April 18, 2025 • 48 mins
Some people defy death in ways that seem almost impossible—and in this episode, we're bringing you several jaw-dropping stories of those who did just that. From near-fatal accidents to natural disasters and freak occurrences, these survivors stared death in the face and lived to tell the tale. Whether it's pure luck, incredible willpower, or something more mysterious at play, each account is a powerful reminder of just how resilient the human spirit can be. Get ready for a wild ride through some of the most unbelievable brushes with death ever recorded.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, join us as we delve into our favorite
dark tales and paranormal mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Venture with us beyond the safe places that exist in daylight.
As we go beyond in the shadows.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
True crime, paranormal hauntings, UFOs, cryptids and unsolved mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Conspiracy theories, past lives, reincarnation and all the like are.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Just a few of the topics that we will tackle.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
If it haunts your fucking dreams, then it will be
on our show. Do you know what the most fighting.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
In the world is.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
On the shutters where you found me? Yet you can't
see me in the deepest blacks when your heart starbus
and then you see their cracks, all these creepy things
that you why they track bull the demens be where
the actions as so this enough you want it, UFOs,
all them ghosts. We got everything that you want.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It won't do you know what the most thing in
the world is? Hi, and welcome back to Beyond the Shadows,
Episode one hundred and thirty seven.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Welcome back Shadow people.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
First up, I want to make a correction. Last week's
fire Pit was excellent. Sometimes when we record late at night,
mistakes happened. I definitely called you Christy when it is Kirsty,
so I wanted to apologize. She was really sweet, sent
us a message.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I told her.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
She didn't say anything about it.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I told him, but.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I didn't know that night. You know, I figured out
the next day when she had written a message under
the Spotify because I was tired. It was late that night.
I was tired. The next day, I'm fresh, I'm looking
at it. I'm like, fuck, man.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I definitely called him. I called you Christy. I can't
throw him under the bus on his own.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
We apologize again. Thanks for the h That was a
great story.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And man, you know, our listens have been up like
ten percent over the last like three three weeks or so.
But you know what hasn't been up ten percent? Tell
me our ratings and reviews unbelievable. I mean, it's just
if you guys are new and or if you're not
and you haven't had a chance to rate or review us,
(02:13):
pop on over to Apple give us a rating review
if you could five or.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Even if you already had a new account, or.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Have your kids or your mom whoever, you never never
too many? No, definitely not what we got in the
news this week. Though.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So you know, a lot of our news stories definitely
have you questioning humanity, and this week's first new story
is it's not going to change that, not at all.
So on Tuesday, a man who appeared to be in
his forties boarded the New York City subway train. Like
first thing on the video, he lights up a cigarette,
which is not legal at all on the New York subway.
No see, I don't think anyone gets too I haven't
(02:53):
seen the full video, but basically he lights up, the
car clears out, everybody just goes to a different car.
That's like the least creepy part of the story by far.
So sometime during the journey, the smoking man dies from
causes that aren't yet known. They're doing an autopsy. So
at ten forty eight pm, surveillance footage shows a woman
in a yellow sweatshirt, black pants, and a black baseball hat.
(03:16):
So she walks up to the dead man, rifles through
his pockets, taking several items, and then just walking away.
And that's not the end of it, so he gets robbed.
About an hour and a half later, the dead man
is approached by another individual, a male, this time wearing
blue jeans, a yellow hoodie and a blue baseball hat.
This guy has oral sex and actual sexual intercourse with
(03:38):
the dead body. Then he too rifles through the pockets
and takes several more items.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And this is wow.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you've got necrophilia and two robberies in less than
two hours on a New York City subway train.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And this is just a normal day. There's a normal day,
and they don't go to the New York City subway.
I remember the good old days where you could die
on the subway and only get robbed. Now they're gonna
molest you and rape you.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
The world's gone right to hell. The police have identified
the mail I'm not gonna bother saying his name. I
think his family's gone through it enough. I don't know
if they've come. They've rested the guy. They did identify
the male subject as Carlos Garcia. They've issued a warrant.
I don't know if they've actually caught him in. They
don't know who the woman robber is yet. That's a
fucked up story.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It is so jacked up. When I saw that, I'm like,
you gotta be kidding.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, I didn't see the footage. I don't want to
see the footage. I'm guessing they're gonna redact it or
blur it, but still, what the fuck?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Next up, we have nineteen year old Joshua Low from Michigan.
So he wasn't happy when his girlfriend and her family
went on a carnival cruise last year. He had to
stay behind and watch after her pets. So he emailed
in a bomb threat. Just emails it in the least
to the carnival court cruise lines. His email just said, Hey,
(05:00):
I think someone might have put a bomb on your
Sunrise cruise ship. That's it. The ship was headed for
Jamaica and had to divert to another port where a
thirty searched authorities searched all one thousand rooms for the
non existent bomb.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Just so he doesn't have to watch the pet. He
didn't want his girl to go with her parents. It's
not like she was going with a bunch of girls
to have a party or whatever. He went with her parents.
He's insecure to a little bit, and well we'll see
who she finds. He's in jail. Now, he's not in jail.
He's in prison.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It wasn't like like encrypted or anyway. He didn't do
anything to hide. Yeah, they easily trace the email back
to him.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So the worst part is he lives with that family.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yes he does. So that's that's that's.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
That's how he repays.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That's how he repays him calls on a bomb out
on the thread on their cruise. So this happened January
of last year. He finally went in front of a
judge this past Monday and he was sentenced to eight
months in prison, which actually sounds kind of light to me.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But yeah, I mean eight months in prisons, no joke, no, no.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Last Wednesday in segurd Utah, police were involved in a
high speed chase which went for almost one hundred miles.
That's a long that's a long chase. The driver was
seen doing over ninety five miles an hour when the
trooper first initiated the stop, and then the driver accelerated
the speeds of one hundred and thirty miles an hour.
Police attempted to use a spike strip on the vehicle twice.
(06:26):
The second attempt actually punctures the vehicle's left front tire.
The driver of the car failed to obey commands or
respond to the police that were outside the car. Forty
five year old anime Cabalsa Martinez was actually on the
phone with Triple A.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
We're gonna get this wheel fixed.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
So it turns out that Triple A has jurisdictional priorities
over all the other three letter departments.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I just picture him rolling up, excuse me, excuse me,
jacking it up. You have to clear base, guys, you
a tire. Emurchan gonna need you to move away from
the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Put up, putting up, red Triple A tap, That's what
she was doing. She's talking to Triple that was gonna
get her out of it. The car was surrounded.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now all four tires, No I need all four uh So.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
News stories with people buying, using, or dealing math are
not uncommon at all. We've covered a lot, but this
week's one is a bit different because of where it
takes place. Police from the Orwigsburg bore A Borough Police
Department in Pennsylvania were called to the Orwigsburg Nursing and
Rehabilitation Center when staff found a white powder and a
(07:40):
straw under the mattress of one of the residents. He
denied knowing what the substance was or where it came from,
but he eventually confessed that another resident, seventy year old
Joseph E. Hunt, had sold him the.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Drug pop pops doing math man.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
So then when police question Hunt, he too denied knowing
anything about what the drug us or where it came from. Uh.
But when they searched his room, they found more of
it inside a baggy inside as woe and he said,
I forgot that.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It was there. Oh that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
In this case, it might actually be true.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We probably forgot. That doesn't mean he didn't put it there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So the drug was determined to be math and Hunt
now faces charges of delivery, possession of manufacture, and intent
to distribute myth at the nursing The guy is seventy man,
why they gonna pull him out of the nursing home
and put him in de block. But the guy who
ratted him out now faces the wrath of the other.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
All of them. They can't get their math.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
If there's one rule of both the geriatric meth club you.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So before this week's UH story, Scott actually promised Ty
that he was going to cover the rhombuses that I
forgot last week. So we know how to let him
do that.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, you know what, I'm gonna save those for a
bonus episode. It's fair.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That is fascinating, only fair. Sorry, sorry, Ty, I tried
to hook you up.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
So we got you all right. So this week I'm
going back to UH storylines I did a long time ago.
I am going to do UH against the odds to
survival stories.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I remember you doing that. That goes back away.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
There's a long time, well over a year ago. Yeah,
long time. I've almost done it a few times, so
I'm like, I'm finally going to pull a trigger on it.
So I have like a list of different stuff to do.
We get so many from the from the listeners and stuff,
and it's just so hard to make it. I start
something and get it like halfway and then I'm onto
something so many times.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Like tomic ADHD Yeah, real bad, real bad, half written.
I'm like, fucking I don't want to do this. Put
a lot of time or.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
It's not long enough. So you're like, that's a tough
one because a lot of stuff you get in that's
just not that much stuff, and you're like, what do
I put with it?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
That's usually when I transition to a multi story one.
Yeah it's not always my intent, but sometimes that happens
cause it's a good story. You don't want to leave out.
But it's yeah, yeah, anyway, sounds good. But I'm looking
forward to it. All right, we'll be right back, all right.
(10:22):
Our first story. This is a story of Brockmeister, a
young man from Indiana who was internally decapitated and lived
to tell the tale. Brock entered the world not breathing
and suffered seizures shortly after birth. Medical professionals performed CPR,
successfully reviving him and setting the stage for a life
(10:45):
marked by remarkable recoveries. Brock's fight for life actually began.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The very moment he was born. When he came into
the world in Plymouth, Indiana, something was terribly wrong. He
wasn't breathing. The doctors and nerves us jumped into action
right away. He had to be given CPR to bring
him back, which is incredibly rare for a newborn. But
this wasn't the end of it. Shortly after he started
(11:11):
breathing again, he began having seizures. It was terrifying for
his family. Newborn seizures can be dangerous and are a
sign that something isn't quite right with the brain. A
nervous system but once again, Brock pulled through. Even as
a baby, he showed a level of strength and resilience
that would come to define his whole life. It was
(11:33):
almost like he was born a fighter, surviving his first
life threatening event just minutes after entering the world, and
as wild as that sound, it would just be the
beginning of an incredible, almost unbelievable life story. The early
brush with death was the first of several life threatening
challenges he faced. When Brock was just sixteen years old,
(11:56):
he was hit with some really tough news. He had
a brain It was a scary time. He had to
go through chemotherapy and radiation, which made him really sick
and weak, but Brock didn't give up. Even though the
treatments were hard, he kept fighting. With help from his family, friends,
and doctors, Brock brought excuse me, Brock pushed through all
(12:19):
of it. After months of treatment, the tumor was gone.
He beat cancer. It was an incredible win, and it
showed just how strong and determined he was. That same
strength would help him survive something even more unbelievable just
a few years later. January twelfth, twenty eighteen, supposed to
(12:40):
be an ordinary day, Brock was just twenty two years old.
That day, Brock was riding in a car with friends
in Plymouth, Indiana, when the vehicle hit a patch of ice,
slid off the road, and smashed into a pole. Everyone
else walked away with minor injuries, but Brock he was moving.
(13:01):
He had no pulse. When paramedics arrived, they found unresponsive.
CPR was performed immediately, and somehow they got his heart
beating again. He was rushed to Memorial Hospital in Self Bend,
and then that's when doctors made a chilling discovery. Brock
had suffered Atlanta occipical dislocation, commonly known as an internal decapitation.
(13:30):
Never heard that expression before, and I'm working in healthcare.
I didn't know this either. This means that his skull
had detached from his spinal column. Oh my god, but
his skin, muscle, and blood vessels kept everything externally intact.
It's an injury so severe that seventy percent of the
people die instantly, and only a tiny fraction of those
(13:55):
that survive are left paralyzed in a coma. For perspective,
this is the same injury that claims the lives of
many and high speed crashes in most cases the brain
sum the brain stem is just completely severed. Brock, though
he was still alive. The neurosurgeon performed the emergency operation.
(14:17):
I had had the doctor's name there, skipped right over it.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I don't say that man.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
He performed the emergency operation using a titanium rod, screws
and a halo brace. He reconnected Brock's skull to his spine,
essentially rebuilding the structure link that holds the human head
in place. The surgery was successful, but recovery would be uncertain.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Guy pulls off a surgery like that, and you're not
even going to say his fucking name.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
That's that's his job. The surgery was successful, but recovery
would be uncertain. Would he walk, talk, breathe on his own?
And that's just it? You mean, when someone has a
you know, something like that, usual a lot of time
his brain injury, they don't come back around, really just
a wait and see. I would think, exactly, But the
docs had no idea. But Brock did something no one expected.
(15:08):
He woke up. Within days, he was moving his arms
and his legs. A week later, he was talking, not
slurring speech, full conversation. Within a month, he was walking
with assistants. Doctors called him a walking miracle, not just
for surviving internal decapitation, but for making a recovery that
(15:29):
defined medical logic. Remember, he wasn't even supposed to live
through that accident, let alone speak or walk again.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Dude's like a terminator.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
He's impressed with no shit, and he's only twenty two
at this day.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's overcome a lot of shit already.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
But this was the same kid that had beat brain
cancer in high school, who came back stronger after every
hit life threw at him. He wasn't going down without
a fight. Since then, Brock has become a symbol of
hope and resilience, given interviews and sharing his story with others.
He's taken part in community events, charity walks, and he
got back to doing some of the things he loved
(16:03):
before the accident. So Rock's a badass man. It's impressive,
all right. The next story Thomas Musgrave. In January of
eighteen sixty four, we're going back, way back. Captain Thomas
(16:24):
Musgrave set out for Sydney, Australia, aboard the Brigantine Brigantine Grafton,
that's the name of the ship. The goal was to
search for potential trade prospects and mining opportunities on the
remote Ackland Islands, some two hundred and eighty five miles
(16:44):
off the south of New Zealand. So we have a
lot of listeners in Australia, New Zealand. I'm gonna putcher
the shit out of this. Musgrave was an experienced sailor
and with a crew of just four men, Franco Edward Renal,
(17:04):
Alexander McLaurin, George Harris and Henry Forge. At least those
ones are easy. The voyage was intended to be brief,
but nature had other plans. What followed was an extraordinary
twenty months struggle for survival, one that would test the
limits of human endurance and the power of hope in
the face of relentless despair. On January third, eighteen sixty four,
(17:30):
the Grafton was driven ashore in Carnig Harbor during a
violent storm. The vessel was wrecked beyond repair, Battered by
wind and waves, the crew barely escaped with their lives.
They salvaged what they could tools, some food, a dinghy,
and the ship's chronometer, but they were stranded on an
(17:54):
uninhabited and unforgiven island. At the bottom of the world.
The Glen Islands were harsh, cold, wet, and windstrap wind
swept year round, with dense forest, boggy terrain, and almost
no edible vegetation. The crew's only hope for survival was
their own ingenuity, the resources of the wrecked ship, and
(18:17):
whatever the island could provide. With winter approaching, they quickly
realized the urgency of building a shelter and securing a
steady food supply. Musgrave and Ronald led the charge in
transforming their desperate situation into a livable one. They used
timber salvaged from the ship. They constructed a small, sturdy
(18:40):
cabin insulated with mud and moss, a makeshift home that
would become their refuge for over a year and a half.
They fashioned furniture, cooking implements, and even clothing from the
remnants of the ship and the local flora and fauna.
I used those words, all right, but food remained a
(19:06):
constant struggle. The men survived on a diet of shellfish, birds,
and an occasional pig which was on the You know,
the descendants of the animals that were on the island
from previous expositions that had been to the island before.
But they also I didn't have it here. But they
also survived on seals. There was a whole bunch of seals,
but the seals were seasonal, so they would be there
(19:27):
part of the time and then they would just be gone. Yeah,
So the island provided very few edible plants. Salt was
painstakingly extracted from the seawater. At one point, the crew
ran out of matches and were forced to devise a
method of starting fire by rubbing sticks and using flint,
(19:50):
crucial for cooking and warmth in the bone chilling climate,
their help began to deteriorate. Damp conditions and lack of
nutrients led to frequent illness, including bouts of scurvy that's
for lack of vitamin C right, yes, depression and cabin
fever set in. Musgrave himself fell into a long period
(20:11):
of depression, during which Renald took on the leadership role.
It was a testament to the group's solidarity and they
never turned on one another. Renald even resourcefully built a forge.
Dude built the forge on the island and crafted metal tools,
including nails and fishing gear to help them survive. Plan
(20:33):
for the escape. You think about how much more resourceful
people were back then. Dude made nails and a hammer
on a deserted island. I couldn't do that. Going to
Low's button pops off my shirt. Now I'm like, wow, well,
I guess that's no good. This week's ruined. My life sucks.
(20:54):
After over a year stranded, the men knew they could
not wait definitely for their rescue. Their only option was
to take matters into their own hand. They waited quite
a while, though, waiting for people to show up. You know,
they waited a year.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
They repaired the Grafton's dinghy, which was just under thirteen
feet long, and outfitted it for a daring open sea
voyage to New Zealand. With limited materials, they improvised sales
from cloth and cocking from tree, sap and clay. Only
three men could go. They had initially initially tried to
(21:30):
set off with all of them, but it was just
too much for the ship, so they had to bring
a couple of them. Came back just Musgrave, Ranald and McLaren.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
How many is theyre going?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Just five?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Five?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
They had attempt the two hundred and eighty five mile
journey leaving Harrison forge behind, Harrison forge behind, the promise
to return We'll be back somewhere guarantee. On July nineteenth,
eighteen sixty five, after six days battling ice and stormy weather,
(22:02):
the dinghy finally reached Stuart Island, at the southern tip
of New Zealand. From there, Musgrave made his way to
the inver Cargill Invercargill and then to do Dundon, where
he arranged for a rescue mission. True to his word,
(22:22):
he returned to the Aklan Islands and rescued the remaining
two crewmen in August of that same year. So he
actually went back. I don't know that you find me
back at sea after a first off, You're not going
to find me at sea. I want to be going
on a fucking cruise. But dude went right back, right
back to the I mean, he promised him to go
back for him. Can't just leave him there. But I
(22:43):
would have send a crew, like we'll be back now,
We'll send somebody for you, all right now, this part
of the story is crazy. At the same time that
the captain Muskrill and his men, Musgrave and his men
were surviving in the harbor, another group of castorways were
(23:03):
also struggling to stay alive on the opposite side of
the island. Unbeknounced to the captain and his crew while
they were enduring their long exile in the southern coast
of the Aklan Islands. Another ship at the same faith
Just months later, in May of eighteen sixty four, the
Imviclode a Scottish a Scottish ship traveling from Australia to
(23:28):
South America, was smashed against the rocky north west cove
of the island in another fierce storm. Of the twenty
five men aboard, only nineteen made it ashore alive. But
unlike Musgrave's group, who had managed to salvage supplies and
tools from the wreck of the graft In, this crew
only had almost nothing, no fire, starting tools, no food,
(23:52):
no shelter, and no real leadership. The two groups were
marooned on the same island at the same time, but
never crossed pass. Their stories, however, was a grim study
in contrast. And this reminds me. I don't know why
it reminds me so much, but your father and my
father were stationed on the exact same ship in the navy.
(24:15):
Never once did they cross pass they were on there
for years, never met They were on the Saratoga right yep. Yeah,
aircraft carrier yep, and never once met in that unreal.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, my dad told me that, I'm like, no fucking way.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
But yeah, I mean, I think there's like six thousand
people on this ship. You don't think about it, but
ship man, all right? Where was? Their stories, however, are
a grim study. In contrast, the Inverclaude survivors landed in
a much more hostile and barren part of the island,
(24:51):
far from the relative shelters and resources of the Carnly Harbor.
Lacking tools, they struggled to bill shelter on effectively, hunger
setting quickly driven by desperation, the survivors turned to scavenging
seabirds and roots whatever they could find, but their inexperience,
(25:11):
poor organization, and lack of cooperation quickly led to a breakdown.
As conditions worsened, some men died from exposure and starvation,
Others simply just gave up hope. There are accounts that
some may have succumbed to cannibalism, although this remains uncertain.
What is certain is that their unity shattered and survival
(25:33):
became grim, individuals battled. What makes the shipwrecked story so
compelling is to start contrasts in the outcome. Musgray's group,
all five of them survived. It's because they had had
good leadership.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
In contrast, the Inverclaude castaways descended into chaos. Their captain
reportedly he abandoned all respond stabilities early on, failed to
organize the crew or maintain morale. Of the original nineteen survivors,
only three were rescued.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Was captain one of them?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I didn't get that. I didn't see that. Roughly the
same lane. They were there almost the same exact amount
of time. I don't know if the captain was one
of them or not. I don't believe he was. He's
probably the one they ate, probably mutiny on the on
the island. When Musgrave returned to rescue his own crew
in eighteen sixty five, he was shocked to learn that
the others had been suffering and dying on the same island.
(26:33):
He later wrote of the tragedy with deep sorrow, wishing
that they could somehow discovered one another. If they had,
many lives could have been saved. It's crazy that they
were there at the same time. Ship two shipwrecks at
the exact same well real close to the exact same time.
Living on the same.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Island shows what leadership can do or lack of.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, big difference. Huh. All right, this story is of Julianne.
I don't even know how to say this last name.
What do you think Copik is it? We'll go with
(27:13):
that Copek. I get all the rest of wrong, so
why not this one. Julianne Copek was only seventeen years
old when her life changed forever. On December twenty fourth,
nineteen seventy one, Christmas Eve, she got on a plane
with her mom, Maria and Lima Peru. They were flying
to visit Julianne's father, who was working deep in the
(27:35):
Amazon rainforest. The airline was Lansa, a small company with
a bad reputation for safety, but it was the only
way to get to their destination in time for Christmas.
So they went, and all the flights were booked. It
was Christmas time, and then there's this one airline and
I can't remember somebody asked them, if you told them that,
do not fly them. These guys aren't safe.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
That's what you want to hear.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
But it was near Christmas. Christmas no other way trying
to get to her dad for Christmas, so took the flight.
Flight started out normal. Julian sat next to her mother
looking out at the clouds, but about thirty minutes into
the flight, they hit a huge thunderstorm. The sky turned black,
the plane shook violently, and lightning flashed all around them.
(28:19):
People actually started screaming, then everything exploded. Juliane remembers hearing
her mother say that's the end, it's all over, before
everything went silent. The plane was struck by lightning and
broke apart in midair ten thousand feet as over three
thousand meters above the ground. Julianne, still strapped into her seat,
(28:42):
was sucked out of the plane and started falling through
the sky. She fell for what felt like forever, spinning
and the wind roaring in her ears, before crashing into
the thick canopy of the jungle. Miraculously, deceit in the
trees helped slow her fall. She hit the ground hard,
but somehow, wow she survived. When Julianne woke up the
(29:05):
next morning, she was laying on the jungle floor. Her
arm was badly hurt, her collar bone was broken and
one of her eyes was swollen shut. She had lost
her glasses, one shoe, and she was wearing only a
thin dress. She was completely lone in the middle of
the Amazon rainforest, one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's gotta be terrifying.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, she's seventeen year old. Fell, just fell from the sky,
wakes up in the middle of the jungle.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Experienced navigators get lost in the Amazon.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, no kidding. She was completely alone in the middle
of the Amazon rainforest. I just said that, one of
the most dangerous places on Earth. She called out for
a mother, but no one answered. She was scared, but
she didn't panic. She'd grown up in the jungle with
her scientist parents and had learned a lot about surviving
(29:58):
in nature. She remembered her father's advice follow water. Water
leads to people. So that's what she did. And that
makes sense. I mean, it's it's a good solid what
else you got. You know, you're in the middle of
the rainforest. You know the water is at least going.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
To run to the coast.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Eventually, Julianne found a small stream and started walking along it.
She hoped it would lead her to the river and
eventually to people. But the jungle was tough. Every step
was a struggle. She had no food. She tried to
found find fruit that she recognized. Luckily, she found a
(30:37):
few that she knew weren't poisonous, but mostly she survived
by drinking water from the stream. You know, I was
thinking about this, if you look at what they believe now,
A lot of the the Amazon forest they believe was planted,
like if there's in general, there's a shit ton of
different fruit, fruit trees and stuff that it shouldn't. I mean,
(31:01):
they weren't indigenous to there, and that they believe like
this just like a giant, overgrown, like planted forest.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Explorer from every part of the globe.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Bag Man, that was I mean, how many pyramids you
think are through there. There's so much civilization that they
haven't even found. Lighthart shows them. They're like everywhere. There
were bugs everywhere. Mosquitoes bit her constantly. She had a
deep cut on her arm that got infected. Maggot started
crawling into her wound. Her skin was sunburned during the
(31:35):
day and freezing cold. That night, she had to sleep
on the wet jungle floor, surrounded by snakes, insects and
wild animals. Sometimes she heard planes flying overhead, but the
jungle was too thick they couldn't see her. By the
fourth day, she found part of the crashed airplane, a
few seats, some luggage, and a body. It was a
(31:57):
painful reminder that she was the only one who had survived,
but she kept walking. On the tenth day, Julianne was tired, weak,
and barely able to walk, but then she saw something
that gave her hope. A small boat tied up near
a simple hut by the river. She had found signs
of people. No one was there at the moment, but
(32:20):
she waited, hoping someone would return. While waiting, she poured
gasoline from the boat onto her infected wound to kill
the maggots. It hurt terribly, but it worked. How bad
would that fucking hurt?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
You ever gotten gasoline in just a little cut? Oh
my god, it's so painful, But it would work. I mean,
that's gonna kill off her and kill off the maggots. Finally,
after hours of waiting, a group of local loggers returned.
At first, they were actually shocked. They thought she might
be a forest spirit, but Julianne told them her story.
(32:57):
They fed her and took her to the nearby village,
and they got to a hospital. She was the only
survivor of the crash all ninety one other people, including
her mother, had died, but later in life she shared
her story to inspire others. She even went back to
the jungle to help protect it. In twenty eleven, she
(33:17):
wrote a book called When I Fell from the Sky.
Julianne was hailed as a miracle. Her survival was a
global sensation in the media. Frenzy was intense, but it
was bittersweet. She had lost her mother in the crash,
and the trauma of the experience followed her for years.
She later said the media attention was often more difficult
than the jungle itself. The media can be absolutely resent,
(33:42):
relentless yeah. In the years that followed, she studied biology,
eventually earning a PhD, and returned to Peru to continue
the work her parents began. She became an accomplished scientist
and a quiet symbol for resilience. In nineteen ninety eight,
German filmmaker Werner Herzog, who was nearly on the same
(34:07):
doomed flight, created a documentary titled Wings of Hope, in
which Julian retraced her steps through the jungle. It was
the first time she'd returned to the crash site, and
that is her story. I've got one more. This story
(34:31):
is about Chris Moon. Chris Moon is in a superhero
from a comic book. He's a real person who went
through some of the most dangerous situations in the world
and survived. Not only did he survive, but he also
kept going even when others would have given up. This
is his story. Chris grew up in the UK and
(34:52):
joined the British Army. He trained to be an officer
and he was good at it. He learned how to
stay calm in tough situations, how to lead others, and
how to survive in dangerous places. But after a few years,
Chris decided he wanted to do something even more meaningful.
He wanted to help people who were living in countries
ruined by war. So he joined a group called the
(35:15):
Halo Trust. This group helps clear land mines. You guys
know what. Land mines are small bombs hidden in the
ground during war. These land mines are super dangerous. They
could stay active for years and her to kill people,
especially kids who were just playing outside. So Chris's first
(35:35):
big mission was in Cambodia. The country had suffered a
brutal war and land mines were everywhere. Chris trained local
people to find and safely remove them. But one day
in nineteen ninety three, while he and his team were
working near the jungle, they were captured by a group
(35:56):
called the Camerouge. The Camerouge was known for being violent
and cruel. Most people who were taken by them never
made it out alive, but Chris stayed calm. He didn't panic.
He talked to the soldiers, listened to them, and treated
them with respect, even though he was scared. After several days,
he convinced them to let his whole team go. No
(36:18):
one could believe it. It was a miracle. These guys
are notorious, notoriously violent.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
In nineteen ninety five, Chris was working in Mozambique in
Africa and also which also had a lot of land mines.
One day, while checking a field that had already been cleared,
Chris stepped on a land mine. There was a huge explosion.
His right leg was blown off above the knee. His
right arm was also torn off above the elbow. He
(36:53):
was bleeding badly. He was in shock and in pain,
but he didn't pass out. In fact, he stayed awake
and helped direct his team on what to do. Sounds
like this guy is like Grace underfire man. I mean,
this is him that's all blown up and he's the
calm one.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah right, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
He told them all stay calm, and he gave them
instructions stay calm. It's just my arm, not yours. He
was flown by helicopter to a hospital in South Africa.
Doctors weren't sure he would make it. Chris didn't give up.
He fought to stay alive and he survived. Most people
would have stopped right there. Losing an arm and a
leg would be too much. Not Chris. He worked hard
(37:32):
to learn how to walk again, using a special prosthetic leg.
He had to do everything with only one hand. It
was tough, but he kept going. And then he did
something amazing. He decided to run a marathon that's twenty
six point two miles with one leg and one arm.
People thought it was impossible, but just one year after
(37:55):
losing his limbs, Chris ran the London Marathon and finished it,
even though it took him a long time and caused
a lot of pain. He didn't stop there. Chris started
running more and more. He ended some of the hardest
races in the world. He ran in the Marathon Day Sables,
a race across the Sahara Desert desert in Africa. It's
(38:17):
one of the hottest places on Earth.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Dude, is impressive.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
He ran one hundred and thirty five miles across the
Death Valley in the United States, where temperatures go over
one hundred and twenty degrees. That's forty nine degrees cells
his He ran ultra marathons in the mountains and jungles
and even in the freezing cold, all with one leg
and one arm. Sometimes I can't get out of bed
(38:44):
because my back hurts. I know you hear these kind
of stories right now. I'm a fucking sistance ran. It's
such a slug And like he ran a marathon on
one arm, one leg, I have two good legs, two arms.
I get winded. Go in the mailbox. Chris didn't do
it for fame. He did it to raise money for charity,
to inspire others, and to show people that just because
(39:04):
something is hard doesn't mean it's impossible. He also became
a speaker. He travels all around the world to talk
to different schools, soldiers, athletes, and people going through hard times.
Tells him his story and he teaches him not to
give up. Most people would never want to go back
to the place where they almost died, and they definitely
(39:26):
wouldn't want to face the person who almost killed them.
But Chris Moon, He's not like most people. A few
years after his landmine accident in Africa, after he had survived, recovered,
and started running marathons, Chris made the decision that shocked everyone.
He wanted to go back to Cambodia, back to the
place where he'd been kidnapped by the Camerouge, back to
(39:49):
the man who had pointed a gun at him and
would have killed him at any moment. Chris had never
forgotten that moment. In nineteen ninety three, and him and
his team were working to clear land mines in that
remote jungle when they were surrounded by the Camerouge fighters.
These guys were known for being brutal. Millions of people
had died under their rule. They didn't play games. Now
(40:13):
years later, Chris wanted to meet the man who had
held him hostage, but not to get revenge, not to
yell at him. Chris wanted to understand and believe it,
or not to forgive. When Chris returned to Cambodia, he
had to go deep into the jungle again. This time,
he wasn't afraid. He'd been through so much worse, losing
an arm and a leg, nearly dying from a landmine,
(40:36):
running across deserts. What would scare him now? He tracked
down the man, the same Camerouge commander who had once
held him prisoner. They sat across from each other. Years
had passed, but the memory was still sharp. Chris remembered
his face. The man also remembered Chris, and then something
amazing happened. They talked. Chris listened to the man's story.
(40:59):
The Cameroon Rush fighter told him how he'd been pulled
into the conflict when he was just a kid, how
he had lived his life in fear and violence, how
he believed he was fighting for the right reason back then.
And Chris didn't argue or accuse him, He just listened.
Then he did the thing nobody expected. He forgave him.
(41:20):
Chris says, something like, you did what you thought you
had to do. I made peace with it. The man
was stunned. He didn't know what to say. No one
had ever done that before, not after what he'd done.
Chris explained that holding on to anger only hurt you.
Forgiveness wasn't for the camerouge commander. It was for Chris himself,
so he could move on and let go of the
fear and hate and keep living a life full of
(41:43):
meaningfulness and peace. And that is an end.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Chris an impressive group of people.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
No doubt. I mean, not only did he get kidnapped,
he goes back after the fact.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
You hiking through all that, going through all that effort
to find somebody who treated you like a piece of ship.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
But the dude let him go. Yeah, and which is
which was really rare.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
You know, it gives me all that much more incentive
not to go back. You know, you know you're gonna
be let.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Go those jungles. But I mean, dude's hiked and ran
and gone everywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Dude's machines and they were all impressive. Makes you re
examine yourself.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It really makes me feel pretty sitty.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
I'm gonna make some change, Gonna do something different, going
to the gym. My fingers aret, I'm gonna call it
a day.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Tweaked a knuckle.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Can't work anymore. This week it was a good episode.
But so we are gonna We're gonna head over to
the fire.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Pit, allright, guys, catch you over there.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
All right. So this week's fire pit comes to us
from Jimmy. Jimmy is a lung that listener. He's been
from with us since probably almost.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
A real early on.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
So. I grew up in Porterville, California. It sits in
the Central Valley, about fifteen minutes east of there sits
a small town in the foothills called Springville. Back in
nineteen eighteen, when the tuberculosis epidemic was going on, they
built a tuberculosis hospital in this little town. It ran
up into the fifties. Since then, it's been several things,
(43:24):
including housing for the elderly. There are several buildings on
the property, including a cemetery. They have pretty much converted
all of the buildings into studio or one bedroom apartments.
I think one building houses the library and one has
a medical clinic. The main building where the hospital was
is also studio apartments, with the exception of I think
(43:45):
two one bedroom apartments on the third floor, which is
the top floor. It also has a basement that is
connected to the parking lot on the south end of
the building. The rooms in the basement are used for storage.
I lived there in twenty twelve with my wife at
the time. Her name is Melissa. Our studio was on
the first floor. Now, back when it was a hospital,
(44:06):
they had a morgue in the basement and they would
also incinerate the people who passed away there. The chimney
is still there. It said that if you walk into
the cemetery with a hat on that it will get
knocked off your head. I never went to the cemetery,
so I don't know if that's true. What I do
know is that this place is haunted. While we lived there,
(44:26):
we encountered a few things. At the time, we had
a long haired chihuahua. She would sit at the foot
of the bed and growl at the corner of the closet,
yet we would never see what she saw. Several times,
the front door handle would jiggle and you would hear
a knock. We would go to the door and nobody
would be there. Once we were getting ready to leave,
(44:47):
and Melissa's uncle was standing by the door. The door
handle jiggled and there was a knock. He opened the
door and nobody was there. Now keep in mind that
no kids lived there. It was all elderly or retired people.
There's a building on the property that used to house
the doctor's At one time, a local group of ghost
hunters did an EVP session in that building and they
(45:08):
captured an EVP of a little girl. Melissa's four year
old nephew would sleep over from time to time. One morning,
she was getting him dressed and he told her that
in the middle of the night he saw a man
standing in the kitchen that smiled and waved at him.
He said the man looked like a doctor and was
wearing a doctor's mask. I believed him because how many
(45:30):
times have kids seen things that we can't. One night
I woke up and saw a tall, dark figure standing
over the couch. Another night, Melissa woke up asking me
where the little girl went. That freaked me out. Several
times we would take the dog outside at night and
you would get a feeling as if someone was watching you.
There's windows to all of the rooms in the basement,
(45:51):
and you can see them when you're outside at night.
It felt like you were being watched from those windows.
We only lived there for a year, but that's a
year I will never forget. Anyways, you guys keep doing
a great job. I love your podcast and I can't
wait until the new episodes come out. I also wanted
to add that I listen on Spotify and the commercial
breaks are not interrupting the show anymore. Thank you for
(46:14):
that until next time, simperfy.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Good. I'm glad that they're not.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, I'm glad. Thank you. Thank you for letting us know, Jimmy,
and thank you for the story.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
We haven't even asked about that, but yeah, thank you
so much, Jimmy. We appreciate everything. Man, you've been there
afraid from the start, and we appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
That was a really good story.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
That was awesome. Can you imagine living in an old
tuberculosis hospital that's got that scary.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Shit, that's got bad juju wallow.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Well, at least it was a doctor that they saw,
and not like the I don't know like a lot.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Of the but a lot of hospitals back in the day.
The doctors were creepy.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Fast, we're pretty bad. And the dog always lets you.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Know yeah, that's concerning. Like if you've got a dog
that's growling or barking at nothing, that's a red flag
because they see ship for sure.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
But I just told you that my dog, I have
a little what it's a Wiener dog mixed with the chiuahua.
His name's Jacks, and I keep taking him for a
walk in these woods out here. We go for a
walk every day. We get like two thirds of the
way in and he stops and he starts looking like
something's in the woods behind us, like dude, we better run.
And I'm like, what is it? Jacks. He does it
(47:17):
to me every day, and every day I get the chills.
I'm like, what is he? What is back there? It's nothing.
He's just fucking with me.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
My dog has woke me up a couple times in
the middle of the night barking. He doesn't sleep in
my bedroom, but he'll be barking at two in the morning.
Of course, that gets you away quick, and he'll run
over to the window in my son room, you know,
down overlooking the driveway, and the motion lights are always on,
so he senses something. And I've never seen anything, but
he hears everything, and that's something triggers the lights. Yeah, no,
it's good, but scares the fuck out of you in
(47:44):
the middle of the night because I'm thinking there's already
somebody in the house, right So, but that's their job,
you know.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, that's what they're supposed to do. Mine just does
it to fuck with me. I think, awesome story though.
We appreciate it that, We really appreciate it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
If you guys have any fire pits, scary stories, paranormal stories,
something that happened with family member if you know it
well enough, funny stories, any good stories, a good story
of any sort that you would like to hear. If
you want to record it, send it in. If you
want us to read it, we'd be happy to send
it to Beyond the Shadows two o seven at gmail
dot com or any of our socials.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Sounds good, guys. That's gonna wrap it for this episode.
We will catch you in the next one later, guys,
Hey, everybody, join us as we delve into our favorite
dark tales and paranormal mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Venture with us beyond the safe places that exist in daylight.
As we go beyond in the shadows.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
True crime, paranormal hauntings, UFOs, cryptids and unsolved mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Conspiracy theories, past lives, reincarnation and all the like are.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Just a few of the topics that we will tackle.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
If it haunts your fucking dreams, then it will be
on our show. Do you know what the most fighting.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
In the world is.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
On the shutters where you found me? Yet you can't
see me in the deepest blacks when your heart starbus
and then you see their cracks, all these creepy things
that you why they track bull the demens be where
the actions as so this enough you want it, UFOs,
all them ghosts. We got everything that you want.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It won't do you know what the most thing in
the world is? Hi, and welcome back to Beyond the Shadows,
Episode one hundred and thirty seven.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Welcome back Shadow people.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
First up, I want to make a correction. Last week's
fire Pit was excellent. Sometimes when we record late at night,
mistakes happened. I definitely called you Christy when it is Kirsty,
so I wanted to apologize. She was really sweet, sent
us a message.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I told her.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
She didn't say anything about it.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I told him, but.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I didn't know that night. You know, I figured out
the next day when she had written a message under
the Spotify because I was tired. It was late that night.
I was tired. The next day, I'm fresh, I'm looking
at it. I'm like, fuck, man.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I definitely called him. I called you Christy. I can't
throw him under the bus on his own.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
We apologize again. Thanks for the h That was a
great story.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And man, you know, our listens have been up like
ten percent over the last like three three weeks or so.
But you know what hasn't been up ten percent? Tell
me our ratings and reviews unbelievable. I mean, it's just
if you guys are new and or if you're not
and you haven't had a chance to rate or review us,
(02:13):
pop on over to Apple give us a rating review
if you could five or.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Even if you already had a new account, or.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Have your kids or your mom whoever, you never never
too many? No, definitely not what we got in the
news this week. Though.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So you know, a lot of our news stories definitely
have you questioning humanity, and this week's first new story
is it's not going to change that, not at all.
So on Tuesday, a man who appeared to be in
his forties boarded the New York City subway train. Like
first thing on the video, he lights up a cigarette,
which is not legal at all on the New York subway.
No see, I don't think anyone gets too I haven't
(02:53):
seen the full video, but basically he lights up, the
car clears out, everybody just goes to a different car.
That's like the least creepy part of the story by far.
So sometime during the journey, the smoking man dies from
causes that aren't yet known. They're doing an autopsy. So
at ten forty eight pm, surveillance footage shows a woman
in a yellow sweatshirt, black pants, and a black baseball hat.
(03:16):
So she walks up to the dead man, rifles through
his pockets, taking several items, and then just walking away.
And that's not the end of it, so he gets robbed.
About an hour and a half later, the dead man
is approached by another individual, a male, this time wearing
blue jeans, a yellow hoodie and a blue baseball hat.
This guy has oral sex and actual sexual intercourse with
(03:38):
the dead body. Then he too rifles through the pockets
and takes several more items.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And this is wow.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you've got necrophilia and two robberies in less than
two hours on a New York City subway train.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And this is just a normal day. There's a normal day,
and they don't go to the New York City subway.
I remember the good old days where you could die
on the subway and only get robbed. Now they're gonna
molest you and rape you.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
The world's gone right to hell. The police have identified
the mail I'm not gonna bother saying his name. I
think his family's gone through it enough. I don't know
if they've come. They've rested the guy. They did identify
the male subject as Carlos Garcia. They've issued a warrant.
I don't know if they've actually caught him in. They
don't know who the woman robber is yet. That's a
fucked up story.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It is so jacked up. When I saw that, I'm like,
you gotta be kidding.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, I didn't see the footage. I don't want to
see the footage. I'm guessing they're gonna redact it or
blur it, but still, what the fuck?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Next up, we have nineteen year old Joshua Low from Michigan.
So he wasn't happy when his girlfriend and her family
went on a carnival cruise last year. He had to
stay behind and watch after her pets. So he emailed
in a bomb threat. Just emails it in the least
to the carnival court cruise lines. His email just said, Hey,
(05:00):
I think someone might have put a bomb on your
Sunrise cruise ship. That's it. The ship was headed for
Jamaica and had to divert to another port where a
thirty searched authorities searched all one thousand rooms for the
non existent bomb.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Just so he doesn't have to watch the pet. He
didn't want his girl to go with her parents. It's
not like she was going with a bunch of girls
to have a party or whatever. He went with her parents.
He's insecure to a little bit, and well we'll see
who she finds. He's in jail. Now, he's not in jail.
He's in prison.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It wasn't like like encrypted or anyway. He didn't do
anything to hide. Yeah, they easily trace the email back
to him.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So the worst part is he lives with that family.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yes he does. So that's that's that's.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
That's how he repays.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That's how he repays him calls on a bomb out
on the thread on their cruise. So this happened January
of last year. He finally went in front of a
judge this past Monday and he was sentenced to eight
months in prison, which actually sounds kind of light to me.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But yeah, I mean eight months in prisons, no joke, no, no.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Last Wednesday in segurd Utah, police were involved in a
high speed chase which went for almost one hundred miles.
That's a long that's a long chase. The driver was
seen doing over ninety five miles an hour when the
trooper first initiated the stop, and then the driver accelerated
the speeds of one hundred and thirty miles an hour.
Police attempted to use a spike strip on the vehicle twice.
(06:26):
The second attempt actually punctures the vehicle's left front tire.
The driver of the car failed to obey commands or
respond to the police that were outside the car. Forty
five year old anime Cabalsa Martinez was actually on the
phone with Triple A.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
We're gonna get this wheel fixed.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
So it turns out that Triple A has jurisdictional priorities
over all the other three letter departments.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I just picture him rolling up, excuse me, excuse me,
jacking it up. You have to clear base, guys, you
a tire. Emurchan gonna need you to move away from
the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Put up, putting up, red Triple A tap, That's what
she was doing. She's talking to Triple that was gonna
get her out of it. The car was surrounded.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now all four tires, No I need all four uh So.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
News stories with people buying, using, or dealing math are
not uncommon at all. We've covered a lot, but this
week's one is a bit different because of where it
takes place. Police from the Orwigsburg bore A Borough Police
Department in Pennsylvania were called to the Orwigsburg Nursing and
Rehabilitation Center when staff found a white powder and a
(07:40):
straw under the mattress of one of the residents. He
denied knowing what the substance was or where it came from,
but he eventually confessed that another resident, seventy year old
Joseph E. Hunt, had sold him the.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Drug pop pops doing math man.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
So then when police question Hunt, he too denied knowing
anything about what the drug us or where it came from. Uh.
But when they searched his room, they found more of
it inside a baggy inside as woe and he said,
I forgot that.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It was there. Oh that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
In this case, it might actually be true.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
We probably forgot. That doesn't mean he didn't put it there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So the drug was determined to be math and Hunt
now faces charges of delivery, possession of manufacture, and intent
to distribute myth at the nursing The guy is seventy man,
why they gonna pull him out of the nursing home
and put him in de block. But the guy who
ratted him out now faces the wrath of the other.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
All of them. They can't get their math.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
If there's one rule of both the geriatric meth club you.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So before this week's UH story, Scott actually promised Ty
that he was going to cover the rhombuses that I
forgot last week. So we know how to let him
do that.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, you know what, I'm gonna save those for a
bonus episode. It's fair.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That is fascinating, only fair. Sorry, sorry, Ty, I tried
to hook you up.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
So we got you all right. So this week I'm
going back to UH storylines I did a long time ago.
I am going to do UH against the odds to
survival stories.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I remember you doing that. That goes back away.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
There's a long time, well over a year ago. Yeah,
long time. I've almost done it a few times, so
I'm like, I'm finally going to pull a trigger on it.
So I have like a list of different stuff to do.
We get so many from the from the listeners and stuff,
and it's just so hard to make it. I start
something and get it like halfway and then I'm onto
something so many times.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Like tomic ADHD Yeah, real bad, real bad, half written.
I'm like, fucking I don't want to do this. Put
a lot of time or.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
It's not long enough. So you're like, that's a tough
one because a lot of stuff you get in that's
just not that much stuff, and you're like, what do
I put with it?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
That's usually when I transition to a multi story one.
Yeah it's not always my intent, but sometimes that happens
cause it's a good story. You don't want to leave out.
But it's yeah, yeah, anyway, sounds good. But I'm looking
forward to it. All right, we'll be right back, all right.
(10:22):
Our first story. This is a story of Brockmeister, a
young man from Indiana who was internally decapitated and lived
to tell the tale. Brock entered the world not breathing
and suffered seizures shortly after birth. Medical professionals performed CPR,
successfully reviving him and setting the stage for a life
(10:45):
marked by remarkable recoveries. Brock's fight for life actually began.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The very moment he was born. When he came into
the world in Plymouth, Indiana, something was terribly wrong. He
wasn't breathing. The doctors and nerves us jumped into action
right away. He had to be given CPR to bring
him back, which is incredibly rare for a newborn. But
this wasn't the end of it. Shortly after he started
(11:11):
breathing again, he began having seizures. It was terrifying for
his family. Newborn seizures can be dangerous and are a
sign that something isn't quite right with the brain. A
nervous system but once again, Brock pulled through. Even as
a baby, he showed a level of strength and resilience
that would come to define his whole life. It was
(11:33):
almost like he was born a fighter, surviving his first
life threatening event just minutes after entering the world, and
as wild as that sound, it would just be the
beginning of an incredible, almost unbelievable life story. The early
brush with death was the first of several life threatening
challenges he faced. When Brock was just sixteen years old,
(11:56):
he was hit with some really tough news. He had
a brain It was a scary time. He had to
go through chemotherapy and radiation, which made him really sick
and weak, but Brock didn't give up. Even though the
treatments were hard, he kept fighting. With help from his family, friends,
and doctors, Brock brought excuse me, Brock pushed through all
(12:19):
of it. After months of treatment, the tumor was gone.
He beat cancer. It was an incredible win, and it
showed just how strong and determined he was. That same
strength would help him survive something even more unbelievable just
a few years later. January twelfth, twenty eighteen, supposed to
(12:40):
be an ordinary day, Brock was just twenty two years old.
That day, Brock was riding in a car with friends
in Plymouth, Indiana, when the vehicle hit a patch of ice,
slid off the road, and smashed into a pole. Everyone
else walked away with minor injuries, but Brock he was moving.
(13:01):
He had no pulse. When paramedics arrived, they found unresponsive.
CPR was performed immediately, and somehow they got his heart
beating again. He was rushed to Memorial Hospital in Self Bend,
and then that's when doctors made a chilling discovery. Brock
had suffered Atlanta occipical dislocation, commonly known as an internal decapitation.
(13:30):
Never heard that expression before, and I'm working in healthcare.
I didn't know this either. This means that his skull
had detached from his spinal column. Oh my god, but
his skin, muscle, and blood vessels kept everything externally intact.
It's an injury so severe that seventy percent of the
people die instantly, and only a tiny fraction of those
(13:55):
that survive are left paralyzed in a coma. For perspective,
this is the same injury that claims the lives of
many and high speed crashes in most cases the brain
sum the brain stem is just completely severed. Brock, though
he was still alive. The neurosurgeon performed the emergency operation.
(14:17):
I had had the doctor's name there, skipped right over it.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I don't say that man.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
He performed the emergency operation using a titanium rod, screws
and a halo brace. He reconnected Brock's skull to his spine,
essentially rebuilding the structure link that holds the human head
in place. The surgery was successful, but recovery would be uncertain.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Guy pulls off a surgery like that, and you're not
even going to say his fucking name.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
That's that's his job. The surgery was successful, but recovery
would be uncertain. Would he walk, talk, breathe on his own?
And that's just it? You mean, when someone has a
you know, something like that, usual a lot of time
his brain injury, they don't come back around, really just
a wait and see. I would think, exactly, But the
docs had no idea. But Brock did something no one expected.
(15:08):
He woke up. Within days, he was moving his arms
and his legs. A week later, he was talking, not
slurring speech, full conversation. Within a month, he was walking
with assistants. Doctors called him a walking miracle, not just
for surviving internal decapitation, but for making a recovery that
(15:29):
defined medical logic. Remember, he wasn't even supposed to live
through that accident, let alone speak or walk again.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Dude's like a terminator.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
He's impressed with no shit, and he's only twenty two
at this day.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's overcome a lot of shit already.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
But this was the same kid that had beat brain
cancer in high school, who came back stronger after every
hit life threw at him. He wasn't going down without
a fight. Since then, Brock has become a symbol of
hope and resilience, given interviews and sharing his story with others.
He's taken part in community events, charity walks, and he
got back to doing some of the things he loved
(16:03):
before the accident. So Rock's a badass man. It's impressive,
all right. The next story Thomas Musgrave. In January of
eighteen sixty four, we're going back, way back. Captain Thomas
(16:24):
Musgrave set out for Sydney, Australia, aboard the Brigantine Brigantine Grafton,
that's the name of the ship. The goal was to
search for potential trade prospects and mining opportunities on the
remote Ackland Islands, some two hundred and eighty five miles
(16:44):
off the south of New Zealand. So we have a
lot of listeners in Australia, New Zealand. I'm gonna putcher
the shit out of this. Musgrave was an experienced sailor
and with a crew of just four men, Franco Edward Renal,
(17:04):
Alexander McLaurin, George Harris and Henry Forge. At least those
ones are easy. The voyage was intended to be brief,
but nature had other plans. What followed was an extraordinary
twenty months struggle for survival, one that would test the
limits of human endurance and the power of hope in
the face of relentless despair. On January third, eighteen sixty four,
(17:30):
the Grafton was driven ashore in Carnig Harbor during a
violent storm. The vessel was wrecked beyond repair, Battered by
wind and waves, the crew barely escaped with their lives.
They salvaged what they could tools, some food, a dinghy,
and the ship's chronometer, but they were stranded on an
(17:54):
uninhabited and unforgiven island. At the bottom of the world.
The Glen Islands were harsh, cold, wet, and windstrap wind
swept year round, with dense forest, boggy terrain, and almost
no edible vegetation. The crew's only hope for survival was
their own ingenuity, the resources of the wrecked ship, and
(18:17):
whatever the island could provide. With winter approaching, they quickly
realized the urgency of building a shelter and securing a
steady food supply. Musgrave and Ronald led the charge in
transforming their desperate situation into a livable one. They used
timber salvaged from the ship. They constructed a small, sturdy
(18:40):
cabin insulated with mud and moss, a makeshift home that
would become their refuge for over a year and a half.
They fashioned furniture, cooking implements, and even clothing from the
remnants of the ship and the local flora and fauna.
I used those words, all right, but food remained a
(19:06):
constant struggle. The men survived on a diet of shellfish, birds,
and an occasional pig which was on the You know,
the descendants of the animals that were on the island
from previous expositions that had been to the island before.
But they also I didn't have it here. But they
also survived on seals. There was a whole bunch of seals,
but the seals were seasonal, so they would be there
(19:27):
part of the time and then they would just be gone. Yeah,
So the island provided very few edible plants. Salt was
painstakingly extracted from the seawater. At one point, the crew
ran out of matches and were forced to devise a
method of starting fire by rubbing sticks and using flint,
(19:50):
crucial for cooking and warmth in the bone chilling climate,
their help began to deteriorate. Damp conditions and lack of
nutrients led to frequent illness, including bouts of scurvy that's
for lack of vitamin C right, yes, depression and cabin
fever set in. Musgrave himself fell into a long period
(20:11):
of depression, during which Renald took on the leadership role.
It was a testament to the group's solidarity and they
never turned on one another. Renald even resourcefully built a forge.
Dude built the forge on the island and crafted metal tools,
including nails and fishing gear to help them survive. Plan
(20:33):
for the escape. You think about how much more resourceful
people were back then. Dude made nails and a hammer
on a deserted island. I couldn't do that. Going to
Low's button pops off my shirt. Now I'm like, wow, well,
I guess that's no good. This week's ruined. My life sucks.
(20:54):
After over a year stranded, the men knew they could
not wait definitely for their rescue. Their only option was
to take matters into their own hand. They waited quite
a while, though, waiting for people to show up. You know,
they waited a year.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
They repaired the Grafton's dinghy, which was just under thirteen
feet long, and outfitted it for a daring open sea
voyage to New Zealand. With limited materials, they improvised sales
from cloth and cocking from tree, sap and clay. Only
three men could go. They had initially initially tried to
(21:30):
set off with all of them, but it was just
too much for the ship, so they had to bring
a couple of them. Came back just Musgrave, Ranald and McLaren.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
How many is theyre going?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Just five?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Five?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
They had attempt the two hundred and eighty five mile
journey leaving Harrison forge behind, Harrison forge behind, the promise
to return We'll be back somewhere guarantee. On July nineteenth,
eighteen sixty five, after six days battling ice and stormy weather,
(22:02):
the dinghy finally reached Stuart Island, at the southern tip
of New Zealand. From there, Musgrave made his way to
the inver Cargill Invercargill and then to do Dundon, where
he arranged for a rescue mission. True to his word,
(22:22):
he returned to the Aklan Islands and rescued the remaining
two crewmen in August of that same year. So he
actually went back. I don't know that you find me
back at sea after a first off, You're not going
to find me at sea. I want to be going
on a fucking cruise. But dude went right back, right
back to the I mean, he promised him to go
back for him. Can't just leave him there. But I
(22:43):
would have send a crew, like we'll be back now,
We'll send somebody for you, all right now, this part
of the story is crazy. At the same time that
the captain Muskrill and his men, Musgrave and his men
were surviving in the harbor, another group of castorways were
(23:03):
also struggling to stay alive on the opposite side of
the island. Unbeknounced to the captain and his crew while
they were enduring their long exile in the southern coast
of the Aklan Islands. Another ship at the same faith
Just months later, in May of eighteen sixty four, the
Imviclode a Scottish a Scottish ship traveling from Australia to
(23:28):
South America, was smashed against the rocky north west cove
of the island in another fierce storm. Of the twenty
five men aboard, only nineteen made it ashore alive. But
unlike Musgrave's group, who had managed to salvage supplies and
tools from the wreck of the graft In, this crew
only had almost nothing, no fire, starting tools, no food,
(23:52):
no shelter, and no real leadership. The two groups were
marooned on the same island at the same time, but
never crossed pass. Their stories, however, was a grim study
in contrast. And this reminds me. I don't know why
it reminds me so much, but your father and my
father were stationed on the exact same ship in the navy.
(24:15):
Never once did they cross pass they were on there
for years, never met They were on the Saratoga right yep. Yeah,
aircraft carrier yep, and never once met in that unreal.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, my dad told me that, I'm like, no fucking way.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
But yeah, I mean, I think there's like six thousand
people on this ship. You don't think about it, but
ship man, all right? Where was? Their stories, however, are
a grim study. In contrast, the Inverclaude survivors landed in
a much more hostile and barren part of the island,
(24:51):
far from the relative shelters and resources of the Carnly Harbor.
Lacking tools, they struggled to bill shelter on effectively, hunger
setting quickly driven by desperation, the survivors turned to scavenging
seabirds and roots whatever they could find, but their inexperience,
(25:11):
poor organization, and lack of cooperation quickly led to a breakdown.
As conditions worsened, some men died from exposure and starvation,
Others simply just gave up hope. There are accounts that
some may have succumbed to cannibalism, although this remains uncertain.
What is certain is that their unity shattered and survival
(25:33):
became grim, individuals battled. What makes the shipwrecked story so
compelling is to start contrasts in the outcome. Musgray's group,
all five of them survived. It's because they had had
good leadership.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
In contrast, the Inverclaude castaways descended into chaos. Their captain
reportedly he abandoned all respond stabilities early on, failed to
organize the crew or maintain morale. Of the original nineteen survivors,
only three were rescued.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Was captain one of them?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I didn't get that. I didn't see that. Roughly the
same lane. They were there almost the same exact amount
of time. I don't know if the captain was one
of them or not. I don't believe he was. He's
probably the one they ate, probably mutiny on the on
the island. When Musgrave returned to rescue his own crew
in eighteen sixty five, he was shocked to learn that
the others had been suffering and dying on the same island.
(26:33):
He later wrote of the tragedy with deep sorrow, wishing
that they could somehow discovered one another. If they had,
many lives could have been saved. It's crazy that they
were there at the same time. Ship two shipwrecks at
the exact same well real close to the exact same time.
Living on the same.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Island shows what leadership can do or lack of.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, big difference. Huh. All right, this story is of Julianne.
I don't even know how to say this last name.
What do you think Copik is it? We'll go with
(27:13):
that Copek. I get all the rest of wrong, so
why not this one. Julianne Copek was only seventeen years
old when her life changed forever. On December twenty fourth,
nineteen seventy one, Christmas Eve, she got on a plane
with her mom, Maria and Lima Peru. They were flying
to visit Julianne's father, who was working deep in the
(27:35):
Amazon rainforest. The airline was Lansa, a small company with
a bad reputation for safety, but it was the only
way to get to their destination in time for Christmas.
So they went, and all the flights were booked. It
was Christmas time, and then there's this one airline and
I can't remember somebody asked them, if you told them that,
do not fly them. These guys aren't safe.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
That's what you want to hear.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
But it was near Christmas. Christmas no other way trying
to get to her dad for Christmas, so took the flight.
Flight started out normal. Julian sat next to her mother
looking out at the clouds, but about thirty minutes into
the flight, they hit a huge thunderstorm. The sky turned black,
the plane shook violently, and lightning flashed all around them.
(28:19):
People actually started screaming, then everything exploded. Juliane remembers hearing
her mother say that's the end, it's all over, before
everything went silent. The plane was struck by lightning and
broke apart in midair ten thousand feet as over three
thousand meters above the ground. Julianne, still strapped into her seat,
(28:42):
was sucked out of the plane and started falling through
the sky. She fell for what felt like forever, spinning
and the wind roaring in her ears, before crashing into
the thick canopy of the jungle. Miraculously, deceit in the
trees helped slow her fall. She hit the ground hard,
but somehow, wow she survived. When Julianne woke up the
(29:05):
next morning, she was laying on the jungle floor. Her
arm was badly hurt, her collar bone was broken and
one of her eyes was swollen shut. She had lost
her glasses, one shoe, and she was wearing only a
thin dress. She was completely lone in the middle of
the Amazon rainforest, one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's gotta be terrifying.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, she's seventeen year old. Fell, just fell from the sky,
wakes up in the middle of the jungle.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Experienced navigators get lost in the Amazon.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, no kidding. She was completely alone in the middle
of the Amazon rainforest. I just said that, one of
the most dangerous places on Earth. She called out for
a mother, but no one answered. She was scared, but
she didn't panic. She'd grown up in the jungle with
her scientist parents and had learned a lot about surviving
(29:58):
in nature. She remembered her father's advice follow water. Water
leads to people. So that's what she did. And that
makes sense. I mean, it's it's a good solid what
else you got. You know, you're in the middle of
the rainforest. You know the water is at least going.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
To run to the coast.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Eventually, Julianne found a small stream and started walking along it.
She hoped it would lead her to the river and
eventually to people. But the jungle was tough. Every step
was a struggle. She had no food. She tried to
found find fruit that she recognized. Luckily, she found a
(30:37):
few that she knew weren't poisonous, but mostly she survived
by drinking water from the stream. You know, I was
thinking about this, if you look at what they believe now,
A lot of the the Amazon forest they believe was planted,
like if there's in general, there's a shit ton of
different fruit, fruit trees and stuff that it shouldn't. I mean,
(31:01):
they weren't indigenous to there, and that they believe like
this just like a giant, overgrown, like planted forest.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Explorer from every part of the globe.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Bag Man, that was I mean, how many pyramids you
think are through there. There's so much civilization that they
haven't even found. Lighthart shows them. They're like everywhere. There
were bugs everywhere. Mosquitoes bit her constantly. She had a
deep cut on her arm that got infected. Maggot started
crawling into her wound. Her skin was sunburned during the
(31:35):
day and freezing cold. That night, she had to sleep
on the wet jungle floor, surrounded by snakes, insects and
wild animals. Sometimes she heard planes flying overhead, but the
jungle was too thick they couldn't see her. By the
fourth day, she found part of the crashed airplane, a
few seats, some luggage, and a body. It was a
(31:57):
painful reminder that she was the only one who had survived,
but she kept walking. On the tenth day, Julianne was tired, weak,
and barely able to walk, but then she saw something
that gave her hope. A small boat tied up near
a simple hut by the river. She had found signs
of people. No one was there at the moment, but
(32:20):
she waited, hoping someone would return. While waiting, she poured
gasoline from the boat onto her infected wound to kill
the maggots. It hurt terribly, but it worked. How bad
would that fucking hurt?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
You ever gotten gasoline in just a little cut? Oh
my god, it's so painful, But it would work. I mean,
that's gonna kill off her and kill off the maggots. Finally,
after hours of waiting, a group of local loggers returned.
At first, they were actually shocked. They thought she might
be a forest spirit, but Julianne told them her story.
(32:57):
They fed her and took her to the nearby village,
and they got to a hospital. She was the only
survivor of the crash all ninety one other people, including
her mother, had died, but later in life she shared
her story to inspire others. She even went back to
the jungle to help protect it. In twenty eleven, she
(33:17):
wrote a book called When I Fell from the Sky.
Julianne was hailed as a miracle. Her survival was a
global sensation in the media. Frenzy was intense, but it
was bittersweet. She had lost her mother in the crash,
and the trauma of the experience followed her for years.
She later said the media attention was often more difficult
than the jungle itself. The media can be absolutely resent,
(33:42):
relentless yeah. In the years that followed, she studied biology,
eventually earning a PhD, and returned to Peru to continue
the work her parents began. She became an accomplished scientist
and a quiet symbol for resilience. In nineteen ninety eight,
German filmmaker Werner Herzog, who was nearly on the same
(34:07):
doomed flight, created a documentary titled Wings of Hope, in
which Julian retraced her steps through the jungle. It was
the first time she'd returned to the crash site, and
that is her story. I've got one more. This story
(34:31):
is about Chris Moon. Chris Moon is in a superhero
from a comic book. He's a real person who went
through some of the most dangerous situations in the world
and survived. Not only did he survive, but he also
kept going even when others would have given up. This
is his story. Chris grew up in the UK and
(34:52):
joined the British Army. He trained to be an officer
and he was good at it. He learned how to
stay calm in tough situations, how to lead others, and
how to survive in dangerous places. But after a few years,
Chris decided he wanted to do something even more meaningful.
He wanted to help people who were living in countries
ruined by war. So he joined a group called the
(35:15):
Halo Trust. This group helps clear land mines. You guys
know what. Land mines are small bombs hidden in the
ground during war. These land mines are super dangerous. They
could stay active for years and her to kill people,
especially kids who were just playing outside. So Chris's first
(35:35):
big mission was in Cambodia. The country had suffered a
brutal war and land mines were everywhere. Chris trained local
people to find and safely remove them. But one day
in nineteen ninety three, while he and his team were
working near the jungle, they were captured by a group
(35:56):
called the Camerouge. The Camerouge was known for being violent
and cruel. Most people who were taken by them never
made it out alive, but Chris stayed calm. He didn't panic.
He talked to the soldiers, listened to them, and treated
them with respect, even though he was scared. After several days,
he convinced them to let his whole team go. No
(36:18):
one could believe it. It was a miracle. These guys
are notorious, notoriously violent.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
In nineteen ninety five, Chris was working in Mozambique in
Africa and also which also had a lot of land mines.
One day, while checking a field that had already been cleared,
Chris stepped on a land mine. There was a huge explosion.
His right leg was blown off above the knee. His
right arm was also torn off above the elbow. He
(36:53):
was bleeding badly. He was in shock and in pain,
but he didn't pass out. In fact, he stayed awake
and helped direct his team on what to do. Sounds
like this guy is like Grace underfire man. I mean,
this is him that's all blown up and he's the
calm one.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah right, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
He told them all stay calm, and he gave them
instructions stay calm. It's just my arm, not yours. He
was flown by helicopter to a hospital in South Africa.
Doctors weren't sure he would make it. Chris didn't give up.
He fought to stay alive and he survived. Most people
would have stopped right there. Losing an arm and a
leg would be too much. Not Chris. He worked hard
(37:32):
to learn how to walk again, using a special prosthetic leg.
He had to do everything with only one hand. It
was tough, but he kept going. And then he did
something amazing. He decided to run a marathon that's twenty
six point two miles with one leg and one arm.
People thought it was impossible, but just one year after
(37:55):
losing his limbs, Chris ran the London Marathon and finished it,
even though it took him a long time and caused
a lot of pain. He didn't stop there. Chris started
running more and more. He ended some of the hardest
races in the world. He ran in the Marathon Day Sables,
a race across the Sahara Desert desert in Africa. It's
(38:17):
one of the hottest places on Earth.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Dude, is impressive.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
He ran one hundred and thirty five miles across the
Death Valley in the United States, where temperatures go over
one hundred and twenty degrees. That's forty nine degrees cells
his He ran ultra marathons in the mountains and jungles
and even in the freezing cold, all with one leg
and one arm. Sometimes I can't get out of bed
(38:44):
because my back hurts. I know you hear these kind
of stories right now. I'm a fucking sistance ran. It's
such a slug And like he ran a marathon on
one arm, one leg, I have two good legs, two arms.
I get winded. Go in the mailbox. Chris didn't do
it for fame. He did it to raise money for charity,
to inspire others, and to show people that just because
(39:04):
something is hard doesn't mean it's impossible. He also became
a speaker. He travels all around the world to talk
to different schools, soldiers, athletes, and people going through hard times.
Tells him his story and he teaches him not to
give up. Most people would never want to go back
to the place where they almost died, and they definitely
(39:26):
wouldn't want to face the person who almost killed them.
But Chris Moon, He's not like most people. A few
years after his landmine accident in Africa, after he had survived, recovered,
and started running marathons, Chris made the decision that shocked everyone.
He wanted to go back to Cambodia, back to the
place where he'd been kidnapped by the Camerouge, back to
(39:49):
the man who had pointed a gun at him and
would have killed him at any moment. Chris had never
forgotten that moment. In nineteen ninety three, and him and
his team were working to clear land mines in that
remote jungle when they were surrounded by the Camerouge fighters.
These guys were known for being brutal. Millions of people
had died under their rule. They didn't play games. Now
(40:13):
years later, Chris wanted to meet the man who had
held him hostage, but not to get revenge, not to
yell at him. Chris wanted to understand and believe it,
or not to forgive. When Chris returned to Cambodia, he
had to go deep into the jungle again. This time,
he wasn't afraid. He'd been through so much worse, losing
an arm and a leg, nearly dying from a landmine,
(40:36):
running across deserts. What would scare him now? He tracked
down the man, the same Camerouge commander who had once
held him prisoner. They sat across from each other. Years
had passed, but the memory was still sharp. Chris remembered
his face. The man also remembered Chris, and then something
amazing happened. They talked. Chris listened to the man's story.
(40:59):
The Cameroon Rush fighter told him how he'd been pulled
into the conflict when he was just a kid, how
he had lived his life in fear and violence, how
he believed he was fighting for the right reason back then.
And Chris didn't argue or accuse him, He just listened.
Then he did the thing nobody expected. He forgave him.
(41:20):
Chris says, something like, you did what you thought you
had to do. I made peace with it. The man
was stunned. He didn't know what to say. No one
had ever done that before, not after what he'd done.
Chris explained that holding on to anger only hurt you.
Forgiveness wasn't for the camerouge commander. It was for Chris himself,
so he could move on and let go of the
fear and hate and keep living a life full of
(41:43):
meaningfulness and peace. And that is an end.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Chris an impressive group of people.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
No doubt. I mean, not only did he get kidnapped,
he goes back after the fact.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
You hiking through all that, going through all that effort
to find somebody who treated you like a piece of ship.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
But the dude let him go. Yeah, and which is
which was really rare.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
You know, it gives me all that much more incentive
not to go back. You know, you know you're gonna
be let.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Go those jungles. But I mean, dude's hiked and ran
and gone everywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Dude's machines and they were all impressive. Makes you re
examine yourself.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It really makes me feel pretty sitty.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
I'm gonna make some change, Gonna do something different, going
to the gym. My fingers aret, I'm gonna call it
a day.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Tweaked a knuckle.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Can't work anymore. This week it was a good episode.
But so we are gonna We're gonna head over to
the fire.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Pit, allright, guys, catch you over there.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
All right. So this week's fire pit comes to us
from Jimmy. Jimmy is a lung that listener. He's been
from with us since probably almost.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
A real early on.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
So. I grew up in Porterville, California. It sits in
the Central Valley, about fifteen minutes east of there sits
a small town in the foothills called Springville. Back in
nineteen eighteen, when the tuberculosis epidemic was going on, they
built a tuberculosis hospital in this little town. It ran
up into the fifties. Since then, it's been several things,
(43:24):
including housing for the elderly. There are several buildings on
the property, including a cemetery. They have pretty much converted
all of the buildings into studio or one bedroom apartments.
I think one building houses the library and one has
a medical clinic. The main building where the hospital was
is also studio apartments, with the exception of I think
(43:45):
two one bedroom apartments on the third floor, which is
the top floor. It also has a basement that is
connected to the parking lot on the south end of
the building. The rooms in the basement are used for storage.
I lived there in twenty twelve with my wife at
the time. Her name is Melissa. Our studio was on
the first floor. Now, back when it was a hospital,
(44:06):
they had a morgue in the basement and they would
also incinerate the people who passed away there. The chimney
is still there. It said that if you walk into
the cemetery with a hat on that it will get
knocked off your head. I never went to the cemetery,
so I don't know if that's true. What I do
know is that this place is haunted. While we lived there,
(44:26):
we encountered a few things. At the time, we had
a long haired chihuahua. She would sit at the foot
of the bed and growl at the corner of the closet,
yet we would never see what she saw. Several times,
the front door handle would jiggle and you would hear
a knock. We would go to the door and nobody
would be there. Once we were getting ready to leave,
(44:47):
and Melissa's uncle was standing by the door. The door
handle jiggled and there was a knock. He opened the
door and nobody was there. Now keep in mind that
no kids lived there. It was all elderly or retired people.
There's a building on the property that used to house
the doctor's At one time, a local group of ghost
hunters did an EVP session in that building and they
(45:08):
captured an EVP of a little girl. Melissa's four year
old nephew would sleep over from time to time. One morning,
she was getting him dressed and he told her that
in the middle of the night he saw a man
standing in the kitchen that smiled and waved at him.
He said the man looked like a doctor and was
wearing a doctor's mask. I believed him because how many
(45:30):
times have kids seen things that we can't. One night
I woke up and saw a tall, dark figure standing
over the couch. Another night, Melissa woke up asking me
where the little girl went. That freaked me out. Several
times we would take the dog outside at night and
you would get a feeling as if someone was watching you.
There's windows to all of the rooms in the basement,
(45:51):
and you can see them when you're outside at night.
It felt like you were being watched from those windows.
We only lived there for a year, but that's a
year I will never forget. Anyways, you guys keep doing
a great job. I love your podcast and I can't
wait until the new episodes come out. I also wanted
to add that I listen on Spotify and the commercial
breaks are not interrupting the show anymore. Thank you for
(46:14):
that until next time, simperfy.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Good. I'm glad that they're not.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, I'm glad. Thank you. Thank you for letting us know, Jimmy,
and thank you for the story.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
We haven't even asked about that, but yeah, thank you
so much, Jimmy. We appreciate everything. Man, you've been there
afraid from the start, and we appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
That was a really good story.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
That was awesome. Can you imagine living in an old
tuberculosis hospital that's got that scary.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Shit, that's got bad juju wallow.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Well, at least it was a doctor that they saw,
and not like the I don't know like a lot.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Of the but a lot of hospitals back in the day.
The doctors were creepy.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Fast, we're pretty bad. And the dog always lets you.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Know yeah, that's concerning. Like if you've got a dog
that's growling or barking at nothing, that's a red flag
because they see ship for sure.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
But I just told you that my dog, I have
a little what it's a Wiener dog mixed with the chiuahua.
His name's Jacks, and I keep taking him for a
walk in these woods out here. We go for a
walk every day. We get like two thirds of the
way in and he stops and he starts looking like
something's in the woods behind us, like dude, we better run.
And I'm like, what is it? Jacks. He does it
(47:17):
to me every day, and every day I get the chills.
I'm like, what is he? What is back there? It's nothing.
He's just fucking with me.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
My dog has woke me up a couple times in
the middle of the night barking. He doesn't sleep in
my bedroom, but he'll be barking at two in the morning.
Of course, that gets you away quick, and he'll run
over to the window in my son room, you know,
down overlooking the driveway, and the motion lights are always on,
so he senses something. And I've never seen anything, but
he hears everything, and that's something triggers the lights. Yeah, no,
it's good, but scares the fuck out of you in
(47:44):
the middle of the night because I'm thinking there's already
somebody in the house, right So, but that's their job,
you know.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, that's what they're supposed to do. Mine just does
it to fuck with me. I think, awesome story though.
We appreciate it that, We really appreciate it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
If you guys have any fire pits, scary stories, paranormal stories,
something that happened with family member if you know it
well enough, funny stories, any good stories, a good story
of any sort that you would like to hear. If
you want to record it, send it in. If you
want us to read it, we'd be happy to send
it to Beyond the Shadows two o seven at gmail
dot com or any of our socials.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Sounds good, guys. That's gonna wrap it for this episode.
We will catch you in the next one later, guys,
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