3 Men Who Saved The World From The Worst Nuclear Disaster & Other Incredible But True Stories

if you cut our show on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster you'll know all about what happened on April 25th 1986 and how it shook the world what you might not know is that it could have been much much worse had it not been for the extremely brave people we're going to talk about today but first let's see what happened on that fateful day prior to that disaster there were around 14,000 people living in this ukrainian city of Chernobyl which is located around 90 kilometers northeast of the capital Kiev you can actually visit there today but it's somewhat a ghost town and the few residents that live there stay outside of the Chernobyl exclusion zone what happened back in the 80s was basically an explosion of one of the reactors at the nuclear plant it's at around 50 people died as a direct result of the explosion but the World Health Organization tells us that around 4,000 people died as an indirect result of the big bang we are further told that thousands of people were exposed to high levels of radiation but millions more were exposed to lower levels of radiation the full extent of the damage is difficult to say but the who says some people who were exposed to this radiation have a higher risk of getting cancer in their lifetime how did it happen we'll answer that first and then get around to the question of what could have happened if it weren't for our exceptionally valiant trio of heroes sometimes called The Suicide Squad we could basically say human error but as with many disasters there have been what you might call a perfect storm of things that went wrong we'll summarize here as we've done a show on this already the world nuclear Association explains that workers at Chernobyl reactor four who are doing tests and to cut a long story short the power of the reactor plummeted and so workers tried to increase the power then there was a power surge and all hell was about to break loose there was a lot of steam and a huge amount of pressure was building up inside one of the reactors this eventually blew off one thousand ton lid on the reactor causing radiation to leak while air got into the reactor which caused a fire a very big fire a second explosion ensued when hydrogen was formed by hot water steam contacting zirconium this was even bigger than the first explosion now there was debris flying around fires breaking out dust so thick it was hard to see an electricity blackout in no working phone lines it was mayhem firefighters did arrive though but they weren't aware of all that dangerous radiation in the air even after they did manage to contain the place the workers as well as the residents of the town did not know what kind of danger they were it took hours to totally put that raging fire out but nothing could stop the spread of radiation that was now travelling far and wide as we said some people still live in parts of town today but not in the areas that were hit most by the radiation you can even take a tour of the town that was and it is supposed to be a spooky experience as people just up and left leaving many of their things behind them it's now said that wild animals have come from the nearby forests and they're the new inhabitants of the town ok so what could have happened in the book chernobyl 12340 the incredible true story of the world's worst nuclear disaster we're told that under the reactor was a massive pool of water which was there to act as a coolant what the workers knew or some of them was that they couldn't allow all the hot radioactive metal to reach that pool of water the author of this book said in an interview if that happened it would have triggered a second steam explosion that would have done unimaginable damage and destroyed the entire Power Station in the three other reactors he goes as far as to say that such a blast could have denuded Europe of about half of its citizens and would have left part of the continent uninhabitable for many thousands of years due to radiation he is not alone either in saying that a former Soviet physicist called Vasily and Nesterenko said this our experts studied the possibility and concluded that the explosion would have had a force of three to five megatons mints which is 320 kilometers from Chernobyl would have been raised and Europe rendered uninhabitable this is where the Suicide Squad comes in these guys knew that they had to drain the pool but there was a problem in that the basement was flooded and they couldn't get to the bowels to drain it one story goes that the three men on the scene to plant staff and one soldier decided to man up and Don wetsuits and swim through the water to give to these mouths it said they had a light but when their lab failed to work they were in total darkness they were told that this mission was likely a suicide mission because if they didn't drown they were probably going to die from such a huge amount of radiation exposure yep it sounds like a Hollywood movie and we can imagine a tear-jerking crescendo as these brave guys swim in darkness and there are ample cuts to their distraught lives and wailing children but this ain't Hollywood this is real life while there may have been Cheers as those men managed to open the valves and drain the pool if there was an extended version of the film it would include three men then dying slowly in a hospital from acute radiation syndrome this is often abbreviated as ARS now the movie cuts to three guys vomiting all the time having seizures terrible headaches feeling dizzy perhaps experiencing necrosis of the skin and ultimately dying a pretty horrible death this we might say is not so much Hollywood but grim European realism it might actually work in Russian cinema but such a movie would be way too depressing to attract Hollywood financed ears this was the story that's circulated for a long time but the author of the book we just mentioned said he spent five years researching the disaster and found out that things were a little different the basement entry while dangerous wasn't quite as dramatic as modern myth what you believe he said in an interview he said that firefighters have tried to drain the pool before these three guys all plant workers and no soldiers came to the scene he said many people tried to empty that pool and we don't know what happened to them he also said that it's true that the basement was flooded and it was hard to find the valves but he said the water was only waste time still radiation was everywhere and the men Alexi antonenkova Larry best Paulo and Boris Baranof were at risk as they waited around in search of those valves it was like finding a needle in a haystack sat the writer adding that this place was a massive network of valves and pipes and finding the right one seemed impossible to those men but they found the right valves in the end when the searchlight beam fell on the pipe they were joyous one of the men later said in an interview with the Soviet media the pipe led to the valves he added and it was a job well done they then turned the valves and they'd hurt the rush of water being emptied from the tank it said that there was about five million gallons of water which is well over 18 million litres then it did get a bit Hollywood we're told as when the men got back to the rest of the people waiting for them to finish their mission there was a lot of hooting and honks but what about the slow painful death from ARS well we're told that that didn't happen the way this sometimes been described it said one of those guys died some years later from a heart attack but the other survived the author of the book said he knew one of them was still working in the same industry and the other he knew was certainly alive up until 2015 at least kind of lost the man after that year people did die of ARS after the disaster but not those three men according to him he said it is quite hard to get to the heart of the matter as after the event the Soviet Union tried to downplay the incident and all the most accurate information has still not been translated from Russia he did say though that these three guys likely prevented a bigger disaster happening that could have killed millions of people in an interview he said they still went into a pitch-black badly damaged basement beneath a molten reactor core that was slowly burning its way down to them we might also say that many people risk their lives during this disaster and during the long cleanup afterwards these folks are sometimes called the liquidators and they number in the thousands according to something called the Chernobyl union 25,000 of the Russian Liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled about the same in Ukraine and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled we might add though that the number of people said to have gotten sick or died because of exposure to large amounts of radiation is a very controversial topic and many reports different studies have also shown that the millions of people exposed to smaller amounts of radiation should not be at a higher risk of cancer except perhaps thyroid cancer we can say with assurance though that a lot of brave people put their lives at risk in the interview one of the liquidators said he knew the risks but he just had to do his job I'm worried for the future he said I get my blood checked twice a month I go through the scanners four times a day but the pay is good and someone has to do this we're told that the area's most exposed to large amounts of radiation won't be safe to live for 20,000 years ice it's great for our drinks and can be fun to slide on historically though it's proven to not be so great a thing to take naps under yet in 2016 one man was buried under ice for several hours and despite what you might expect he came back to life when resuscitated yet how did this lucky man managed to do the impossible it was a blustery winter morning in Pennsylvania when Don Smith spotted his son's boots sticking out from under a snowdrift on the side of the road screeching his car to a halt he rushed out into the snow and started digging his son out of the snowdrift under which he was almost completely buried to Smith's horror his son's face was blue and could feel no pulse or heartbeat in a panic he called 911 and as emergency responders braved the icy roads he silently prepared himself for the worst his son had been lying under a snowdrift for 12 hours in minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit weather how could there be any chance he would survive Smith was flown via a helicopter to a nearby hospital where a team of doctors and nurses warmed up his body and attempted unsuccessfully to restart his heart with CPR the paramedics were unable to find any signs of life in Justin Smith's body and one even draped a sheet over what was presumed to be a corpse yet as the coroner was called and the police began their investigation into the exact circumstances surrounding his death the emergency department physician Gerald Coleman ordered a potassium test of Smith's blood as high levels of potassium in the blood indicates that heart muscle activity is either significantly reduced or has completely stopped however to the surprise of everyone the test results came back normal giving the hospital staff hope that the heart could in fact be restarted using a technique called extra corporal membrane oxygenation the doctors began to pump warm oxygenated blood into Smith's heart and then throughout his fun incredibly the heart began to slowly quiver and using shock paddles the doctors managed to shock the heart into restarting completely Smith was then hooked up to ventilators which would breathe for him and warm oxygenated blood continued to be pumped through his thawing body despite the miracle of restarting Smith's frozen harsh doctors feared that he would in effect be brain dead after an incredible 12 hours of lying frozen under a snowdrift against all odds' scans began to pick up electrical signals given off by a neurological activity and as the signals increased it would become clear that Smith was experiencing completely normal brain activity though he would lose his toes and little fingers to frostbite Smith would eventually wake up from his coma and make a complete recovery as incredible as it may seem freezing might have actually saved Smith's life when the body is frozen at the right rate the slowing metabolic processes will actually protect the body from the effects of exposure cooling cells slows down their metabolic activity and they don't require as much oxygen to function anymore and as the heart slows and breathing stops the body enters a state of suspended animation the key the Smith's survival was that his heart had kept very slowly beating for hours after his burial and I and doctors managed to begin CPR on him not too long after it stopped beating the still oxygenated blood in his system helped keep his organs alive thanks to their vastly reduced metabolic activity not at all dissimilar to the way that hibernating animals can dramatically reduce both their heartbeats and their breathing rate and still remain alive Smith's miraculous recovery has encouraged modern medicine to consider that there's no temperature too low to try to resuscitate someone and his stories mirrored throughout history with a little girl in 1994 being brought back to life after freezing solid one winter morning five year old Carly kozlovsky woke up to her father saying goodbye as he prepared to go to work he tucked Carly in bed with her mother and promptly left unbeknownst to her father though Carly had gotten up and tried to follow her dead outside leaving the house dressed in nothing more than her pajamas once outside the door closed behind her and she realized she was too short to reach the outside door handle for five hours little Carly lay against the front door of her house in below-zero winter weather discovered by her mother frozen stiff her mother who had been trained in CPR immediately began to try and resuscitate her but was unable to Carly was rushed to the hospital where doctors would successfully warm up her body and bring her back to life incredibly Carly also suffered no brain damage despite her prolonged ordeal and the only major injury was the amputation of the lower part of her left leg due to frostbite in 1980 19 year-old Jean Hillard was driving home in her hometown of Lang B Minnesota on a night with minus 22 degree weather suddenly her truck hit a patch of ice in the brakes locked sending her into a ditch living in a rather rural area Jean began to walk to try to find help wearing only a jacket jeans and cowboy boots one of her best friends lived only two miles down the road and Jean was confident she can make the walk as she walked along the icy road though she began to feel lethargic and confused early signs of hypothermia and then when she finally saw the lights of her friend's home Jean collapsed and blacked out the next morning her friend woke up and discovered a large lump in the snow just 15 feet from his door and investigating he was horrified to discover that it was gee rushed to the hospital the medical staff was pessimistic about jeans chances of survival her body was frozen so stiff that they were unable to pierce her flesh with the hypodermic needle the needle simply snapped up on contact with the frozen solid body her body temperature was so low that it didn't register on a thermometer and her face was ashen gray in color deciding that she was dead the staff still tried to warm up her body with the heating pads and when her body reached the temperature of 88 degrees physicians were shocked to discover a faint pulse of 12 beats a minute then the doctors heard a very faint whimper and they knew Jean was alive incredibly Jean would be up and talking normally just a few hours later worried about what her dad might think of her wrecking his truck medical terminology has come a long way since 1980 and today doctors have found that half of hypothermia patients who are treated with extra corporal membrane oxygenation the process of pumping warmed blood into the heart body that saved Justin Smith's life all make a recovery even if they've been in cardiac arrest for an extended period of time shockingly if the patient's had actually become hypothermic before the oxygen levels drop too low doctors believe that they could have escaped the worst of the long-term damage that comes from having your heart stopped for a long periods of time doctors are swiftly adopting new techniques that involve chilling patients who have suffered from extreme trauma and at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center surgeons have been experimenting with pumping a cold saline solution into the arteries of patients suffering from gunshot and knife wounds in order to bring down the body's temperature the emergency procedure would at one time have been considered practically murder yet today doctors understand that gradually cooling the body slows down the metabolic process and can buy time for saving the life of someone who suffered major blood loss the reduced need for oxygenated blood from chilled organs means that they can last longer without suffering damage that could prove to be fatal or lead to severely diminished function especially in the brain yet as revolutionary as these new procedures are some doctors have long known the benefits of chilling a patient's body since the 1960's surgeons in Siberia have been putting babies in snowbanks before major operations and induced hypothermia has been useful for treating pediatric heart patients elsewhere for a long time in most places though the procedure is a bit more refined than simply dumping a baby into a bunch of snow but that again as they are fond of saying in Russia if it works it works the process of rapidly replacing a patient's blood with icy salt water fill is relatively new and quite radical yet the technique seems to be working and doctors refer to the procedure as suspending life wary of the science fiction implications of calling it suspended animation the body seems to be incredibly resilient and has medical technology advances we're learning ever more incredible things about it sadly though thousands of people still freeze to death every year across America and perhaps with more examples of these miraculous recoveries doctors may learn more about what exactly happens to the body as it freezes and how it may be brought back from what appears to be death for the time being though we're going to go ahead and recommend that you don't make it a habit to take naps under large piles of snow and if you get in a car accident in the middle of a blizzard the best thing to do is to stay inside the cab of your vehicle and keep yourself warm wait for someone to come driving by or if you're in a really remote area at least wait for the weather to clear a bit April 27 2003 an exhausted and pale young man stares into a camcorder it's 3:05 on Saturday this marks my 24-hour mark of being stuck in Blue John Canyon my name is Aron Ralston my parents are Donna and Larry Ralston of Englewood Colorado whoever finds this please make an attempt to get this to them be sure of it I would appreciate it with his left hand Ralston moves the camera and records his right arm at the wrist it's stuck in a narrow gap between a large boulder in the canyon wall past the pinch point the flesh of his right hand has turned a sickening bluish gray hue we're Alston explains to the camera that his hand has been without circulation for 24 hours and that he's probably going to die here all alone trapped in a remote canyon but he didn't die this is the story of how Aron Ralston self amputated his arm to save his life Saturday April 26 2003 27 year-old Aron Ralston an avid outdoorsman who excelled at skiing hiking and mountain climbing was supposed to go on a mountaineering trip with his friends but the plans fell through he decided to take the trip by himself and he packed some supplies and his mountain bike in the back of his truck and drove nearly five hours to the wilds of southeastern Wayne County Utah two and a half hours away from the nearest tiny town of Moab Ralston parked his car at the trailhead to Horseshoe Canyon in Canyonlands National Park Horseshoe Canyon is stunning it's full of vast rock formations stone monoliths and deep ravines its remote blue sky big country where you can hike all day and never see another soul it was a lovely late spring morning rosten's plan was to do a 30-mile loop of biking and canyoneering through Horseshoe and Blue John Canyon he was dressed in biker shorts with regular shorts on top and a t-shirt he carried a 25 pound pack filled mainly with climbing gear he also had a small first aid kit a cheap knockoff multi-purpose tool two burritos and a gallon of water split between a hydration pack and a water bottle Ralston spent the morning mountain biking cross-country around midday at the end of his 15 mile ride he locked his bike to a tree at the top of Blue John Canyon planning to later drive his truck up to retrieve it Ralston ran into two young female hikers and hiked with him a bit before splitting off to take a tougher part of the canyon Ralston used his rock climbing equipment to navigate the intricate narrow passages of Blue John Canyon after about an hour so he came across three large boulders wedged in a 3-foot wide slot canyon that he had to climb over the second boulder shifted as he tried to scramble over it painfully crushing his left hand and then pinning his right wrist against the wall Ralston was stuck he yanked it his right arm and tried to pull it free his hand had almost instantly gone numb but yanking was incredibly painful in the boulder later estimated to be eight hundred pounds didn't budge Ralston maneuvered himself as best he could into a more comfortable position he braced his legs and thrust trying to push up the boulder with his feet that didn't work either where Austin's hands had lost feeling he was experiencing compartment syndrome this is when acute pressure is on or builds within a muscle to dangerous levels blood flow is decreased which prevents nourishment and oxygen from reaching the nerves and muscle cells the compartmentalized tissue rapidly deteriorates and begins to die Ralston stopped for a break and awkwardly contorted himself to reach the water bottle in his pack he chugged quite a bit of water before logical thought kicked in he was stuck he needed to ration his water supply he knew the average survival time in a desert without water is between two and three days sometimes less if the person is exerting themselves in 100-degree heat he estimated that he had until Monday night Ralston forced himself to relax and stop the adrenaline coursing through his body he then took an inventory of his supplies in addition to the food and water he had not already eaten he had a personal CD player with extra CDs extra double-a batteries a mini Digital Video camcorder a digital camera a three led headlamp climbing gear and the multi-tool his legs were tired of standing so Ralston used his rope bag to pad the ledge in front of him so he could lean against it he tried to chip away at the rock with the three inch blade on his multi-tool but made no progress the rock was hard and the blade dull Ralston spent the next couple hours coming up with and discarding ideas for freeing himself early on he thought about cutting his arm off but quickly shied away from that notion as day turned into night it grew chilly the temperature dropped to a breezy 30 degrees periodically Ralston turned on his headlamp and continued to try to chip away at the rock to stay warm he grew exhausted but when his knees buckled the weight of his body tugged on his trapped arm which sent pain shooting through his system finally Ralston constructed a seat he maneuvered himself into his climbing harness and after many tries managed to throw a carabiner bundle into an overhead crack in the rock and wedge it tight so it could support his weight for the first time in several hours Ralston was able to sit however after about 15 minutes the harness restricted blood flow to his legs so he began sitting and standing in 20 minute intervals to rest his legs but not damage them over the next two days Ralston continued to chip at the rock and also tried to construct a pulley system to move the boulder off his hand it was to no avail he began urinating into his empty hydration pack saving his pee Ralston experienced a host of emotions he reminisced about happy times with family and friends he brooded and struggled with remorse and depression over times that had gone poorly though not particularly religious he prayed and spoke aloud to God asking for help and a way out a few times he thought he heard voices and yelled for help but only received the mocking sound of his own voice echoing from rock formations in reply on Tuesday when Ralston ran out of water he began drinking his pee as time passed Ralston experimented with cutting his trap to right arm he stabbed down to the bone but realized that there was no way his blunt knife would be able to cut through it Ralston despaired but eventually came to kind of peace and acceptance of the fact that he was going to die alone in the canyon Ralston made videos with his camcorder saying goodbye to his friends and family he also gave his last will and testament he scratched his name birth month and year into the rock as an epitaph he also scratched APR 3 2016 8 in and out of transits hallucinating he was delirious dehydrated and cold near dawn he suddenly had a premonition of his future he was playing with a blond-haired three-year-old boy in a red polo shirt Ralston scooped the toddler up with his left arm using his right stump to balance him and swing the child up on his shoulders while they both laughed this vision spurred Ralston on before then he thought he would perish by himself in the canyon before help arrived now he believed that he would live by now rosten's eyes hurt every time he blinked there was five days of grit built up on his contacts his gums and tongue had grown raw from sipping his acidic urine he poked the thumb on his right hand twice the second time he easily slipped the blade deep which punctured the epidermis due to the gases from the advanced decomposition his arm hissed like a balloon letting out air he smelled a fainting rotting stench suddenly angry Ralston went into a rage yanking his arm struggling against a boulder he discovered that his decomposing limb was pliable and had the Epiphany that he could bend it against the boulder until his bones broke Ralston violently bent his arm back and forth using his bodyweight to exert pressure on his arm finally the torque snapped his radius and ulna bones he then used the dole blade of his multi-purpose tool to saw through the soft skin and tissue of his arm carefully preserving the arteries Ralston paused and cutting to apply a makeshift tourniquet made from the rubber tubing of his hydration pack using his biking shorts for padding he then used the multi-tools pliers to sever his tendons before continuing to cut his flesh cutting through the main bundle of nerves was especially painful then Ralston cut through the last piece of skin and was free later Ralston said the amputation in bandaging took about an hour Ralston described the moment when he walked out of the slot canyon as being reborn because I'd already accepted I was going to die meanwhile worried friends had filed a missing person report on Tuesday night after Ralston had failed to show up for work for two days the police traced Rollins credit card it hadn't last used to purchase groceries in Moab family and friends were convinced that Ralston had gone hiking near there authorities started checking the southeast corner of the county and luckily came across Ralston truck at the trailhead of Horseshoe Canyon Search and Rescue started doing flyovers in a rescue helicopter after the amputation of bleeding Ralston crawled and climbed his way through the rest of Blue John Canyon with his teeth and left hand he slowly painfully rigged his climbing ropes he then repelled one handed some 60 feet down a sheer cliff face it was late afternoon when Ralston finally made it to the canyon floor in bad physical shape covered in blood Ralston staggered through the desert he managed to hike nearly seven miles before running into the meijer a family of Dutch tourists they gave them some water and hailed a helicopter from the Utah Department of Public Safety flying overhead Ralston was rescued about four hours after amputating his lower right arm he was only about a mile from his truck when found rescuers helped keep Ralston conscious for the 12 minute flight to the Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab when they got to the hospital he amazed them by walking into the emergency room on his own he was stabilized before being flown to st. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction Colorado for surgery Ralston had lost around 40 pounds including 25 percent of his blood volume rescuers said that the slot canyon Ralston was stuck in was so narrow that he would never have been spotted from the helicopter worried that hikers would make pilgrimages to see Ralston zarm and get into trouble themselves Park authorities retrieved Ralston ZAR it's said to have taken several men a winch in a hydraulic jack to move the boulder so that Ralston severed arm could be freed since his canyoneering accident Ralston spent six months making a complete recovery he quickly learned to use a prosthetic and returned to the outdoor activities he loved so much during the 1998-1999 winter season Ralston had begun working toward a goal of being the first person to climb all 59 of Colorado's 40 neurs mountains with Peaks over 14,000 feet altitude solo and during winter he had climbed 45 of the 14 years prior to losing his right wrist in hand in the spring of 2003 however the accident hardly slowed him down in 2005 Ralston after seven winter seasons completed his mission in 2008 Ralston traveled to the North and South Poles and also climbed to Mount Everest he continues to climb mountains and participate in a variety of outdoor pursuits Ralston has appeared on several news and TV talk shows recounting his ordeal he's made some other TV appearances - including participating in a reality wilderness show making a cameo on The Simpsons and having been a game show contestant and winning $125,000 for a non-profit land conservation watchdog Ralston is also a motivational speaker and has given speeches discussing mental fortitude overcoming adversity and inspiration he's also involved in wilderness advocacy Ralston documented his accident in an autobiography which has become a nonfiction bestseller while people worldwide have been inspired by R Austin's almost superhuman tale of survival those in the mountaineering community were less impressed the first rule of backcountry adventuring is to tell someone where you're going or leave an itinerary of your plans in his book Ralston freely admits he's been sometimes reckless and stupid when it comes to taking risks in the wild in addition to losing his arm Ralston has been nearly mauled by a bear and was once buried in an avalanche Aron Ralston is not the only person to have survived a self amputation it's happened several times before notably in 1993 38 year-old William J rocky who was fishing a remote spot near st. Mary's glacier in Colorado's Arapaho National Forest when a boulder fell on and pinned his leg for three hours jockey called for help the weather turned ugly and without a jacket or supplies Taraki didn't believe he would survive the night fashioning a tourniquet out of his flannel shirt and using his bait knife Taraki cut through his knee joint using hemostats from his fishing gear to clamp the severed arteries he then crawled a half-mile back to his truck and managed to drive a half a mile to the nearest town to find help before we start talking about possibly the world's unluckiest man let's first ask why people get hit by lightning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tells us that lightning will hit the tallest object with a positive charge from the negatively charged cloud where it begins maybe the worst thing you could do would be to stand in a swimming pool during a thunderstorm holding a very tall metal rod lightning often hit streets but in a wide open space such as a golf course it could be you that happened not long ago to a British woman on holiday in Turkey she got hit and died 12 days later from cardiac arrest people often do survive lightning strikes though such as the guy we'll be talking about today in this episode of the infographic show what happened to the man who got hit by lightning seven times let's first ask what chance is there of being hit by lightning and what will likely happen to you if you do get hit there is data available regarding exactly how many lightning deaths there are a year by year in each country according to the national lightning Safety Institute if you are Mexicans beware that data tells us that Mexico is way out in front of lightning deaths with 223 last time they did the count Thailand was second at 171 deaths South Africa third with 150 deaths and Brazil fourth with 132 deaths then there's a big drop off to Romania in fifth place at 75 deaths the US is quite high in ninth place with 50 deaths perhaps data wasn't available in many countries but according to that report most of the world sees no lightning strike deaths each year but in most countries people will be hit if you come from the US you have a 1 in 171,000 chance of being hit which might be long odds but not that long that is just one year though if you live until you were 80 and you are American your chance of being hit is around 1 and 14,600 according to the National Weather Service by comparison CNBC said that the odds for winning the Powerball grand prize is about one and two hundred ninety two point two million one in one hundred seventy-one thousand for this year might not quite give you peace of mind and if you are Mexican or Thai we suggest you stay off the golf course on a stormy day but what is the chance of instant death if you do get hit well 90% of folks that are unfortunate enough to be the recipient of a lightning strike actually survive all is not lost except perhaps a bit of hair and some brain function yes that's the worst part lightning can carry up to 1 billion volts of electricity and if smacks you when traveling at an average speed of 200,000 miles per hour it's bound to have a profound effect under the hood so to speak experts tell us that the good news is people are very very rarely hit by a direct strike you might also pick up the phone and get a blast to the head as the Lightning travels to you and this is called a contact strike but one of those is not surprisingly super rare to most of the time when people are hit by lightning what we actually mean is that the lightning hit something and then the current traveled to you for instance if the lightning hit the ground anywhere as far as 60 feet away you could literally get the shock of your life it might hit the ground travel to you go up one leg and down the other all the while stopping your heart and lungs from functioning the more power that goes through you the more likely you are to die or suffer some serious damage you might even get what's called a side splash which means the Lightning jumps from an object and on to you that object could even be your friend which was a particularly distressing fact for the star of today's show let's say you do survive what are the odds of coming out of it smiling well it's likely that this strike will change you the nerve damage could have an effect on your memory your personality or it might give you regular headaches or even epilepsy one guy who got hit told American media I know for a fact that people think I'm really weird he was a changed man if that isn't bad enough the strike itself can severely burn you with all this in mind how on earth did someone survives seven strikes his name was Roy Sullivan and he died in 1983 at the ripe old age of 71 the former US park ranger has a place in the Guinness Book of Records for most hits by lightning his nickname was the human lightning conductor when you hear that it's kind of funny it's even more amusing that many of his friends stopped hanging out with him outside because of their perceived risk of being hit while near him the least funny part of the tale is that when he was lying in bed next to his fourth wife he shot himself in the head that was the end of old Roy and his 41 year old wife had to deal with the mess it seems nature couldn't get this guy and he got himself in the end what was first hit in 1942 and suffered burns but no brain damage you see his job meant working in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and as we know such places can be places to be during thunderstorms it wouldn't be until 1969 that he was hit for a second time and that time he was driving in his truck the lightning hit the truck and knocked poor Roy unconscious but all he suffered were injuries to his vanity the strike took his hair eyebrows and eyelashes he was hit again a year later and he just brushed that one off in 72 he was hit again and again went the hair as you can well imagine by this point Roy was getting rather paranoid let's hope he wasn't taking any of that LSD that was everywhere in those days he started to think that some kind of powerful force was out to get him and so he stayed away from crowds just in case he provoked the wrath of this mighty lightning God again and others got hurt on a more practical level he started carrying around a can of water likely a bit ruffled by the fact that he'd been made bald against his will on two occasions the hippie era had not been very loving for this man and things were about to get even worse in 1973 Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon which is perhaps where Roy thought he belonged he was hit by lightning again that year and this time said that the cloud had definitely been following him he had tried to get away but to no avail he had driven from the cloud and then run from his truck and boom it got this time he was able to put his burning hair out he said about the strike when my ear stopped ringing I heard something sizzling it was my hair on fire the flames were up six inches Roy then had a good run of three whole years of not being hit although he's still kept away from clouds but on June 5th 1976 there was a particularly fast cloud he apparently couldn't escape from and it got him I actually saw the Lightning shoot out of the clouds this time and it was coming straight for me he later said this time he had no kin of water at hand and again he lost most of his hair he was hit for the last time almost exactly a year later while he was fishing yep there goes the hair again but he also suffered more severe burns this time and a loss of hearing in one ear on his way back to the car as if things weren't bad enough he was confronted by a bear that was his final hit although his wife also got one when she was with him she'd been hanging out the washing with Roy nearby but this the lightning God chose the spouse now all of this sounds kind of sketchy was Roy looking for attention did he have a habit of self-harm by setting fire to his hair he was always alone when hit so we may wonder if he really had been doing too many drugs or was just a bit crazy but all his hits were confirmed by the superintendent of Shenandoah National Park our Taylor Hoskins what's more surprising than merely surviving is the fact that he didn't seem to suffer any long-term mental injuries at the same time the fact he blew his brains out could mean he wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind now you might be thinking what are the odds of being hit seven times well it works out at 4.15 in 1 bazillion that's a 1 with 32 zeros after it maybe Roy should have played the lottery usually waking up because you have to go to the bathroom is annoying but on May 26 2013 waking up and leaving his bunk to use the bathroom was a decision that saved 29 year-old Harrison or giba or Kenny's life through an odd twist of fate Harrison ended up being the lone survivor of a boat sinking at sea he can lay claim to a unique title he's the only person in the world who have survived on the sea floor for nearly three days the Gulf of Guinea in the southeast Atlantic Ocean is rich with petroleum Laden layers of sedimentary seabed many offshore oil rig drilling operations dot the African coast here on May 26th about 20 miles off of a scrub us Nigeria in choppy seas three tugboats pitched in yacht as they performed tension tow functions on a chevron oil tanker filling up at single buoy mooring number three just before 5:00 a.m. the tugboat jasc on 4 was caught by a large rogue wave and capsized because of ongoing piracy problems in the Gulf security protocol on the tugboat was that the 12-man crew would lock themselves in their room when sleeping unfortunately this rule slowed down the jasc enforced crew when they tried to escape the crew members had to first scramble out of their cabins that is except for the vessels cook Harrison who had got enough to use the bathroom in his underwear when the tugboat keeled over and the ocean rushed in Harrison had to force the bathrooms metal door open against the wall of water the pressure of the water was extremely strong and Harrison was unable to follow some of his colleagues to the emergency hatch he watched in horror as a surge overwhelmed three crew members and swept him out of the boat into the raging sea then the water pushed Harrison down a narrow hallway into another bathroom which had joined in officer's cabin dazed and bruised but miraculously still alive Harrison held on to an overturned wash basin to keep his head above water in the four foot square bathroom the boat sank nearly 100 feet eventually coming to rest upside down on the sea bed when the tug boat capsized there was an immediate rescue operation launched with the other boats in the area and a helicopter a diving crew quickly located the wreck and marked the location with buoys they banged on the hull Harrison hammered back but they didn't hear him as the divers weren't prepared for deep diving they could only stay at the depth of the rack for a limited period of time the rescue was called off due to no evidence of survivors after nearly a day of being in the bathroom Harrison got up the courage to leave his little air pocket in pitch darkness he swam and felt his way into the engineers office miraculously there was another air pocket here two of about four feet high in Harrison's estimation having solved the immediate problem of having air to breathe Harrison could focus on other concerns the first one being that he was cold in May the surface temperature of the East Atlantic on average is a pleasant eighty one point nine degrees Fahrenheit but Harrison was 100 feet down shivering wet and wearing only boxer shorts Harrison faced hypothermia or his body losing heat faster than he could produce it cautiously Harrison felt his way around the cabin he found some tools and used them to strip off wall paneling with a mattress and the material from the wall he was able to make a platform to sit on this platform helped Harrison to stay afloat and lifted the upper half of his body out of the water allowing him to reduce heat loss hungry thirsty cold and stuck in complete darkness Harrison was terrifying he tried to think about his family quite religious whenever he felt especially scared Harrison would pray and call on Jesus to rescue him over time the sea water began to remove the skin from Harrison's tongue he could smell something rotting he thought it was the decomposing bodies of his former shipments every small sound in the dark was magnified the creaking of the home the banging of the wreckage against the walls and most horrific alee splashing and eating noises as fishes nibbled at corpses meanwhile a dive support vessel the Lueck toucan arrived to the area of the sinking the parent company of the jasc on for West African ventures had hired a deep-sea salvage saturation diving team from subsea services company DC and global to retrieve the bodies of the lost crew members the six divers deck crew and technical staff of the Lueck toucan knew it was going to be a grueling mission aside from the heart-rending work of recovering the dead the boat had sunk upside down into soft mud stirring up fine silt and creating extremely poor visibility furthermore because of the security protocols the boat was latched from the inside dive team 2 consisted of Niko van Heerden Andre Erasmus and Daryl you Stacy with supervisor Colby we're topside on the ship helping to guide the divers via a connected microphone while watching the dive through a camera worn by Niko the team spent over an hour breaking through an external watertight door and then a second metal door to get into the sunken boat once inside it was extremely disorienting with the ceiling being on the bottom and the floor of her head the murky water was filled with all sorts of hazards including furniture and equipment slowly painstakingly the divers explored the boat they'd recovered four corpses when Niko crawled up the stairs to the main deck it was a tight squeeze with the diving gear on his back he was in a small passageway getting his bearings when something suddenly reached out of the murk and touched him Harrison had nearly given up hope when he had heard a noise that sounded like an anchor dropping then eventually he heard hammering on the hull of the boat he knew it had to be divers he banged on the wall but didn't think they heard him then Harrison saw the light from one of the divers head torches as he swam through the hallway past the far end of the cabin unfortunately the diver was too quick and left the area before Harrison could reach him but then came the magical moment you may have seen the surreal amazing rescue footage from Niko's video when he sees what he believes is another dead body he touches the corpses hand in the hand unexpectedly squeezes his Niko has a momentary freakout as his supervisor Colby shouts through the microphone he's alive he's alive Colby then tells Niko to comfort Harrison by patting him on the shoulder and giving him a thumbs up sign the divers were amazed to find Harrison alive the maximum depth for recreational diving is 130 feet generally recreational divers don't stay at 100 feet for more than 20 minutes in terms of the air pocket the divers had reached Harrison just in time a human inhales roughly 350 cubic feet of air every 24 hours however because the boat was under pressure on the ocean floor scientists estimate that Harrison's air pocket had been compressed by a factor of about four if the pressurized air pocket were about two hundred sixteen cubic feet it would contain enough oxygen to keep Harrison alive for about two-and-a-half days when Harrison was located he had been underwater for about 60 hours an additional danger came from the carbon monoxide or co2 build-up co2 is fatal to humans at a concentration of about 5% as Harrison breathed he exhaled carbon dioxide slow increasing the levels of the gas in the tiny space however co2 is absorbed by water and by splashing the water inside his air pocket Harrison inadvertently increased the water surface area thereby heightening the absorption of co2 and helping to keep the gas below the lethal 5% level the divers describe Harrison is having co2 poisoning being short of breath and delirious when they found him he wouldn't have lasted much longer the divers first used hot water to warm Harrison up then fitted him with an oxygen mask meanwhile on the surface the dive support crew was in contact with medical and diving experts discussing how to best help the survivor Harrison had a new problem what divers commonly called the bends the bends also known as decompression sickness or caisson disease occurs when nitrogen bubbles form in the blood as a result of changes in pressure if Harrison ascended directly from 100 feet underwater to the surface of the ocean the bubbles in his blood would cause in the best case joint pain and rashes to the worst case paralysis neurological issues cardiac arrest or possibly even death it was decided that Harrison would be treated as if he were one of the saturation divers coming up after a dive Harrison spent about 20 minutes getting used to breathing through the mask then the divers put a diving helmet and harness onto him they were a little worried that he would panic as they got him out of the boat and would be a danger to the dive but Harrison continued to be cool under pressure the team was impressed with his level demeanor Harrison was taken from the boat and led to a diving bell which took him to the surface he finally arrived topside at around 7 p.m. on Tuesday the 28th of May disoriented Harrison thought that it was Sunday evening and that he had only been trapped for 12 hours he was shocked to learn that he'd been underwater for over two days from the diving bell Harrison was moved to a decompression chamber where he stayed for another two and a half days while his body decompressed a surface pressure of the 12 crew members on board the tugboat jasc on for divers rescued one survivor and recovered 10 of the bodies the search for the 11th crew member had to be called off due to dangerous conditions Harrison made a full recovery from his ordeal and returned to his hometown of wari Nigeria he didn't go to the funerals of his colleagues because he feared their family's reactions Nigerians can be very religious but are also superstitious some rumors spread that Harris and saved himself through Blackmagic Harrison was also plagued with survivor's guilt wondering why he was the only one to live since the incident Harrison's experienced PTSD his wife act Pavano Kenneth says he suffers nightmares Harrison will suddenly awake screaming and flailing convinced that he's underwater Harrison has since taken a cooking job on dry land and vows to never again take a position on a boat he made a pact with God when he was at the bottom of the ocean when I was under the water I told God if you rescue me I will never go back to the sea again never it's been days trapped in the darkness deep beneath a mountain the rain falls in torrents outside which unbeknownst to you could mean the end sooner than you think your friends are quiet and all you can hear now is the dripping of water on the cave walls you're exhausted hungry clumped together with your buddies on a shelf in the cave where the flood water hasn't yet reached but you're aware it could rise at any time and the thought of that horrifies you what you don't know is that the world's media and the public is hoping and praying that you get out alive praying that you are actually still alive you huddle against your buddy to keep warm you keep still to preserve energy you pray for rescuers voices from the dark abyss but as time passes you start to lose hope this is the story of the Thai boys trapped in a cave one of the most heartening and fascinating tales that people all over the world followed from start to finish it's a story of heroism courage and global collaboration already a rescue epic in the anoles of true survival stories those boys were trapped for 18 days and you might wonder just how did they survive and how did they get out we'll start from the beginning it was June 23rd 2018 the birthday of one of the boys he just turned 17 years old at home a spongebob birthday cake waits for him but he won't ever see that cake he is one of the older boys on the soccer team called the Wild Force the rest of the team were aged 11 to 16 there were 12 boys in total and their coach at 25 year old named Aki the team had been practicing that day in their village in the Chiang Rai province of northern Thailand this is a beautiful part of the world with endless paddy fields jungle covered mountains but also incredibly dangerous caves it's rainy season in northern Thailand and when it rains it really does pour within minutes streets can be flooded rice paddies drown in water and those living in the area are well aware of the dangers of such downpours but the boys in their excitement after practice wanted adventure and that led them to take their bicycles through the rice paddies and up toward the mountain up there was one of their favorite spots the Tamla wan cave complex they liked nothing more than to enter its depths and explore but this was no day for exploration usually during the wet season the cave is a no-go area due to the fact that heavy rains can fill the cave with water the boys didn't care or didn't know and they parked their bikes and went inside it wasn't as if they hadn't done this before in the past they'd walked as far as eight kilometers into the darkness only with cheap flashlights and for them it was kind of a dare and initiation this day was no different and like before they didn't only leave their bicycles but also their backpacks the birthday boys parents meanwhile waited at home and it got darker and darker something was wrong little did the parents know that the team had ventured far into this massive cave the fourth biggest cave complex in the country if you translate its full-time into English it reads the great cave and water source of the Sleeping Lady mountain that sleeping lady was known to have eaten people in the past explorers who had entered and never come out an expatriate guide working in Thailand later told the BBC that the cave was muddy and the water moved through it fast on days of heavy rain even the most experienced cavers wouldn't go near it and so we have a bunch of kids who have walked far into the cave and outside an almighty storm is broken when darkness fell and the rains came harder the parents talked about how some of the boys had discussed going into the cave now there was panic in that panic turned into intense fear when the parents went into the cave entrance and saw their children's bikes and bags inside the cave the boys now knew they were in trouble not only was rain falling outside but it had been falling for days on end suddenly they found themselves surrounded by rising water a flash flood it seemed had occurred right around them their coach said go scramble get out of here now or we're going to drown they couldn't turn back and so moved farther into the darkness the trail they had used was now a river a place of no return they passed a place that usually stayed dry nicknamed Pattaya Beach but even that flooded it was their favorite spot too eventually they managed to find a shelf where they could sit maybe they thought the water would recede but it didn't and they would sit there without food for 18 days they had flashlights but they were told only to use them now and again this was no time to be afraid of the dark Aki the coach did make one attempt to swim through the water but he soon swam back it was stay or die they used rocks to make the Shelf higher so as to stay away from the water in the pitch-black the coach told the worried boys that the only thing to do now was to stay calm he had been a monk in the past and he told the boys one way to get through this was to think of nothing empty the mind meditate and that's what they did they were also quite lucky because even though the body can go long periods of time without food water is necessary they didn't have to resort to drinking the muddy water from the floor because natural clean water drips down the cave walls they have enough air because of the porous limestone rocks and the cracks although they didn't know that the oxygen level would get lower and lower they could survive but for how long a gate later told the media I tried not to tell the boys that we got stuck in a cave I only told them something positive and that was it they sat there and prayed and meditated in stayed calm if not hungry as hell outside of the cave a rescue operation involving people from all over the world was happening within days there was hardly a news channel that wasn't following this operation Thai police government agencies and Thai Navy SEALs were there and unfortunately one of those Navy SEALs would later die in the water one problem is the complex was so massive and the boys could have been anywhere in that cave luckily one boy who didn't go that day told parents and rescue teams that they'd like to go to a place called Pattaya Beach that was some help divers from various countries turned up including from the UK the USA Australia and China all working with the Thai divers many more experts from all over the world were also involved it was one of the British divers that made first contact and it was videoed a scene that brought tears to the eyes of many people later one of those divers told the BBC wherever there is airspace we surface we shout we smell we smelt the children before we saw or heard them and then they started to communicate with the kids the BRIT asks how many of you the boy shouted back 13 to which he replied brilliant they were all alive many people are coming said that we are the first hilariously one of the boys then shouted what day is it they didn't quite know the day but told boys that they've been in the cave for ten days what they did know they were in the dark with no idea how much time had passed you are very strong shower to the diver it was amazing to see those small kids all hanging together on that life-saving shelf the divers then swam over to them using a line and when they arrived one of the kids said we're very happy almost as if he learnt the line in school the diver replied we are happy to and when the world heard about this it felt as if we'd been blessed by good news at last the Thais smiled that day celebrated after days of saying Sousou which translates to fight fight the boys had fought and they had won well almost they even had the opportunity to write on paper to their parents with most boys saying they loved their mom and pop and not to worry they were just fine the parents wrote back saying they loved them they had a special message for Aki who had written to the parents saying how sorry he was that he had taken their kids into the cave the parents wrote the moms and dads none of them are angry at you you went inside with them and you must come out with them too but quickly a new problem emerged and it seems that the boys were not out of trouble yet not by a long way in fact you see they were found on day ten and as you know they didn't get out for quite a few days after that these cavers that found them belonged to the British Cave Rescue Council and they were joined by expert French and Belgian cavers these are some of the best cavers in the world they had literally risked their lives to find the boys and as you know a Thai Navy SEAL would lose his life it was a perilous cave system and it could take more lives so how on earth were a bunch of kids with no equipment supposed to get back to land it was around four kilometers of extremely dangerous diving and outside the rain kept falling it was by no means a certainty that the boys would make it and again the public pray about this time the search had to be stalled it was just too dangerous as the rains were too strong again people all across Thailand joined in prayer and in their heads said those worst Susu but now the outcome wasn't looking good the boys wanted only one thing besides being rescued they wanted food what do they want they asked for pad crap out which is rice with fried meat chiles and basil leafes unfortunately all they got was a liquid diet full of vitamins because the doctor said what they needed not a spicy dish with lots of oil at least one of the boys got to celebrate his birthday with some hope one of the mothers of the boy said to the press the Navy SEAL had practiced for so long and was so strong but also died how about a boy who's never dived before she was absolutely right tech wizard Elon Musk even offered to help saying his engineers from SpaceX and the boring company would create a pod to bring the boys out but a pod just wouldn't work in such tight conditions the rescue was stalled for the moment but then the bad news came more heavy rain was coming and if the boys were not taken out soon they would be flooded and died in the cave it was then that it was agreed that five Thai Navy SEALs and eighteen foreign divers would lead the effort it was said the weakest boy should come out first but Aki said everyone was fine no one was really weak as it happened the boys that volunteered first would go first Aki actually said the boys that lived farthest away could go first as they had the longest distance to cycle home he really had no idea that the world was watching them that thousands of people were outside that cave the British divers who found the boys led the operation with many other divers following and many Thai divers waiting at checkpoints to get the guys through as the boys could not panic it was decided that they should be given anesthesia so a doctor went along to to get them out first they had to be dressed in a wetsuit and then a full face mask for oxygen was put over their head they also wore a buoyancy jacket after the anaesthetic they were rendered unconscious and now was about pulling them out the problem was or one of the many problems was that the boy would only stay on conscious for 45 minutes so the divers had to be trained by the doctor and how to give them anaesthetic the journey back took at hours and was fraught with danger at tight points the boys had to be pushed hard through the cracks but all the time the divers had to be very careful not to let anything push off their mask the divers also held their heads high so if anything did hit a rock it would first hit them we don't have to tell you that visibility was very bad when they hit a dry section they had to be dragged on a stretcher their masks were moved and then attached again when it was back to another flooded section pulleys and chain systems were used to get them over sand and they had to be carefully carried over rocks it was a daisy-chain operation involving hundreds of people on July 10th the four boys were carried out to great applause outside the cave it was reported that while some kids had incurred minor scrapes amazingly they were all in good condition the average weight loss was 4.4 pounds which isn't so much for 18 days with nothing but water they had to be quarantined because it was thought that they could have contracted dangerous infections but they were fine it was a bit sad though to see photos of their parents waving at them through glass walls no hugging just yet for a while the boys also had to wear sunglasses as so much time in the dark made their eyes very sensitive to light people tried to blame the coach for going into the cave during the rains one British diver soon responded to that saying nobody's to blame not the coach not the boys they were just very unlucky it wasn't just the rain that day the mountain is like a sponge and waters from earlier rain were raising the levels the coach himself after the rescue said I would like to express my gratitude for people from the whole world officials and volunteers that came to help us we promise that we will be good citizens to society one of the boys that was rescued was called titan' and he said this I was very happy to see my dad and mom I feel warmer I was very happy I cried we think quite a few tears were shed around the world when those boys were home safe and sound since then the wild boars have toured the world and have done talk shows here and there many people won awards for their efforts during the rescue and well it's just a feel-good story all around a movie will soon be out about this called the cave how would you have dealt with 18 days in the cave tell us in the comments and for more crazy real-life stories be sure to check out our other video crazy story of a woman who survives live grenade lodged in her face thanks for watching and as always don't forget to Like share and subscribe see you next time

Channel: The Infographics Show

Views: 1,632,438

Rating: 4.900888 out of 5

Keywords: true story, true stories, real life, real, Chernobyl, chernobyl 2019, suicide squad, nuclear disaster, radiation, ukraine, animation, animated, Nuclear, Nuclear reactor, Nuclear power plant, science, chernobyl disaster, nuclear energy, nuclear accident, soviet union, chernobyl nuclear, nuclear meltdown, education, chernobyl incident, 1986, europe, chernobyl nuclear power plant, based on true events, official trailer, belarus, nuclear power, april 26

Id: gzvWX6zijIw

Length: 58min 1sec (3481 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 14 2019