Juliane Koepcke – From Free Fall to Amazon

06-07-22

Episode Transcription

Made by robots, for robots. Only read if you're weird.

Hey Man, hello, what was that? I just to try to time it right when we could drink. Hey, hey, hey man, hey, heymen, hey man. What have you ever heard of Julianne Kop Key? Julianne Kop Key. Yeah, I'm just gonna see how long had her. I heard, I heard a horn. Is why I stopped. Yeah, and then I was like, I was gonna wait to see how long you let me be side. We can cut this part out. Julianne Kopkey is a famous composer. Oh yeah, yeah, she's known for her musical endeavors. Such as Paparazzi, it's lady Gaga's real name? No, it's not. Yeah, it's Julia Kop key. Why are you googling it? Yeah, I've obviously made this up. Now her name is Stefani Joan Angelina, German, Germanada, Germinata. Yeah, so it's not, it's not. You're wrong. Okay, what about I'm not refuse. They're super similar, you know. Have you ever heard of a lance of flight five hundred and eight? Lance of flight five hundred and eight? What about Peru? You ever heard of Peru? I've heard of Peru. Well, there we go. There's a little start. Will start with the most, starting with you. For Real. It's a missing person, like I says, I go a flight that went missing. I mean technically, yeah, okay, but I mean, yeah, technically. Yeah. So here, let me just tell you about it. Yeah, please. So, I would love it if you did. So why I showed up today. No, no, don't, don't. Try to get out to be an idiot real quick. Right. Yeah, what makes you think you'd be a great manager? Well, I have a degree and rain forest stuff. Wow, this guy's a little overcaulifi. Yeah, position, she knows the gators are friends, not food, and you didn't see the sword and wing where you did? You just have a different idea of Martin US things I learned last night. Julianne COP key. She Julianne. Yes, okay, I thought was Julia Ive. Go ahead, Julianne. We can call her Julie. I don't know she goes by that, but we can do it. Get we're she gonna. Is She alive? Is She gonna stop us? I mean she's alive, but I doubt she can stop us. And that's not that's me. She's a lot, but I doubt. You know, she's got no physical power over me. Yeah, I'M gonna keep saying it. You know, Julia, it's Julie A. and well, what are you gonna physically doing? She can't stop me. He means she's frail. You think you beat her up? Are You threatenings? I do think I could, but there's a reason for that. I just think I could. That is not part of it at all's nothing to do with the starty. What do you mean? I don't think she can stop me? I mean, I just don't think she could. I don't know. She's sixty seven. Okay, so, I mean, that's fine, like, I mean I was last time a sixty seven year old woman tried to stop you from doing something like I don't know. They can't. You can't stop me. Excuse me, Miss How are you? One Thousand Six hundred and seventy? I you can't stop me. Yeah, sure, caught me two years ago. The caught off. He's okay, as kid. You run said Julia earlier. As why I was confused with Julie An. Yeah, Julia. Yeah, so she is now. Her name now is Julianne Diller. Okay, married. Well, she is famous for a couple things. One she's a German Peruvian mammalogist because she studies mammals. Sure it's you might expect. Also, she survived a nine thousand eight hundred presumed, like, presumably, this is an estimate. You said the word wrong twice, but that's okay. Presumedly, go ahead for supably. There you go. They estimate nine thousand eight hundred and forty feet fall. She survived. Wait, what? Yeah, was she jumped out a plane in a parachute network SORTA. So here's what happened. On December twenty four, nineteen seventy one. Yeah, Christmas, one thousand nine hundred and seventy one. Cockkey was about to graduate high school. She had literally just gone to her senior from and her mother, Maria, and her were in Lima, Peru, and they were taking a trip to a town of the other side of the mountains and Peru by name of hold on the me pull this back up. And you heard me earlier. How okay, it's the town's name is Aquitos, Aquitos Peru. That's what that was earlier when you were like, yeah, I heard the computer voice go equitos. What was that? Yeah, well, I was learning how to say it. I'm really proud of you making progress because I've listened to back to a couple episodes and you just really you go for it. Yeah, no help. Well, here's the thing. I have this. I think it's a great character trait. MMM, but a lot of other people in my life think it's a character flaw. Who are a lot of other people? Me and your wife, yeah, and well, most of my friends. Oh, okay, so me and your wife. I think there's a good like I have a good character trait where I will take an educated guests in confidence and answer things that I don't know. And so a lot of times it's pronounce pronouncing things. Okay, you will said pronouncing, but that's pronouncing. A lot of this produncing. But I mean sometimes, like sometimes, for example, this is one that my wife talks about a lot. We were on our way to Florida. We're driving. You were like, I know how to get there. It's Florida. Yeah, we just got to go north on any highways there. Yeah. No, we were driving through Birmingham, Alabama, and I mean you've been to Birmingham. Right outside downtown there's this big hill. On the top of the hill is a giant statue of some dude with his arms up in the air and like, and when I say giant, I mean giant huge, like it is gigantic. If you're anywhere near Birmingham probably know what I'm talking about. Everybody in the car was like, I wonder who that statue is and I'm, as I do normally, take an educate the guys. Yeah, in confidence, that's George Washington carver. No, I was like the Peanut Guy, this is Birmingham Alabama. That's Martin Luther King Jr, like of course, like it's as educated guess, right, and everyone's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, and nobody, everyone was for question about it. Nobody questioned it because I was confident. Well, on the way back we drive by and on the other route you can kind of see that there's like he's holding up a sword and there's like wings and it's actually a statue of a Greek God. We looked it up and it was a Greek God. And everybody can't let it go. Yeah, because they're like you were so confident, and I was. I was like yeah, it's an educate guess, and I was confident in my guess, which happens when you see the sword and wings? Well, yeah, from that we did. From that angle, you just have a different idea of Martin us he was an angel. Yeah, so, all right, anyways. So, yeah, I'm I get too confident sometimes. So, so this this flight, it's Lance, a flight five away, takes off from Lima to head to eat a quitos and while they're in the air the encounter storm. And this storm it was pretty severe. It was about okay, but that's the point where the pilots and this fight probably should have diverted. Yeah, I'm in taking a different route, but they but they said, they were like, you know what, we've seen storms before. I'm going to take an educated guess and how to get through this. What the code down said. The copie was like, what do you think? That statue is down there? We didn't see the main the clouds with the sword in the wings. So they rode into the storm. They rode into the storm. They shouldn't have to. The plane wreck. Yeah, so the plane got struck by lightning and it was one of the it was the worst mid air lightning strike in aviation history. It split the plane in half and so obviously, like the plane starts going down, absolute pandemonium, and it rips Julianne Cockkey from the plane in her seat. So she still a test her seat. Rips her from the plane and she's just starts flipping through the air, spinal in through the air like attached to alie in. She's attached to a seat. Yeah, but she's free falling. Yes, yeah, and so the plane, she got separated from the plane planes obviously going down and it's ripping apart all around her still because she's falling amidst this other fall. And then, like obviously, other passengers start flying out too. While she while she's falling, she was falling face down, so her head was facing down. She said. She described it as like the seat was kind of like a helicopter blade, like she was just spinning around like real, quite real fast. Yeah, and she thinks that this, it was the spinning that made her pass out. And so she passes out before she hits the ground and she wakes up later with the seat belt like jammed into her her skin and and her collar bone is broken. She tore her acl she had a pretty severe concussion and she fractured one of her vertebrae. But other than that that was really it. So like obviously a lot of very severe injuries, but she felt tenzero feet without a parachute. And so what they think happened when she was spinning around it, because she was spinning like that, the spin slowed her fall and so it slowed her fall enough to where the damage was severe. And they the assumption is when she passed out she leaned backwards just enough that it tilted the chair and then she landed on the chair and so chair landed face down instead of her landing on her face. And so hours after the crash she wakes up and there's just wreckage all through during the rainforest of Peru. This is this is the Amazon. This is right. I mean, if you don't, this is this is where she is, just absolute middle of nowhere, dangerous environment, right, and she wakes up, realizes she's severely injured and tries, she gets herself out of her out of her chair, and she's only able to like literally she gets up, she stands up, falls down, passes back out and is out for another day. And so when she wakes up, here's the I mean this the this whole story is like crazy. Yeah, but this. This part of the story is the most like. Oh, so she wakes up and she looks at her arm. She's got a severe elasceration on her arm, bad enough to where she thought in the moment, she's like, I might have to get this amschutted. And the leading reason for that is because she was out so long that had become infested with maggots and she she was picking them out, but she just couldn't get them all out, like I was hundreds of them. I hate this. Okay, yeah, absolutely her like picturing that at all. And so she gets up and she's just kind of got the maggots crawl around her arm, torn ACL broken collar bone, broken vertebrae, serious concussion in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and there's she can't find any other survivors. She keeps finding bodies, but most of the people she's finding, Oh yeah, they're they're just legs sticking out of the ground like they they lodged into the ground. They because they fell from such heights. Oh my God. And so she said that when she was going around through the woods, every time she found female she would check the toes to see if they were painted, because her mom didn't have painted tonails, and so she's like if I could find one that's not painted, then I would know that that's my mom, which is crazy. And so she's going through the rainforest trying to find her way out, trying to find another survivor. Manages to find a bag of candy. That is the only food that she was able to recover, and so she rations this what she rashes this little bag of candy and she's how long is this whole process happening, because she's moving real slow. So she was knocked out for about a day. Yeah, and then this is. This is that kind of like first early, like okay, I'm up, I'm like moving around, like I have to figure out how to get out of here, to get out of here. Yeah, so this is this is all within a relatively short period of coming, you think a couple of hours or she's walking around, she's finding these bodies, she manages to find this food. Where you got to find is like a way to call for help. Yeah, well, you got to find a plane. What the cockpit? Yeah, what was interesting was with with this flight is when the plane, the when they lost communications with the plane, they sent out search parties to look for it. But because the plane, the plane was struck at Twentyzero feet, and so because I got struck so high, here's this is a crazy shot. I think this is from the movie. There's a movie that came out about those, but this is what they they literally just shot right through the plane the lightning. anyways. So when when the plane never came for landing and they couldn't contact anybody, search parties came out. But because this crash happened so high in the air, it broke apart before it hit the ground and so instead of it being the whole plane going down, for its multiple piece. Yeah, fell in all these pieces and in the rainforest it was just impossible. Like these planes were flying over and she's said she kept hearing the planes fly over, the search places fly over, but it's a rainforest, there's that thick canopy, and so she's like, I had no way of showing them where I was, they had no way of seeing me, but I kept what I'm saying is that you got to find you know where. The first of all you to find your first hate kit, but then you also got to find like the flarers and something that you can use something, you shoot up or create fire. Burned down the forest, the watcher. Burn it down, burn down the holy of us. Yeah, I know, it's humanitarian thing. People going to be like, jared really didn't think about the rainforest when he was trying to save his life. Dude, that's that's exactly what. I've got a press what happened and that. No, I don't even care about that part. I'm saying you would get canceled because you are. You survive, you survived a plane crash. You're in the forest. Yeah, and you you start a fire so you can get a smoke signal up at least. Yeah, some way to show any humanity that you're there. You, and then you actually burned down half of a forest and you get back and people are like, you're the guy who burned down the forest, burned down h I'm also the guy that flew tenzero feet to the ground and made it. I had a little bit of a concussion, like give me, give me somewhere. Come on. Hey, thanks for checking out this APP. So we love our listeners a lot and one way that you can let us know you're here is by leaving a podcast review. Maybe that's a five star thing in the apple podcast at maybe you listen on spotify or if you're watching on youtube, leave a comment. We do read all the comments and reviews. We just love knowing what you think about this show. Also, if you haven't yet, go check out someone of our other episodes. My current favorite is the identical strangers episode. It's three brothers or triplets who were separated at birth, unbeknownst to them or their parents, as part of a really weird experiment. So there's a lot of really fun stuff we talked about in an episode, but thank you for checking this out. Now back to this one. That was another that was another struggle. So she just has so much going against her. In the fall she lost her glasses and she had severe near sidedness, and so now she's not only does she have all this other stuff, but she can barely see and she's walking through Nice. She lost one of her shoes in the fall and so she is walking to the forest with one shoe and a torn acl she can't see anything, trying to find a way out. But here's the thing about Julie. Yeah, and and sorry, sorry, don't tell her. I'm scared of her. Tell her. I would be too man. So here's the thing about her. So she her parents. They were a biologist and a zoologist couple, and they had moved to the rainforest to do science, you know. And this is them. This is them in the middle of science. This is our parents. Okay, another rainforest with all their fishies and different exotic rainforest fauna and flora. We gotta put those fish back in the tank. They're right die now. They're making those those wall fish. It was the bully bass. Those are terrifying billy bass. Those aren't even like some of the early iterations. This was the s they had affected it yet. Yeah, and so she had lived for years in the rainforest with her parents, who were expert learning all the things, ruin for stuff and rainforest stuff. Yeah, yeah, what's your degree in rainforest stuff? Our parents were zoologists, where zoologist on a biologist, and they figured hey, we need to study this. So the best thing we could do is move our entire family into a rainforest cafe. For I was ye trying to make a rainforest cafe joke. I was trying to make them a whole thing of like I have a degree and I use it to be the manager a rainforest cafe. Dang it, Tim. Yeah, what makes you think you'd be a great manager? Well, I have a degree and rainforest stuff. Wow, this guy's a little overcaulifi. Yeah, position, I can tell you a lot about. Yeah, ask me something about that dish right there. What's on that dish right there? Well, what if somebody knew a lot about dishes like plates, you know, like tear with that dish? Oh, I'll tell you. So this one is a good, fine product made. It's good, and then that's a good dish. Like a good dish right. Well, my mom was send me pictures of a bunch of dishes for my grandma's house that are apparently like they got lead on, like on the paint things or whatever, and so like this article is just like if you had these dishes of your house, you probably will have cancer and die. Like that's what the whole article is. Yeah, turns out, I mean my entire childhood we a lot of those dishes. A lot of we ain't a lot of dishes. Yeah, that's what my degree allow me to do, is I knew how to swallow a broken plate. You gotta do it the Right Angle. Yeah, you gotta just get it. Yeah, it's a it's a warning process. I mean, Myasofagus is destroyed, but it was. It was an interesting practicum that they yeah, but you know, every degrees got them the hard parts, the hard part. So she knew a bunch of stuff about the rainforest. Yeah, so she had spent years of her life learning about how to survive in the rainforest and what frogs are poisonous and what plant that's all you really need to know. I don't know anything else about this forest, but I can tell you that frogs poisonous. I can tell you. Stay with for that frog. I get tell you anything about that. This rainforest. I can tell you that frog sketchy guy, what do you do a bear comes around the corner? I don't know, man, I don't didn't get that far. We did it. Yeah, I just got to take rocks. Yeah, I'll we covered is poison frogs. Yeah. So she knew a lot about the rainforest. A few of the things that stood out to her that were very important was one, there's a lot of not only like there's a lot of poises to animals, with snakes and sure and those pross plants and stuff. But yeah, there's a lot of plants that you can't eat. Right. This is why she grabbed that bag of candy, because she's like, I know that there's a lot of plants that will kill me if I consume them, but I don't know all of them, you know. So I know there's a lot, but I don't know how many of them there are and I don't know for sure. So she's like, I can't eat anything I see here. And she also couldn't hunt because she you know, she's got a torn A. See how? Yeah, and like, and she doesn't have any like gear, like, she doesn't. She can't go fish, she can't go spear fishing, she can't go and Oh, go ahead, yeah, we are we yeah, see whether the kind of fishing. Can't she go boat fish? Yeah, deep sea fishing, I can do that. Yeah, yeah, it's just all the fishing. Do catfishing either, you know, or She gonna Upload a picture of somebody else with a full intact arm with the yeah, with a maggotless arm. There's no maggots in my arm. That's what her bias feel like. It says that in the Bio. It seems like they're might be. You know, if you have to tell me there's none, then I think there's some. Her user name online is just like definitely a real girl with no maggots in her arm. That's a long name. It's a really lug easy name. Surprised it wasn't take it over, was though, this usual name was taken. Oh, show. How? So she knew. She knew that it was a big deal, right, that her shoe was missing, because she's walking through all these plants that could or shoe was missing. I thought you said it was a big deal that she was missing. Oh, no, okay, this is a big deal. No, yeah, so there's a big deal and she was missing because she's like there's poison, Ivy and all other different types of all right, like I'm yeah, yeah, and so she's like, I'm going to mess up my shoes. So what she and she also knew that there was lots of snakes that slid around in the Ivy's and so she she didn't want to just bare footstep through this forest, and so she took her other shoe. Also, she doesn't re grasses, just can't really see. Such she took her other shoe and she's waving it through the brush in front of her before every step to make sure there's nothing now that's going to bite her or infect her or whatever. Okay, every single step, just walking through and then stepping so barefoot through the rainforest. Eventually, one of the things that she knew was that if you're ever lost in the rainforest or really in any wilderness area, here's a pro tip for you. Find Water, preferably running water. Right if you can find a bathroom, now you want to find like a stream, because the stream will always run. If you go from where it's going, you're going to end up to maybe a river or something else that you're bigger water to wear. Civilization is civilization always since up being near water. And so that's like when we were driving downtown in Kansas City. Yeah, we're on the bridge and ray goes city be really pretty if it had a river, and I was like you mean like that one? Yeah, like the Missouri River that was really Oliver. This is like years ago. I have not let it go this. That moment is her big statue moment. You know. I'm saying where. I was like, do you mean the river that were crossing right now, right now? Yeah, yeah, I couldn't see it. I mean I'm what do you think? The Bridges? Do you think the bridges? You think we got a canyon, which just do you think? We just canyon right outside of Kansas City? Canyon city? Sorry, my bad, the Kansas Canyon. Yeah, that's the state line. The state line was like they like this, this giant Crovasse. It's a ditch divided. Yeah, ridiculous. Anyway. So fine water, so fine water. So she finds a stream, she falls that stream to a larger river, and here's where her experience really helped her. Yeah, because she wasn't. She's got a white, white, white rapid float down this thing. What would like time see river rafting? Yes, yeah, there you go. No, she didn't have a boat. Well, I mean she actually did. She she put the jest say she had placed a jet ski there way earlier. You know, she said I can get out on this. So this thing's gonna make too much noise. So she has a little inflatable are tube we have, and a pulley system. Yeah, the whole Animazon. Yeah, if he's not listen to previous episodes, that's a bummer for you. That would be confusing. Oh, so she gets to this river and her experience told her. Most of us, when we get to a river the Amazon, yeah, one thing will notice ride away is, hey, this river has water in it. Is Yeah, but also a lot of a lot of you know crocodiles in this water. We am you can see them. Yeah, it visually and most of us are. I do, and I've learned from years of research. And Yeah, you know, being alive is that if you just got to wait from the lineup perfect and you just talk right over them, you know, jump on one. I JUMP ON MS time. On the other one. You got a tight it just right time and just rightwise you can have in the water and that's what hit by truck by truck. Yeah, but in the universe trucks, the river, trucks are a big problem. So well, so most of us would say, man, look at all the gators in the water, I better stay out of it. She can see them with her weather glasses off to like they're big enough. While she's seen enough gators in her life to know whether she can see clearly or not that that's a gator. She's seen her up gators in her life. She knows a blurry one. Yeah, she's like, that's I'm pretty sure that's a gator. I can't see very well, but I'm pretty bare. Alligator for crocodiles in the rainforest, I don't know. Let's look at up alligators like the way you said frocks, Asian crocodiles. Of them. It's in the alligator of family in the Amazon. So yeah, care gators. Here's the thing that she knew gators. They tend to and have heavy emphasis on ten, but they tend to leave humans alone. And so, unless you provoke them, yeah, unless you're like dinory upon them. Yeah. And so she said, Hey, look, I can walk in this water with the gator friends or I could walk on the land with the potential of snakes and Scorpions and poisonous plants. And she walks through the water. So she walks through the gator water, with Oliver Wounds, through the Amazon's dirty river with the gator water, because she figured that was going to be safer for her than walking on the rainforest floor. Mind you, at this point she's already drenched, she's as been. This is days at this point. That's so days into this event for her. She's running out of candy fast and she's she's walking along this river. Well, yeah, the gators took it. Hey, we'll let you pass for to these candy, but you got a lab bag. What are you? An alligator? Pirates is? Are Those get holls? Why do they talk like that? I don't know. Yeah, it's just the way. It's an educated guess. Okay, I hate you for that. Hey, thanks again for listening to this episode. If you like our show, make sure you follow us on social at till in podcast or subscribe anywhere where you're listening to right now, whether that's Youtube, spotify or apple podcast, whatever it is. And if you want more, we do have a patreon you can support us on. In there you get all sorts of perks like ad free episodes, early access to our content and even a discord with our hosts and producers. So We'd love for you to check that out. All you got to do is text till into six, six, eight hundred and sixty six. That's till in two, six, six eight hundred sixt six, but thanks again for checking us out. So the she's walking through write the the rain forest did she's got to find a way out. She knows at this point where she's pretty confident, this point that nobody else survived this plane crash for sure. And what the things that she said after the fact. She said, if I would have found somebody else that survived, I think I would have died, because I think what we would have done is we would have waited together to be found. Yeah, but she said, but because I couldn't find any other survivors, she said that she realized she was on her own and she had to figure this out by herself, and so she was just like, I guess I gotta go, and so she thinks, if she thinks her being the only one that she could find was was the best thing for her, because obviously she would have survived. So she's walking through the water, waiting through gator gator water, and then she finds a broken down car in the middle of the ring forest and it's like it's like it's been broken down, like it's yeah, like vines growing on it and stuff like that. And she has a great idea because at this point the maggots are doing a number on our arm and she realizes, I gotta do something to get rid of these maggots, and so she takes the gas tank on that on this truck. I mean more. You to continue and she dumps it in her cut to use that to kill out all the Maggots, and so obviously I did not feel good, but it worked. They she had was able to wash out the vast majority of the maggots in her arm, in her arm from doing that. They are still was a few that doctors end up finding later, but she got the vast majority doing that. Doctors did say she didn't do that, she probably would have lost the arm, but because they were rapidly just how was your car out there? So at least she knows. She's close enough to society. Now. Yeah, I mean people, people drive through everywhere, you know, okay, and so like at some point someone was driving, probably round with a gas and then they did the similar thing that she did and they followed though the water. They didn't run out of gas. That because there's say yeah, go ahead, yeah, no, no, I wasn't like you to be the battery died. I don't know. Something happened. Was Light Cart probably they got strip by lightning. Yeah, anyways, something happened. They had to leave and you know, okay, it's you know, what are you gonna do? So she continues walking through the rainforest, the rainforest, along this this water, until she finally kind of ended up near this clearing space and was kind of giving up, like her injuries were getting the point where she could barely can't move me. She she was starving. She's right, for days of walking miles on these injuries, all the she's had is like a little back of candy, yeah, to sustain her, and so she doesn't think she's gonna make it. Well, there's when she started to kind of give up, a group of missionaries just happened upon her and they were like Whoa, like, you don't look good, and they were a lint. Know if you know this. They were. He's there's a cut on your arm and there are living creatures crawling in and out of yeah, well, here's here's the thing. She knew how to speak Spanish from her Amazonian days. Right, all right, so this girl just so want to make sure. It just seems like she knows everything. Yeah, she knows how surviving rainforest, she knows the gators are friends, not food, and she knows that she can speak Spanish. Yeah, she knows that she can speak you know, I never knew it before, but turns out I can well, we all can. It's all in us. He's gotta just gotta call it out. He's gonna find it. Yeah, you got to find the Finn the language within. Yeah, and so she knew Spanish. And so here's what's here's what significant. These missionaries, these weren't like these were local missionaries that were yeah, in Peru. Yeah, I wasn't a ratually like higher group of high school white kids after made the ANA. We're just like, we're here to serve. In Peru. Yeah, they got our tracos on and their oversized t shirts. That's what I pictured. But now these were like local, but local, local baptist. Yeah, the local madness. Yeah. Now these are local missionaries going into the rainforce to find tribal people's and tell them about Jesus. And they get they find this lady. But here's the problem, here's the problem that they they encounter right away. There was a lot of mysticism for the people in that area about like ghosts and demons in the forest. Oh, and Julia was messed up. She had some seger fallen from injuries, yeah, and severe. They thought she was a demon. Yeah, and so they were like afraid to approach her at first, and if she didn't know how to speak their language, she said that they probably would have left her because they were scared, but she was able to speak to them in Spanish and convince them. I'm not a demon, come, I'm not a demon, I just need your help. Yeah, that's what she said. So if you, if you, that's actually my code word for like if I'm like horribly injured, right, because I'm sure we'll be together when it happens, you know, if, like I break an arm or shatter my pelvis somehow a car accident together. Yep, right, and you just hear me shouting from the car. I'm not a demon, I'm not a damn that's honestly. I think that's how I'm gonna die, just so you know. No, I think I'm gonna die in like you know, I've said this before, I think. I don't know if said on the PODCAST, but like choking on something. Oh Yeah, yeah, you know, in my basement, you know, and I'm yelling up the stairs to my wife and I'm like please save me, and she's like he's doing a bit. Yeah, you know, yeah, he's joker, a rested real filming to Tick Tock down there and I'm like yeah, they yeah, forwards, bit ive heard it before, you know, and that's how I'm going to die. Yeah, so, just so you know, if you say I'm not a dem and you know I'm it, this is real. This is real, this is real. But here's the thing, Jos, you're gonna let me die. Dang nabbit. Is the thing I would expect you. I say I'm not a demon in Spanish. That's you. Help me. Yeah, if he knows, not diablow, I would assume. That's my guess. Okay, that's your educative guess. Yes, you said it's so confident. Hold on to see. I'm not a demon. Google translate. We need to learn this phrase in all which is this is something wetter. What country you're in? You know this in French, in Spanish, in Chinese? Oh, I was close. Oh, they got another word for the demon. I don't know that. No, so it Wun Demon Ne. Oh, that sounds like someone who's faking. Yeah, did he with the DEMIO? I'm not a devil, as also demonio. What's The oblow? The ablow is I thought that was devil. If you're not Satan, your no son Satan set. Say to NAS, say to NAS say, say to NAS. So it says as it's the ablow. Anyways, this is Diablo, is devil, right, no, shut up, is it is so the missionaries. They end up helping her. That a first aid kit on hand. Didn't do much with it. It was just duck shaming. AIDS Daven what man? Absolutely vestling's right, because DOC David Man's duct, the oil, it helps, you know, anyway, darts anywhere in my glove box. So it's hot. It's like, oh a green man, let me put this in your wounds. Yeah, you're hurt. I hate her. And Oh man, I passed the car acts in the other day, right, and I got out. Don't already, I got me. The paramedics showed up, but I was like no, no, parameos already here. And so I was in there rubbing mayonnaise on this girl's wound. Right, YEP, helmet did not make you. She did not make it. So, yeah, they said that she got an infection, Absolu grat they were like, she would have made it without this mayonnaise. Why would they call it miracle whip if it couldn't heal you? I say that is. You know there's people who use mayonnaise like a cleaning thing. I did not know that. Yeah, there's weird people out there, like some people use vinegar. Yeah, well, putting it in things, like they're wiping down counters with mayonnaise. That is the grossest the got of her. Well, I mean, I'm not I'm not here to I don't know where this senten is going. I don't know how somebody were interrupt me. Okay, so they had the first aid kit, so I had the first kid, kid. It didn't help much, but it was enough. It was enough to get hurt. Someone get her too, to the point where she could be airlifted to the hospital. She gets the hospital and they end up at the hospital being like yeah, you're you're injured. Yeah, Hey, we've got more candy for I diagnosis injured. Yeah, do be a doctor's so easy. So they nurse her back to health and then, once you said that's so casually, how long is that take? I don't know, I don't have any input. Okay, but so after she recovers, she actually assists the search party to go back into the jungle and find the bodies of everyone. Oh my God, she lost because she knew from her experience in Homeschool, different kind of home school, the most people, but she knew it's easy to get lost in the Amazon. Yeah, most every homeschooler graduates knowing it's easy to get lost in the amazone. Yeah, that's like they're weird secret phrase they have. Hey, where you? Hope were you? It's like it's like it's like, Hey, were you lost in the Amazon? It's easy to get lost in the Amazon. That's how they know they found another one, you know, and they have like a weird handshake. You know, it's like this, give your hand. We had a blur it. We're not allowed to give it away. Yeah, yeah, just like that. Yeah, just like that. Yeah, so because of her time in the Amazon, right, she knew it's easy to get lost. So she left the trail. I don't know if it was like like twigs, right, bread crumbs, break crums. She's like a good thing. I got this loaf of bread. Yeah, I'm very hungry. made it out. My brother Han sold it. Not Something Real, least some breath. Maybe he'll go. I've got this bag of candy. Yeah, what else will I do with this heather full tray? She got like a variety pack of a lace chips, you know, and she's just like here's a lace chip, here's a Lido. Yeah, yes, the cool ranch to Redo. All the alligators are following behind her. Just yet them right behind her. She has no ideas, like I'll make it back, I'll make why is she leaving crumbs in the river, you idiot? Were you talking about the follow behind her? You know, the path of the river. You think she was just like no, don't, don't try it out to be an idiot real quick, right. You think that, even if it wasn't food, she was leaving behind whatever she was making a trail with. You think she was still making that trail in the river? Yeah, probably, because here's the deal. Yeah, I'm a really are very bland rivers, like you know, rivers that are just borning. That's the know ary rivers in the Sun River. Yeah, the rivers in the Amazon. They're just dull and you can't tell them apart because all deep is that. How deeper water was she walking through, you think? I mean, she probably was only walking through a couple feet. She's s like the run on the edge. You know, I got check anyways. So she's she left like little clues and signals, so she knows that's a place I've been before, and so she leaves them back through and in a recovering most of the bodies. Oh Wow. What's crazy is how many people died in the she was the only survivor. Well, I mean about how many? Let's see, it was there's eighty six passengers, eighty five died, ninety one people in all and cleaning the crew. So she was one of ninety one to survive. Wow, and they actually found her mother and they said that her mother survived, but she ended up dying from her injuries because she couldn't. She had very severe injuries. So she survived the fall and just kind of lived there in the rainforest a little longer and then end up dining from injuries, which sounds horrific awful to just like survive that fall. But now you don't know if she woke up, though. That's true. Yeah, she might have just been knocked out the whole time. Yeah, but yeah, so she she ended up going back and studying bats and the rainforest. What, I don't know. There was no spoonsher it is that? You mean she went back to where the plague crash was yeah, she's like. She's like, yeah, I want to know what the bats there. This is a good yeah. Yeah, so after the fact they made a movie about the her story called Miracles still happen, and then also there was a couple documentaries called another was a documentary called wings of hope, and then there was a book about her her own autobiography, called when I fell from the guy man, you gotta Really Hope. And no one ever hit on her after that. So walks up to her in a bar was like, Hey, did it hurt? She's like yeah, a lot. Yeah, actually, like really bad. Yeah, here's all kind of hurt. Here's a book. Yeah, you see this, you see this scar? Hey, I hadn't heard Maggotson fell from heaven. Yeah, yeah, pretty bad. Yeah, I the closest thing that you probably experienced. Have you ever like jumped from the high dive and belly flopped? It's like that, but if the high dive was tenzero feet, like a survive. Well, here's the here's here's what's crazy. So after this happened, or try it, you and I jump out of a plane, see who makes it. No parachute, no parachute, yeah, not interested. I'm not a demon, I'm not a dete. So after this happened, they like launched an investigation on this airline, Lancer, the the plane that was in this fight, was a Lockheed electro turboprop plane, is, is one of those big steel looking planes. Right well, ended up discovering after the fact that this plane was built, here's a direct quote, and seven assembled entirely from spare parts of other planes. And so they said that it's entirely because of the way it was constructed that it broke apart when I got stopt lightning, because it shouldn't have done that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it should have been damaged, but it shouldn't have just split up. You think people are more likely to survive the fall if it stays intact? I think probably, unless it like blows up, because because the only reason she survived was because the chair cushion or fall, and so barely. I mean, yeah, but if you're able to have something like if you free from all other items, just hit the ground, you're probably dead right, but if there's something there to cushion your fall, then you might survive. This is actually this is a good no, this was recommended by one of our patrons, daily man, again ironically, and another patron, chump white. Do we not have the names? I don't have I don't have our our specially yet. Okay, I don't have that yet, so I don't know. But there's a there's a video explaining what to do if your parachute he sent like this video explaining what to do if your parachute fails. Oh and the lesson is spin. Well, actually it's make yourself flat like a pancake, and I will slow you down. But then it's fine something to land on, basically, whether that's like trees or something like that, not water, like swamp, trees or something else. I camera what they said, because I'll break your fall, and they said you're going to break your legs, but you might survive if you can land in something that'll break your fault. So my assumption is, if that's the logic when you're falling free fall, that a plane would help, because then the plane would break the fault right the fall. You just got to hope that the plane doesn't explode with the plane's floods you're done. Yeah, so anyway, so they got in a lot of trouble for that, you know, because it's kind of like and she us, or a picture her now. Yeah, so here she is at the plane crash now, and then also there she is when she's going to do with some bird I don't know. And that's her now. Well, that's her. And like I know the S or s whenever they tried to breathe the plane, whenever they made the movie about her. Oh Wow, yeah, and yeah, that's the so, I mean she's still walks and everything. Yeah, I mean her injuries were a broken collar bone, which is a serious injury, but you can heal from that, a torn ascl again serious, but you can heal. Probably her most severe injury was that frashured I said earlier. What is that her arm in your in your spine with the fresh are vertebrae? Yeah, they're her vertebrae. That's probably was saying. Is She's up, walking and everything. Yeah, you know, she never would have guessed that she felt tenzero feet from the sky and survived if you just saw her walking through your local Walmart or something. Yeah, sometimes I do see people that I think has happened to though. He's a Walmart and I go it looks like you've fallen tenzero feet from the sky. Did that happen? And I don't mean that in like did it hurt kind of way, I mean like I know it to look at you a kind of way. You know, I'm sorry about you. were seeing sometaly so ugly that you're like me. I hope something happened. I hope that's not an actur it. That's terrible. Yeah, so that's wild. Yeah, absolutely insane story, terrifying. Yeah, I couldn't imagine literally every step of this road, falling without a parachute, finding the maggots in your arm cont the forest like eating candy, like all of this is just horrible, like it's I can't believe that, like through the rainforest rivers with alligators like that's yeah, and she knew, she knew enough to know she still a better chance walking without the gators than walking with the snakes. Walk with the GATORS. Actually a gospel album. And Yeah, if you look it up, track seven is called fiddle off things of the last night is a production of space tim media produced by Christian Taylor. Audio is edited by Alice Garnett, video by Connerbet. Social media is run by Caleb Walker and graphic designed by Caleb Goldberg, our hoster, Jeremyers and Tim Stone. Please follow us on social media at Tilling podcast, that's Tillo in podcast. Leave a review, comment, subscribe wherever you are. Thank you for listening to things on the last night.


Today flying is one of the safest forms of transit that exists. Out of the millions of flights every year, only about 30 of those result in an accident in the US, and very few result in any serious injury. However, this hasn’t always been the case. In recent history, regulations on air travel were much laxer and allowed for a far greater rate of failure. On Christmas Eve 1971, Juliane Koepcke witnessed how dangerous air travel can be when her plane broke apart in mid-air and plummeted 10,000 feet into the Amazon rain forest. Defying all odds, Koepcke survived the fall. Unfortunately for Juliane, it was an out-of-the-frying pan into the fryer sort of a situation. She awoke after the crash to find herself stranded in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Her story has inspired for decades.

The Plane Crash

LANSA Flight 508 was struck by lightning at almost 10,000 ft. Typically such an event would be dangerous but not nearly as catastrophic. However, this specific plane had been built entirely out of spare parts. The poor construction could not withstand the strength of the lightning strike and broke apart in mid-air. Koepcke was ejected from the plane while still buckled to her seat.

During her descent, the chair caught the wind and began to rotate. She quickly plummeted toward the earth spinning like helicopter blades. Due to the stress of the event, Juliane passed out, and her body tilted forward, flipping the chair. The thick canopy of the Amazon broke her fall, and the chair she was strapped to broke her fall. Somehow she survived. But the fight had only just begun.

Escape from the Amazon

Juliane Koepcke’s nightmare had only just begun. She survived the fall, but she had suffered significant injuries, including a broken collar bone, torn ACL, a broken vertebra, concussion, and a handful of severe lacerations. As if her physical situation was not bad enough, she was lost in the center of the Amazon, unsure if any other passengers had survived or where she should go for help. To make matters worse, the rainforest canopy above her was so thick that the rescue planes she kept hearing fly overhead had no chance of seeing her.

Juliane began the long journey out of the Amazon. She faced alligators, poisonous plants, and venomous animals at every turn. As if her situation wasn’t difficult enough, a cut in her arm became infested with maggots. Koepcke took extreme measures to do away with the pests.

Conclusion

Juliane Koepcke has arguably the most incredible story of anyone alive. Not only did she survive a plane crash, but she survived a 10k ft fall, she navigated her way out of the Amazon, and she did it with numerous serious injuries. It’s an inspiring story of what we can accomplish if we focus and put our minds to it. To learn more of the intricate details, check out this episode of TILLN.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

Juliane Koepcke – Wikipedia

LANSA Flight 508 – Wikipedia


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