1: And somehow that whale spit him back out, and Packard survived.
7:26
Speaker 1: He walked away with nothing worse than deep bruising, no
7:29
Speaker 1: broken bones, and home from the hospital that same night.
7:32
Speaker 1: That story has always stuck with me because it proved
7:35
Speaker 1: the ocean can produce something that sounds too wild to
7:39
Speaker 1: be real. Well, it turns out Hollywood thought so, too,
7:42
Speaker 1: because the new movie, Whale Fall, throws you into the
7:45
Speaker 1: exact same impossible situation that Michael Packard was in. Whale
7:50
Speaker 1: Fall tells the story of Jay Gardner as he dives
7:53
Speaker 1: off the central coast of California in search of his
7:55
Speaker 1: father's remains following his death. Instead, Jay finds himself trapped
8:00
Speaker 1: inside the belly of a massive sperm whale with only
8:03
Speaker 1: one hour of oxygen left. The water is pitch black,
8:07
Speaker 1: his air is running out fast, and every second that
8:09
Speaker 1: passes is a second closer to running out completely with
8:13
Speaker 1: no clear way up and no way to call for help.
8:16
Speaker 1: Jay sees that lessons from his father might be the
8:19
Speaker 1: key to his escape. Now, whale fall is fiction, but
8:23
Speaker 1: after what actually happened to Packard, none of it feels
8:26
Speaker 1: all that outlandish. Both stories come down to the same
8:29
Speaker 1: thing in the end. Impossible odds and somebody who refuses
8:33
Speaker 1: to stop fighting for the surface. Thank you again to
8:35
Speaker 1: our sponsor, WhaleFall. Hold your breath. Watch WhaleFall only in
8:39
Speaker 1: theaters October 16th. Get tickets now. One afternoon in January
8:59
Speaker 1: of 1978, a woman named Janet Whittle sprinted across a
9:03
Speaker 1: hospital parking lot in St. Helens, England. With her was
9:07
Speaker 1: her husband, Paul, who was clutching their three-month-old baby, Lisa,
9:10
Speaker 1: close to his chest. As soon as they reached the hospital,
9:13
Speaker 1: the doors to the ER slid open, and Paul began
9:16
Speaker 1: yelling for a doctor because their baby, Lisa, was not breathing.
9:21
Speaker 1: So just a few minutes ago, Janet had been at
9:23
Speaker 1: home in the nursery and And she had been feeding
9:25
Speaker 1: and burping Lisa. And then she had set Lisa down
9:28
Speaker 1: in the crib just for a minute while she went
9:30
Speaker 1: to the kitchen to wash up. And when she'd come back,
9:33
Speaker 1: the baby's face had been completely pale and she'd been
9:37
Speaker 1: making pretty obvious choking sounds. Janet began screaming for her husband.
9:41
Speaker 1: And seconds later, Paul comes charging in. He sees what's
9:44
Speaker 1: going on. He scoops up Lisa and says they're going
9:47
Speaker 1: to the ER. Luckily, Janet and Paul lived basically right
9:51
Speaker 1: next door to a hospital. So they literally just went
9:53
Speaker 1: outside and and ran across the lot right over to
9:57
Speaker 1: the hospital. And so now a nurse and a doctor
9:59
Speaker 1: came running up the hall. They grabbed baby Lisa from Paul.
10:03
Speaker 1: They could see obviously the baby was choking or at
10:05
Speaker 1: least struggling to breathe. And without even asking any questions,
10:08
Speaker 1: they just turned and ran into a nearby exam room.
10:11
Speaker 1: And Janet and Paul followed. And they're so upset. They're
10:13
Speaker 1: wondering what's going to happen. And all the team could
10:16
Speaker 1: say is it looks like the baby is choking on food.
10:19
Speaker 1: At this point, the doctor turned baby Lisa over, and
10:22
Speaker 1: he held her in one hand and then used the
10:24
Speaker 1: heel of his other hand to thrust against her back,
10:27
Speaker 1: trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in the baby's windpipe.
10:31
Speaker 1: But after trying again and again, they could not get
10:35
Speaker 1: Lisa to breathe normally. They couldn't dislodge whatever was in there.
10:38
Speaker 1: And so this was getting more and more dire by
10:41
Speaker 1: the second. At this point, the doctor turned to the
10:43
Speaker 1: nurse and said, call an ambulance because Lisa has to
10:46
Speaker 1: be transferred immediately. to the Children's Hospital because they have
10:49
Speaker 1: the necessary equipment to save this baby's life. Minutes later,
10:53
Speaker 1: an ambulance driver named David Lamb raced through the streets
10:57
Speaker 1: of St. Helens on his way to the Children's Hospital.
11:00
Speaker 1: He knew that Lisa, the baby in back, was in
11:03
Speaker 1: critical condition. Before they had left the hospital, the ER
11:06
Speaker 1: doctor had said that because Lisa's skin was now turning gray,
11:11
Speaker 1: she probably would die during transport. But David, the driver,
11:15
Speaker 1: he knew he still had to try. I mean, obviously,
11:17
Speaker 1: maybe they can get her there and maybe they can
11:19
Speaker 1: save her life. And so now he sped down the
11:22
Speaker 1: street toward an intersection that was right up ahead and
11:25
Speaker 1: he pulled into the left lane. But right as he
11:27
Speaker 1: reached the intersection, the light turned red and David was
11:30
Speaker 1: forced to slow down to make sure there was no
11:32
Speaker 1: oncoming traffic. And so he looked both ways really quickly.
11:35
Speaker 1: And when he thought the street looked clear, he began
11:38
Speaker 1: the turn. And just as he did, he heard screeching
11:41
Speaker 1: tires and then something smashed into the side of the ambulance.
11:46
Speaker 1: 20 minutes later, Janet and Paul, who had not been
11:49
Speaker 1: in the ambulance, they had ridden in a taxi cab
11:52
Speaker 1: from the ER over to the children's hospital, they got
11:55
Speaker 1: out at the children's hospital and they went inside to
11:57
Speaker 1: the reception desk and they began asking about their baby.
12:00
Speaker 1: The receptionist immediately paged the staff and then Janet's heart
12:04
Speaker 1: pounded as a young nurse came out into the waiting
12:07
Speaker 1: room and told her and Paul that the ambulance their
12:10
Speaker 1: daughter had been in had unfortunately been in a crash.
12:14
Speaker 1: A car had apparently struck the ambulance, and the ambulance
12:17
Speaker 1: had spun out and smashed into the side of a hotel.
12:21
Speaker 1: When Janet heard this, she nearly collapsed. I mean, she
12:23
Speaker 1: was already bracing for terrible news, but it just seemed
12:26
Speaker 1: like it was just getting worse and worse. And she's
12:29
Speaker 1: looking at the nurse, just waiting to be told her
12:31
Speaker 1: daughter is dead. But the nurse didn't say that. The
12:34
Speaker 1: nurse explained that the ambulance had been hit so hard
12:38
Speaker 1: by this other car that it actually had saved their
12:42
Speaker 1: daughter's life. Up until that crash, no one had been
12:48
Speaker 1: able to dislodge whatever was stuck in baby Lisa's throat.
12:51
Speaker 1: It would turn out the impact of the crash essentially
12:54
Speaker 1: performed a perfect Heimlich maneuver on Lisa and dislodged the
12:59
Speaker 1: food from her throat. She began breathing normally again, and
13:02
Speaker 1: the color returned to her face. She was fine. And
13:05
Speaker 1: she also had no injuries from the crash itself. Like,
13:08
Speaker 1: she was completely cured. In fact, everybody involved in the crash,
13:12
Speaker 1: in both cars, walked away from the crash. And shortly
13:16
Speaker 1: after the crash, baby Lisa was reunited with her overjoyed parents,
13:21
Speaker 1: and they went home and just continued living their life
13:23
Speaker 1: as normal. The story of Southern New Hampshire University started
13:32
Speaker 1: in 1932 above a small storefront. Almost a century later,
13:36
Speaker 1: SNHU offers over 200 degree programs online. no set class times,
13:42
Speaker 1: so learning fits around your schedule, and courses are career-focused
13:46
Speaker 1: to help strengthen your skills. But the best part of
13:48
Speaker 1: the story? SNHU's online tuition rates are some of the
13:51
Speaker 1: lowest in the entire country. This could be your next chapter.
13:55
Speaker 1: Visit snhu.edu slash mrballin today. Around 10 a.m. on May 15, 1978,
14:15
Speaker 1: a dispatcher picked up a ringing phone at the Pima
14:18
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. He asked the caller
14:22
Speaker 1: what their emergency was, and the man on the line
14:24
Speaker 1: said he wanted to report a ship sinking in the ocean. Now,
14:28
Speaker 1: the dispatcher immediately assumed that this had to be a
14:31
Speaker 1: prank call, because Arizona is completely landlocked. Like, there's no
14:36
Speaker 1: ocean anywhere near Arizona, so how could this person be
14:40
Speaker 1: reporting a sinking ship in the ocean? So the dispatcher
14:42
Speaker 1: told the caller to stop wasting his time. And he
14:45
Speaker 1: was literally about to hang up when the man in
14:47
Speaker 1: Arizona shouted at him to wait. He was being serious.
14:52
Speaker 1: He said he had a CB radio here in Tucson,
14:55
Speaker 1: and somehow he just picked up a Mayday signal from
14:58
Speaker 1: the captain of a ship that was stranded and taking
15:01
Speaker 1: on water off the coast of Key West, Florida. So
15:05
Speaker 1: a CB radio is a citizen's band radio. It's a
15:08
Speaker 1: short distance two-way radio that allows people to talk to
15:11
Speaker 1: each other without necessarily a license. And you don't need
15:14
Speaker 1: the internet or cell phone towers. Like truckers sometimes have
15:17
Speaker 1: CB radios. But critically, CB radio is for short distance,
15:22
Speaker 1: not thousands of miles away off the coast of Florida
15:25
Speaker 1: all the way to Tucson. At this point, the dispatcher
15:28
Speaker 1: actually thought this really had to be a prank because
15:31
Speaker 1: they knew CB radios really couldn't receive signals from that
15:34
Speaker 1: big of a distance. So this is like not possible
15:38
Speaker 1: that this man could have picked up that mayday signal.
15:40
Speaker 1: But most likely the dispatcher's thinking that the caller is
15:44
Speaker 1: not necessarily playing a prank. More likely local kids are
15:49
Speaker 1: playing a joke and this guy is gullible enough to
15:51
Speaker 1: believe it. Like maybe kids are pretending to send a
15:54
Speaker 1: mayday signal for a you know, boat off the coast
15:57
Speaker 1: of Florida, this guy heard it, and he's like, oh
15:59
Speaker 1: my goodness, this is real, and he's calling 911. That's
16:01
Speaker 1: what the dispatcher thinks is going on. And so the
16:03
Speaker 1: dispatcher kind of tried to explain that to this man,
16:07
Speaker 1: sort of treating him like, look, I think you're being
16:09
Speaker 1: duped here, that somebody's playing a prank on you, and
16:12
Speaker 1: this is not real. But the man insisted this is
16:15
Speaker 1: not a prank. Like, the captain sounds very panicked. This
16:19
Speaker 1: is not a child pranking me. This is real. And
16:23
Speaker 1: he just begged the dispatcher to, even if you think
16:25
Speaker 1: this is completely made up, please do me a favor
16:28
Speaker 1: and just look into it. And so the dispatcher said, fine,
16:31
Speaker 1: all right, we'll make sure somebody calls Florida and we'll
16:34
Speaker 1: make sure there's no sinking yacht. Thank you. And then
16:37
Speaker 1: they hung up. An hour later, a helicopter pilot took
16:40
Speaker 1: off from the Coast Guard base in Key West, Florida,
16:43
Speaker 1: and began flying out towards the ocean. They were going
16:45
Speaker 1: to go, you know, make sure there's not any sinking
16:47
Speaker 1: yachts out here. And as the pilot began flying around
16:51
Speaker 1: looking for sinking yachts, he also fiddled with his radio
16:55
Speaker 1: and switched through all the frequencies that CB radios can
16:58
Speaker 1: broadcast on. But he wasn't seeing anything out on the water,
17:02
Speaker 1: and he certainly wasn't picking up any signals, no mayday signals, nothing. Now,
17:06
Speaker 1: this pilot, when he went out to do this reconnaissance mission,
17:10
Speaker 1: really didn't expect to see anything. I mean, the Coast
17:12
Speaker 1: Guard in Key West had not received any mayday signals
17:15
Speaker 1: that morning, And no one had reported seeing or hearing
17:18
Speaker 1: a ship in distress, except some random guy 2,000 miles
17:22
Speaker 1: away in Tucson, Arizona. And so the pilot is not
17:25
Speaker 1: shocked that, you know, basically there's nothing out here. But
17:29
Speaker 1: as he's, you know, going through the motions of flying around,
17:32
Speaker 1: looking out over the water, you know, trying all the
17:34
Speaker 1: stations of the CB radio, he sees a flash, like
17:38
Speaker 1: a flash of light out of the corner of his eye.
17:41
Speaker 1: And he looked down in that direction and he saw
17:43
Speaker 1: something glimmering in the water. So he turned the helicopter
17:46
Speaker 1: and got down lower to get a better look at
17:48
Speaker 1: what it was. And he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
17:52
Speaker 1: It was a 30-foot yacht sinking in the water with
17:56
Speaker 1: three people desperately waving on the deck. This is a
18:00
Speaker 1: sinking ship. I can't believe it's real. It would turn
18:03
Speaker 1: out the Mayday signal was not a prank. It was
18:06
Speaker 1: a real signal from this yacht called the Timberlane. And
18:09
Speaker 1: it was a good thing that the man who heard
18:11
Speaker 1: it called the police. Because even though he was so
18:14
Speaker 1: far away, it should have been impossible for him to
18:16
Speaker 1: even pick up the signal. He actually, it would turn out,
18:20
Speaker 1: was literally the closest person in the world who could
18:24
Speaker 1: have helped. So under normal conditions, CB radios cannot broadcast
18:29
Speaker 1: more than 15 miles away. But on this particular day,
18:33
Speaker 1: conditions were not normal. There were an unusually high number
18:37
Speaker 1: of solar flares that day, which increased the the ionization
18:41
Speaker 1: of the layer of the atmosphere that radio signals travel on.
18:44
Speaker 1: So what that means is when the Timberlanes sent out
18:47
Speaker 1: their Mayday message, the signal sort of bounced off the
18:51
Speaker 1: supercharged layer of the atmosphere, which is a phenomenon known
18:55
Speaker 1: as skipping. So instead of being broadcast to other CB
18:59
Speaker 1: radios in the immediate area, the Mayday signal skipped across
19:03
Speaker 1: the atmosphere to radios thousands of miles away. So that's
19:08
Speaker 1: why the Coast Guard right there in Key West, Florida,
19:11
Speaker 1: did not pick up the distress signal, but a random
19:14
Speaker 1: man in Arizona did. And thanks to him taking it
19:17
Speaker 1: seriously and calling 911, the Coast Guard was able to
19:20
Speaker 1: rescue all three people on board, and they towed the
19:23
Speaker 1: Timberland to safety. One afternoon in June of 1975, a
19:45
Speaker 1: woman named Marie Daniels stood up from her chair in
19:48
Speaker 1: the corner of a hospital room in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
19:52
Speaker 1: Next to her was her husband Harold, and he was
19:54
Speaker 1: asleep in the hospital bed, hooked up to a whole
19:57
Speaker 1: bunch of machines. Harold had undergone surgery that morning to
20:00
Speaker 1: remove some cartilage growths from around his neck, and the
20:03
Speaker 1: surgery had gone well. And afterwards, the hospital staff had
20:06
Speaker 1: moved him to this room to rest. And so now
20:09
Speaker 1: Marie figured she could slip out for a few minutes,
20:12
Speaker 1: and finally grab some food and maybe some coffee. And
20:15
Speaker 1: so Marie, she grabs her purse and quietly begins to
20:17
Speaker 1: walk across the room, doing her best not to wake
20:20
Speaker 1: her husband up, who's clearly passed out in the bed here.
20:23
Speaker 1: And right as she's about to reach for the door
20:25
Speaker 1: to leave the room, she hears Harold let out this
20:28
Speaker 1: huge gasp right behind her. And she whips around and
20:32
Speaker 1: she sees Harold's eyes are wide open and his whole
20:35
Speaker 1: body has gone totally rigid, like his limbs are all
20:38
Speaker 1: sticking out and he's He's stiff as a board. Marie
20:41
Speaker 1: at first was sort of stunned by what she was
20:43
Speaker 1: hearing and seeing. And for a second, she wondered if
20:46
Speaker 1: her husband was just stretching. But then all of a sudden,
20:50
Speaker 1: her husband went completely limp. And his heart monitor, which
20:54
Speaker 1: had been beeping in the background until right now, started
20:58
Speaker 1: letting out this one long, continuous beep. Marie realized that
21:02
Speaker 1: her husband had just flatlined, which meant his heart had stopped.
21:07
Speaker 1: He was effectively dead. And so Marie, for a second,
21:10
Speaker 1: is just frozen there. Like, this happened so suddenly. Like,
21:13
Speaker 1: what is going on here? But then she broke out
21:15
Speaker 1: of her shock. She ran over and hit the call
21:17
Speaker 1: button next to the bed, and then she bolted out
21:20
Speaker 1: into the hallway and began shouting for help. Moments later,
21:23
Speaker 1: two nurses rushed past Marie, who was out in the hallway,
21:26
Speaker 1: and they turned the corner and bolted into Harold's room.
21:29
Speaker 1: And so Marie, who's still sort of in shock, she
21:32
Speaker 1: walked to the doorway and just watched as these two
21:34
Speaker 1: nurses put this cart full of medical equipment in right
21:37
Speaker 1: next to Harold's bed, and Harold was still flatlined. As
21:41
Speaker 1: these nurses were getting set up with this equipment, Marie,
21:43
Speaker 1: who was out at the doorway, and she heard more footsteps,
21:46
Speaker 1: and she turned, and she saw Harold's neurosurgeon, Dr. Carnes,
21:49
Speaker 1: come running down the hallway. He ran past Marie into
21:52
Speaker 1: the room, and he went right up to that cart
21:55
Speaker 1: full of all the equipment that the nurses were getting ready,
21:57
Speaker 1: and he grabbed two paddles, two defibrillator paddles that are
22:00
Speaker 1: designed to shock your heart back into working again. And
22:04
Speaker 1: so Marie, she's watching as the The neurosurgeon grabs the paddles,
22:07
Speaker 1: he's communicating with the nurses, and he puts it on
22:10
Speaker 1: Harold's chest. And then a second later, Marie watches Harold's
22:14
Speaker 1: whole body jolted as this electrical pulse was shot into
22:18
Speaker 1: him by these paddles from the doctor. But Marie, she's
22:21
Speaker 1: watching the monitor, and it's still just a flat line.
22:23
Speaker 1: So the defibrillator paddles were not working. And so Marie,
22:27
Speaker 1: she's just standing there, like, really not even able to
22:29
Speaker 1: fully process what's happening. Like, she's hoping they're going to
22:32
Speaker 1: be able to save her husband. But Dr. Carnes and
22:35
Speaker 1: the nurses, they kept adjusting the machine and trying again
22:38
Speaker 1: and again and again. But every time they'd send that
22:41
Speaker 1: pulse into Harold's body, his body would look like it
22:44
Speaker 1: was coming alive again just for a second. But then
22:47
Speaker 1: his heart would just continue to flatline. It just, it
22:49
Speaker 1: was not working. And then finally, after two agonizing minutes,
22:54
Speaker 1: it was like Dr. Carnes and the nurses, they didn't
22:56
Speaker 1: give up, but they stopped trying to jolt Harold back
23:00
Speaker 1: to life. And Dr. Carnes said, we're going to have
23:03
Speaker 1: to Rush him up to the ICU and see if
23:05
Speaker 1: maybe they can save him. This was, you know, obviously
23:08
Speaker 1: a low chance of success. I mean, he's already been
23:10
Speaker 1: flatlined for several minutes. Like, he's going to die here.
23:14
Speaker 1: But then suddenly, before anybody could move Harold out of
23:17
Speaker 1: the room, Marie heard another set of footsteps racing down
23:21
Speaker 1: the hallway, and a doctor who she had never seen
23:24
Speaker 1: before rushed into her husband's room. And this new doctor
23:28
Speaker 1: told Dr. Carnes to step aside. And Dr. Carnes did.
23:32
Speaker 1: And then he asked for the paddles, and Dr. Carnes
23:35
Speaker 1: handed them over. And then Dr. Carnes and the nurses
23:38
Speaker 1: just kind of gave this new doctor his room. Marie
23:40
Speaker 1: quickly realized that this new doctor must be some kind
23:43
Speaker 1: of specialist that they call in when somebody was crashing
23:46
Speaker 1: like this. And so she watched in awe as this
23:49
Speaker 1: new doctor adjusted the dials on the defibrillator machine, and
23:53
Speaker 1: then once the doctor was confident it was all right,
23:56
Speaker 1: they took the paddles, placed them on Harold's chest, and
23:59
Speaker 1: then one shock later, and Harold's heart restarted. And Marie
24:06
Speaker 1: was so relieved to see those blips back on the
24:09
Speaker 1: heart monitor that she just instantly ran to the bed,
24:12
Speaker 1: and she grabbed Harold and wept tears of joy. Three
24:17
Speaker 1: weeks later, Marie was standing by Harold's bedside in the
24:20
Speaker 1: intensive care unit, watching as Dr. Carnes read over some
24:23
Speaker 1: test results. So when Harold had flatlined, he'd been medically
24:28
Speaker 1: dead for four minutes, which was a a really dangerous
24:32
Speaker 1: amount of time for his brain to go without oxygen.
24:35
Speaker 1: So after he was revived, Dr. Carnes had kept him
24:39
Speaker 1: in the ICU for monitoring to make sure his brain
24:41
Speaker 1: was okay. But amazingly, over the three weeks he was
24:45
Speaker 1: in the ICU, Harold made a full recovery. And so
24:48
Speaker 1: now Dr. Carnes read over his test results and basically
24:52
Speaker 1: gave Harold a clean bill of health and said that
24:55
Speaker 1: he could go home. Marie was overjoyed and she asked,
24:58
Speaker 1: if they could thank that specialist who had raced in
25:01
Speaker 1: at the last minute and literally saved Harold's life. And
25:04
Speaker 1: that's when Dr. Carnes got this very strange look on
25:07
Speaker 1: his face, and he told Marie that that was not
25:10
Speaker 1: going to be possible. Because, he said, he had no
25:14
Speaker 1: idea who that doctor was. In fact, he said he
25:17
Speaker 1: had never seen him before at all, like never before
25:19
Speaker 1: that day. And then after he had saved Harold's life
25:22
Speaker 1: and then departed the room, Dr. Carnes said he never
25:26
Speaker 1: saw him again. It would turn out multiple members of
25:29
Speaker 1: the hospital staff saw and spoke to this mysterious doctor
25:33
Speaker 1: that afternoon. But nobody actually knew who he was. And Dr.
25:37
Speaker 1: Karn said the only reason he handed over the defibrillator
25:41
Speaker 1: paddles to this stranger was because this man came into
25:44
Speaker 1: the room presenting like an extremely capable, confident doctor. Like
25:49
Speaker 1: there was no denying he knew what he was doing.
25:52
Speaker 1: And so he handed them over. And sure enough, the
25:54
Speaker 1: guy saved Harold's life. But then after he saved Harold's
25:57
Speaker 1: life and left the room, no one at the hospital
26:01
Speaker 1: ever saw him again. That hospital never determined who the
26:06
Speaker 1: mysterious doctor was, or if he was even a real
26:09
Speaker 1: doctor at all. Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
26:16
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of it in the
26:18
Speaker 1: comments below. And remember, we have a whole playlist of
26:21
Speaker 1: Places You Can't Go episodes ready for you to binge
26:24
Speaker 1: right now. So go ahead and click here and give
26:27
Speaker 1: them a watch. All right, until next time, see ya.