Brutal Mercy (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00Today, I'm going to tell you four stories about people who thought their day could not get any worse. But they were wrong. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, please ask the follow button to come on over and help you fix your roof. but then once they actually get up on your roof, tell them you'll be up in a second, but just take the ladder away and leave. Our first story is called Flash.

0:52Appliance breakdowns happen and repair expenses add up. Help protect your wallet with an American Home Shield warranty. AHS can help fix major appliances and home systems, no matter how old. And if they can't repair the covered item, they'll replace it. Plus, as a benefit to select plans, you can video chat with a live repair expert. American Home Shield. Don't worry, be warranty. Get 20 % off any plan at ahs.com slash Mr. Ballin and see promo details. See ahs.com slash contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations, and exclusions. The story of Southern New Hampshire University started in 1932 above a small storefront.

1:32Almost a century later, SNHU offers over 200 degree programs online. There are no set class times, so learning fits around your schedule, and courses are career-focused to help strengthen your skills. But the best part of the story? SNHU's online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the entire country. This could be your next chapter. Visit snhu.edu slash Mr. Ballin today. On the afternoon of March 7, 1946, a 10-year-old boy named Sipo led a team of eight oxen across an open, grassy field in the Highveld region of South Africa. The wind was really starting to pick up, and the clouds were gathering, so Sipo knew a storm was on the way, and so what he was doing was hurrying to finish plowing this field before it hit.

2:22He was walking ahead of his oxen, steering them with a rope that was tied to a lead pair. And then behind the lead pair came three more pairs of oxen. And then beyond that was a chain going back to this really heavy plow. So basically all the oxen were working in tandem, pulling this heavy plow. And so as Sipo is leading his oxen team and plowing this field, he's looking around, he's watching for signs the storm's going to hit, you know? And then at some point he actually hears off in the distance some thunder rumbling. And then he noticed raindrops hitting the ground. So he tugged at the rope, you know, trying to get them to speed up.

2:57But the oxen were just slow. They just kept walking at their normal slow pace. Now at first, Sipo's thinking, okay, we can get through this. We'll plow the field. It'll be slow and steady, but it looks like the storm's going to hold. But really quickly, once the rain began, it just picked up really fast. Like the drops began falling faster and faster. The thunder got more and more pronounced. And so Sipo began to wonder if maybe he ought to just abandon this and just go home and come back for this later. However, before Sipo could do anything, there was this blinding flash and then something hit him and literally threw him into the air.

3:34And then he slammed down onto the dirt really hard. And for a few seconds, everything just went black. And then slowly things began to come back into focus and Sipo found that he was lying flat on his back in the wet dirt. And as he lay there gasping, it dawned on him. He'd just been struck by lightning. Sipo, who was now starting to panic, tried to sit up to check himself for injuries, but his arms and legs wouldn't move. It was like he was paralyzed. And then, to his horror, he heard the sound of his oxen's hooves getting closer to him. And Sipo realized that where he'd ultimately fallen after being struck was right in their path.

4:16And if he didn't move, they were going to trample him. Sipo's like trying and trying to will him, but nothing happened. And the sound of those oxen's hooves are getting closer and closer. So finally, he just shut his eyes and accepted his fate and waited to be crushed by his own oxen. But then when the oxen literally came right up to him, despite walking effectively right over him, he didn't feel anything. And so Sipo, whose eyes were closed, you know, he's bracing for impact here. He's hearing the oxen pass over him. He opens his eyes and he sees here are the oxen, but they're not stepping on him.

4:53It's like they're avoiding him. And so Sipo, he watches the lead pair pass over him without stepping on him. There's more to come. More oxens are coming along their way. And they too, you know, one by one, it's like they knew he was there or something, or it was just an incredible coincidence, who knows, but they didn't step on Sipo. They all avoided him and basically spared him. And so Sipo, he doesn't know how badly hurt he is from the lightning strike. He doesn't really even know if he's going to recover here. He's currently paralyzed on the ground. But he breathes a sigh of relief after the final oxen passed by him without crushing him to death.

5:28He couldn't believe it. But then he realized there was another problem. The oxen, despite not stepping on him, were continuing to walk as if nothing had happened. They're just going right along here. And what were they pulling? The plow. And the plow, if the oxen didn't stop, was going to literally, this big metal sharp plow, was going to be pulled right across where Sipo was laying. And there was nothing he could do. And so Sipo is in full panic mode. He can hear the sound of this huge, heavy plow crushing its way through the earth, you know, getting ready to cut right through him. And he's doing everything he can to try to move his body.

6:10But he just can't. He's paralyzed. And he's only able to look straight ahead because that's the way he landed. And he starts to see the frame and the chain that's connected to the plow. And it's moving across him. And he knows any second now, this plow that's getting louder and louder is literally going to cut him in half. And there was just nothing he could do. And so once again, he found himself just accepting fate. He's about to die here. And so right as he knows he's going to be cut in half, there was this other really bright flash of light in the sky. Except this time, Sipo didn't feel himself being chucked through the air.

6:46It was just this really bright flash. And then everything went still. The plow stopped. There was just, there was no noise. Everything was still. And Sipo, he still can't move, right? He has no idea what's going on. But as he would eventually find out, there was a second lightning strike. It didn't strike Sipo. It struck his oxen and killed all of them. So they all get killed and they fall to the ground, stopping the plow literally inches from his head. Ultimately, Sipa would recover from being struck by lightning. He would actually regain feeling in his limbs, he would get up, and despite the tragedy of losing all of his oxen, he would walk away and go back home.

7:32And so what we're left with at the end of this story is the idea that sometimes lightning does strike twice.

7:44This segment is brought to you by Whalefall. You might remember, a handful of years back, I told you the incredible story of Michael Packard, a lobster diver off Provincetown, Massachusetts. One day in June of 2021, about 45 feet down in the water, checking his traps, something slammed into Michael so hard it knocked the regulator right out of his mouth. For a moment, everything went black, and his first thought was that a shark had him, that this was now how he was going to die. But there were no teeth, just darkness and pressure closing in. Because Packard was not inside of a shark. He was inside of a whale.

8:21And somehow that whale spit him back out and Packard survived. He walked away with nothing worse than deep bruising, no broken bones, and home from the hospital that same night. That story has always stuck with me because it proved the ocean can produce something that sounds too wild to be real. Well, it turns out Hollywood thought so too because the new movie, whale fall, throws you into the exact same impossible situation that Michael Packard was in. Whale fall tells the story of Jay Gardner as he dives off the central coast of California in search of his father's remains following his death.

8:57Instead, Jay finds himself trapped inside the belly of a massive sperm whale with only one hour of oxygen left. The water is pitch black, his air is running out fast, and every second that passes is a second closer to running out completely with no clear way up and no way to call for help. Jay sees that lessons from his father might be the key to his escape. Now, Whalefall is fiction, but after what actually happened to Packard, none of it feels all that outlandish. Both stories come down to the same thing in the end. Impossible odds and somebody who refuses to stop fighting for the surface. Thank you again to our sponsor, Whalefall.

9:37Hold your breath. Watch Whalefall only in theaters October 16th. Get tickets now.

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11:42Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy, includes up to 20GB hotspot. Capable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Our next story is called Save the Baby.

12:06One afternoon in January of 1978, a woman named Janet Whittle sprinted across a hospital parking lot in St. Helens, England. With her was her husband Paul, who was clutching their three-month-old baby, Lisa, close to his chest. As soon as they reached the hospital, the doors to the ER slid open, and Paul began yelling for a doctor because their baby, Lisa, was not breathing. So just a few minutes ago, Janet had been at home in the nursery, and she had been feeding and burping Lisa. And then she had set Lisa down in the crib just for a minute while she went to the kitchen to wash up. And when she'd come back, the baby's face had been completely pale, and she'd been making pretty obvious choking sounds.

12:47Janet began screaming for her husband, and seconds later, Paul comes charging in. He sees what's going on. He scoops up Lisa and says they're going to the ER. Luckily, Janet and Paul lived basically right next door to a hospital. So they literally just went outside and ran across the lot right over to the hospital. And so now a nurse and a doctor came running up the hall. They grabbed baby Lisa from Paul. They could see obviously the baby was choking or at least struggling to breathe. And without even asking any questions, they just turned and ran into a nearby exam room. And Janet and Paul followed.

13:21And they're so upset. They're wondering what's going to happen. and all the team could say is that it looks like the baby is choking on food. At this point, the doctor turned baby Lisa over and he held her in one hand and then used the heel of his other hand to thrust against her back, trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in the baby's windpipe. But after trying again and again, they could not get Lisa to breathe normally. They couldn't dislodge whatever was in there. And so this was getting more and more dire by the second. At this point, the doctor turned to the nurse and said, call an ambulance because Lisa has to be transferred to the Children's Hospital because they have the necessary equipment to save this baby's life.

14:01Minutes later, an ambulance driver named David Lamb raced through the streets of St. Helens on his way to the Children's Hospital. He knew that Lisa, the baby in back, was in critical condition. Before they had left the hospital, the ER doctor had said that because Lisa's skin was now turning gray, she probably would die during transport. But David, the driver, he knew he still had to try. I mean, obviously, maybe they can get her there and maybe they can save her life. And so now he sped down the street toward an intersection that was right up ahead and he pulled into the left lane. But right as he reached the intersection, the light turned red and David was forced to slow down to make sure there was no oncoming traffic.

14:42And so he looked both ways really quickly and when he thought the street looked clear, he began the turn and just as he did, he heard screeching tires and then something smashed into the side of the ambulance. 20 minutes later, Janet and Paul, who had not been in the ambulance, they had ridden in a taxi cab from the ER over to the children's hospital, they got out at the children's hospital and they went inside to the reception desk and they began asking about their baby. The receptionist immediately paged the staff and then Janet's heart pounded as a young nurse came out into the waiting room and told her and Paul that the ambulance their daughter had been in had unfortunately been in a crash.

15:22A car had apparently struck the ambulance, and the ambulance had spun out and smashed into the side of a hotel. When Janet heard this, she nearly collapsed. I mean, she was already bracing for terrible news, but it just seemed like it was just getting worse and worse. And she's looking at the nurse, just waiting to be told her daughter is dead. But the nurse didn't say that. The nurse explained that the ambulance had been hit so hard by this other car that it actually had saved their daughter's life. Up until that crash, no one had been able to dislodge whatever was stuck in baby Lisa's throat.

16:00It would turn out the impact of the crash essentially performed a perfect Heimlich maneuver on Lisa and dislodged the food from her throat. She began breathing normally again, and the color returned to her face, she was fine. And she also had no injuries from the crash itself, like she was completely cured. In fact, everybody involved in the crash in both cars walked away from the crash. And shortly after the crash, baby Lisa was reunited with her overjoyed parents, and they went home and just continued living their life as normal.

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17:55Savings subject to change. Restrictions apply. Membership eligibility and product restrictions apply and are subject to change. USAA means United Services Automobile Association and its affiliates, San Antonio, Texas. Our next story is called The Distress Call.

18:18Around 10 a.m. on May 15, 1978, a dispatcher picked up a ringing phone at the Pima County Sheriff's Headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. He asked the caller what their emergency was, and the man on the line said he wanted to report a ship sinking in the ocean. Now, the dispatcher immediately assumed that this had to be a prank call because Arizona is completely landlocked. Like, there's no ocean anywhere near Arizona, so how could this person be reporting a sinking ship in the ocean? So the dispatcher told the caller to stop wasting his time. And he was literally about to hang up when the man in Arizona shouted at him to wait.

18:57He was being serious. He said he had a CB radio here in Tucson, and somehow he just picked up a mayday signal from the captain of a ship that was stranded and taking on water off the coast of Key West, Florida. So a CB radio is a citizen's band radio. It's a short distance two-way radio that allows people to talk to each other without necessarily a license. And you don't need the internet or cell phone towers. Truckers sometimes have CB radios. But critically, CB radio is for short distance, not thousands of miles away off the coast of Florida all the way to Tucson. At this point, the dispatcher actually thought this really had to be a prank because they knew CB radios really couldn't receive signals from that big of a distance.

19:43So this is like not possible that this man could have picked up that mayday signal. But most likely, the dispatcher's thinking that the caller is not necessarily playing a prank. More likely, local kids are playing a joke, and this guy is gullible enough to believe it. Like, maybe kids are pretending to send a mayday signal for a boat off the coast of Florida, this guy heard it, and he's like, oh my goodness, this is real, and he's calling 911. That's what the dispatcher thinks is going on. And so the dispatcher kind of tried to explain that to this man, sort of treating him like, look, I think you're being duped here.

20:16that somebody's playing a prank on you and this is not real. But the man insisted this is not a prank. Like, the captain sounds very panicked. This is not a child pranking me. This is real. And he just begged the dispatcher to, even if you think this is completely made up, please do me a favor and just look into it. And so the dispatcher said, fine, all right, we'll make sure somebody calls Florida and we'll make sure there's no sinking yacht. Thank you. And then they hung up. An hour later, a helicopter pilot took off from the Coast Guard base in Key West, Florida, and began flying out towards the ocean.

20:52They were going to go, you know, make sure there's not any sinking yachts out here. And as the pilot began, you know, flying around looking for sinking yachts, he also fiddled with his radio and switched through all the frequencies that CB radios can broadcast on. But he wasn't seeing anything out on the water, and he certainly wasn't picking up any signals, no mayday signals, nothing. Now, this pilot, when he went out to do this reconnaissance mission, really didn't expect to see anything. I mean, the Coast Guard in Key West had not received any mayday signals that morning, and no one had reported seeing or hearing a ship in distress, except some random guy 2 ,000 miles away in Tucson, Arizona.

21:31And so the pilot is not shocked that, you know, basically there's nothing out here. But as he's, you know, going through the motions of flying around, looking out over the water, you know, trying all the stations of the CB radio, he sees a flash, like a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. And he looked down in that direction and he saw something glimmering in the water. So he turned the helicopter and got down lower to get a better look at what it was. And he couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a 30-foot yacht sinking in the water with three people desperately waving on the deck.

22:06This is a sinking ship. I can't believe it's real. It would turn out the Mayday signal was not a prank. It was a real signal from this yacht called the Timberlane. And it was a good thing that the man who heard it called the police. Because even though he was so far away, it should have been impossible for him to even pick up the signal. He actually, it would turn out, was literally the closest person in the world who could have helped. So under normal conditions, CB radios cannot broadcast more than 15 miles away. But on this particular day, conditions were not normal. There were an unusually high number of solar flares that day, which increased the ionization of the layer of the atmosphere that radio signals travel on.

22:51So what that means is when the Timberlanes sent out their Mayday message, the signal sort of bounced off the supercharged layer of the atmosphere, which is a phenomenon known as skipping. So instead of being broadcast to other CB radios in the immediate area, the Mayday signal skipped across the atmosphere to radios thousands of miles away. So that's why the Coast Guard right there in Key West, Florida, did not pick up the distress signal, but a random man in Arizona did. And thanks to him taking it seriously and calling 911, the Coast Guard was able to rescue all three people on board, and they towed the Timberland to safety.

23:40Our next and final story of today's episode is called The New Doctor.

23:49One afternoon in June of 1975, a woman named Marie Daniels stood up from her chair in the corner of a hospital room in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Next to her was her husband, Harold, and he was asleep in the hospital bed, hooked up to a whole bunch of machines. Harold had undergone surgery that morning to remove some cartilage growths from around his neck. And the surgery had gone well. And afterwards, the hospital staff had moved him to this room to rest. And so now Marie figured she could slip out for a few minutes and finally grab some food and maybe some coffee. And so Marie, she grabs her purse and quietly begins to walk across the room, doing her best not to wake her husband up, who's clearly passed out in the bed here.