Latest / Crime and Horror / She lived through a NIGHTMARE... - MrBallen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to share three stories about real people who,
- 0:03Speaker 1: at some point in their lives made choices that at
- 0:06Speaker 1: the time seem sort of insignificant, but over time those
- 0:11Speaker 1: choices would drastically not only change their lives, but in
- 0:15Speaker 1: some cases the lives of millions and millions of other
- 0:18Speaker 1: people as well. But before we get into today's stories,
- 0:22Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious
- 0:24Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place,
- 0:27Speaker 1: because that's all we do in the upload once a week.
- 0:30Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into
- 0:32Speaker 1: the like button's house and replace all their toilet paper
- 0:35Speaker 1: with sandpaper. Also, please subscribe to our channel internal in
- 0:39Speaker 1: all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
- 0:43Speaker 1: let's get into today's stories. In the spring of nineteen
- 1:02Speaker 1: eighty six, a twenty two year old man named Will
- 1:04Speaker 1: walked across the campus of the University of Missouri. Will
- 1:08Speaker 1: was just a few months away from graduating from that
- 1:10Speaker 1: university with a bachelor's degree in journalism, but recently he
- 1:14Speaker 1: was starting to feel like he actually didn't want to
- 1:16Speaker 1: be a journalist. After all, he didn't have any real
- 1:18Speaker 1: passion for journalism. However, he did have passion for Hollywood movies.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Will had lived in Missouri his whole life, and now
- 1:27Speaker 1: he was, you know, going to college in Missouri as well,
- 1:29Speaker 1: so he was pretty sheltered, hadn't really gone anywhere. So
- 1:32Speaker 1: for him, movies had sort of been like this magical
- 1:35Speaker 1: portal into a different world. You know. Hollywood would show
- 1:38Speaker 1: him all these amazing places and people, and so that
- 1:41Speaker 1: was his escape. He loved Hollywood movies. And so with
- 1:44Speaker 1: Will's senior year coming to a close in just a
- 1:47Speaker 1: few months, with you know, real life right there on
- 1:50Speaker 1: the horizon, Will sort of had this big revelation that
- 1:54Speaker 1: he simply didn't want to be a journalist, and in fact,
- 1:57Speaker 1: what he was going to do is just rop out
- 2:00Speaker 1: of college literally weeks away from his degree, and moved
- 2:04Speaker 1: to California to Hollywood to actually pursue being an actor
- 2:09Speaker 1: in Hollywood movies. But despite Will's incredible enthusiasm and naivete,
- 2:15Speaker 1: when he got to Los Angeles, you know, to Hollywood,
- 2:18Speaker 1: he realized that he was not the only young person
- 2:21Speaker 1: with this big dream. There were loads of aspiring actors
- 2:25Speaker 1: and actresses who loved Hollywood and wanted to break in
- 2:29Speaker 1: that were here basically competing for all the same roles
- 2:32Speaker 1: in all the same films. Now this didn't deter Will,
- 2:35Speaker 1: I mean he wasn't totally shocked. Of course, people wanted
- 2:38Speaker 1: to be big movie stars and come out here and
- 2:40Speaker 1: try their hand, and so he went out and auditioned constantly.
- 2:44Speaker 1: He didn't care what movie it was, just he wanted
- 2:47Speaker 1: to be in one. But he just was not getting
- 2:49Speaker 1: the work. Nobody was picking him up. He was auditioning
- 2:52Speaker 1: and being rejected over and over and over again. And
- 2:55Speaker 1: Will was okay with that. He figured, Okay, I'll get
- 2:57Speaker 1: better and eventually get cast for some thing. But the
- 3:01Speaker 1: problem was his finances. It was expensive to live in
- 3:04Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and there really weren't all that many jobs available,
- 3:08Speaker 1: I mean during the day. Will really wanted to focus
- 3:11Speaker 1: on just auditioning constantly, and so the only work he
- 3:14Speaker 1: could reasonably take was sort of side gigs that he
- 3:17Speaker 1: could work late at night or early in the morning.
- 3:19Speaker 1: Except again, there's so many people trying to do what
- 3:22Speaker 1: Will is doing, you know, aspiring actors and actresses, that
- 3:25Speaker 1: basically all the side gigs in LA were sort of
- 3:28Speaker 1: already taken, and so the only ones that were available
- 3:31Speaker 1: to Will were like the bottom of the barrels side gigs,
- 3:35Speaker 1: the ones nobody wanted. But you know, Will was determined
- 3:38Speaker 1: and he was okay taking whatever was available, and so
- 3:41Speaker 1: he ultimately got two jobs. He worked as a mascot
- 3:45Speaker 1: for a fast food chicken restaurant, where he basically would
- 3:48Speaker 1: stand outside in a chicken suit and try to encourage
- 3:50Speaker 1: people to go into the restaurant. And then at night
- 3:54Speaker 1: he would work as a limo driver, but for a
- 3:56Speaker 1: very specific group of people. He was a limo driver
- 3:59Speaker 1: for strippers who would go mostly to bachelor parties, and
- 4:03Speaker 1: it was Will's job to drive them to and from
- 4:05Speaker 1: these parties and then also to go in with them
- 4:08Speaker 1: and you know, sort of be the DJ play some
- 4:10Speaker 1: music for them. And then at the end of the
- 4:12Speaker 1: night he was in charge of picking up all the
- 4:15Speaker 1: money and clothes that were kind of strewn about from
- 4:18Speaker 1: the event and packaging it all up, putting everybody in
- 4:21Speaker 1: everything back in the limo, and driving them back home again. Now,
- 4:24Speaker 1: at first, Will just sort of accepted that this was
- 4:26Speaker 1: his life, because eventually it was not going to be
- 4:29Speaker 1: his life. He was going to break into Hollywood and
- 4:31Speaker 1: he wouldn't have to wear the chicken suit or drive
- 4:34Speaker 1: the strippers around anymore. He could just be an actor
- 4:37Speaker 1: and he could do the thing he really wanted to do.
- 4:39Speaker 1: But pretty quickly will realized that the opportunity to break
- 4:43Speaker 1: in just wasn't really happening. But what was really happening
- 4:47Speaker 1: is he was spending a lot of his time being
- 4:49Speaker 1: the chicken suit guy and driving strippers around, you know,
- 4:52Speaker 1: because he had to pay his bills, and these jobs
- 4:54Speaker 1: didn't pay very much, and so he had to kind
- 4:56Speaker 1: of encroach on the daytime hours and work more hours
- 5:00Speaker 1: during that time that he would like to be auditioning
- 5:02Speaker 1: just to pay his bills. And then when he would audition,
- 5:05Speaker 1: he just continued not to get cast, and so before
- 5:08Speaker 1: long it just sort of felt like he was working
- 5:10Speaker 1: these two kind of awful jobs all the time, barely sleeping,
- 5:14Speaker 1: so that he could just get rejected over and over
- 5:17Speaker 1: and over again and not break into Hollywood. It was depressing,
- 5:21Speaker 1: and ultimately what he decided to do was, you know what,
- 5:23Speaker 1: I'm going to quit one of my jobs. He decided
- 5:26Speaker 1: he would quit the limo stripper job and just do
- 5:30Speaker 1: the chicken suit job to buy a little bit more
- 5:32Speaker 1: time during the day so he could audition a little
- 5:35Speaker 1: bit more and for a little while he would just
- 5:37Speaker 1: put all of his effort into that and hopefully land
- 5:40Speaker 1: a big spot. And if he didn't, well, then his
- 5:43Speaker 1: big dream likely was not going to pan out and
- 5:45Speaker 1: he'd have to move back home. But on Will's final
- 5:48Speaker 1: shift as a stripper driver, one of the strippers actually
- 5:53Speaker 1: said something to him that totally changed his life. He
- 5:56Speaker 1: was driving him around on their way to bachelor parties,
- 5:59Speaker 1: doing this and that, and at some point Will struck
- 6:01Speaker 1: up a conversation with this woman. You know, she was
- 6:04Speaker 1: a stripper, but during the day, she too was trying
- 6:07Speaker 1: to become an actress. Stripping was her side gig to
- 6:11Speaker 1: make enough money to live in La to try to
- 6:13Speaker 1: break into the industry. You know, it wasn't going great
- 6:15Speaker 1: for her, but you know she was enthusiastic and committed
- 6:19Speaker 1: the same way Will was. And over the course of
- 6:21Speaker 1: this conversation, she told Will that, you know, in addition
- 6:25Speaker 1: to auditioning and you know, working when you had to,
- 6:28Speaker 1: you should also take this particular acting class. There's this
- 6:32Speaker 1: one great class that all the biggest and best aspiring
- 6:36Speaker 1: actors and actresses are taking and lots of very successful
- 6:40Speaker 1: actors and actresses have taken like this is the one
- 6:43Speaker 1: to get into. You really ought to divert some of
- 6:45Speaker 1: your time during the day to going to this class
- 6:48Speaker 1: and for will you know. He appreciated the input, but
- 6:52Speaker 1: he's thinking, like, that's not really going to help me
- 6:54Speaker 1: right now. I don't need to learn how to act.
- 6:57Speaker 1: That's going to take way too long. Like I don't
- 6:59Speaker 1: need that. I need I need action. I need to audition.
- 7:02Speaker 1: I need to just be given a role and then
- 7:04Speaker 1: my training will be on the job. I'll learn by acting,
- 7:09Speaker 1: not by training to act. However, he's also thinking to
- 7:13Speaker 1: himself as he's driving around all night and she's talking
- 7:16Speaker 1: about how great this class is that he's like, you
- 7:17Speaker 1: know what, at the same time, though my auditions have
- 7:21Speaker 1: not gone well, nothing's really going well, and so maybe
- 7:24Speaker 1: I'll just go to this class once. I mean, she's
- 7:26Speaker 1: gonna be there, she wants me to go. I'll go
- 7:28Speaker 1: with her. I'll go one time, you know, maybe maybe
- 7:31Speaker 1: it'll be good for me. And so he agrees to go,
- 7:34Speaker 1: and so not long after this final shift where he
- 7:36Speaker 1: has this sort of pivotal interaction with the stripper, he
- 7:40Speaker 1: goes to the acting class and you know, the stripper
- 7:42Speaker 1: is there and she's so excited to see him, and
- 7:45Speaker 1: you know, he makes his way in and he sits down,
- 7:47Speaker 1: and at some point during the class, the instructor says, Okay,
- 7:50Speaker 1: we're gonna pair you up with other people in the
- 7:53Speaker 1: class and you're gonna act out a scene in front
- 7:55Speaker 1: of everybody else. And so Will he randomly gets paired
- 7:58Speaker 1: up with this other actor who in fact had a
- 8:01Speaker 1: real audition that night. The scene they were going to
- 8:04Speaker 1: act out was actually going to be done in front
- 8:06Speaker 1: of actual agency reps who had come to this class.
- 8:10Speaker 1: They were there literally to see this other actor do
- 8:14Speaker 1: this particular scene. Will was just being asked to basically
- 8:17Speaker 1: play support and allow this other actor to do their
- 8:21Speaker 1: scene and hopefully get the part. And Will knows this.
- 8:23Speaker 1: He's like going into this with Okay, I'm gonna read
- 8:25Speaker 1: these lines and you're gonna kind of be the one
- 8:28Speaker 1: really auditioning here, and it'll be in front of the
- 8:30Speaker 1: whole class. It'll be you know, both cool to see
- 8:33Speaker 1: a real audition and good exposure to the folks that
- 8:35Speaker 1: are in the class. And so they do this scene
- 8:38Speaker 1: and Will, who really is just trying to play a
- 8:40Speaker 1: good supporting person. Here is so unbelievably talented. He's so
- 8:45Speaker 1: into the scene, his emotions come through so beautifully that
- 8:50Speaker 1: he completely overshadows the other actor, like he completely destroys
- 8:55Speaker 1: them and comes out looking like the star that really
- 8:58Speaker 1: he thought he was. The agency reps were so blown
- 9:01Speaker 1: away by it they actually didn't cast the other actor
- 9:06Speaker 1: who was supposed to be auditioning for this role. They
- 9:08Speaker 1: basically said, now we're not interested in you, We're gonna
- 9:10Speaker 1: cast Will in this role. Will basically stole the role
- 9:15Speaker 1: from this other actor, and this moment would end up
- 9:17Speaker 1: being so talked about and so iconic that this virtual
- 9:21Speaker 1: nobody stole the show and landed this role that people
- 9:24Speaker 1: began talking about Will in Hollywood and whendn't you know it?
- 9:28Speaker 1: It led to his big break. Will began getting cast
- 9:31Speaker 1: left and right as the lead actor the starring role
- 9:35Speaker 1: in Hollywood hit after Hollywood hit. Today, Will is one
- 9:39Speaker 1: of the most famous and celebrated movie stars to have
- 9:42Speaker 1: ever lived. He's won everything from Academy Awards in Golden
- 9:45Speaker 1: Globes to People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. Will is his
- 9:49Speaker 1: first name, but he's better known by his middle name
- 9:52Speaker 1: Brad brad Pitt. In early April of nineteen forty five,
- 10:08Speaker 1: a fifteen year old girl named Eda curled up on
- 10:11Speaker 1: a pile of blankets inside the basement of her aunt's
- 10:14Speaker 1: house in Velp, which is a small town in the Netherlands.
- 10:17Speaker 1: Edda's stomach hurts so badly, and she felt weaker than
- 10:20Speaker 1: she ever had in her whole life. And this was
- 10:22Speaker 1: because she was quite literally on the brink of starving
- 10:25Speaker 1: to death. Eda was five foot six inches tall, but
- 10:28Speaker 1: her weight had plummeted to just eighty eight pounds. She
- 10:32Speaker 1: couldn't walk, she couldn't stand, and she could barely speak.
- 10:35Speaker 1: She was probably within a couple of days of actually dying.
- 10:38Speaker 1: And despite the fact that you know, her aunt and
- 10:40Speaker 1: her mother were right down there with her in the basement,
- 10:43Speaker 1: along with some other refugees that her family was housing
- 10:46Speaker 1: in the basement with them, nobody had food to give her,
- 10:50Speaker 1: and so as much as they wanted to help her,
- 10:52Speaker 1: they couldn't. And on top of that, making this already
- 10:55Speaker 1: terrible situation even worse. You know, Edda, her family and
- 10:59Speaker 1: the refugees had literally been trapped down here in this basement.
- 11:03Speaker 1: You know, for months because it was way too dangerous
- 11:05Speaker 1: to go outside. It's part of the reason they couldn't
- 11:07Speaker 1: get food. Going outside was a death sentence in and
- 11:10Speaker 1: of itself, because World War Two was raging right outside.
- 11:15Speaker 1: Bombs are being dropped, people are being shot, the explosions
- 11:18Speaker 1: left and right. I mean they're totally trapped. So the
- 11:21Speaker 1: country where Eda lived, the Netherlands, had been under Nazi
- 11:24Speaker 1: occupation for almost five years. At this point. When the
- 11:27Speaker 1: Nazis had first taken over, Eda had been this strong,
- 11:30Speaker 1: very energetic girl with dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer.
- 11:34Speaker 1: She'd been so young when the occupation began that she
- 11:38Speaker 1: hadn't fully understood what was even happening. But then Eda's uncle,
- 11:41Speaker 1: who was a prominent anti Nazi activist, had been captured
- 11:45Speaker 1: and executed by the Nazis, and this really spurred Edda
- 11:49Speaker 1: into action. I mean she saw how serious this really
- 11:52Speaker 1: was and she was not just going to stand idly by,
- 11:55Speaker 1: and so she had spent several years working with an
- 11:58Speaker 1: anti Nazi group called the Dutch was existence, doing things like,
- 12:01Speaker 1: you know, performing ballet at secret fundraising events to try
- 12:05Speaker 1: to raise money for this anti Nazi movement. And also
- 12:08Speaker 1: smuggling resistance newspapers all over the country. She'd even convinced
- 12:11Speaker 1: her family to take in refugees and hide them from
- 12:14Speaker 1: the Nazis, even though she knew that if she and
- 12:17Speaker 1: her family were caught, they would all be killed. And
- 12:19Speaker 1: all of this had given Da a real sense of purpose,
- 12:23Speaker 1: you know, she felt like she was actually doing something
- 12:25Speaker 1: tangible to fight the Nazis. However, about nine months earlier,
- 12:29Speaker 1: the Nazis had cut off supply lines into the Netherlands,
- 12:33Speaker 1: and since then the entire country had been completely devastated.
- 12:37Speaker 1: People had basically no food, they had zero access to medicine,
- 12:40Speaker 1: running water, or electricity, and so Eda, like many other
- 12:44Speaker 1: people in this country, had begun to starve, and she'd
- 12:48Speaker 1: gotten so sick and so weak that as she was starving,
- 12:51Speaker 1: she couldn't do any work with the resistance at all anymore.
- 12:54Speaker 1: All she could do was literally just lie in this
- 12:56Speaker 1: basement and effectively wait to die. And that particular day,
- 13:01Speaker 1: as she listened to the sound planes, gunshots and sirens
- 13:04Speaker 1: going off outside at a preyed to God for help,
- 13:08Speaker 1: but the only response she got was a high pitched
- 13:11Speaker 1: whistling sound, then a deafening blast, the floor shook, glass shattered,
- 13:17Speaker 1: and everything went black. Sometime later, we don't know exactly
- 13:20Speaker 1: how long, probably days, Eta came too, and unbelievably, as
- 13:25Speaker 1: she looked around, you know, despite effectively her basement being
- 13:28Speaker 1: the target of a bombing run, she looked around and
- 13:31Speaker 1: saw the basement structural integrity had effectively held up, and
- 13:36Speaker 1: her loved ones and the refugees and she were all
- 13:39Speaker 1: still alive. But you know, Ata, she was not like,
- 13:41Speaker 1: oh great, everything's fine now. It was more like, okay,
- 13:45Speaker 1: you know, the Nazis are getting closer, and if they've
- 13:48Speaker 1: bombed us just now, you know, I'm bound to be
- 13:50Speaker 1: bombed again, or I'm gonna starve to death, like the
- 13:53Speaker 1: end is right on top of us. But as she
- 13:55Speaker 1: kind of looked around and continued to take stock up
- 13:58Speaker 1: the situation, she realized something was very different. Over the
- 14:03Speaker 1: last several weeks and months, the constant bombardment of bombs
- 14:07Speaker 1: and guns and sirens and chaos outside was near constant.
- 14:11Speaker 1: But right now, even though they've just recently been bombed
- 14:15Speaker 1: and barely survived, like the Nazis must be right on
- 14:18Speaker 1: top of us. Despite that, she's listening and she can't
- 14:22Speaker 1: hear anything outside. There's no explosions, no gunfire, nothing, It's quiet.
- 14:27Speaker 1: Eda and her family were much more confused than anything else.
- 14:30Speaker 1: But eventually they worked up the courage and you know,
- 14:33Speaker 1: with the help of her mother literally carrying Eda, the
- 14:36Speaker 1: group of them along with the refugees, walked out of
- 14:39Speaker 1: the basement to see what was going on outside. And
- 14:42Speaker 1: when they got up there, what they found where the
- 14:45Speaker 1: streets were full of Allied soldiers and they saw Dutch
- 14:49Speaker 1: people crying and hugging, saying it was all over. And
- 14:52Speaker 1: that's when Eda, her family, and the remaining refugees that
- 14:56Speaker 1: were with them realized the Allied soldiers had liberated their
- 14:59Speaker 1: city for the first time in nearly five years. They
- 15:02Speaker 1: were now free from Nazi occupation. If that bomb had
- 15:06Speaker 1: struck more directly on their basement, or if the war
- 15:10Speaker 1: had simply gone on for even just one more day,
- 15:14Speaker 1: Eda could have very easily died in that basement. Instead,
- 15:18Speaker 1: she survived, against all odds, she survived. Shortly after coming
- 15:23Speaker 1: out of the basement. The Allied powers didn't just liberate
- 15:26Speaker 1: that city where Eda lived, They fully eradicated the Nazis
- 15:30Speaker 1: across Europe. The Allies on and world War II finally ended,
- 15:35Speaker 1: and Eda, who basically shouldn't be alive at this point,
- 15:39Speaker 1: went on to have this unbelievable post war life. Before
- 15:43Speaker 1: the war, Eda had dreamed of becoming a professional ballet dancer,
- 15:47Speaker 1: but during the war she had suffered all these injuries
- 15:50Speaker 1: and really had been affected by malnutrition, and it left
- 15:53Speaker 1: her with long term health problems that effectively made dancing
- 15:57Speaker 1: full time not a possibility. Instead, she began modeling and acting,
- 16:02Speaker 1: and eventually she moved to Hollywood, and in nineteen fifty three,
- 16:06Speaker 1: so eight years after nearly being blown up by the
- 16:09Speaker 1: Nazis and starved to death by the Nazis at a,
- 16:11Speaker 1: starred in a movie called Roman Holiday, and she actually
- 16:14Speaker 1: won an Academy Award for her performance. Even though World
- 16:18Speaker 1: War Two had taken a lot from Eda and her family,
- 16:21Speaker 1: I mean, it had nearly killed her, and it also
- 16:23Speaker 1: took away her dream of being a ballet dancer. Despite that,
- 16:26Speaker 1: experiencing the war so intimately like she had, like she
- 16:29Speaker 1: had been forced to, it had instilled this incredible poise
- 16:33Speaker 1: and discipline and a real quiet strength in her that
- 16:36Speaker 1: would make her one of the most successful actresses of
- 16:40Speaker 1: all time. Eda was actually just her nickname, and when
- 16:43Speaker 1: she started making it big in Hollywood, she abandoned it
- 16:46Speaker 1: and began going by her full name, Audrey Hepburn. One
- 17:09Speaker 1: morning in the summer of eighteen eighty nine, a thirty
- 17:12Speaker 1: six year old surgeon named William Halstead and his head nurse,
- 17:16Speaker 1: twenty seven year old Caroline Hampton, stood in an operating
- 17:19Speaker 1: room prep area in the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
- 17:23Speaker 1: Doctor Halstead was the surgeon in chief of this hospital,
- 17:26Speaker 1: and that morning he and Caroline were getting ready for
- 17:28Speaker 1: a surgery. Now, doctor Halsted had already washed up and
- 17:31Speaker 1: was prepped, and now he was watching Caroline very closely
- 17:36Speaker 1: to make sure she followed his hygiene requirements exactly. Caroline
- 17:40Speaker 1: stood in front of a row of sinks that were
- 17:43Speaker 1: all filled with different cleaning agents. She started by washing
- 17:47Speaker 1: her hands with scalding hot water and medical grade antibacterial soap.
- 17:52Speaker 1: Then she cleaned her nails with brushes and files. Then
- 17:56Speaker 1: she dipped her hands in acid, and then she find
- 18:00Speaker 1: finished with a five minute soak in a highly corrosive
- 18:02Speaker 1: liquid called mercury bichloride. Doctor Halstead ran a really tight ship,
- 18:08Speaker 1: specifically when it came to hand washing. This was the
- 18:11Speaker 1: process he believed was the safest. And doctor Halsted's theory
- 18:15Speaker 1: that basically nuking your hands with cleaning agents before doing
- 18:19Speaker 1: anything in the medical field actually made him sort of
- 18:22Speaker 1: unique at the time because this was eighteen eighty nine
- 18:26Speaker 1: and hand washing was just not very common, not even
- 18:29Speaker 1: in hospitals. Germ theory which is the idea that illnesses
- 18:33Speaker 1: can spread by germs, germs that we can't see, and
- 18:36Speaker 1: they're all over us, on our hands in particular, and
- 18:38Speaker 1: so we have to kill the germs to prevent the
- 18:41Speaker 1: spread of illness, right that theory. Germ theory was very
- 18:45Speaker 1: new at the time, and truthfully, a lot of doctors
- 18:48Speaker 1: at the time didn't believe in germ theory, which meant
- 18:51Speaker 1: they didn't do things which we would now consider standard
- 18:54Speaker 1: hygiene practice in hospitals, like you know, basic hand washing
- 18:58Speaker 1: and regularly disinfecting tool and surfaces. And doctor Halsteed was
- 19:02Speaker 1: a huge proponent of germ theory and aggressive hand washing,
- 19:07Speaker 1: and so he had instituted this whole multi step awful
- 19:10Speaker 1: hand washing routine for his whole surgical team at Johns Hopkins,
- 19:14Speaker 1: and the results had actually been fantastic. He had one
- 19:17Speaker 1: of the lowest surgical mortality rates in the whole country.
- 19:20Speaker 1: But despite that, people still sort of thought doctor Halsted
- 19:24Speaker 1: was crazy, including his own staff, who you know, complained
- 19:27Speaker 1: about these highly corrosive cleaning materials that they were rubbing
- 19:30Speaker 1: all over their hands all the time, like even if
- 19:33Speaker 1: even if this worked, like this was kind of awful.
- 19:35Speaker 1: But despite that, doctor Halsted was not about to change
- 19:38Speaker 1: his protocol. He knew it worked even if it hurt.
- 19:41Speaker 1: But that particular day, as doctor Halstead and Caroline sat
- 19:46Speaker 1: there letting their hands air dry after dipping them repeatedly
- 19:49Speaker 1: in acid, he couldn't help but notice when he looked
- 19:52Speaker 1: over at Caroline that her hands and her forearms looked
- 19:55Speaker 1: really bad, like they were blistered and just totally damn
- 20:00Speaker 1: imaged from clearly doing this process all the time. And
- 20:03Speaker 1: you know, doctor Halstead, he just sort of felt bad
- 20:05Speaker 1: about it. And the reason he felt bad about it
- 20:07Speaker 1: was sort of twofold one. Caroline never complained, even though
- 20:12Speaker 1: obviously every day when she would do this procedure that
- 20:15Speaker 1: he is forcing on her, she was hurting herself in
- 20:18Speaker 1: the process, but she never complained, and so that's actually
- 20:20Speaker 1: why he had elevated her to head nurse because he
- 20:22Speaker 1: thought she had such grit and determination and she believed
- 20:25Speaker 1: in the process, and so he had made her head nurse.
- 20:28Speaker 1: But the other and more prominent reason why doctor Halstead
- 20:32Speaker 1: felt sort of bad about Caroline, in particular in the
- 20:35Speaker 1: condition of her hands and forearms, was because Doctor Halstead
- 20:38Speaker 1: was secretly totally infatuated with Caroline. Now, he had never
- 20:43Speaker 1: told her that. This was something he kept completely inside
- 20:47Speaker 1: because he one thought he was too old for her,
- 20:49Speaker 1: and two he just kind of assumed that she would
- 20:51Speaker 1: never be interested in him. So he just carried this
- 20:54Speaker 1: intense love of Caroline and was very protective of Caroline,
- 20:58Speaker 1: but she didn't really know. And so oh, that was
- 21:00Speaker 1: why when he looked over and saw her clearly in
- 21:03Speaker 1: pain but not complaining that because of his love for her,
- 21:07Speaker 1: Doctor Halstead really for the first time began to question
- 21:11Speaker 1: his big hygiene process. He knew it worked, but at
- 21:15Speaker 1: what cost. His beloved Caroline was suffering because of him,
- 21:19Speaker 1: and worse, he was sort of trapped. He would love
- 21:22Speaker 1: to tell her that she didn't have to do that.
- 21:24Speaker 1: Let your skin heal. I'm so sorry, Caroline. But if
- 21:27Speaker 1: he did that, if he made an exception for her
- 21:29Speaker 1: and said, you know, don't follow this process anymore. People
- 21:33Speaker 1: would find out and it would totally undermine his credibility.
- 21:37Speaker 1: His whole thing is, he's like, everyone must follow this
- 21:39Speaker 1: process to stop the spread of germs and stop the
- 21:42Speaker 1: spread of illnesses. Everybody's got to do this. And so
- 21:44Speaker 1: if he didn't make her, what does that say about him?
- 21:47Speaker 1: And so as he's sitting there watching Caroline dutifully get
- 21:50Speaker 1: ready for surgery, doctor Halstead for the first time really
- 21:54Speaker 1: began seriously considering if there was any way, any sort
- 21:58Speaker 1: of workaround that made could lessen the pain for Caroline.
- 22:03Speaker 1: Just because he loved her. That was it. It wasn't
- 22:04Speaker 1: a safety thing. It was just because he loved Caroline.
- 22:08Speaker 1: But despite putting some real thought and energy into trying
- 22:11Speaker 1: to come up with something to lessen the burden on Caroline,
- 22:15Speaker 1: he just couldn't find a solution. All his solutions involved
- 22:19Speaker 1: her not following the process, which he couldn't do. Fast
- 22:22Speaker 1: forward to early eighteen ninety, so about a year after
- 22:26Speaker 1: doctor Halstead first really began considering how can he help
- 22:30Speaker 1: Caroline not hurt her hands anymore? So about a year
- 22:33Speaker 1: after that began to be a thing for him, and
- 22:36Speaker 1: he's in his office and he's looking at his desk,
- 22:38Speaker 1: and on his desk is this small package and he
- 22:41Speaker 1: hasn't opened it yet, but he's so excited. He's also
- 22:44Speaker 1: kind of nervous, but he feels like, this is it,
- 22:47Speaker 1: this is the thing I've been waiting for. So over
- 22:50Speaker 1: the past year, doctor Halstead had continued to iterate on
- 22:53Speaker 1: how can I help Caroline, how can I keep her
- 22:56Speaker 1: from hurting herself? And eventually he had this huge epiphany.
- 23:00Speaker 1: He came up with this sort of outside the box
- 23:03Speaker 1: concept and he pitched it to a company and said, hey,
- 23:05Speaker 1: can you help me make these? And now sitting in
- 23:08Speaker 1: front of him on the desk was effectively the prototype
- 23:11Speaker 1: of this strange thing he had come up with, which
- 23:14Speaker 1: again was just to help his love Caroline. And so
- 23:19Speaker 1: doctor Halstead took a deep breath. He walked over and
- 23:22Speaker 1: he ripped open the package and inside were these two
- 23:26Speaker 1: strange looking objects, and he picked them up and without
- 23:29Speaker 1: any hesitation, doctor Halstead took the two objects. He left
- 23:33Speaker 1: his office, hustled down the hallway to the oer prep
- 23:35Speaker 1: room where he finds Caroline and she's getting ready to
- 23:38Speaker 1: wash her hands, you know, for an upcoming surgery. And
- 23:41Speaker 1: he stops her and says, here, and he hands with
- 23:43Speaker 1: the two objects, and he says, don't wash your hands,
- 23:46Speaker 1: just use these, And with a confused look, you know,
- 23:49Speaker 1: with their bloody and blistered hands, she took the two
- 23:52Speaker 1: objects and said okay. One week later and already Caroline's
- 23:57Speaker 1: hands and forearms were healing up beautifully. And also doctor Halstead,
- 24:01Speaker 1: over the course of this week, was so excited about
- 24:03Speaker 1: his prototype and the progress that he was clearly seeing
- 24:07Speaker 1: in Caroline's skin condition, that he finally worked up the
- 24:10Speaker 1: nerve to tell Caroline how much he loved her, and
- 24:12Speaker 1: Caroline would actually tell him that, you know, believe it
- 24:15Speaker 1: or not, I'm in love with you too, And before
- 24:17Speaker 1: long doctor Halstead proposed to Caroline and they got married. However,
- 24:22Speaker 1: it was not their love that sort of was remembered
- 24:24Speaker 1: for generations to come. Instead, the only reason we know
- 24:28Speaker 1: about these two is because of that prototype that doctor
- 24:31Speaker 1: Halstead came up with what he gave to Caroline that
- 24:33Speaker 1: ultimately saved her skin. It was the perfect workaround to
- 24:38Speaker 1: his hygiene hand washing process. In fact, these objects that
- 24:41Speaker 1: he created were so effective that he and everybody else
- 24:45Speaker 1: basically in medicine across the world began to use these
- 24:49Speaker 1: brand new tools, and so it is almost entirely because
- 24:53Speaker 1: of one man's love for a woman that we now
- 24:56Speaker 1: have arguably the most used medical tool in the world.
- 25:01Speaker 1: Doctor Halstead inadvertently created the world's first ever rubber surgical gloves.
- 25:13Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what
- 25:15Speaker 1: you thought of today's episode in the comments. And remember,
- 25:18Speaker 1: we have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now.
- 25:21Speaker 1: But if you're looking for a recommendation for me of
- 25:24Speaker 1: that one video that's worth your time, well it's this
- 25:27Speaker 1: one right here, So give it a watch, all right,
- 25:30Speaker 1: Until next time, see ya,