MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries - Wondery Presents: How to Survive Against the Odds

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Inspired by Wondery’s hit podcast Against the Odds—learn how to survive whatever nature can throw at you through gut-twisting true stories of survival on the brinkHow to Survive Against the Odds places you at the center of fifteen real life-or-death scenarios. Each story explores the physiological responses of the human body under unbearable conditions, how to counteract them, and strategies for survival from doctors and psychologists. Through these tales, we see the grit, willpower, and know-how needed to navigate out of a host of merciless situations.This invaluable survival guide includes tips on how to endure being:ADRIFT AT SEA: Learn how to cure turtle meat, procure potable water, and survive on a life raft.MAULED BY A BEAR: Black bears? Fight back. Grizzly bears? Play dead. Polar bears? Start praying. You’ll learn how to triage wounds using the MARCH method and how to spot the difference between a bear’s bluff charge and an actual attack.BURIED BY AN EARTHQUAKE: Find out how to survive the initial crush, maintain your sanity if trapped under the rubble, and “think away your hunger.”And so much more!This might just be the most important book you’ll ever read. Armed with the information in How to Survive Against the Odds and when faced with similar threats, you may also find that you have what it takes to defy death and live to tell your story.Order your copy of HOW TO SURVIVE AGAINST THE ODDS now at Wondery.fm/survivalguidebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Mike Corey, host of the Wondery Podcast Against the Odds, where we share thrilling stories of survival and put you in the shoes of real people who look death in the eye and live to tell the tale. Now, inspired by our podcast comes a new book, How to Survive Against the Odds, Tales and Tips for Animal Attacks and Natural Disasters. This unique guidebook combines true tales, expert insights and life-saving tips. Go inside life or death situations where everyday people survive nature's most extreme scenarios and learn how you can too.

You'll hear from experts, including top doctors, about what happens to your mind and body in life-threatening situations. Plus, get important tips on what to do and what not to do when faced with a scenario that is truly against the odds. In these tales, you'll hear about the grit, the willpower and know how needed to endure shipwrecks, bear attacks, tornadoes and more. As a special treat for our listeners, we're excited to give you an exclusive sneak peek at a chapter of the audiobook where we share one man's survival story after he was buried

by an earthquake. January 26, 835 AM. His father's booming voice snaps Virol Dalal awake. Get up! Dalal grumbles. Please, Dad, I need a few more minutes. The 24-year-old is stretched out on a mattress on the floor, the only space available in this crowded second floor apartment in Bhuj, India,

where he's on vacation with five members of his family. His father nudges him again. Fine, but move to the bed. I need to put your mattress in the other room. His dad points to a vacant bed that Delol's brother occupied the night before. Delol gets up with a groan and shuffles to the bed wrapped in a comforter like a caterpillar. His father closes the blinds and tosses another blanket onto his son.

But as he starts to drift off again, Delol hears a rumble. He feels it too. It's like thunder, but stranger and growing louder. The floor begins shaking and the bed trembles. The nearby dresser skitters across the floor. The rumble quickly becomes a roar as the shaking intensifies. Suddenly, everything goes airborne. The dresser, a metal cupboard, the bed with DeLalle still in it.

It's as if they're free from gravity's pull, but in a split second, gravity returns to slam everything back upon the trembling floor. Again it happens, and again, sounds of shattering glass rise over the rumble. The shaking is beyond violent now, like a series of explosions erupting from below. Earthquake, DeLalle throws off the comforter and tries to get out of bed to make it to the door. But each time he rises, he's flung in a different direction. Chunks of plaster and concrete start raining from the ceiling.

Walls give way, falling inward in large chunks. A six inch wide crack opens in the ceiling, exposing steel rebar within the concrete. Dust fills the air. From the next room, Delal's mother screams. A loosened slab of the concrete ceiling, as big as a car, teeters overhead, threatening to crush him. He rolls onto his side, seconds before it crashes down.

He's uninjured, but the whole ceiling is collapsing. His world goes black as he is tossed around, bumping into the concrete slab that nearly killed him. 15 seconds later, the shaking stops. The wall can see nothing but dusty darkness. During a big earthquake, a single blow to the head or neck from falling debris can cause death due to skull fractures or brain bleeding. Or it may snap your neck and asphyxiate you.

There's little you can do to prevent this beyond covering your head and neck. Mom, are you hurt? He shouts. The words barely leave his lips when he feels himself sliding. The entire room is on a tilt. Then he realizes, it's not just this room. The entire eight story building is toppling. He reaches out to grab hold of something, but everything has come unmoored.

He's falling now, lost in a cloud of cement chunks, broken bricks, and glass. The law lands so hard on something that it knocks the wind out of him. He's flat on his back now, arms above his head in loose rubble. But still, the building continues to implode around him. A concrete slab falls and stops just two inches above his face. If after the quake has subsided you find yourself pinned under large debris such as a wall or ceiling, any crush injuries you may have sustained can be life threatening. When tissue and bone undergo prolonged compression, the crushed areas can

die rapidly, requiring amputation. Releasing that pressure, however, can cause crush syndrome, which can kill you. Excess myoglobin, a protein in your skeletal and heart muscles, and other decaying cells from the injured muscle and tissue flood your kidneys, causing renal failure. If victims are under pain management, they may be happy right after rescue, and die minutes later. This is sometimes called a smiling death. For a few seconds, it's eerily quiet. Aldolol hears or his own gasping breaths.

Then a series of deafening bangs coming from overhead. Delol realizes that the upper floors of the eight floor building are pancaking down on top of him. He frees his hands and tries to press upward on the slab above him, afraid he's about to be crushed, but it won't budge. He's trapped. And if the slab above him jostles loose, he's about to be crushed, but it won't budge. He's trapped. And if the slab above him jostles loose, he's dead. Thanks for listening to this sneak peek of How to Survive Against the Odds.

To find out what happens next, you can go to SurvivalGuidebook.com and order your copy of How to Survive Against the Odds today.