Ep. 34: I Will Survive

0:06 Welcome to M4 Medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes murder. I'm Andrea Marziano and RN with 35 years of experience across various fields. From direct patient care in hospitals to home health, geriatrics, and injury medicine, I face life, death, and everything in between. And I'm Crystal Miller and RN with 13 1/2 years of experience. My work spans home health, Hospice, emergency care, geriatrics, and occupational health. From the chaos of trauma based quiet moments with patients, I've seen stories that defy explanations. We've been friends for over 25 years and as nurses we've shared countless stories that have left us and our families speechless. Now we're bringing those stories and many more to you in medicine, mystery, mayhem, and sometimes murder.

0:53 Each week, we'll uncover cases that challenge the boundaries of medicine, sharing the human stories behind the science. From puzzling medical mysteries to shocking real life crimes, we'll bring you stories that'll leave you questioning everything you thought you knew while. We're both experiencing treats, nurses. We want to make it clear we're not here to give medical advice. This podcast is about storytelling, education and exploration, not diagnosing or treating medical conditions. This is medicine, mystery, mayhem and sometimes murder. Let's dive in. Hey Crystal, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I am. Well, thank you. We don't usually talk about dates when we record because we don't record and publish immediately a lot of times. But today is Mother's Day as we're recording, so happy Mother's Day.

1:38 Happy Mother's Day to you too. Well, I thank you very much. I plan to spoil myself after this with a nap. I love it. I don't know what I'm going to do, but you know something. Maybe I'll go get food. I don't know. Yeah, celebrate ourselves for being mothers. That's good. Yeah. Well, today I decided to do something more cheerful generally. And their survival stories, and I know we both like those. OK, great. Love it. Yeah, yeah. My sources today are rainforestcruises.com guides, the story of Jillian Kopecki, and I thought that was an interesting title of a magazine, rainforestcruises.com. I was thinking of looking at it because we actually were talking about doing rainforest cruise.

2:25 So that was fun, but not the one that this person was involved. Or the one with antivirus? That's right. Let's not get on that one either. Yep, so true. And then the next one is a video of Harrison Okene and he had a recovery story that we'll talk about. And that was really interesting watching the recovery because they actually were videoing as he was recovered. And we'll talk about the story in a few minutes. And that was pretty cool. This is also related to an article in the Guardian that said I survived 3 days in a capsized boat on the ocean floor. And that is Harrison O'keene. Then there's one another one about him from National Geographic. There were a lot of articles about him and there was one about a man named Mario Prosperi. And he survived in the Boston, the Sahara Desert. And there were a couple of BBC News articles that these linked to as well.

3:19 And the information was similar. So it was about those. Actually all three of them the BBC had articles on. OK, cool. Thanks, BBC. Yeah, thanks. Well, anyway, the first story is 1 about Julian Kopecki, and I may well be pronouncing it incorrectly, but that's what it appears to me. This was based on an event that happened on December 24th in 1971. OK, that's Christmas Eve. Yes, it is. And Julianne was 17 at the time, and she was studying a program in high school to become a zoologist like her father. She was working in Pocola in the Peruvian Amazon. Can you imagine?

4:00 We've talked about how we've done things or did things in the 70s that we can't even imagine our our children doing at the same age, 17 years old. She's off in the Amazon just doing her studies as. Oh, OK. Well, that's fun. Since she was coming home, she was actually, her mom was actually there, but not in the same study. But apparently she was there somehow. But she and her mom were flying home to visit with her father, who was in Germany. And on the that day, there were some flight warnings because of weather. And the pilots had decided that they were going to go anyway because of the pressure of time getting people home for Christmas and that kind of thing. So the flight continued as planned. This turned out to be a catastrophic mistake. Ish.

4:46 Yeah, big time. Ish. Around 60 minutes after takeoff, the plane was struck by lightning as it flew through some strong turbulence 21,000 feet above the Amazon rainforest. The plane was struck by lightning. The lightning hit the plane. Yes, and it wasn't a it was not a giant plane, but we'll talk about it later. But there were 92 passengers in it. Lasan Lasan flight 5 O 8 is what it was. And so it wasn't tiny, but it was struck by lightning. Julian was noted to have held onto her mother, who was next to her on the plane. As the result of the lightning strike, a wing caught on fire and separated from the plane.

5:29 Oh my goodness. Which unfortunately causes the plane to immediately disintegrate. At least in this case, it crashed into the mountain terrain. Hello. However, before that happened, Julianne was sucked out of the aircraft into the cold air in the Black Knight, it said. Oh my. Gosh. And listen to this She fell more than two miles to the ground and she was still strapped in her seat. Oh my goodness. Yeah, there's just that is a very unlikely survival, miraculously, which I mean, in this case, that word is definitely appropriate, I think. Yeah. 10 hours later, she awoke alive on the jungle floor.

6:11 She was still strapped into her seat. That's wild. I know, and also 10 hours and strapped in a seat on the jungle floor. Everything's out there. Yeah, exactly. I'm like I pawns. I mean, I know just that alone and to have, I mean, obviously she was unconscious for 10 hours, so that was probably good. I don't know for sure, but she had had damage to her eye because of the sudden change in air pressure and it burst capillaries in her eye. And she had a broken collar bone, a deep cut in her arm, and a severe concussion, which remarkably was all she had. Because I think about the impact and how everything. They had to have slowed her down when she had before she hit the ground.

6:57 It's possible she was unconscious, so she doesn't know, but it's possible that it bounced off a few treetops or something like that. But there's no way. There's no way to to document that. Nothing that I saw ever said anything about that. But Julianne spent the rest of the day in and out of consciousness. And she was too injured and weak to even take herself out of the seat she was strapped to. So she eventually felt stronger. And her first priority, she said, was to locate her mother. And I know and during the crash she had lost her glasses, which she needed to see, and she also had one eye swollen shut. So she went to look for her mother the best she could, but the search was just too hard for her to do. And she said she had to really concentrate on her survival. And she also was fairly confident that her mother would not have survived this and also that she was unlikely to see her again.

7:53 What she did was for eight days, she went through the jungle just trying to find a way out or some help or something. And there was a, a picture of the aerial view of where she was. And it was trees as far as I could see. And like you said, probably one of those slowed her. But even still, the impact must have been pretty intense. So she didn't have any idea where to go because she just, she couldn't see anything. I mean, obviously she survived because that's the point of the story, but isn't the isn't the general rules stay where you are? It is, but she, I guess, felt like she had to do something. And she also once, I've seen this before, but once a plane or something goes down in a force like that, a lot of times they're not visible.

8:37 And they probably had some idea of where the plane had landed, but she was not with the plane. Right, right. I mean, again, obviously she survived, but just, I have to tell you, like I think anytime I hear survival stories, I am like, thank you that I've never been in this situation, knock on wood, because I really don't know what I would do. I don't know if I'd have the, the fortitude or, you know, the, the moxie to do anything to survive. And maybe I would, I don't know. But I'm just really grateful. Again, knock on wood. I am really grateful that I've never been in a situation where I've had to make decisions like this. Yeah. And I, I think most of us don't, fortunately.

9:19 Yeah, they didn't. Yeah, so she was just kind of clamoring through the wreckage and she or excuse me, the jungle. And then she had found some wreckage from the plane and she had gone through everything that she could find. It was just bits and pieces. I guess she found some candy for eight days. That's what she was eating was candy, which I guess is better than nothing, but barely I would think at least it probably helped keep her mouth feel a little bit moist, but I have no idea how much candy. Or what kind of candy? Or what kind of candy? I mean, it better be good. Just I'm like, is it, was it Hershey's bars? Was it, you know, was it little small lifesavers? Like, look who knows? Well, for some reason, in my head I I envisioned little hard sweets.

10:02 I don't know why that just little wrapped candies. Who knows? She had been moving around for several days and and she heard the sound. This would be unsettling to me, but she heard the sound of king vultures overhead, and we know why vultures are overhead. Yeah. So she located the bodies of several of the passengers from the flight, and they were buried deep in the ground from the impact. And they apparently were killed instantly from the fall. Yeah. And then she was going through the Amazon, as I mentioned. And in the Amazon, it's always talked about the ginormous bugs that go flying. And you practically people joke that they get to carry off small children. And she had, at the best of times, it's hard to keep these bugs off.

10:49 But she said that at night it was particularly difficult because she was being bitten, and she was also getting weaker and weaker, and she just was not able to fight the bug. So she was covered in bug bites. And who knows what kind of bugs they were. Yeah. Have you ever watched Naked and Afraid? Yes, I have. Yes, there were several times they've been in places like that. One time I believe it was the Amazon. The bug bites that they got was insane and I have no idea what she was wearing. I don't think it ever said at Christmas time. Hopefully she had at least a few clothes on, but who knows what they how they survived. But if she survived in the chair, I guess her clothes were probably OK. She just was becoming weaker and weaker and she knew it. And she was 17, which means to me that she was old enough to understand the consequence potential of what was going on. And anyway, she.

11:38 Again, that makes me that. I mean, I think it's human nature to tend to try to personalize things. But that makes me think of my 17 year old. And I wonder, I wonder again if she would, if they sorry pronounced are hard for me, if they would, if they would have this tenacity in this fortitude, or if they would. I kind of think if I were to ask them, they'd be like, I just died. Just sit there and die. But I also think knowing them deeper than their thoughts, I kind of think that they would try to survive. I do too. I think most people, push come to shove, they will try. Some people with more vigor than others, but I think they would try. Yeah, I know. And this. Julian found a stream. She remembered her father's advice of tracking water downriver to civilization.

12:22 Because when the water goes down, First off, it tells you you're going down off wherever you are directional, right? And if the stream goes to a bigger body of water, people usually congregate about a bigger body of water. So that was the hope that she had. She eventually came across a canoe. So she saw a canoe with an outboard motor and a gas tank just right there. OK. Yeah. So she's like, yay. At this point. If you remember, she had some pretty big wounds, and one was a big dash on her arm, and it had become infected and was infested with maggots. I know, I know. Although magnets really are a good thing because they clean out the dead tissue and probably kept the infection down to a degree.

13:10 However, I would be unhappy to know they were there but, she said. This is my sister Harmony, who's also a nurse real quick myself. I've never experienced it. My sister Harmony has experienced maggots in a wound in a patient and I I'm very grateful. I've had some stinky wounds, but she never maggots like oh Lord have mercy. Oh, anyway. I haven't either, but I did have someone come in that needed suture removal, but by the time she came in her skin was so necrotic and gross that I just wiped them off. I was cleaning the wound and the sutures all came off with a bunch of nice stuff. Anyway, in this case anyway, sorry. And anyway, she said this is her quote. I remember having seen my father when he cured a dog if worms in the jungle with gasoline.

13:57 That's kind of where I expected she was going to go with that when you mentioned it was infected with maggots. Infected and infested with maggots and gasoline available. That's right. And she said she got some gasoline and poured it on herself. I think that would be unpleasant. I do too. I certainly do too. And then she said I counted the worms when they started to slip out, there were 35 on my arm. She's so 17, I. Know 1-2 no, no, no one should never need to count the worms coming. Out of their arm? No. Oh my. Yes. Anyway, so the boat was there, but she didn't want to just steal it.

14:38 Dude, I would have been in that boat and on my way. I know I would have definitely stole it. I would have been like I would have I would have even been like, hey, if I turn on this motor and they think I'm stealing it, come at me, man, Like perfect, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, she didn't want to steal the boat because she had higher morals than we. And she, she decided to go up a hill, which eventually led to a camp. I don't know if she must have seen a trail or something. And she was just laying there in their camp for several hours. Just laying there. That's all the energy she had. And she was watching frogs, she said, go about their business in trees. And she watched them with her empty stomach. She considered eating them but couldn't find the strength to capture any. The good news is later she discovered they were poisonous dark frogs and it would have absolutely killed her probably immediately that I can imagine that would have been difficult going food.

15:31 Fortunately just not having that strength because she would have, like I said, literally killed herself that way. But shortly afterwards she heard some men approaching and they discovered her lying on the ground and they obviously could tell she was injured. And I would imagine they knew that the plane had crash because even if they didn't see it, they probably would have heard it because they weren't. She couldn't have gone too far. I was, yeah. I was just going to say, do you know how far she was, how far she walked? OK, it didn't ever say anywhere how far it was, and knowing what condition she was in and coming through a forest, I can't imagine she could have gotten very far in her condition. Sure, sure. She they couldn't leave that night to take her anywhere because it was dark and the situation they were in and the area they were in, they couldn't just go out in the dark because it was more dangerous. And so they took care of the wounds the best they could. And the next day they took her.

16:22 I imagine they didn't say anything about bringing a pizza. I'm sure, I'm sure and carefully because person's been out of not having food for a while, it can be a problem. Yeah, it's hard to take it. Yeah, so the next day they started a 7 hour boat ride. Wow. Yeah, so imagine if she tried to walk that. No way. If 7 hours was the closest, that's crazy. And she had been. They took her to a missionary facility, you know, where missionaries were doing the work out there, whatever that looked like. And she remained there for several days. And fortunately, they had things to give her medical attention and food. Then she was able to take a flight to her original destination to meet her father. I know such a trial, but after she recovered from an injury she then went back out to assist search parties to locate the crash site and recover the body of the victims. Guess because she kind of had an idea of where they were. I wouldn't have no idea is this.

17:20 Girl. I know I can't even imagine. First off, having a clue where I had been. No idea, I would. I am so directionally challenged and if I were in trauma like that, what the heck. I don't think so. Her mother's body was discovered on the 12th of January. It didn't sound like she found them, but she did recover some of the see some of them. Of all the 92 passengers and crew, Julianne was the sole survivor. Wow. Yeah, it was later discovered that 14 of the passengers, including her mother, had survived the fall but then perished, waiting for rescue. No, that sucks.

18:02 I know. I don't know how they knew that, if maybe they could tell by stomach contents or something like that. Yeah. Maybe because by then rigor mortis would have come and gone and everybody. And so who knows? I just how sad would that be? I can't help but wonder if Julian later thought if they had stayed together, if if there was a way that they've been together. Because if they both survived, I can't imagine that wouldn't have been a thought because especially knowing Mom was alive and there was no indication there was any reason that mom wouldn't have survived, you know? But chances are the injuries were obviously terrible. But they didn't wait. Amazon. Yeah. So these are the people that did wait and they died. She didn't wait and she didn't die. So I don't know.

18:47 I don't know. Maybe the rules are different when you're in the Amazon. Baby. Oh, my gosh, All of the people recovered and then they were laid to rest in a cemetery and Yarn Kosha or something similar to that in the Amazon. I wondered what she was doing now. And she's now a biologist living in Germany. She is 71, so maybe she's retired. I'm not sure. Her story has been dramatized quite a few times and one of the time was in the 1974 Italian movie. The titles in Italian, but it means miracles still happen and she Co wrote in it. There was also a documentary in 1998 about the event and that was in German.

19:29 She wrote an autobiography called When I Fell from the Sky and that was released in 2011 and she. Alf Deutsch in German. Yes it was, and she won the Korean literary prize for it. Nice. Wow. And so that is the story of falling from the sky. Wow, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. That would not be to my taste because it were mine. Neither mine either. I'm out. I know, thank you. I prefer to stay in the appropriate locations, whether that's the sky or the ground, but at the appropriate moments in time incur. Well, here's another story, and this is about Harrison Okini. He survived an event that occurred on May 26th and 2013. May 26th, 2013 OK.

20:19 Yes. So a little more recent, well, a lot more recent and he was working in a tugboat, which was a support vehicle. Is it what it called a vehicle, ship, whatever, Anyway, a support vessel. Thank you. A support vessel for an oil rig. Absolutely. I was just watching Landman, which is a television show about petrochem, oil and gas, and I watched a tugboat supporting an oil rig, So I know exactly what that looks like. Yeah, yeah. And this is a story of that. So anyway, Harrison, this part was kind of funny, actually. Was sitting on the toilet.

21:01 OK, surely, it said, surely the worst place to be as a disaster strikes. Yeah. And I was just thinking, oh, my goodness, that would be unpleasant. Remember this? Is a toilet that does not go into sewage in the in the land. Nope. And while he was sitting there, a freak wave hit the tugboat and it turned it upside down. Wow. Yeah, the whole, the whole tugboat. Yeah. And Yuck is right. It's like, wait, that means what was up is down and what is on him. And. But that was the least of his problems, actually. So he said, this is a quote. I was trying to open the door to get out, you know, the bathroom when the toilet fell and hit me on the head, he said.

21:49 He said he just had time to see blood pour from the wound before the light went off. And he said everywhere was dark and the bathroom began to fill fill with water. He said it didn't take long. He said one minute, maybe 2 minutes, and he felt the boat touch the seabed, which is 30 meters or 100 feet, below the surface that came to rest. Wow. So he knew generally where they were and and the depth of the water and I guess it was obvious that it hit 'cause I imagine it must have been a pretty hard bump do. You know what body of water this was? I believe it says in a minute, but I don't remember off the top. So he said it was interesting because we've talked historically together and I think sometimes in some of the episodes of the podcast about how words matter and the way things are said or thought about matter.

22:37 Well, he did not use the word disaster at any point during his description of these events, he calls it. Yeah, he called an incident. OK. OK, he said he's come to view the experience very differently, and he's always loved water and as a child dreamed of a house by the sea. And he says he loves it even more now. Oh, OK, right. Plot twist. Right? Because a lot of people have. Nope. I'm not even taking a bath anymore. Well, I having had experienced, I've had two near drowning experiences and I still I still love water. I don't know if I love it more. Yeah, like the ocean is like my best friend. I love the ocean.

23:17 I. Love the ocean. Me too. I love water as well. And on our property we have three ponds in the Creek and I just got all the time. It is one of my favorite things. So we'll back up in time just for a moment. When Harrison describes what happened that day. He was just doing his morning routine and he at that point was 29 and he was working as a cook on on this Jascon 4, which is a tugboat like we said, that was assisting an oil tanker in this case. And that's where it was. It was 20 miles off the coast of Nigeria. I knew it said somewhere, but I couldn't remember. So I didn't want to misquote. That's OK, no worries. And there have been storms and, you know, the sea had been roiling and all that sort of thing, but that's what happened.

24:01 So they weren't that worried about it. And the tug had been helping stabilize the tanker while it was in the water because as the tanker is bigger, I guess it needed more stabilization. And then the tug can do that. And tugboats. If you've never seen one pulling a ship, it's astounding. It is. I agree. I have seen one. Remember, I just told you I saw it. On yeah. And yeah, well, it's so realistic. It's actually, it's actually funny because as I was watching it, I was like it. That tugboat is so small and that rig is so big in comparison. I would say you could compare it to like, let me think about it for just a second. Like if a tugboat or a peanut and a rig were one of those big chocolate bars that you get, you know, like Symphony bars.

24:47 It's like that. It's like a peanut pulling that big giant Symphony bar, but but heavy also. And so I was thinking about it like, what kind of engine or miracle of mechanical engineering does that tugboat have to be able to hold that that huge monstrous thing that's so much bigger than it? Yes, well, two things. Now I want a Symphony bar. The other. The other thing is, I was when Max and I were in Florida visiting Dad and Kimberly one time, there was a tugboat pulling one of the first steamship cruise ships ever made. And it was pulling it from, I think, New York to somewhere around the coast, and I don't recall where. And it was that kind of a ratio where it was tiny and the ship was huge.

25:34 And I was asking someone standing there about it because he said he had been in the military and he'd been in ships and this was so cool to watch, etcetera. I said, how the heck is it pulling it? And he said what he had experienced in the ships that he had worked with in tugboats he had worked with was that initially the ship will start to push and then the tugboat, once it's in motion, will keep it moving forward. So it can move it. But it it does. And there's some ships that it has to move when they've lost power or whatever. But he said in most cases of the ship is capable of it, the ship will push and then the hug will pull once it's in motion. And then it's almost as if it's light. But still, it's a huge feat.

26:16 And this particular scenario, I wish I could remember the name of the ship. He knew it because he had heard about it and because he had been in the Coast Guard, Navy. One of those things was interested in it and we just happened to be on the water and saw it and we saw it being tugged across in front of us. He said it was, it's such a cool thing to see that. And he said that's just a historic moment. I'm glad he said it because I didn't realize it was historic. Moment. Yay, right? Anyway, so Harrison said that he had this story will take a long time with me thinking of a Symphony bar again. I haven't had one of those in forever. Thanks a lot either. So he had said he'd gotten up and he said his prayers like you did every morning. And he headed to the galley to turn on the hot plates to cook breakfast.

27:02 And so I'm thinking hot plates. Well, it's going to be an interesting breakfast, but maybe they're big. I don't know. I'm. Thinking of little teeny? Tiny ones the size of a tiny pot. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, but whatever. And while it was warming up, he went to go to the bathroom and he wasn't dressed yet. Because this is his prep work, so he's only wearing his boxers, which is not totally relevant, but it was just a thing he mentioned. And so like I said, he was in the bathroom when the wave hit, as we had mentioned earlier, the cubicle, the bathroom cubicle had begin feeling very quickly and he started to panic because he was being flooded out. He was trying to open the door and he had to really struggle for it. Finally got out.

27:43 Everything was dark and everything was watery and he had no, no idea which way he was facing. He was fairly confident that the top tug boat was on the floor of the sea bed. So he was fairly because the toilet was upside down, he figured he must have been upside down. But you know, to me, I actually think about that going that still seems like some level of lucidity that I may not have at that moment because, wait, you have to have thought of all these things and it seems like it would be so hard not just to be totally panicking. The brain turns off. Altogether, yeah. And the other thing is if you ever seen a tugboat, it's all enclosed. This is not a situation where it has a whole bunch of windows. You.

28:23 I mean, there are windows, but they're, they are enclosed. And so getting out of a tugboat that's turned upside down, I can't imagine that that's a simple feat. You know, it's not as simple as just there's a hole you can climb through like. Right. Fast. This is fascinating story to me. It is. And we'll find out about how they had to keep doors closed prior to that. But anyway, so he's walking around. Well, not walking. He was swimming. He was swimming around and not really knowing where he was going, He went to there in the alley, there was a watertight door, the exit hatch. And he met two or three of his colleagues there. He said the water level is rising and rising. They were trying to get this waterproof hatch open. But also we know that the water pressure is coming from both sides now.

29:04 Right, right. So they were not able to do it at that point. And he said, this is his quote. I did not have the patience to wait. Oh, wow. And I'm like, OK, I'm, I don't know what I would have done. But in this case, he did something that may have been totally opposite of what the rest of us would have done. And he turned away from the exit and swam further inside the tugboat. OK. Yeah, which feels to me like, Oh dear, doesn't make your chance. So super enclosed. Right, right. And I don't know how big tugboats don't look very big, but they are pretty big. They're and, and the way he described it later on, we'll talk a little bit. But he, he described it and had multiple rooms and a few bathrooms and that sort of thing. So it wasn't the tallest tugboat, but it wasn't huge either.

29:54 He said that he had to make some quick decisions and so he decided to. When he swam away, he went and was looking for another way out, which he knew was unlikely. But he had to try something else and the force of the water swept him into another toilet. This toilet was attached to the 2nd engineer's cabin. The door had shut as he was swept in and the water level rose, but the bathroom did not feel completely OK, so he's in the bathroom. The water didn't fill the bathroom completely, but that's where we are right now. The crew routinely kept all of the cabin doors shut because of the threat of pirate.

30:34 Yes. Every door was shut. I don't know how that would make it better. I mean, why? If a pirate? Maybe because if a pirate was on board, the door would be open. I don't know why that happened. It didn't. He didn't, really. I mean, I guess make it harder for the pirates to. Get to the door. I don't know, maybe maybe that's it because they couldn't see what was what, so it would take longer because they had to open every door. I don't really know. But apparently they kept it closed because of pirates. That also is another whole level of oh, shoot. But he said that because of that, the air couldn't go out of the boat completely. He figured some air had to be trapped inside the boat, so he kept his head in the small air pocket below the ceiling and in it was actually the floor, but for him it was the ceiling. And he said he was clinging to the base of the wash base just to hold himself up because also remember, even though most ceilings are 6 feet or so distant, he still needed to be above the water level.

31:34 He said he was in the dark and he kept hearing so many shouts of his colleagues crying and calling. He really realized at this point that the exit hatch was his best route to freedom because there just was no other way he could think of. He tried. He was trying to leave the bathroom, but he broke the handle of the door. Oh my. Gosh. And he said, this is his quote. I told myself instead of panicking, you have to think of a way out. So he said at that moment he just kind of had a hyper. I just don't think I could be that reasonable with myself. Yeah, he just said he knocked himself into hyper focus and hyper composure just to be really calm. And I still.

32:16 I don't, I don't know. Especially knowing the options are few. Yeah. And also water and breathing don't work that well together. No. He said he's always been practical. He was from a family of 13 children and he, quote, was among the youngest. I'm not sure. So he's on the end of the 13 children. He said his mother had always regarded his him as a helper, and he used to carry the vegetables with her to the South and market. He he said he just decided to persuade himself that he was in charge of the situation. OK. Yeah, and again, mind over matter. This is definitely an example of this. Yeah, for sure. So he was in this bathroom, stuck as I mentioned, and he saw a vent and he broke it and he used the piece of the vent steel to pry the door open and free himself. OK.

33:07 After he did this and while he was working, he said the shouts from his fellow colleagues were stopping and getting quiet. He assumed they had escaped. Oh. He opened the door and entered the 2nd engineer's cabin and he saw two life jackets and each one of them had a flashlight or a torch because that's what they called it. And he put one in his mouth and the other in his boxers to hold it while he, I guess while he was swimming, swam back to the watersight door. And again, he tried to escape and this was the Hatch door and he couldn't, he couldn't do it. But he was outside the 2nd engineer's cabin and the cabin, the quarters were full, there were no air pockets, and he didn't have enough breath to work at the door for long.

33:50 He said over the next few minutes and hours, he returned back and forth from the air pockets to the door, back and forth and back and forth. And he said the first time he did it, though, he almost missed the way back to safety in the engineer's bathroom. And there were so many doors that he wasn't sure for a minute which one it was. And his, this quote from him, he said if you got stuck in any room, you were lost. It was totally dark. And I was confused. If you don't act fast, you can lose your life there. He said he learned later that one of his colleagues had entered the mess room and drowned because there were no air pockets there. And I guess he had gone hoping he would have one and probably just ran out of air before he could get back out. But Harrison again decided I got to focus on practicalities.

34:33 And he was searching through bags and he found some sardines, a can of cola and some loose coveralls. And he tore the coveralls into strips and tied them together into a rope so that he secured one end to the cabin door and he held the other end so when he went out of the cabin, he could follow the rope of clothes back so he would never get lost again. And that was a really, yeah, really good idea. The water was super cold. Of course. It's ocean water, for heaven's sakes. And then he, he. So he's feeling uncomfortable, but he was ripped. He decided to RIP wooden panels from the ceiling and tied them together into a little raft. And then. Yeah. And then he could sit up there in the tiny air pocket and. And then he wasn't completely submerged in the water. He decided he would just figure out how to get out, even though the door didn't budget.

35:20 He said that this was something that. I want to just say what he said. It wasn't exactly a quote, but it was the general feeling he had had that he was in total darkness and silence. And he said he found self in a strange moment, in a place beyond all maps of human survival. It was as if he had passed into parallel world with only faltering sense of time and little to cut through the sensory deprivation. Wow. Yeah. So have you ever been in those sensory deprivation pods? No, I know. I. Know about them but I haven't. I think I would have a panic attack and die. Well, I haven't. I enjoyed it. After I sort of relaxed. I thought about when he said that, about being in a sensory deprivation. I thought about that chamber.

36:00 And I thought, gosh, if I had to be in that chamber for hours and hours, especially knowing I wasn't going to be able to get out in any foreseeable future, it wouldn't have been that pleasant. And my water was warm and lovely. But he said he did hear the muffled hum of vehicles moving nearly 30 meters above him. And so he would have known at that point that they knew the tug was gone, but they didn't know where. I mean, it's not real easy to find things in an ocean. He said that he just had to keep his mind away from the inability to open the door and just stay put. Right. Wow. It noted that he had consumed so much salt water that his throat hurt and his tongue peeled. And I would think at a point he would have been nauseated because some water usually makes people throw up. They didn't mention that, but maybe it's because he's too polite, I don't know.

36:54 But he ate the sardines and he drank the cola while crayfish made a supper of his body. He can feel them biting his legs, torso and arms, making new wounds. But you know, there's nothing he could do. And he couldn't really get rid of them. And all that time the water was rising. He said he thought of his mother and of his wife and wondered how they were feeling. How would the wheel world treat he, his mother and his wife and she? He had access to nothing. He couldn't even write a note or anything because he couldn't get to anything. And even if he could find anything, it would have been so drenched. I can't imagine it would have been productive. Yeah, but he said he prayed and sang so many church songs and. That's what I do, I think.

37:36 Sing. Yeah, and he just tried to stay calm. And he said this is a quote as well. I tried to kill the fear in front of me because one thing that can fill you, kill you fast, is fear. That panic that comes at you, it kills you before your real death comes because the moment you start panicking, you use too much oxygen. And remember, he had oxygen, however, there's only so much oxygen and after the carbon dioxide he's breathing comes out, it fills the space even though we can't, we can't see it, but it's there. And then it starts causing problems as well. He said that he heard a different sound all of a sudden. He didn't have any idea that diver had come to put a marker buoy on the vessel because they were warning other they found it, so they weren't other traffic of the location. Harrison had hammered on the side of the boat, hoping to get a signal to the person outside, but he had no idea if it was successful or not, and he had no idea how many hours or days he he then became aware of a disturbance in the darkness. He said it was weird, a reflection, like a light, light bubble.

38:43 He left his raft, you know, the floating raft he had built to try to find the source of the light, and he couldn't. So he went back, filled his lungs with the little oxygen that was left and looked again. So he was going out of his face and looked again. And then all of a sudden he saw a diver swimming on a long umbilical. And we've talked about those umbilicals that hold the oxygen and that sort of thing in there. So the diver was in there, and this is the video I had seen. He was in there and he, the diver was coming into the place where Harrison was and the diver was all in his, his waterproof air breathing situation. He was trying by hand signals to tell him what's going on because he couldn't take it off to talk. They were also worried that if you took off the mask that he would succumb from carbon dioxide because they knew it had to be full of carbon anyway.

39:35 So they were able to get a mask for him and head cover, which had the breathing in it. They were able to put it on him. And once he had the mask on, he had a mic and a speaker so he could communicate with the people that were trying to help him. And they were in this video, they were saying it's OK, you can breathe normally in this, don't worry is just breathe normally because I guess he was still hyperventilating, probably partially because he's finally getting oxygen, but also hyperventilating at that time would have been bad. He was able I saw in the video they he slid off his little. Raft area. And the rescuer had his hand and he was bringing him out and just saying it's OK, it's all right. And then it was.

40:18 It must have been so intense for both of them. But before, before the diver knew that Harrison was alive, he had relayed to base that he had found another body. Oh, wow. But then this would have totally freaked me out. Harrison reached out and touched him. You hear stories like this, like, Oh my golly, OK, everything's fine. He was. So he was taken out to the diver's bell, which is the little Have you seen a diver's bell or heard of one of those? I've heard of it, but I don't think I've seen it. Yeah, it's basically just an enclosed air bubble with oxygen going to it. There's nothing else in it except for, I think some of them do have control so they can move it around a little bit.

41:01 Some of them are just literally an air holder for them to do that. So they put him into the diver's bell and then from that to a recompression chamber. Because remember, he had been underwater for three days and so the pressures on him would have been in. I know he would have died if he had been right, brought right to the surface. Sure, of course he got in the bends, Yeah. Yeah, he said he couldn't believe it that when the rescue team told him he'd been underwater for nearly three days, he said he had no sense of having passed even a single night 'cause there was no change. I mean, sure, sure. I'd be surprised if he fell asleep because I don't know if I could, just knowing that if I fell asleep, I might fall in the water and drowned. I don't know.

41:46 He probably passed out at one point or another. But when they took him out, they said they were shocked that his vital signs were normal, everything was normal. His temperature, his blood pressure and the thing when they said his temperature was normal, that's wild, 'cause he was. In the water all the time. Cold water. Yeah. So I guess elevating himself on that float as it were, was enough to save him, but he still wouldn't, couldn't have possibly went all the way dry. But maybe, maybe because it was a small space it kept warm because of his body, I'm not sure. But he said when he was told that his vital signs were normal, he said I thought, that's not normal. Right what? I know that doesn't make any sense at all. Well, he, he was released from the recompression chamber and he was advised to go to the hospital. He said heck no, he's out.

42:36 He was desperate to get home. He didn't say heck no. That was my, my little editorial comment, right? So he wanted to, he really wanted to get home. And over the next few weeks, media teams had gathered his front door. And at night, he just had a lot of dreams and nightmares. He said he would wake up feeling that the bed was sinking. And he said he would literally pick up his wife and carrier, just try to open the door to get out. I know. So traumatized, for heaven's sakes, they decided to go to Gambia for a break. And they were on a hotel on the sea front. The article author, that of this particular article said it seemed like that would have been a really poor choice because my heavens, isn't that where you nearly died? But but he Harrison said, no, it was peaceful. It was very peaceful place.

43:26 He swam in the pool in the sea. And when he got back to Nigeria, he said he was OK. I guess he just needed the break and maybe he needed to face the ocean, a little ocean. He didn't. He didn't ever express that he was afraid of it, but one would think there had to be some. Well, I mean, the fact that he's picking up his wife and trying to move her out of drowning, that's afraid of it, I would say. It feels like it. Yeah. He really, he did mention though that after that he said he was OK, but then he also still had some real trouble and he saw a psychiatrist. He said that she didn't say anything that made sense to him. So. OK. So he still felt kind of off, or he said he felt himself a drift and then he had another accident.

44:08 And that was the turning point. The year after the type boat sank, he was driving to work with a friend and his car went off a bridge and into the water of the city of Port Harcourt. He said when I opened my eyes, my 4 tires were up. And he swam out of the car only to realize that his friend was still in it. So he swam back and got his friend out and neither had sustained injuries. And so they went to the police station and the police station said, well, you got to get the car out of the water. He said, well, OK, so he said he went down into the water again and put a rope around the car and he brought the car out and just no big deal, I guess. And he said, he said after that he told himself, what are you afraid of?

44:52 How can you be scared? You have seen so much. You come through this. I think you should not be afraid of anything, is what he told himself. Isn't that so? Cute. I know it just it just makes me want to give him a hug. And then he wanted to train as a diver, but his older brother said he was worried about his well-being. And he said don't do it, don't do it. However, he he took that kind of to heart. But in 2015, he and his wife separated and he said I was alone. I didn't have children, I didn't have a wife, not a good job. I was frustrated just alone with my dog. I was depressed. But nobody knows. He said. Yeah. And he said he felt more scared of that experience than his time underwater.

45:33 And he felt he would die if he didn't act, You know, just do something. He said he had sat down and said to himself, quote, I'm not going into the ocean again. I would not be here today. He's he decided that it just wasn't. That wasn't going to be his truth. He. So he enrolled in a three month diving course and told his brother when he completed it, he didn't ask permission again, he just did it. This quote of his I really liked. He said I faced a lot of fears in my life and I decided to face this once and for all. I know it should be my fear, but I don't need to be scared of water because I need to embrace my fear once and for all and be strong. Our happiness, our joy, our future, they are all in our hands. I had to reprogram my thinking. I balanced my mind.

46:14 Who is? This. Guy I know these people are white. Christmas, eight years on, it said. He is now 39, works as a diver, installing construction, making repairs to oil and gas facilities. Wow. He did say, though, the maximum death he can now go is 50 meters, and that's probably due to some issues from having been underwater at that point. And he now has a partner and three children. And he said the experience had changed his life in so many ways, the way he thought, the way he sees life. He said it really improved his life actually. And he, he says this, I know there's a God and the God is beside me. I know that he has a great purpose for me. I always feel so comfortable and guide myself. I try not to offend anybody and I try to trust life because when humans are close to death, that is when they understand we are all one.

47:05 Wow. Yeah, he has a house by the lake now, but he's still trying to save money to get a house by the ocean. Wow. I know. Cool. Right? Exactly. So there's some questions that come to mind, like how did the bubble last so long? And this has been postulated, not necessarily completely studied because they can't recreate all of the environment or anything like that. But a person named Eric Hexdahl, who's a nurse and a clinical director of diving medicine at Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine Environmental Facilities Physiology, say that one time. And he estimates that an area about 13 1/2 cubic meters, roughly the size of the air bubble that this man was trapped in, a person has about 56 hours before carbon dioxide toxicity sets in.

47:55 Eric quoted was quoted saying if you're trapped in something like that, your carbon dioxide levels will build to a toxic level before you use up the oxygen. That would have been the first problem that Harrison would have faced before running out of oxygen. He was creating oxygen as he breathed. But also apparently there's more carbon dioxide underwater than on land. So it probably was more exponential in the use and creation of carbon dioxide. Yeah, I didn't know that he was saying that. There's different levels of toxicity. And he talks about how many particles, which I'm not going to bother mentioning because it means really literally nothing to the layperson, I imagine. But the first thing is they experience a buzz or a high, and then at the next level up they lose consciousness pretty rapidly. Hexdell estimates that Harrison had started experiencing some feelings of toxicity after 50-6 hours. It would have taken about 79 hours for him to be unconscious from the carbon dioxide.

48:57 He was rescued after 60 hours of being trapped right in the window of survival. Because even if he had done probably another 10 or so hours, he probably would have died. For some reason, he was also able to. We talked about air pressure and water pressure. He was able to survive that for some reason. Hextel said that under increased air pressure, human blood becomes saturated with nitrogen, and Harrison's nitrogen levels during his ordeal were much higher than ours on the Earth's surface. That I believe it's those nitrogen levels that cause the bends. That's the thing exactly. It's called nitrogen narcosis when we it happens when we're under more than 80 feet of water. And he was 100, right?

49:42 A swimmer can become days from the level of nitrogen in their brain. And then, as you say, when they go up, it affects the rest of their body. And they can literally die at that point, too. And that's again, why he was in the decompression chamber. It's just wild to know that he was able to survive this. Hexel said that Harrison was lucky to survive the ordeal. And he said, this is a quote. I don't know what it was. It was divine Providence. Wow. Yeah. So I thought that was pretty cool too, for heaven sakes. And again, no, thank you. However, I was pretty amazing. And I don't think it was quite like the Titanic. It wasn't.

50:22 There were no movies floating away. There was nothing like that. No hot steamy. No hot steamy car. Situations. No. I. Didn't mention that at all. That was so exciting. My goodness. The final one I have for us is Mario Prosperi. And this was an event that happened in 1994. Mario was running an ultra marathon through the Sahara. No, thank you. But OK, none of those words make sense in my brain. Yeah, he was blown off course by a sandstorm. So they were literally running through the Sahara Desert. Oh, my goodness. And an ultra marathon. I mean, that's not just walking across the street. That's. Nope, I don't even.

51:03 What is that's not? Even I don't even know it's. Not even like a 5K like it's an ultra marathon is probably. If I had to guess, it's probably like 3 marathon links or something. Oh well, actually, you know what? I happen to have the fact on this right here. Totally forgot that I had it and this was 250 kilometers of running. Oh wow. And it was in extreme heat, of course, because Sierra desert. I I think that Sahara. Not Sierra. What did I say, Sierra? Sierra. Yeah, Sierra. Desert. The Sierra Desert. Yeah, that's the one, for heaven's sakes. Yeah. And they have some of their dunes are three stories high. Yeah. There's just nothing about that that sounds fun to me.

51:44 But Crossbury was a formal former Olympian. He was one of the fastest competitors. He began to pass through a section of the race that was dominated by small dunes. And the sand around him, he said, started to lift and swirl. He said some small dunes, unlike the big ones, lift and walk. So they actually are all lifted up the sand. Kind of a world wind of sand and then put somewhere else. So Can you imagine how disconcerting that would be? Yeah, I'm also wondering how they did they like pave the path or is this guy running in sand? They're running in sand, yeah. It's crazy. Mario said that at first, watching the dunes move was sort of mesmerizing because he said he just watched it dance and move around. But then he just said it became disconcerting. He didn't know what was happening and he faced a yellow wall, he said.

52:37 He said I couldn't see anything. The blue wind blew so violently the sand hurt. Yeah, guess you got great axillation, Mario. That's right. Well, he started out as a 60 something and now he looks like a 20 year old. But at the beginning of the the race, the organizer given a talk about how to take shelter in the event of a sandstorm. Because of course they happen. And then and then they said if they should get lost, they should walk towards the clouds that gather at sunset. OK, not sure. OK. But Prosperi said there aren't many shelters in the desert. In the middle of the dunes, it's hard to find a place that will defend you. And he said he kept trying.

53:17 He kept moving and he kept trying to shelter, but the sand kept covering him and he moved and sheltered again. And the storm took 7 hours to pass. Oh my goodness. When it had gone, there was nothing left to point his compass at. He had no idea. It took the sandstorm, took away every point of reference, he said. And the landscape was completely transformed. Wow. I mean, I can't even imagine it look like anything useful anyway, before it started, but afterwards, for heaven's sakes. And he said his first instinct was to run. He said he had lost a lot of time and his thoughts were on finishing the race. Oh wow. No, he said. I hope to at least get in the medals.

53:58 But it still struck him strange. He said that he hadn't seen anyone and this was an event that was little known. There weren't a ton of people and he did run mostly alone because he was one of the fastest. But he thought it was strange that he hadn't seen any people like walkers who might have gone. They started early. The walkers started before the runners, so I guess they could sort of figure out how to finish. At the same time, he hadn't seen any race markers. He climbed to Dune as high as he could be, didn't see anyone, and he said this is his quote. I knew that something was wrong. Really. Imagine that. Yeah, but then he said to himself, well, he'll have a good story to tell his friend Giovanni, who was mostly walking the course.

54:41 And he said the off schedule night and lone in the Sahara brought its own magic. He said it was this is his quote. It was immediately fascinating. You have the sky that is white with stars that almost suffocates you. Oh, wow. Yeah. And now he's 71, and he said that he had a fatalistic understanding of death all his life. This is quote, I was convinced that the end is already written when you were born. And he was a child in Rome. And he listened to his grandfather's stories of the First World War. And he said that maybe it was that that embattlement in the fighting that had come to his mind. Now he said that his grandpa told him that there was no water during this the World War and he he and other soldiers had drank their own urine to survive. And he said well OK.

55:32 So he promptly peed in his canteen. OK. And he? Said it was he said it was clear like water. And he sure he he was sure he wouldn't need it because the organizers will find them soon. The next warning. He kept running and he had faith in the race and he said I was just still such a competitor. He said he knew. He knew that he just needed to keep going, and he didn't know at that point that the organizers had already started a search. He thought that in order to get out, he would have to rescue himself. And he heard a helicopter. This seems like another stay put situation. It kind of does to me, too. He said he heard another helicopter and he assumed it came for him. It flew really low.

56:15 He saw the pilot's white helmet, but the pilot did not see him. Oh, wow. He said the runners have been issued with flares. They he said they were small and they were thin and they were like a ballpark point pen. And he shot us in the sky marker in the sky and waved his Italian flag. So they kind of knew who he was. He said he ran after the helicopter. He shouted at him. He called him. He said he called him all kinds of names, Paolo, Giovanni, whatever name came to mind. He said with the noise of the engines just were too loud. And then he just had to watch it go away, and then it was silent. Wow. That to me was probably devastating. Yeah, I can't. I Yes, I can imagine.

56:58 Sheesh. And yes totally. And he decided at that point he better slow down. So he slowed down to a walk because it was going to be a lengthy race. He had some food but it was dehydrated but he had no water, could eat the food but it would probably just dry him out more. But he really ended up, of course, needing to eat it because he was out there for 9 days. Yeah, and he said. Talk about a sunburn. Oh yeah, that too. It was 9 1/2 days. I'm sorry. I said 9, I think. And he said when that helicopter went off and he was standing there, he said that's when he realized he was really, really lost. Wow. But he said he didn't feel fear.

57:40 He said. I experienced a deep, consuming serenity pucked with moments of riveting anger. Oh, OK, anger seems appropriate. Yeah, for sure. He said that all of the fighting he had done and all that stamina he had built from all his years of sports and and racing must have helped him. And he had actually been, they mentioned this year that he had been a modern pentathlete since the age of seven, but he had been actively really a huge sports person since he was 7. So he was in way better shape than most of us. But also if you think about it, he's also probably had less physical reserves because he had been running and running all the time.

58:21 So he probably didn't have fat stores and stuff because it bet his level of body fat was 0 percent or something like that. And for his his history that talked about the fact that he had joined the state police when he had come out of school and was picked by the Fiam Oro sports section that is run by the state police force. And then in 1984, he represented Italy at the Los Angeles Olympics. And then he was in the world championship the year after that. It doesn't say how he did. So I guess he didn't medal or anything, but just to get to that point is pretty, pretty amazing. He says when you're going all to win, you don't notice anything. Well, he said I won Olympics in World Cups, but he didn't look around me. He said as a professional you have to do the race full stop. You have to win full stop in the desert. I learned that it's really important to look around you to see what is happening, to know the being next to you. OK.

59:13 I know. Oh. By the way, this is a. This is 6 marathons in a row. It's ultra marathon is 6 marathons. That's crazy. That is crazy. Thank you. In Prosperi's case, the beings next to him were sometimes camels or a tree that interrupted the endless sand. And he said one of the areas he went with one of the trees. He said the tree felt almost like kin because he had so much sand on his skin. It was a kind of bark. That's probably how he didn't get to sunburn because he probably because of all the sand. He said that climbing one of the dunes on the second day last, he saw a disturbance in the view and he was convinced it was somebody's home or holy man's shrine. But the shrine or mirabout was empty and it was the only holy man was in a sarcophagus.

1:00:06 Oh wow. It really was a shrine. And so he had at least he said I had a roof over my head. He put his flag up on the turret to indicate that he was there. And then he was inside and hear the squeaking noise, like small birds chirping, and there were clusters of tiny bats that came to the walls. And he said I grabbed A handful and squeezed him dead. He cut off their heads, stirred up the insides with their little knife and sucked them out. OK, yeah, well, I mean, it's been a minute. He repeated this with. About 21. I can't even eat crayfish that way. Well, you haven't been in the situation probably, but yeah. Anyway, he did this with 20 bats and he said this way he felt like he ate and drank at the same time.

1:00:50 So he used the the fluids in their bodies to rehydrate. So that's. So grossed out right now. I know, I know, he said. He saw them and he kept thinking, I'll just eat them raw, I won't need water then I won't need water. He said. He just really thought about the practicality of it over the emotions because he just couldn't go there. His friend Giovanni was given, it said to reflection and hope through the ultra marathon to get to know himself better. That was his friend Giovanni's goal, and Perspari said I don't really do that. I'm curious, didn't know anything about it, he said. I ate and that was it. That was the only thing they stank about. I know the rest of us would take a minute to get past the and then I think about, oh, do they have rabies?

1:01:34 Do they have something they're caring or what? I don't know. But at that point, you know, it's either that or die. So I guess either you die now or die later. I don't know. He said he took the shrine, the bat remains out and buried them because he felt like that was a act of respect. He didn't want to leave the dead bodies in the shrine. And also he wanted to respect the bat. So that was that was nice. He said he just wanted to have that ritual of civilization and he said that's just how I am, very ordered and things. And it seems just to me if I have to kill an animal to live, I will bury the remains. In October of 2022, he returned to the spot with the Italian television crew. He went digging and he found all the tongue skeletons. Wow.

1:02:14 Yeah, yeah, he then he was in there, that thing and he said that he heard an aircraft and he rushed outside to light a fire. And I imagine he must have had some sort of fire starter stuff in his bag. And he said he dug a hole and he put all of his things in it. Sleeping bag, rustic everything, including plastic things because he said that makes smoke. But he said this. Oh my goodness, Can you imagine? Unfortunately, he said, as soon as the lit another sandstorm hit. I felt so much anger in my body. So they couldn't it wouldn't be visible. He waited 12 hours inside the marabout for the storm to pass. And then he made a decision. He said. Quote in Italy, if they don't find the body of the presumed dead, the family doesn't receive a payout.

1:02:59 Since he was a policeman his wife, they're now divorced, would have been entitled to a state pension. They had three young children. She had not wanted him to go and he said I felt a bit guilty about that. He said if I walk he said because if I walk towards the clouds I don't know if I'll arrive and if I die they will never find my body in the desert. Within a few days everything disappears. Only skeleton remains, so he really considered his options, and he decided the only option left was to cut his vein because if he bled to death in the mirror about his body would be found because he wasn't out in the sand and the pension would be paid. Wow.

1:03:41 Yeah, so he thought to himself that slowly, slowly, he would fall asleep and die. He said it wasn't an act of despair that he was considering, but it was just the product of his anger and acuity. He's realized that's just what he had to do because he wanted his death not to be useless, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he said he only had one little knife. He said he did try to cut himself, but because he was so dehydrated, the blood clot so fast it couldn't flow out. Yeah. Sorry, so it's like for. Heaven's sakes. And so he said, quote, I thought, this is not my moment. I'm not to die here.

1:04:21 I will head towards the clouds. So remember they said head towards those clouds. And that's where. Sunset I remember. That's where he was going. And this is funny. This is a quote. This is a segment out of the article which made me laugh. It wasn't exactly a celebration tipple, but it was at this point he drank his urine. Oh goody. And he said from that moment he did everything he could just survive. He ate what he found. He ate mice and snakes, and he squashed everything up in a little cup I found in the mirabout. And he ate large ants, chewed leaves, and cut the backs of his running shoes to relieve the sores on his heels. He did not indicate that he ate that, but he said sometimes the only thing that kept him company was the hiss of the wind.

1:05:05 He kept walking towards the clouds. And then over the next six days, he said he really looked around himself. He had to, he said, to live. He said, I saw fantastic panoramas and an enchanted valley, like a giant dry estuary. There were two canals in the middle and mound of stones, like a castle. That isn't it. Just to be able to even appreciate anything at that point seems amazing. And he said that he had learned something. He didn't fear death. He said it's the suffering that makes you scared. And he said if you don't feel suffering, you don't feel fear. And that makes sense because if he's not suffering, I mean, he just, it's kind of a realization that it's going to happen and so hopefully. I mean, and he had the wherewithal and the, and the willingness to eat what he saw.

1:05:50 I mean, I again, I don't know that I would do that. I don't know that I could suck the blood out of a mouse and eat its raw flesh like. Yeah, yeah, I know for sure. This is a cool quote I liked from him. I lived with death, arm in arm next to me. Every day. Death became a friend of mine. It was close to me, was with me always. Every day I look to survive. And death gave me company positively, not even negatively. It gave me the force to strength, not to succumb. And he said that he felt like he survived where others may not have because of his previous training and, and his desire to live and normalizing anything that he could. And he said, I encourage myself to see the positive and the chance to know more, more profoundly the parts of the desert that are around.

1:06:36 I believe that my brother-in-law, James Lawrence, would probably be this way. He's has his flaws and whatever, but I I really believe that if he were in this situation, he would have the same point of view and he would probably eat rats and mice and back brains and all of that and know that walking towards the clouds would get him somewhere. I mean, like I said, I I just he seems like the type I so I can kind of relate to that I guess is my. Point. Yeah, I imagine. I think it takes a certain kind of individual to these intense physical things anyway. Yeah. Which a lot of us aren't. But he said that one day he spotted small things moving in the distance and he just thought there were some more camels. I guess there's wild camels that run around there. And yeah, it's just, it'd be very odd, but they have to come from somewhere, I suppose.

1:07:30 But when he got closer, he realized they were goats, and goats mean civilization. He said it was about 20 meters away. When he saw that they were being herded by a girl. He had reached a Berber settlement. His quote was I understood then that I was reborn. I had been in the desert 9 1/2 days. I felt I'd been inside the belly of the desert. Like pregnancy, I was born anew. OK, good for you man. Yeah, the Berber families had given him goat's milk but vomited it right up because it was too much after the days of deprivation and dehydration he felt at that moment in time he was approximately 43 kilograms, or 95 lbs. Wow. Yeah. And at that point, he was taken blindfolded by the military police to a base.

1:08:15 Yeah. Basin Tunduf, later to the hospital where he was there for a week in intensive care. And the reason was because they thought he was an agent. They thought he was a spy of some sort. They. I mean, that's a rough job as a. Marathon number on his shirt. Like, come on. Man, Yeah, well, you know, and he said that until they found his race papers, they thought he was some sort of a spy, he said. Suspicious. That's like ultra paranoid y'all? It is well, and maybe they have a reason for it, I don't know. He was from Rome and when he returned. Rocco, by the way. He had walked to Algeria. OK, so this is Algeria. Wow. OK, because the race starts in Morocco. Yeah. And so it's that 250 kilometers, I think they said, right.

1:08:55 They had to have been markers to mark the path. But for his sake, this is wild. And if they know the wind blows like this, it seems like. They want to totally. Do something about it, but I don't. Know also if the wind blows like that I feel like you should just sit down and wait and maybe, I don't know sure. Surely the race markers are windproof right? Are sandstorm proof? I would think so. I mean, it seems kind of important. There's a YouTube video of a couple doing this marathon and I'm now curious to watch it because I'm curious just like, what do the markers look like? What do the sandstorms look like? What you know. I mean, yeah, I don't know. But when he finally returned to Rome, he was taking photographers were taking pictures of him and his wife. And one of the sports journalists had asked him, so will you do the marathon then?

1:09:42 And he said, I always finish my races. Oh my. Goodness. So you gained the strength and two years later he returned to run the marathon and that was in 1997. And he completed the race 9 more times after that, the last time running in 2017. I know and this is a quote of his. I say to a lot of people, if you really want to understand life, you have to go to the desert, he said people often associate the desert with death because there's just nothing really viable looking there. But he said this is a quote, too. If you have a life that you can't interpret, you become alone. And he said after he survived, everything felt amplified. My love of nature, my love of sport, the will to do, the will to love life.

1:10:28 He then retired from the police force. And he had been working as a fencing coach and Olympic coordinator. You know, like fencing is on guard. And then he apparently had divorced at some point, and he married for the second time. And that would've been 2001, I think. He's now a grandfather. And he continues to set himself challenges, such as kayaking around the coast of Sicily, where he lives now. He says he's waiting for the right moment to tell his grandchildren how he survived. Wow, not not the telling his grandchildren about how he survived part. That reminds me of my dad. My dad is dad's 79 in October, and he's still doing stuff like hiking 3 miles up the mountain with one bottle of water and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, he's not doing ultra marathons. He is definitely.

1:11:18 He definitely has that same attitude of live life and joy. Nature and age is just a number. Yeah. And I agree. And also I think he's among people who believe that when it's his time, it's his time. It doesn't matter what he's doing. I think that matters. I think people who do some of these extreme things think that way. They're just like, well, if, when it's my time, I'm going to do it whether I'm sitting on the couch or I'm up on Mount Kilimanjaro, and I may as well do what I want, right? And my dad, Once Upon a time, I think my dad was in his late 40s, early 50s maybe, he had a guy in his Mormon ward, so in his congregation that was in his 70s and was still skiing every day. And I remember him telling me how much he admired this man like that he was skiing at age 70. Whatever.

1:12:04 And my dad was not in the greatest health at that time. You know, he'd had severe ulcer and he'd had he had Osgoode Schlatter disease in his knees. We'd had several knee surgeries. It really clearly, clearly inspired him because again, my dad is 17, almost 79 years old and he's still skiing. Ski season comes, he goes, he fishes all the time, he hikes all the time. Like he he is the man that he admired 30 years ago. You know what? I. Mean. Isn't that amazing? I think it. Really is. That each of these stories indicate in them the moment where the person decided they just had to do it, they just had to somehow survive. And it seems like it's. Kind of comes binary, right?

1:12:46 It's like live or die. Those are the choices. So which one do I choose? Yeah, and the stories I've seen of survival, of course, you don't see the survival stories that they didn't survive, right, 'cause then that's a bummer. Why actually we do see those. But still, these are the stories that we get more details. And I think the way people go through the process of sometimes they're just angry, sometimes, sometimes they're devastatingly sad, things like that. But in their moment, they decide, OK, I've got to do something. To me, that's the message of these stories is that we, moment to moment, need to decide what we're going to do, how we're going to behave, how we're going to contribute. And I think when we don't, that's when, as Prosperia had said, that's when we're lost. Yeah, they're the stories of survival.

1:13:26 Very cool. Very, very cool. All right, if you've made it this far, clearly you like a little mayhem with your medicine. Or you just enjoy hearing us ramble about weird medical mysteries. Either way, we'd love you for it. So hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening. And toss us a rating or review while you're at it. Helps other curious weirdos find the show. And we know there are a lot of you out there. Oh so many. Come join the chaos. Thanks for listening to Medicine, Mystery, mayhem, and sometimes Murder. Do you have an idea for an episode of this podcast? Just want to say hi? You can get in touch with us at our M4 pod. That's OURM thenumberfourpod@gmail.com.

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