Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Reunited with the man who saved my life

Episode Date: June 8, 2024

Christian nearly drowned while swimming in the sea in Italy as a child. He returned to the beach with his wife and child - only to find that Yuri, the man who saved his life, was still there. The two men tell us about their emotional reunion and the profound effect the experience has had on them. Also: The New York couple who found a safe full of cash, and get to keep it, thanks to the increasingly popular hobby of magnet fishing. We speak to Yazzy Chamberlain and her grandad John, whose duets of classic songs have earned them millions of online viewers -- including Coldplay. How the powers of nature are being used to help solve water shortages in Mexico City by cleaning polluted rivers. The skull of a giant prehistoric bird known as the demon duck has been found in Australia. And don't waste a moment - the final message from Rob Burrow, rugby league star and Motor Neurone Disease campaigner.Our weekly collection of happy news and positive stories from around the world.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Janette Jalil and in this edition, uploaded on Saturday the 8th of June, an emotional reunion 24 years after a dramatic beach rescue.

I just wanted to go back, you know, visit Yuri, like this is my boy. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Yuri. It was one of the most important things I've ever done to succeed in saving two kids and guarantee them a future. Catch of the day. But I always wanted to search for treasure and I thought you'd have to be wealthy with a ship and diving gear and tanks and all that. No, you just need to find treasure in your local pond. A couple in New York discover a safe

full of cash using magnet fishing. The amazing fossil found in Australia. Well, it's a pretty bulky bird, about 250 kilos in weight, which makes it about five times the size of an emu. Also in this podcast... The woman who's gone viral singing with her grandad. The duo have even caught the attention of some big stars and the inspirational last words of a British legend. My final message to you is whatever you're personal about, be brave and face it.

Every single day is precious. Don't waste a moment. We start with the heartwarming tale of a reunion. We often ask you to share your positive and uplifting stories and one listener, Christian Helkavist from Sweden, did just that. Back in 2000, as a 13-year-old boy swimming off the coast of Terenje near the Italian city of Pisa, he got into trouble in the water. Two lifeguards came to his rescue and saved him from drowning. 24 years later, Christian, who now works for the Red Cross, returned to the beach with his wife and five-month-old son and found one of the men to whom he owed his life, Yuri Bianchi. The two men told us their story, starting with Christian on what happened after he and a friend decided to go for a swim, despite the high waves. After a while, I realised that it was fairly difficult to get back to the beach.

In fact, I was rather being pulled out rather than closing in. I soon started to realize that I will not make it. You know, this is it. I am probably going to die. So it was kind of a weird, like very calm feeling in the beginning. But after a while, I did get help. The first thing we did was try to rescue the closest child, the girl. Then I saw Christian, who was with my colleague Guido, and I went to help them. But the current was too strong. It took hold of the three of us, and we spent 40 minutes fighting the waves and the current to return to shore.

It made me emotional back then and still today when I think about it. It was one of the most important things I've ever done in my life, to succeed in saving two kids and guarantee them a future. I'm getting emotional because it's so wonderful. I think the feelings now are different from when I was 13. When I was being rescued, then I realised, OK, this is real. I could see adults, they struggled. What I felt at the time was also very ashamed. You know, like I did something stupid.

Adults should feel stupid, but not children. They're just playing around. The experience with Christian and the girl fills me with so many emotions. He'll always be welcome in my home, and I know the same goes for me in Sweden. Yuri came and visited in Sweden, which was awesome. But me personally haven't been in contact with Yuri, unfortunately. I think that because I was ashamed, I didn't want to do it too much. I wanted to leave the experience in the past.

Now, 24 years later, I've been thinking more and more about it and realized that this is such a wonderful thing to happen, to get saved by Yuri and his colleague. And I think becoming a father, I went back to Italy with my wife and my little boy. And I just wanted to go back, you know, visit Yuri, like, this is my boy. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Yuri. It's just amazing. Even though I've not seen Christian for 24 years now, he's always with me because he's part of my life. I was young, I saved a child, and going to Sweden to see the family afterwards

was the most beautiful journey of my life. I've rescued many people, both as a lifeguard and a fireman, but this is the one that stands out. We established a bond, and now we're back together after 24 years. I didn't expect that much feeling. I thought, yeah, I'm going to go there, I'm going to say hello, and that was it. But we just started hugging, started laughing,

see each other again and having my little baby with me. Like, look at this little guy. He's here now. I'm going to raise him. We're going to go to Banu Kulipsa often and he's going to swim here and I will look out for him and I know that you will too. It was a wonderful surprise. It was so emotional seeing his baby and his family.

If all three of us had died in that rescue attempt, three new families wouldn't have been formed. Christian's, mine, and my colleague Guido's. That's exactly how I felt, like the ripple effects that comes from it. You really didn't only save me, he saved my future family. And one thing that Yuri wrote on Banjo-Kolypso's Facebook site was that he's not a hero, that he would do this again, and he would do it many times. He is a hero. Doing this again, that only proves that he is.

He's my hero, at least. Thank you, Yuri. And we will not wait 24 more years. We will see each other before that. Christian and Yuri talking about their emotional reunion. Many of us took up unusual hobbies during the pandemic, but one New York couple's lockdown project has also led them to unexpected riches. As you may have heard in our Global News podcast,

they fished a safe full of $100 bills out of a lake in Queens. How did they do that? By attaching an industrial strength magnet to a rope and using that to search for treasure. This report from Isabella Jewell starts with a moment the couple realised they'd stumbled across something valuable. I reached in with my hand and I felt it right away and I was like, in my brain, I'm like, oh no, this can't be happening. There's no way. We just found like a whole bunch of dollar bills. That's what I said in my head. It was just a normal Friday when James Cain and Barbie Agostini were magnet fishing in a New York lake. In the first hour of searching, they pulled up a large metal safe. Not so unusual, but after feeling around inside the box,

they realised that unlike the ones they'd found before, this safe was stuffed full of cash. Oh, it is! Stacks of bills, dude! Oh, my God. Hundreds! More money! When he first told me, he's like, oh, it is stacks of bills, dude. Oh my God. Hundreds more money. When he first told me, he's like, oh, it's money. I'm like, no way. No, it's not. No, it's not. Through the hole in the back, somehow there was this like jagged hole that was only like a couple inches, a couple inches big. He stuck his fingers in there, pulled it out, and the rest was history.

Inside was an estimated $100,000 in $100 bills. But it isn't a simple case of just taking the money to the bank. The money is actually so waterlogged, it is not usable at all. The police, well, the NYPD over here, our police, they couldn't even take it in as evidence. It's the size of money, but it's just like almost like a mushy pancake. It's completely black covered in mud. You're able to separate and look inside and you see the security strips. Clearly, it's all $100 bills. But all's not lost. The couple were cleared by the police to keep the haul.

And luckily, there is a way to restore the money. In Washington, D.C., it's where they have our Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where they create the money. We're going to hopefully bring it to them. And it could take up to three years, but they will rebuild every single bill. It takes a long time, free of charge, and they will forensically find every serial number, even if it's in a shredder. The American money will be rebuilt and they will cut me a check. It's quite a find, the sort of story that inspires magnet fishers across the world to keep trawling rivers, canals and lakes.

If you look on YouTube, you can find hundreds of videos of enthusiasts pulling up weird and wonderful objects. They even hold competitions. And next month month they'll celebrate International Magnet Fishing Day. Let's go ahead and see what we can find here today. First find, what do we got? Oh, oh, oh, that's, oh, that's really heavy. I've been magnet fishing in the north of England with a couple of YouTubers and it's strangely addictive. While most of what you pull up is rubbish, every so often you find something

truly special, as Mark and Lee told me. It's like lucky dick. That's the best way of explaining it. It is. It's like lucky dick. You never know what's going on. As we hung around, we found a cash box and inside the cheapest thing was worth £17,500. And what was it? And that element of mystery is what drives James and Barbie back in New York to keep fishing. But I always wanted to search for treasure and I thought you'd have to be wealthy with a ship and diving gear and tanks and all that. No, you could find treasure in your local pond. Barbie and I are going to magnet fish everything in New York City

and I will leave nothing for anyone because we're going to get it first. We like to think about the stories of how it ended up in the water. It's that that keeps us going with magnet fishing. Barbie and James giving hope to treasure seekers everywhere. Now, when you think of a goose, you're thinking of a bird that could fit into your oven, but not this one. It stood at more than two and a half metres tall

and weighed over 200 kilograms. And according to researchers in Australia, it was the biggest goose that ever lived. The scientists reached that conclusion after analysing the 45,000-year-old skull of a giant bird found in Lake Calabona in the South Australian desert. Alfie Habershon reports. That's the slightly irritating squawk of a normal goose. It's small and white with an orange beak reaching about up to your knee. But it can be a bit unpredictable because at any moment, without warning,

it can beat its wings and charge towards you on the attack. But that's far from what we're talking about here, because this goose, whose skull has been found in the southern Australian outback, is known as the Thunderbird, or the Demon Duck. They do sound like dramatic nicknames, so how scary can it really be? Here's the lead scientist on the dig, Phoebe McInerney. Well, it's a pretty bulky bird, about 250 kilos in weight, which makes it about five times the size of an emu and still much heavier than an ostrich as well, which is the largest bird to currently live. So in other words

it's about the same height as boxerer Tyson Fury and heavier than a gorilla. Maybe the only relief is that you will not be bumping into one on your next trip to Australia because it was alive 50,000 years ago and was known as the gay neonis. The discovery of its skull has revealed that it had a large helmet-like head and sounds like it was probably top of the food chain. Not much would have been able to take down Jenny Orness. We don't have pack animals as such in Australia but there would have been things such as giant crocodiles and we have a giant lizard as well. I suppose at least it wouldn't have eaten people or been able to fly.

But neither of those things have ever stopped a grizzly bear from causing chaos. So perhaps it's better that we've left the demon ducks in the past. Alfie Habersen there, talking about the giant goose that perhaps happily is now extinct. We heard about Christian and Yuri's amazing reunion earlier. We've also been asking for your stories of meeting people from your past in unexpected places. Lots of you have been in touch, including Michelle from California in the US. In 1988, my boyfriend and I traveled to Kenya. We were one of about 25 tourists on Lamu Island, which is in the northern part of the country near the Somali border.

After a day at the beach, we went to get a beer at Poponi's. The bar was deserted. All of a sudden, we heard someone say, three Tuskers, please. My boyfriend looked at me and said, you're not going to believe this, but that sounds like my fraternity brother, Dan Hacking. We looked, and sure enough, it was Dan and his two sisters. They were on a graduation trip their father gave to them so they could see where they lived when they were young, and he was a visiting professor in Uganda. We spent the remainder of our time on Lama together and had many adventures, including finding the police canteen in the dark. We've remained friends over the years.

If you're listening, Dan, Rachel and Jane, we'd love to have a reunion with you on LAMU. And if you have a happy chance meeting to share or a story that's made you smile, please send us an email or a voice note, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. Coming up in this podcast, harnessing nature to clean Mexico City's polluted water.

Each of these works as a filter. We have gravel, volcanic rock, and we have zeolites, a mineral that will help improve water quality in each area. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime

membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Now, have you ever imagined yourself becoming an international star while singing at home in the shower? For most of us, it's just a nice daydream. But let's hear from two people who actually have the voices to turn that dream into reality. 25-year-old Yazzie Chamberlain has gone viral on social media with videos of her singing duets of classic hits with her 87-year-old granddad John Tucker and lots of people have been commenting on how deeply touched they are by the connection between the two. And the duo have even caught the attention of one of the world's biggest rock bands, Coldplay. Yazzie and John have been chatting to Alfie Habershon.

I've always gigged a lot and my granddad used to take me to my singing lessons. And I never knew that he had this amazing voice until one day I was doing one of my own gigs and I could hear someone in the audience joining in and I was trying to scan the room to figure out who it was that had this amazing low voice. And then I realised it was my granddad joining in and then I uploaded a video of my grand, and everyone just fell in love with him. The drums, the tender reeds. And your voices go so well together. I mean, you have that really powerful voice, but then John comes in with this booming, and it's really spectacular. John, I know this is not the first time that you've sung.

It's not the first time, no. No, no, I've always sung, you know, in choirs. Then with my friend John Hobbs at the Bude Choral. And the highlight, of course, was singing with 600 Cornish voices at the Royal Albert Hall about ten years ago. How is it to see your granddaughter getting into singing as well? It just seems so natural. I just feel like she's so good.

I'm so proud of her that I think she ought to be at the top like some of the... The big stars. Some of the big stars, yes, I do. They were all alone and came along. Well, I'm not sure it'll be too long now

because talking of which, some big stars have been in contact, haven't they? I took my grandma and my grandad along to one of my gigs in Bude. So I took grandad and grandma to the beach and I came back and I looked on my phone and I saw Coldplay had left a comment on the video. Automatically, I was freaking out.

I thought it was the coolest thing ever i think it's absolutely amazing all these people commenting but i think granddad does think it's amazing but I think the main thing of it is I think really he just loves spending time with me and singing when I sing with granddad I've had to really train myself to not cry and I have to also remember that it's not necessarily a sad thing even though sometimes you can feel really sad seeing your grandparents get older. And I do feel sad about that all the time. But what I try and do is live in the moment with my granddad. And just make sure that he is enjoying his life.

I think the message that I give is a little reminder to people to go and pop in and have a cup of tea with their grandparents, and that's really special to me. Hallelujah. You see, that's how I imagine, you know, when I try and sing in the shower, that's how I imagine it. It comes out of it, but it certainly doesn't. I sure do.

One thing that I just wanted to ask you before I let you go is just what do you think makes for a long and happy life well singing for me and having a family um nearby and for me i feel like music and love and family and also stop stressing and just enjoy yourself Stand by me And darling, darling Stand by me Oh, stand by me Oh, stand Stand by me

Stand by me Yazzie Chamberlain and her granddad John Tucker singing and talking to Alfie Habershon. Now for a couple of quick stories we spotted this week. Three Andean bear cubs have gone outside for the first time at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Queen's Zoo in New York City. The five-month-old cubs have been seen running, jumping and climbing trees under the watchful eye of their mother, Nicole. These type of bears are rare and typically Andean bears give birth to one or two cubs at a time. And in Italy, more than 13,000 people have gathered in Verona to mark Italian opera's addition to UNESCO's list of intangible global heritage. Performing were 300 choristers, an orchestra of 150 musicians

and a selection of the world's the powers of nature to help clean polluted water. Mexico City often floods in the rainy season, but at the same time is running out of clean, usable water for the more than 22 million people who live in the metropolitan area. One project designed to help solve the crisis involves the creation of 12 wetlands around the city, and it's hoped they'll eventually be able to filter 14 litres of water a second for use in cleaning, sanitation and possibly even for drinking. Craig Langren took a cable car ride to one of the new wetlands with the man behind the idea, Alejandro Alva. We're high above the houses, heading for the suburb of Coautepec, which clings to one of the mountains that ring Mexico City.

Now you can see the wetland there. Now it's a pier now. Oh, wow, yeah, so in the background there are two big mountains and then lots and lots of houses for as far as the eye can see, really. And then, yeah, just literally right down here below us and slightly to the left, I can see a large body of water. We'll stop now and vamonos aqui. Great, let's go. Alejandro is a biologist and a professor

at a local university and he's built this wetland in order to clean Coaltepec's dirty water. So we're just standing on a bridge over a river. If I turn around I can see the river flowing down from the mountainside. The water's a muddy brown colour, and you can smell the sewage, actually. That smell isn't great at all. As the river winds down the mountain, sewage and industrial waste is often emptied into it. We're standing at the point where the river enters the wetland, which just months ago was a stagnant, lifeless swamp. It was full of lilies, but smelly, with dead animals, rubbish everywhere.

It was an open-air dump where people threw everything. Alejandro's big idea is using the soil, plants and microorganisms to treat the wastewater flowing in from the river, as well as creating a thriving habitat for wildlife. But first he had to clean and drain the swamp before carefully selecting which plants to use. Alejandro's divided the wetland, which is about the size of two large football pitches into several rectangular sections separated by tarpaulin. There are 15 or 20 man-made beds which each look like a flower bed and in each of those beds you can see different rocks and plants. Each of these works as a filter, and each has different properties that will help improve water quality step by step. We have gravel, volcanic rock, and we have zeolites, which are a mineral that will help improve water quality in each area.

This combination of the soil, rocks and plants work in tandem as a sort of biological filter. And together they provide a home for microorganisms, good bacteria which are able to break down and remove pollutants from the water. The wetlands also become a magnet for the local wildlife. I can see a huge flock of birds flying above the water. Clovers, in this case, shorebirds. They are capable of feeding on small microorganisms in the water.

We also have some herons that come here. Biologist Professor Alejandro Alva ending that report by Craig Langren on a groundbreaking project to clean polluted water in Mexico. And that's nearly it from us, but not quite. Before our final item, there's just time to say we'd love to hear if you have any stories to share that will make us all smile. As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Vladimir Muzhechka. The producers were Isabella Jewell, Holly Gibbs and Rachel Bulkeley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeanette Julliel. And now to leave you with a message of hope. Earlier this week, a British Rugby League

international player who's raised millions of dollars for medical research died at the age of 41. Rob Burrow was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2019. In the following years, he raised money for MND charities and remained positive right till the end. So we'll end this episode with his message to the world. He asked for it to be broadcast after his death. I hope one day we find a cure and live in a world free of MND. By the time that you watch this, I will no longer be here. I am just a lad from Yorkshire who got to live out his dream of playing rugby league. I hope I have left a mark on the disease.

I hope it shows to live in the moment. I hope you find inspiration from the whole story. My final message to you is whatever your personal bout, be brave and face it. Every single day is precious. Don't waste a moment. In a world full of adversity, we must still dare to dream. Rob Barrow, over and out. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts.

But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.