MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Final Descent Vol. III

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Today's podcast features 3 "underwater diving" horror stories. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#3 -- "Leaf Blower" -- A diver is contracted to raise a sunken boat (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/242QjjilqIE?feature=shared)#2 -- "Swiss Cheese" -- Divers explore an underground lake (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/ZUkAkMJ9c18?feature=shared)#1 -- "Berth #6" -- This story is physically uncomfortable to listen to (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/RF1syl8x6kU?feature=shared)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature three underwater diving horror stories. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. mastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Leaf Blower, and it's about a diver who is contracted to try to raise up a sunken boat. The second story you'll hear is called Swiss Cheese, and it's about divers who explore a very dangerous underground lake. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Birth No. 6, and it's about an absolutely horrifying incident inside of an underwater pipeline.

Fair warning, this story may be physically uncomfortable to listen to. But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer the Amazon Music Follow button a ride home and as soon as they get in, immediately roll the windows up, start chain smoking cigarettes, blare techno music, and then drop them off 40 miles away from their home. Okay, let's get into our first story called Leaf Blower. I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy.

OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him

if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. I'm Peter Frank-O'Pan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me.

And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Do you think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. During a busy 2009 weekend on a popular river in Florida, two boats collided. Within minutes, one of them,

a 40-foot long pleasure craft, had sank. Luckily, all the passengers on both boats survived, but unluckily, where the sunk boat finally landed underwater was not very deep, and it was just barely outside of a main shipping channel, which meant if it didn't get moved, someone was eventually going to run into it. The marina owner contacted a local commercial diver and asked him if he would come out and

lift this boat up and move it, but that diver was not going to be available for several weeks and he was asking for too much money. So the marina owner reached out to another local diver, a guy by the name of Tim, and offered him the job. Tim was not a commercial diver. He was a 43-year-old recreational diver who was well-known in the area and had lots of diving experience. But in terms of experience lifting 40-foot crafts off the bottom of the river, Tim had no experience. But Tim was excited at this challenge being presented to him, and so he accepted the deal and offered to do it for half the money the commercial diver was asking for. Even though Tim had never raised a boat before, he knew it was going to require a lot of lift

bags around the boat. Lift bags are like these big durable balloons that you can inflate and deflate underwater. But before Tim could just go down and start placing these bags, he needed to do a survey dive where he just went down and checked out the wreckage, sought for himself, and figured out how many lift bags he would need and where he would place them. So on September 12th, Tim threw all of his dive gear into his truck. He left the marina and drove over to a parking lot that butted up against the shipping channel. Tim hopped out, leaving his gear in the truck. He walked down to the edge of the riverbank,

and he scanned out across the river looking for the buoy that the marina owner had told him was out there designating where the shipwreck was. Once he found it and saw that it was not very far from where he was, he just walked back up to his truck, grabbed his gear, came back down to the water's edge. He jocked up, then hopped in the water and swam out to the buoy. Once he was there, he placed his diver down flag on the buoy. This is a flag that signifies to anybody in the area that there is a diver below them. And then he made his descent.

Tim didn't expect to be underwater for very long. And because he was a very experienced diver, he probably thought this dive was going to be extremely routine and so for those reasons he had elected not to bring a dive partner with him. This is a huge no-no in the diving community especially if you're going to be diving in a hazardous environment like a shipwreck. But Tim was confident so he broke that rule. One of the pieces of gear that Tim had brought with him was a Diver Propulsion Vehicle, or DPV for short. These DPVs come in all shapes and sizes, but what you should picture in your head is like a little torpedo with a propeller on the back, and the diver holds on to this torpedo and controls the speed using a throttle,

and basically just rockets around underwater. The current in the river that Tim was going to be in was fairly strong, and so Tim brought his DPV to help him stay near the shipwreck as he inspected it. After Tim went subsurface, he grabbed his scooter and began going straight down, and the water was not very clear, so he couldn't see the shipwreck at first. But after going down about 50 feet feet he saw this beautiful boat. It was perched on its side on this fairly steep embankment with its nose pointing in the direction the current was flowing. Right away Tim got to work swimming around the shipwreck looking for different points on the boat where he could

attach lift bags and marking those locations on his diver's slate, which is like a dry erase board. But after going around the boat several times, Tim had not seen the actual impact site on the side of the boat that caused it to sink in the first place, and he wondered if it was hidden on the side of the boat that was laying in the sand. And so Tim decided he wanted to go down and have a look, and so he went down to where the sand met the boat. But as soon as he got down there, he kicked up all the mud and the sand and it killed his visibility. And so he grabbed onto the side of the boat and he picked up his DPV and turned it on with the propellers pointed back towards where the mud and the sand was. And he kind of used the propellers of the DPV like a leaf blower and blew the mud and sand out of his field of vision. And it worked great, but he couldn't see the impact site. And so he got underneath the boat and got closer and closer to where the actual

metal of the boat was pressing up against the sand and just continued to blow away the mud and sand to get a better look, when all of the sudden the ship lurched forward and came to a stop on Tim's legs. He couldn't move. He was totally trapped. When Tim had used his DPV to clear away the mud and sand, he had also blown away some of the mud and sand that was keeping the boat from sliding farther down the embankment. And so when it got blown away, the boat became unsteady and it came to rest on top of Tim. When Tim was not able to pull his legs out from under this incredibly heavy boat, he most likely used the DPV to continue to erode the mud and sand around the boat to try to get it to continue to slide down off of his legs. But he wasn't able to do

that because the boat was basically wedged up against his legs. Tim's legs were the thing keeping the boat from sliding any farther. And because Tim did not bring a dive partner, there was literally no one there to save him. And even though he had told the marina owner that he was going out to survey the wreck, he had not given his timeline, so no one was expecting him. And so he would have realized very quickly that there was virtually nothing he could do but wait to die. Several hours later, someone on the surface noticed Tim's dive or down flag on that buoy

and called in the authorities. When the fire department's dive team went down to the wreckage, they found Tim. He was still trapped underneath the boat. He had run out of air and he had drowned. Our next story is called Swiss Cheese. Situated an hour's drive from Johannesburg in South Africa lies Sterkfontein Cave. The cave is famous for the fossils that have been found there and also for its underground lake, whose walls look like Swiss cheese.

There's all these tunnels that spider all over the place. Many of them are unexplored and no one knows how deep the cave actually goes. In 1984, cave diver Peter Verhassel, along with two of his friends, decided they wanted to explore these passageways in the lake and specifically they wanted to check out a chamber called Milner Hall, which was fairly far down in the lake. There was a guideline that was anchored from the surface of the lake all the way down into the different sections that had been explored, and this was so cave divers could hold on to it and make their way through without getting lost. Not that I've ever been cave diving, but from what

I've read, there is one golden rule. You never let go of the guideline, and if you do, it better be extremely well planned, and you should do it with other divers present. Peter was a notorious risk taker and was the least experienced cave diver of the three. When they entered the lake, they were all holding the guideline and Peter was the third back and so they began descending down into the lake and at some point Peter's curiosity got the better of him and he left the line to go look at the wall where there was, you know, something he wanted to look at. And luckily, the other two divers noticed it, they saw him, and they swam over and got him and brought him back to the guideline. And even though you can't communicate underwater, I'm sure they looked at him like, come on, don't do that.

And they kept going down, and then once again, Peter's curiosity gets the better of him. He leaves the guideline and goes over and checks something else out. The other two divers notice again. They turn around, they grab him, and they pull him back. And now they're looking at him like, you can't do this. No more. And so Peter's body language indicated that he got it and he was back on the guideline. He's not going to do it again.

And they continue down and they're getting closer to Milner Hall when the first two turn around to check on Peter and he's gone. And now previously when they found him those other two times when he left the guideline, he was just over right against the wall and he was easy to spot. But this time he wasn't. They're looking around with their lights and he's nowhere to be found. And they're not prepared to go leave into one of these tunnels to go looking for him because there were so many. prepared to go leave into one of these tunnels to go looking for him because there was so many it was like Swiss cheese down there with all these different tunnels he could have gone into and they didn't know which one he went in and so after kind of waiting and looking around for a couple of

minutes thinking maybe he'll come back they were running out of air and they had to go to the surface so the two men surface they call the police they explain what happened rescue divers are sent to the cave to go looking for Peter. But by the time they even got there, it had been several hours. It takes a while to mount this type of surge. And Peter only had one tank of air. And so if he hasn't surfaced by now, the thought is he's drowned at this point. But the rescue divers go into the lake.

They head down to the area where Peter was last seen. And they look around and they can't find him, and they surface pretty quickly, and they say, look, we're just not prepared to look through all these different tunnels he could have gone in just to find his body, because at this point, there's no way he's alive. He's been down here for hours, he doesn't have enough air, and one of us, one of the rescue divers, is going to get trapped in one of these tunnels, and we don't want to lose lose anyone so we're terminating the search. Peter's friends are devastated and they say hey can you let us go down and look for Peter's body for his family and the police said no we're banning diving in this cave. Six weeks after Peter went missing inside of this lake a group of dry cavers were doing some work

in a chamber that was right next to this underground lake. And they were chiseling this wall when all of a sudden the wall kind of collapsed, revealing another chamber on the other side of this wall. They took their flashlight out and they looked inside and it looked like a tunnel that kind of weaved around the corner. And they shined their light on the ground and it looked like there were some muddy or sandy footprints that were left as if someone had been walking right there. The cavers were initially terrified, the idea that there's anything living behind the walls inside of a cave, but they stepped over and they walked around the corner and it revealed this huge air pocket that clearly was connected to the underground lake

because there was water right in the middle of this air pocket and there was no other way in besides, you know, this wall that's collapsed. And in the middle of the water, there was this island. It was like this sandy, muddy, rocky island right in the middle of this air pocket. And laying on the island was Peter. In a stroke of luck, after Peter went missing from his dive, he discovered this air pocket and he had surfaced and climbed onto this island. He knew he didn't have enough air in his air tank to get to the surface again, and so he figured, okay, I'll just sit on this island. There seems to be enough air in here for me. I'll wait until my dive buddies invariably go get help and come down here and rescue me. He sat inside of that air pocket for three weeks, waiting for a rescue that never arrived.

Before he ultimately died of starvation, he wrote a message in the sand to his mother and to his wife, telling them that he loved them. To this day, diving is still prohibited inside of Sterkfontein Cave. The End world's sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab a car to pick him up at the exit.

But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder decades later what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott. From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music

or wherever you get your podcasts. The next and final story of today's episode is called Birth Number Six. number six. At 4 a.m. on February 25th, 2022, a 36-year-old father of three named Christopher Boudram woke up inside of his modest home in Pointe-à-Pierre, which is a city on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago. After quietly getting out of his bed so as not to wake up his wife, who was still asleep, Christopher walked into the other room and did his typical morning exercise routine, and then afterward he made himself some breakfast in the kitchen, and by 5.30am he was out his front door into his car, making the commute to work.

he was out his front door into his car, making the commute to work. Christopher was a professional scuba diver, and he had been for over 10 years. Commercial diving is a very broad field to work in, but generally it meant that Christopher was paid to do various tasks underwater, things like inspections or welding or just moving equipment around. For the last eight months, Christopher had been fortunate enough to be working for a company that was located just two minutes drive from his house. It was an oil and gas company called Perea Fuel. And Christopher's duties at Perea Fuel centered primarily on the upkeep and maintenance of several of these underwater pipelines that Perea fuel used to get the oil off of their ships and onto land where it could be processed. These underwater pipelines, of which Perea had at least six, were basically U-shaped.

They had these two vertical sections on either end that would jut out of the water. And then connecting these two vertical sections was a 1,200 foot long section of pipe that ran along the seabed at roughly 60 feet below the surface. And so one of these vertical sections was out at sea, so 1,200 feet off the coast, and ships would literally come by this opening to the pipe that was out of the water, and they would dump their oil into this opening. The oil would go down, it would shoot across this long horizontal section, and then go up the other vertical section much closer to shore, where workers could collect the oil and bring it onto land to be processed.

So on this particular day in February of 2022, when Christopher arrived at Perea Fuel, he was not surprised at all to find out that he and his diving colleagues would be doing some maintenance on one of these underwater pipelines. However, there was something unique about the particular pipeline they'd be working on. It was called Berth No. 6, and unlike the rest of Perea Fuel's underwater oil transport pipelines, this one had not been active since 2018. So for the past four years, it had just sat idle. Now, this was on purpose. For whatever reason, the company had decided not to use berth number six, and so they

put it into a sort of storage mode where the vertical section of berth number six that was out at sea was untouched. It was still just poking out of the water, no changes. However, the other vertical section of berth number six that was closest to shore was first plugged up, like imagine putting a cork inside of a wine bottle. That's basically what they did to this vertical section, except they used this huge inflatable cork. Imagine like a huge pool toy. They basically jammed it inside of the vertical section

and then they inflated it so much that it was completely airtight inside of this pipe. And then once it was all plugged up, they submerged this section of the vertical pipe underwater, maybe five or ten feet below the surface, to kind of keep it out of the way of all the ships that would be moving around close to shore. And then also what they did is they put something called a habitat on top of the opening of this now submerged vertical section of berth number six. To understand it, you got to picture something else. Okay, so imagine you're in the bathtub and you have a bucket and you flip it upside down above the surface so there's nothing

inside of the bucket and you just take the bucket and push it straight down into the water. No matter how deep you push that bucket, as long as you don't rotate it to one side or the other and you just keep it steady, that air pocket inside of the bucket will remain. You can literally reach your hand under the bucket underwater and it will be dry. And so basically that's what this habitat was. Perea Fuel took a huge bucket, if you will, and they lowered it straight into the water and pressed it down and anchored it right above the opening to this submerged vertical section. So there was a permanent air pocket over the opening to this pipe. And the reason for this is because if they

needed to do work on this pipe, like for example, today they wanted Christopher and his colleagues to make this pipe active again, which meant doing work on it. The divers could swim down, get inside of this habitat, stand on the little metal platform they put in there, and then they could take off all of their cumbersome diving equipment and just work on the pipe while breathing air. It was really kind of a luxury. And so after Christopher and the four other divers he'd be with that day got their instructions, you know, to get berth number six active again, they began getting all their gear together and going over who would be responsible for what once they got down to the

habitat. And then once they were all ready, they made their way out to the boat. The four other divers that Christopher would be working with that day were men he had worked with many times before and men he would consider his friends. Their names were Kazim Ali Jr., Yusuf Henry, Faizal Karban, and Rishi Nagasar. Once their boat had moved just off the coast and had stopped kind of roughly over the area where below the surface was this submerged birth number six vertical pipe and the habitat. The divers hopped off the boat and they swam straight down. They went up and under the side of this habitat wall and they entered into this breathable air space right around the entrance to this pipe. And so they climbed up onto the platform, they took off all of their gear, and then once they were just in their wetsuits, they got to work.

Now, the job was relatively straightforward. They just needed to basically pull a lever inside of the pipe that would then deflate the big inflatable plug that had been set inside of this pipe to seal it. However, when one of the divers reached down and began to pull on the lever, it was jammed. And so they needed a wrench to kind of free the lever. And so Kazim volunteered to go back to the surface and get a wrench because no one had one inside of the habitat. And so Kazim put his dive gear back on. He dove out from underneath this habitat, swam back to the surface. He talked to the folks on the boat.

They handed him a wrench. And then he swam right back down, back inside of the habitat, and then once he poked himself back up, he handed the wrench up to the nearest diver. And that diver took the wrench, he turned back around to face the pipe, he reached down inside, and he began fiddling with the lever, and eventually he freed it. However, the second this lever was activated, something horrific happened inside of that space. We don't know exactly how this happened or what exactly could have been done to prevent it, but in short, the second that lever was activated, it began to deflate this big cork that had been plugging up this inactive pipeline for the past four years. And when that happened, it broke the seal, and suddenly all this low-pressure air that was sitting in 1,200 feet of pipeline made contact with the extremely high-pressure air that was inside of this habitat.

And air likes to go from high pressure to low pressure. And so the second that seal was broken, the high-pressure air in the habitat expanded down into the pipe. But this happened so, so quickly. It was almost instantaneous. It was almost like the pipe opening became the world's strongest vacuum, and it sucked everything inside of the habitat, all the air, all the equipment, all five men, into the pipe, and it also began sucking in seawater. Basically everything was going in this pipe. And so these five men, they don't have their scuba gear on, went from just standing outside the

pipe to feet first flying into this pipe with all of their heavy equipment all around them and there's seawater all over them. They're holding their breath and so they get sucked down the vertical section. They turn the corner and they get rocketed out to sea. They are on the 1,200 foot long section, the horizontal section, just blazing a trail. Now think about this. All five of these guys have no idea what's happened. They're on a breath hold. They are shooting down a pipe. They can't see anything. The space inside of this pipe is so narrow. It's two and a half feet across. And so they're getting compressed. Their shoulders can barely fit inside of this pipe. And so you got to figure that all of them are expecting to die. But eventually,

the pressure in this pipe did equalize, at which point this vacuum phenomenon stopped up at the habitat, and actually the habitat kind of refilled with air. And when that happened, all the seawater that was getting pulled into this pipe also stopped. So no more air, no more seawater is going into this pipe. It's kind of like whatever went into the pipe, that's what's down there. And when this equalization happened, these men, who by this point are on a several minute long breath hold, they eventually begin to slow down and come to a stop. And by some miracle, they came to stop in a section of this horizontal pipe that was not totally flat to the seabed. It was slightly elevated, which meant there was a small air pocket where they stopped. And so they come to a stop,

and they just start gasping for air. And then they begin yelling out to each other, and they realize all five of them are alive, and they're all kind of roughly grouped together in this air pocket. And we know this because one of their cameras on their bodies was rolling when they were pulled into the pipe. And so we can't see anything because it's pitch black inside of this pipe, but we can hear them talking to each other once everything stops. And so over the course of this kind of chaotic initial volley of communication up and down the pipe, where again, these guys are on their backs, you know, they can't move at all. They're completely kind of trapped in position. And even though they're in an air pocket, there is water kind of close to their face. And so they have this little area to breathe in.

They're panicking, they're screaming at each other. But in this volley, they're able to figure out that Christopher was the closest to the way they had come into the pipe, meaning his head was closest to the vertical section closest to shore, and all four other men were right below him. And so Christopher knew if they were going to get out, their best chance was to backtrack, head towards the way they came in, which meant Christopher would have to lead them. And so Christopher kind of found it within himself. Again, we can hear him on audio, and he told the others to calm down and link their feet onto the person below them's shoulders. And so to do that, the

only way these guys could move in this tight little pipe is just by pushing with their heels. And so painfully, slowly, these guys were very badly battered at this point. I mean, they came flying in here, surrounded by all their heavy equipment, crashing into them. Guys had broken bones. They were really badly beat up. But they finally make their way until they're all linked, you know, feet under each other's shoulders. And then Christopher, in the lead, began kind of going in reverse, inching their way up the pipe back towards the way they came in. Now, the reason they felt strongly that they needed to act right away and not wait for rescue is because they didn't really understand how this had even happened. They didn't know if at any moment more water was going to pour into this pipe.

They also understood that there was limited air, and at some point they would suffocate. And so with that in mind, they begin this journey journey and right away christopher reaches the first flooded section of the pipe now you have to understand they have no idea how long this flooded section of pipe is and so once you start moving into this flooded section behind you once you go underwater you're either going to find another air pocket at some point, or you're going to drown. And so it would turn out that only Christopher and the guy right below him, Faisal, were willing and physically able to attempt this potential suicide mission. And so the others, they began panicking. The others were not going to go, and they're screaming

out for Christopher and Faisal not to leave them. You can hear it on audio. But Christopher and Faisal, they felt strongly that somebody has to go to the surface and get help. And so Christopher and Faisal, linked together, begin inching into this flooded section of pipe, pitch black. They have no idea what's going to happen. They're slowly going under the water and they just begin inching their way on a breath hold. And by some miracle, this first flooded section they entered into was not very long. And so both Christopher and Faisal were able to barely, you know, coughing and gagging, get out the other side into yet another air pocket. And by an even bigger miracle, in that new air pocket, Christopher, above him, he managed to get one hand above his head he felt scuba tanks two of them and he was able to take one of them and somehow force it past the side of his body down to Faisal and so both men suddenly had an air tank now they had

to kind of awkwardly pin the tank above their head these tanks are not light if you've not scuba dived it's like pushing a pretty heavy weight. And they had the regulator, so the mouthpiece, that actually gives you the air in their mouths, but they couldn't really hold the mouthpiece in place. It was this very awkward thing they were going to do, but this meant they could now enter much longer flooded sections of pipe and potentially make it out the other side. And so with their air tanks on top of their heads and their mouthpieces in their mouth gripping down as hard as they can with their teeth, they continue to inch along with their heels and they entered into more and more of these flooded

sections of pipe. As they're doing this, they know they have a scuba tank, but they have no idea how much air is in these tanks. They can't see the gauge. And so it's kind of the same thing as going in on a breath hold. You don't know when you're going to run out of air because you don't know how long these flooded sections are. So you can only imagine how terrifying this must have been. But they kept on going and going. And finally, after hours of this, that Christopher and Faisal are going through these terrifying stretches of, you know, hoping they can hold on to that mouthpiece and hoping they got enough air. They'd get through these flooded sections, hit the next air pocket. You know, after hours of doing that, they reach this air pocket where Faisal starts to kind of lose it.

And he starts yelling to Christopher in the total dark to stop. But he didn't have a reason. You know, and Christopher could kind of sense that, you know, Faisal's starting to lose it and we're running out of time here. And Christopher, I mean, he can hear the other divers that they had left behind in the beginning screaming out all the way back down the pipe. And so Christopher, he stayed composed and he tried to get Faisal to calm down and come with him. But when it was clear he wasn't going to, he told Faisal that, hey, I'm going to keep going alone then. I'm going to get us help, and I'll be back for you. And so Faisal, he was still panicking,

and he yelled at Christopher not to go any further, but Christopher knew he had to go. And so with the sound of his friends screaming out for him to stop, Christopher again cinched down with his teeth on the mouthpiece, continued to push this air tank above his head, and he inched his way closer and closer to the entrance of this pipe. And after reaching a very long underwater section where he knows he's running out of air, his tank hit the kink in the pipe where it went vertical again, which meant right above him was the exit. The habitat is right up there. And so Christopher

was able to kind of turn and swim up this vertical section until he popped up. And it was again another air pocket, except the water level in this vertical section was not close enough to the exit of the pipe to actually pull himself out. It was like Christopher was stuck at the bottom of a well, like there's nothing he can do. But luckily there was a chain that was dangling down in arm's reach. And so Christopher grabbed the chain and just had to wait, having no idea if anybody was coming to get them.

But eventually two rescue divers did get into the habitat and they reached down and they pulled Christopher out of the pipe and they saved him. And when they brought him up to the surface, Christopher saw that Perea Fuel had their emergency response team on site. The Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard was there. And it's clear they're getting ready to do some sort of rescue operation. And so Christopher, who's totally traumatized, he's badly hurt,

he still ran up to authorities and told them, all four of my colleagues are still alive. I heard them banging in the pipes. I know they're in air pockets. You gotta go back down. You gotta save them. But ultimately the authorities decided it was not safe to send rescuers down into this pipe.

And so when Christopher found out they were not gonna try to rescue his friends who are literally banging the pipe, he can hear them. He tried to jump back in the water to do it himself, and they stopped him. And then Christopher was rushed to the hospital, where once he was admitted to the intensive care unit, he tried to check himself out to go back to the water to save his friends. But again, Christopher was stopped. For two whole days after Christopher was rescued from this pipe, his colleagues, the four other divers, remained trapped in the most claustrophobic, horrible situation imaginable, and they continued to bang on the pipe

and make noises that could be heard on the surface, but nobody did anything. And so finally, on February 27th, the noises stopped inside of the pipe because all of the men died. They either died of suffocation because they ran out of air in the pipe, or they died from one of their injuries, or they attempted to do one of those long underwater sections of pipe on a breath hold because they didn't have scuba tanks, and they drowned. On February 28th, three of the divers' bodies were recovered, and the final body, the fourth diver, was recovered on March 3rd. It's unclear why Christopher and the other divers did not do

something to equalize the pressure inside of the habitat and inside of this pipe before undoing the plug, because this vacuum effect, which is known as delta P, is actually easy to anticipate and relatively easy to prevent. But the investigation into exactly what happened and who is to blame is still ongoing. However, the only survivor, Christopher, and many other people who are following this case, they believe the four deaths are directly attributable to Perea Fuel, who were primarily responsible for not allowing a rescue operation to happen in those first two days, where you could clearly hear the sounds of these divers banging on the pipe. be sure to check out all of our other studios podcasts Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories and Run Full. Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts.

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