Hi. I’m Molly. Something terrible happened to me last year
because of my best friend Julie. It sounds crazy but I was stuck at the bottom
of the sea for 36 hours. Yes, at the bottom of the sea! Under water! For 36 hours. Which is more than a day! You’ll see that I’m not making it up when
you hear my whole story. It all started when Julie showed me a photo. “Molly, check this out.” So I took her phone. Ethan, a guy that Julie met on Instagram, was holding the steering wheel of a boat and smiling. I never liked this guy and this photo made
me like him even less. It was so obvious that he was
just a spoiled rich kid. “So?” I said and gave the phone back to her. I could tell that she wanted
something from me. “He’s inviting us to spend
the weekend on his boat” I pretended not to understand. “Us? How does he know me? He barely even knows you. You just message each other.” She said “We talked on the phone
for hours last night. Trust me, he’s a great guy. Come on, let’s go together.” I immediately said, “No way. What am I going to do on a boat with a total
stranger for 2 days?” So she said something she knew would work. “What if he’s a psycho? Are you going to leave me alone
with a guy like that?” This was the same sentence
I used on her last month. I asked her to come with me when I was meeting
a guy for the first time. So we went to the date together. She basically meant, “now it’s your turn.” I had to say yes. On Saturday morning, we took a 3-hour bus
ride to the beach town where Ethan lived. He picked us up and drove us to the boat. It wasn’t too big but it was so luxurious. There were two cabins below deck. Julie and I took over the big one. Ethan didn’t seem like such a bad guy. I thought maybe I was wrong about him. When we came back up, we were surrounded by
water, already on our way. Ethan was steering the boat. “Please don’t get me wrong but don’t
captains drive boats like these?” I asked. He smiled. “Don’t worry. This is a small yacht. I have a license to drive it. Anyway, we’re not going to drive
all the time. We’ll find a good spot and anchor there.” he said. Julie and I sat down to relax in the sun. It wasn’t hot enough to wear a bikini but
the sun was still pretty strong. 2 or 3 hours later, we stopped. We anchored next to an island. Nobody lived on that part of the island, so
it was just us, the sea, and nature. Ethan was a great host. He prepared all the food by himself. It felt like summer even though
it was the end of November. Julie didn’t drink much but Ethan and I
got so drunk we could barely speak. He stood up. “Your captain is about to pass out. I need to go to bed. The boat needs me tomorrow” he said and
wobbled his way to his cabin. After a while we went back
to our cabin as well. I was a little dizzy and got frustrated with
myself for having drunk so much. I remember my head touching the pillow,
and I dozed off immediately. The sea was so calm when we went to bed. I don’t know when the weather worsened,
and a huge storm began but when I woke up, the yacht was rocking a lot. I looked for Julie but
she wasn’t in her bed. At first I thought I was dreaming
but of course I was not. I heard a pounding noise from below, as if
something was hitting the boat. With each hit, the boat would rise up and
then quickly fall back down. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to go upstairs
in such weather but I had to find Julie. I tried to stand up but it was impossible
to stand on my feet. Just then, the boat swung hard. I tried to hold onto something but I couldn’t. I hit my back against the wall,
and screamed in pain. It hurt so much that I was sure
I had broken something. The pain stopped after a while. I checked my arms, legs and ribs. Nothing hurt and I was relieved
that nothing was broken. I suddenly realized the real danger. I was in a boat. There was a terrible storm outside. And boats tended to sink during storms. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to stay down here, or try to go upstairs? I was thinking that the right thing
to do was to go outside when the boat started torock even more. It felt like the boat started moving. Had Ethan taken control of the boat? Were we going somewhere safe? I was trying to calm myself down
when I heard a really loud noise. I realized that the movement was just
due to the boat drifting, and we had crashed against
the rocks surrounding the island. It was now clear what was about to happen:
the boat was going to sink. I managed to get up
because the boat wasn’t rocking as much. I was trying to get to the door
when suddenly it split in two, and water started pouring into the cabin. It was what I’d been afraid of. We were sinking! The water was pouring in so fast
that I couldn’t move through it. I went into the bathroom and shut the door. I took the towels from the cabinet, and stuffed them under the door, but the water kept comin in. Until then, I had managed to stay calm. But now I had enough reasons to panic. The boat I was in had hit a rock in a storm
and was sinking quickly. And I was stuck inside a tiny bathroom. For the first time, I thought
I might actually die. I started yelling to get this thought
out of my mind. “Molly, use your brain! Come on! You have to find a way to get out of here. Use your brain!” The bathroom kept filling with water, which
had by now reached my knees. I stood up on the toilet. It was impossible to get out of here. The water was going to fill up
this tiny bathroom soon. I don’t know how much time had passed. I had resigned myself to my fate,
and was just waiting. The water was now up to my chest. At this point I noticed that the bathroom
seemed to be filling up more slowly. Was it a good idea to try to open the door? Or was I supposed to wait until help came? But the water was still rising, albeit slower. Would I be able to survive until
someone came to rescue me? There was no guarantee that
someone would come. I decided to do a small experiment. I took a deep breath and dived in. I turned the door handle and pushed,
but the door wouldn’t budge. I tried again, but no luck. I came up when I was out of breath. Obviously, the boat had sunk. The door wouldn’t open because the cabin
was probably full of water. I was still alive and I wasn’t giving up. But what about Julie? Until that moment I hadn’t cried but now
I started sobbing and couldn’t stop. Meanwhile, the water had risen more. What’s worse, taking deep breaths while
crying had used up a lot of oxygen, and I could feel there wasn’t much of it left. I was in such bad shape that I couldn’t
tell how much time had passed. The water was now up to my chin. I was cold. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was tired and very sleepy. For a moment I thought, “Let yourself go
and let it all end”. As a medical student, I was aware that it
was hypothermia that made me think like this. I had been in cold water for a long time so my body temperate had fallen and it was going to continue to fall. I was losing hope that help would come. We weren’t in open water,
but who would look for us? Neither my parents nor Julie’s
knew that we were here. Would Ethan’s family do something? I didn’t think so. I thought this was the end for me. The water continued to rise slowly. It got so high that I had to stand on my toes
to avoid drowning. Just then I heard a sound. It was like someone had hit
something a few times. I held my breath. The sound stopped. Maybe there was no sound. Maybe I was hallucinating because
I was about to pass out. No! I heard the sound again and this time it was
closer. Anyways if I was hallucinating, I would have
heard my mom’s voice or something. Why would I hear
the sound of metal being hit? I dived into the water one more time. There was a soap dish made of stone. I grabbed it and came back up. I started hitting the wall with it. The other sound stopped. All you could hear was me hitting the wall. I stopped after a while. Then the sound from the outside started again. I was communicating with someone! They knew I was here. They turned out to be two divers from the
search and rescue team. At first, they couldn’t open the door
because of the pressure. But they were there to save me. After a while, they managed to get me out
of the bathroom and then out of the boat. There were doctors on the search
and rescue ship. They had a lot of experience
with such situations, and were able to help me
recover from hypothermia. As soon as I was feeling better,
I asked about Julie. I found out that both she and Ethan were okay. Apparently, Ethan had diabetes. But he was too drunk to take his insulin shot. Diabetes patients lose consciousness in such
situations and go into a coma after a while. Ethan somehow got himself
to our cabin door and knocked. Julie helped him right away. She gave him his insulin shot but he was still
feeling very bad. Just then the storm broke out so he had no
choice but to go upstairs. Julie went up with him too. Thankfully, she thought of putting
on their life jackets. Ethan managed to start the engine, but the waves were too big, and he couldn’t prevent the boat from drifting. They fell into the water
when the boat hit the rocks. Julie never left Ethan’s side. The waves washed both of them onto the beach. Ethan had lost consciousness so Julie couldn’t
leave him. The next day, a group of hikers accidentally
came across them. They are both doing well now. After hearing this story,
my first reaction was: “They’ll definitely get married
after going through this together.” After a horrific 36 hours,
I managed to come back to life. I think I did pretty well over all. Of course I got very lucky, but deciding to go into the bathroom, managing to stay calm, fighting the hypothermia… I definitely deserve a ‘well done’! Thanks for listening to my story. If you like stories like this,
subscribe to this channel. Bye.
