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5- Can Jim Interest You In...Long Falls?
19 Plays15 days ago
Content warning: There is talk of suicide in this episode that may be triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 in the US. The mention of this takes place from 39:00-47:30.
Jim Hamilton, author of Falling: Amazing Survival Stories and uncle to Charlotte shares some of his interests with us. Long falls, writing, illustration!
Stories of long falls include Nicholas Alkemade, Juliane Koepoke, cats, Kevin Hines.
Get Jim's book from his website greenharbor.com
Watch his episode of The History Channel's The Unexplained on Nextflix
Check out The Haiku Year , written by Jim and Charlotte on www.lulu.com/shop
Logo design: Marielle Martin
Song: Upbeat Drums with Stomps and Claps by music_for_video
BlueSky: @canweinterestyouin.bsky.social
Email us your interests! CanWeInterestYouIn@gmail.com
Website: canweinterestyouin.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
You know that thing you love that your friends and family don't want to hear about anymore? Tell it to us, Patty and Charlotte. We want to learn all about your weird and wild obsessions or your perfectly normal hobbies that you've taken just a little too far. We want to dabble in your curious interests. Can we interest you in today's episode?
00:00:35
Speaker
Hi friends, this is Patti hopping in to provide a content warning. This episode makes mention of suicide and may be triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 in the US. Feel free to skip this one, and everyone take good care of yourselves.
Guest Introduction: Uncle Jim Hamilton
00:01:00
Speaker
Patty, I want to tell you who I have here with me right now in the studio. It's my Uncle Jim, Jim Hamilton. And um he's here to tell us all about his very interesting... No, not that's not the word I want to use. His very unique interest.
00:01:23
Speaker
um which is long falls. okay I don't even know what a long fall is. Welcome. Thank you very much. So a long fall from my definition is at least 100 feet and generally thousands of feet in which someone survives without a working parachute.
00:01:46
Speaker
And there are a surprising number of incidents. I have recorded about 350 in ah the 20 years that I've been involved in covering this, and some are more fantastic than others, but there are some really amazing
Nicholas Alkamade's WWII Survival Story
00:02:02
Speaker
survival stories. And in fact, that's the subtitle of the book, Falling Amazing Survival Stories. So that's a book you wrote?
00:02:09
Speaker
I wrote it, I illustrated it, and yeah it's 144 pages, text and illustrations. And it's the first book that I've illustrated. I have written a couple of other books. Cool. Wait, OK. So are these falls that people have intentionally? like are Are there ah thrill seekers out there that are like, I'm going to free fall?
00:02:35
Speaker
Well, orre unintentional it's primarily unintentional, although there are recreational skydivers whose parachutes have failed and they've survived. But a lot of these have happened in wartime or in civilian airline disasters. oh Really, World War II was where I got started with it.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I was doing a book about a group of journalists who covered the 8th Air Force during World War II. And that group ah had trained to fly along with the bombers. And as I was studying some of these bomber missions, I came across a number of stories of airmen who had ah fallen long distances and did not have the benefit of the parachute.
00:03:18
Speaker
The story that really struck me at first was a guy named Nicholas Alka made. He was in a British four engine bomber. He was the tail gunner and the the aircraft was hit by enemy fire, caught on fire. The pilot said, guys, bail out. And he was in this very tight space. The turret, the tail turret is very tight, so he could not wear his parachute inside the turret.
00:03:43
Speaker
And when he turned the turret to reach for his parachute, it was in flames. So he was- The whole turret was in flames. Well, not part of the fuselage where he had hung his parachute was in flames and the flames were reaching him towards him in the tail turret. And so he had a terrible choice. He could burn up and go down with a plane or he could turn his turret and just fall out And he did, because that seemed like the better option. ah He fell 18,000 feet into trees, snow, bushes, and essentially his worst injuries were once he got inside the plane, burns that he got. But he survived a ah really with a twisted knee and a cut over his eye. No. and Okay, oh over trees.
00:04:41
Speaker
What part of the world was this where he was falling? but He jumped. It was Germany in um the winter. And so he, again, you hit the right kind of tree and you're slowed down by the branches. You land in something that's compressible, like, ah you know, a bush or maybe it's on a slope or maybe there's snow there. A lot of factors come in to helping slow you down because chances are you're going about 125 miles per hour.
00:05:10
Speaker
because you're picking up speed as you're falling, right? Is that how this works? I don't know. You do. Yes, you certainly you accelerate. And after about 2000 feet, you hit what they call terminal velocity. So you get up to around that 125 miles per hour, and then you don't go any faster, which is kind of the good news. If you're falling 10,000 feet after 2000, you're not getting any faster. But you're still going really fast.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, you're still you're falling from over two feet. Right. yeah Right. So wait and what what was this guy's name again? Nicholas Alkamade. And I believe that pronunciation is right. it He was English. And so I think that's how I pronounced it. But the Dutch pronounce it differently. So does Nicholas remember this fall? Like, does does he remember, like, what he hit and and I think he was probably knocked out in the, you know, he came to on the ground fairly quickly, I think. But he even he could see, well, I mean, he was relieved to be out of the burning aircraft. And I think he did feel some level of peace as he was falling because he thought, okay, um I've heard another airman in a similar situation who
00:06:28
Speaker
Um, was just kind of mad that he was going to miss his leave. You know, if they continue the mission and he got home, he had leave like in London and he was so thinking, man, I'm going to miss that. You have eternal leave.
00:06:43
Speaker
yes But Alcomaid's story, there are so there are some stories of these long-fall survivals where the survival part is is not sometimes the hardest piece of their adventure. And in his case, when the Germans finally captured him, ah he said that he had fallen without a parachute and they did not believe him. Right, right.
00:07:07
Speaker
so ah Oh, he was captured by the Germans. Right. So he was on a bombing mission over Germany, shut down over Germany, landed and they were doing nighttime missions. So this was at night. He realized with his twisted knee, he wasn't going very far. So he had a whistle and he blew it and eventually the Germans found him. um But they thought he might be a spy because he, you know, typically what a spy would do would be to bury their parachute to sort of cover their tracks.
00:07:37
Speaker
and they thought he'd hidden it someplace and didn't want to tell them. um The way he finally convinced them was was twofold. One was, he said, if you go to where the wreckage of the plane is, you can look in the fuselage and you'll probably find the cinders of my parachute in there, which they did and they found that. oh And he also said, when you have a parachute harness on, sometimes you have these rings, well, you definitely have these rings on that you would clip the parachute to.
00:08:06
Speaker
And if you're going around the fuselage and doing all the things you need to do to fire equipment, fire a machine guns, you tie those those rings down with some thread so that they don't bounce around and bother you. But as soon as you hook your parachute to it and you open your parachute, the thread tears up and it's gone. He said, if you look at my parachute harness, which I was wearing when I, you know, when I, when you guys found me, you'll find that those rings are tied down with thread. And so in one of the more amazing documents, I think of of World War Two, someone tore a page, you know, blank page out of a Bible, and the Germans wrote on it, we believe Nicholas Alkamade's story of falling without a parachute.
00:08:55
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So he was kind of your gateway into this whole extreme, like. Yeah. And there was another story from World War II. And as I've done research on this, I found many, many like it. um Planes would blow up in midair and you might have a tail gunner in a section of the plane that just includes the you know the tail health section.
00:09:22
Speaker
and I have found incidents, maybe 10 or 12 of them, of tail gunners who survived after the rest of the plane was basically chopped off. And so they were what I call wreckage riders, because they're falling in disassembled wreckage of an airplane. And maybe it's a little aerodynamic. Maybe it's just slowing down a little bit than they might have done if they were falling on their own.
00:09:49
Speaker
Maybe they hid in a slope or or in trees or something else that helped them. But there are quite a few tail gunners from ah four-engine bombers who survived in that fashion.
Jim's Passion for Long Falls
00:10:00
Speaker
but what like What was it that got you from this like one first one to to like looking into all these others and kind of like cataloging them? and Like, what made you interested to find out more and more? Because I feel like if it was me, I'd be like, but you know, this has got a scary to know about. Well, I thought it was an interesting topic and.
00:10:25
Speaker
I thought if I could find two of them, there must be more of these stories. So I founded something called the Free Fall Research Page, which is a website dedicated to cataloging these long falls. And I started that right around the year 2000. My website is greenharbor dot.com. And I have a number of sort of sponsored websites within there.
00:10:48
Speaker
and one of them is the Free Fall Research page. I've been collecting stories, answering questions, posting whatever I could find. i mean Recently, one of those stories where somebody had a fall and then had a tremendous follow ah-up story it to to reach their survival um is a guy named Joe Simpson. You may have heard of the documentary, Touching the Void.
00:11:15
Speaker
There's actually a documentary. He wrote a book called Touching the Void. There's a stage play called Touching the Void. But he was climbing a mountain in Peru, like the icy face of a mountain. I think it's called Siula Grande.
00:11:33
Speaker
with another guy and they managed to scale the IC summit and get to the top. They were the first folks to ever do that. And on the way down, Joe Simpson fell and broke his leg like really badly. And they're still on the top of this mountain and they got to get him down.
00:11:51
Speaker
So his companion, um they come up with a strategy of lowering him down just a little bit at a time. They have a 300 foot rope, so they'll lower him down 300 feet, and then the guy comes down to him, and they'll lower him down another 300 feet. And at one point, unknowingly, the guy lowers Joe Simpson over an edge, a cliff, essentially. And what would happen when when it was going well, the guy would tug the rope to say, okay, you can come down now, you can let go. Well, he's hanging in midair and he can't really do anything, he's just hanging there. And so his his you know fellow climber at some point is starting to slide down towards that cliff and is faced with a choice of,
00:12:41
Speaker
Do I go over the cliff with him? Not knowing how far. I mean, it could have been a two foot drop. It could have been 150 foot drop, but he decided to cut the rope and let the guy fall. Yeah. Hoping that it wouldn't be a long fall.
00:12:58
Speaker
Right. Well, it turned out to be more than I well around 100 feet. And then he hit the snow and ice at the top of a crevasse and fell another 50 feet into that into that area and
Juliana Kukki's Amazon Survival Tale
00:13:14
Speaker
was stunned but not any worse injured. He already had a broken leg, a really badly broken leg. um And he of looks around I mean he's got a flashlight they have no food or water at that point it's a really desperate situation the other guy kind of climbs down sees the crevasse calls out uh waits for a while here's nothing so he assumes the guy is dead and he climbs down the mountain to their base camp um now joe simpson this is what i'm saying he survives this hundred foot fall
00:13:48
Speaker
Which is great. But he's in the middle of this snowy crevasse with- Presumed dead. Presumed dead with no real way to climb up and out or to get out. He does luckily have about 150 foot of rope with him because well he was tied to it and then the guy cut it and luckily for both of them he cut it kind of in the middle. so that they both had 150 foot of rope that they could use and with that and with the ice picks or whatever else that he had he finds a way out of that crevasse but keep in mind he's got one really badly broken leg and he's got to find his way down the rest of the mountain across a glacier glacier across this rocky terrain to get back to their base camp
00:14:31
Speaker
which he ultimately does like two or three days later. And the other guys are still there thinking he's dead, hearing his voice calling out in the night like a ghost. And he arrives back and having lost like, I don't know, 35% of his body weight, something. They were both in really bad shape, both the climbers, but the guy with broken the leg was in particularly bad shape. But that's another one of those stories where the fall was like the least of their problems.
00:15:00
Speaker
Right, because OK, that's great that you survived it. But but now what? Right. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. And imagine, I mean, making that decision. In that moment, too, you know, you hear those stories of like, is it is it going to be me or is it going to be? Well, I should say, is it going to be you or is it going to be both of us? And yeah the guilt that would come with that.
00:15:25
Speaker
I think um ah Joe Simpson does not blame that other climber guy no for what he did. And I think the climbing community understands that in a similar situation, everybody else would do like the exact same thing. But if you're sitting in your nice warm living room in front of a fire, you kind of go like, oh, he screwed him, but I don't think that's true. He probably would have felt guilty if his friend had been like, well, I'm going down with you. and then he lived and then his friend didn't, you know. Oh, totally. Yeah. But it's just like, well, that's why I don't go rock climbing. Well, and that's just it. It's like, yeah they're not even just on a path, you know, like, but if you're doing this extreme, extreme climbing, there is no easy way down. There is no yeah easy way back to where you're supposed to be.
00:16:17
Speaker
The other story that fits into this same kind of mold is a young woman, a 17-year-old named Juliana Kukki, who was in South America flying from one place in South America to another with her mother. Her mother and father are both like you know jungle scientist type kinds of people. So she's been in the jungle before. But she's on this plane that is trying to cross over the mountains into the you know across the Amazon rainforest and is struck by lightning and breaks up in midair. And she is still attached to her seat by her seat belt, sort of twirling down like you might imagine a maple seed would would fall. And she falls into the jungle in this violent rainstorm that's happening at that point, ah spends survives, amazingly enough, and spends the night under the seat
00:17:11
Speaker
sort of protected from the rain and trying to figure out, I mean, she was sitting right next to her mother. Her mother is nowhere to be found. She doesn't, you know, so she is distraught and in the middle of the rainforest. The the next day she hears search planes going above, but the plane has pretty much been absorbed into the rainforest. Nobody and can find them. She doesn't see any other survivors. She remembers something that her father had told her once that if she was ever lost,
00:17:39
Speaker
in the jungle that she should follow a little, you know, a little brook to a stream to a river and ultimately that would get you to civilization. And she did that and it took her about 10 days and she was like dressed in, it was either like a communion or a party dress. Her glasses had been gone, she had a broken collarbone, she had only one shoe And she followed those rivers and ultimately came to a cabin where some you know local folks had been there on some sort of fishing expedition and they found her. And they were terrified of her when they first saw her because they thought she was like this you know native water
00:18:29
Speaker
serpent kind of thing because her eyes were bloodshot red. She had been eaten up by insects basically. ah party she was She was pretty pale compared to the other residents of the area. Wow. Yeah. Well, and to think like When you're in the rainforest, you're all I would also be afraid of what else is like the animals that are there, you know, like, at least if you're in the Mount, well, I suppose in the mountains, too, you should be afraid of that ah in Peru. But yeah, like, what what else could be getting could get you next, you know, it's kind of like that, that movie. um What is it Final Destination, where
00:19:12
Speaker
It's like, if it's your time, it's your time. They're going to get you regardless. So, okay, you didn't get on that plane that crashed, but death is going to get you. You know, it's like. Oh my God, how scary. Well, was she, you know, i probably you and I would be worried about piranha or, you know, like i whatever the South American version of alligators or crocodiles is. ah She was particularly worried about stingrays because the stingrays sit flat in, you know, in the river. And if you step on one, they'll
00:19:44
Speaker
basically sting you with their tails. And she thought that if she had gotten some by one of those sting rays without any shoes on or any other protection, she would not be unable to continue and she would basically be screwed. Wow. Did either of her parents survive, no, because otherwise they were they were going home for Christmas to see her father. So her father was not on the plane. There were not ah no other long-term survivors of that crash.
Jim's Media Appearances and Insights
00:20:12
Speaker
the The plane was spread out over a fair amount of areas, area, and it does appear that some people survived for some period of time, but she never saw them and the wreckage was spread over a far enough area that she could not provide any of them help and
00:20:29
Speaker
The way they found the wreckage was that she told them where it was. Wow. So no, they is it it would never have been found if it had not been for her. Oh my goodness. Thank goodness she knew that thing about the water because I mean, I had never heard that. But that probably is what helped her versus the other potential survivors. Yeah. And she I think she knew what to be ah scared of and what not to be scared of.
00:20:54
Speaker
her the The other analog to that story that's interesting is, you know, the the German filmmaker Werner Herzog, he was filming in South America at that time and wanted to get on that flight and did not did not make it. But many years later, he did a documentary with Juliana, brought her back to the crash site. And it's really a very incredible document. It's called Wings of Hope, I think. Wow.
00:21:24
Speaker
And how that would, yeah, I mean, to go back and visit it in such a different experience but and and that she could even bring them back to where it was, you know, like that she was paying so much attention. I think about how like, I just parked my car in a parking lot and then forget, you know, like I'm like, oh, I didn't even pay attention to what store that was near, what level it was on, you know, and she's like,
00:21:50
Speaker
I'm imagining that I would follow the stream, but in the wrong direction. you know I'd follow it to its end. That would be going upstream. Okay, god i got it. If you follow a downstream, you're going to ultimately get to a bigger stream. Now you've just probably saved my life in the future. Exactly.
00:22:07
Speaker
that you could say, well, and I remember what my uncle said, so. So now that I make it back in my party dress and like. Well, she became a real celebrity and she was. Really? Showed up in Life magazine. They made a movie about her experience. She really was a bit of a celebrity for a while and and someone who did really not want that kind of celebrity. And the movie that they made about it was quite bad.
00:22:37
Speaker
Oh, do you know what it's called? I can find it, but I don't know off the top of my head right now. It's much better for folks to see Wings of Hope, where she talks about that movie, because she went to the premiere in Germany and just thought it was boring. Well, they sort of played on having a young woman go through the jungle and being afraid of various stuff.
00:23:06
Speaker
making friends like with a monkey or whatever they kind of oh come on that's what you need a old volleyball or something be
00:23:15
Speaker
You're sort of like the go-to expert for all these things now, right? Because could you tell us who interviewed you relatively recently? Who's not as good as us, but still pretty cool. So um i I was on the that History Channel TV program, The Unexplained, with William Shatner.
00:23:38
Speaker
Now I was interviewed for that, but I was not interviewed by William Shatner, sadly. I do not get to see it. I tried to watch it, but I couldn't figure out how. Those of you who have Netflix can find episode, I think it's 11 of season four, it's called Surviving the Impossible or something like that. And there are a couple of stories in there. One is of,
00:24:07
Speaker
airline disaster, essentially, where one of the, one, there was a single survivor, a woman named Vesna Vulevic. And that story was shown on that. And then there was another story of two window washers, one of, well, their platform broke and fell, one of them died, but one of them survived. And they interviewed that person as well and looked for my my feedback.
00:24:32
Speaker
um I think as far as you know becoming an expert in this area, the things I get a lot of questions about are falling. I've answered more than 100 questions on my website, which is, again, the free fall research page on greenharbor dot.com. But people will ask, how fast was I falling? um you know If I kick the mouse off the second story of our balcony, did it survive? Do cats really have nine lives? like can they
00:25:03
Speaker
can cats really fall? I have a whole section in the book on falling cats because there there are theories about why they are likely, some cats have survived some really long falls out of skyscrapers and part of it may be that they tend to orient themselves feet down. I'm not not clear to me that they can maintain that like for a 10-story fall um but some have also maintained that there's ah a sort of flying squirrel theory Yeah, they kind of like take and kind into it
00:25:36
Speaker
yeah and that that would slow them down. And you can argue too that there are some creatures that have ah what we might call a non-fatal terminal velocity.
00:25:48
Speaker
Remember I said that human being falling, you know and it would be different for a 100-pound person and a 200-pound person, and whether they're falling feet first or you know whatever whatever their position was, but somewhere around 125 miles per hour. But there are some creatures that have ah was most likely a non-fatal terminal velocity. you know If you were to drop an ant off of that two-story balcony, pretty good chances of it going to survive.
00:26:15
Speaker
um But again, depending on what it falls on, if it falls on concrete versus grass, it's going to be a much, much tougher experience for that little being. But I think cats are not as likely to accelerate as as far, ah not as fast. And and there's there's also there were some people who were sort of confused about the idea that there that cats might actually have a better survival from higher up.
00:26:42
Speaker
you know if if they fell from 10, they might have a better chance than from, I don't know, three or four floors because they because of whatever reason. But um I think the main reason you hear more about those those cats that survived from 10 or nine stories is that they're important stories and the cat gets taken to the veterinarian, the cat survived. If the cat falls 10 stories and is killed,
00:27:07
Speaker
Nobody writes about it in the newspaper. No, right. Like I found a dead cat. Right. Right. That's so. Oh, so. Okay. You said on your website also that people can submit stories. So have you had individuals who have submitted their own stories or stories of people that they personally know?
00:27:27
Speaker
ah Yeah, so i I call that area the incident log. So, often people will write to me and ask me if I've heard of some particular incident, or they'll tell me about one and see if I can confirm it. um And sometimes they only have a few details in some cases it's that.
00:27:43
Speaker
you know, when someone was like 15 years old in the 70s, they read something in a magazine, and they've got one or two details. And often, if it's one of the famous stories, I can point it out. But there are others who are like, let's say military people, I heard a story of a a guy who was in, oh,
00:28:02
Speaker
um one of the famous airborne divisions, maybe the 101st, I can't remember exactly. um You know, it's like, remember Band of Brothers there, the Curaheese. It was a group like that. It may have even been them. I'm not 100% sure at the top of my head. But there was an incident where there were guys doing a test test jump stateside in the US. And ah the person who told me this story, and I've never been able to confirm it, but the details actually are very believable um was that okay he sees somebody whose parachute is not open it's up there streaming above his head and he's coming down really really fast and he says to himself I'm about to see somebody die
Discussion on Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Resources
00:28:45
Speaker
and the guy comes down hits the ground and this is this is like a marine or or you know an army ranger one of these really really really tough guys and he stands up and he goes like crazy or whatever the the slogan was for that particular group and and limps off. But the the the thing about having a streaming parachute above your head is good for a bunch of reasons. First it slows you down some. It's not like a parachute where you you know you're going maybe 15 miles per hour when you hit the ground. You're still going fast but maybe you're going 65 or 70 instead of 120 which
00:29:24
Speaker
is is important. And then again, if you hit something soft, or, you know, land in bushes or a tree or whatever, then your chances of survival are better. I do tend to get a lot of questions on the website about water, but water is really not a very forgiving substance to fall into. yeah The quote that I really like is is the one where a guy told me, ah falling into water is like falling on concrete, except that concrete won't open up and swallow you after breaking all your bones.
00:29:58
Speaker
yeah that's awful But it's so true. like water What if you just try to point like like a hole into the water? Well, let me let me say this. And then you hope you're going to be feet first, you know? like Yeah. No, exactly. There is a very good story about a a jet pilot, a US Air Force jet pilot who was in a refueling maneuver and something went wrong, the tank overfilled, there's air fuel spilling all over the place, his jet catches on fire, and a series of things sort of screw up for him. I mean, for one thing, in World War II with these prop planes, you could kind of jump out of a plane and that
00:30:44
Speaker
generally worked. But getting out of a jet plane and missing the tail is is not easy. It's why they have ejection seats, but his ejection seat didn't work. And then his parachute failed. So he's going down into the ocean ah with with his feet first. Again, because if you've got a streaming parachute above you, you're you know, you're orient and way and that you ah slowing you down, but probably more importantly, you don't want to fall head first into the water. um So he went down feet first, badly injured his legs. And they knew where he was because he was fueling and they dropped the
00:31:21
Speaker
you know like a raft and supplies and stuff but he was not able to pull himself into the raft so he was there for like I don't know it was like four six eight hours before a rescue ship was able to get to where he was but he did survive and and one of the things that made his survival kind of interesting is a surgeon told him later that Well, he had been in a car accident prior to this. Oh my gosh. And had an injury that made it made him have to have his spleen removed. And later on, he was told that had he not had his spleen removed, he probably would have bled to death. and And I'm not really sure what the medical reasons for this. But anyway, he was told that by a doctor. And he went around and checked with like everybody else in his squadron. And he was the only one who didn't have a spleen.
00:32:14
Speaker
um So you you think of the things that add up to to make this happen. Sometimes it's it's it's miraculous. i Personally, I don't consider these things to be miracles because you know in a lot of these cases, well, Juliana Kupke's case, everybody else in the plane died. Including her mother. Yeah. Right. And so it's a miracle she survived, but all those other people were looking for miracles too, and they didn't get it. Right. The event itself was definitely not.
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah, but the fact that like, he had two strikes against him, you know, like, okay, your ejections, your ejection seat didn't work, your parachute didn't work, but you didn't have a spleen, you know, like, and so crazy. Yeah, it's like you the things that you don't know, like, at the time of the car accident, I'm sure it was like, oh, this is terrible. And then it ends up saving his life. Like, you just don't know what's so called good or bad.
00:33:13
Speaker
Right. And even yeah, yeah. Oh my God. And then to be and stuck in water for that amount of time, that would be terrifying as well, because now you're exposed to so many additional risks. I was going to say predators, but I don't actually know that. Yeah, he was in the Pacific. There may well have been sharks around there, but I don't recall that from that particular account.
00:33:36
Speaker
but But there are other lucky kinds of things. So there's a story fairly recently. Man and woman are driving ah you know out for a nice drive in California somewhere in this mountainous canyon area. And someone comes up behind them, and it's like really being a an annoying tailgating them or whatever. And so they pull over to the side of the road and let that person pass. And then when they try to get back on the road and accelerate, they basically go off a cliff.
00:34:00
Speaker
and they're going straight down in their car. And then the quote was, I think the guy was saying, it'll be all right, it'll be all right, it'll be all right.
00:34:12
Speaker
The car drops 100 or more feet and they land in this, this like, well, fairly remote place. Obviously they're not too far from a road, but nobody saw over the, well, yeah, I mean, you're down very far, not exactly able to climb back up very easily. And they're, you know, whatever, airbags, air-wearing seat belts, and so they survive. The thing that helped them in particular was,
00:34:41
Speaker
They had an Apple iPhone, and the iPhone, and this is was new to me, and I was just expecting this to be in an Apple commercial, like and any minute. Immediately after.
00:34:52
Speaker
When you're like outside of your you know your your regular cellular range, there is some feature that says if this is an emergency, you can somehow benefit from like this satellite system where you can be reached from ah from a greater distance. And I'm not sure whether it happens when the phone realizes that you've been in an accident, as would be the case here.
00:35:17
Speaker
um But the reason, you know, one of the reasons that they were found as soon as as they were was because they had that iPhone with them. So it's not quite like having, you know, not having your spleen as being the the advantage, but it it certainly paid off for them. Yeah. Well, and so what is it about, obviously, you know, you okay, so you found out about the first story while researching other things. And then it's like, if there's a second, okay, then this is something. But what is it about these stories in particular that just interest you the most and make you want to continue looking into them? up Well, I'm pretty afraid of heights. Okay.
00:36:05
Speaker
You know that feeling you get behind your knees when you're like, you're behind a wall, but you're looking over a ledge and it's way down. And I get this feeling in the back of my knees and lower part of my back of my leg, that's just like fear. I am not a very adventurous person. I would not scuba dive, skydive. I'd be really ironic if I skydove and dive that way. I feel like maybe don't. That would be my total obituary. But motorcycles, no. I've done downhill skiing once, that was plenty for me. You know, I'm not a risk taker, but I do find history interesting and there is a bit of a
00:36:49
Speaker
you know, fact-finding mystery around a bunch of these stories where someone says, okay, I heard about this or my friend had this, but I didn't know his first name. I don't know his last name. I think it happened in North Carolina, all of these kinds of things. And then you try and put the puzzle pieces together to find out whether it really happened. And, you know, when you think about these individual stories, there's a fair amount of skepticism, like, you know, like the Germans not believing it.
00:37:17
Speaker
Yeah, if if if that was the only incident you ever found, you'd be like, Oh, come on, that didn't really happen. you You're making that up. But I just don't think that a bunch of airmen sort of just decided on the spur of the moment. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna make this story up because it'll make a really good story. I might die in the process. But yeah,
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah, I did not know that you were afraid of heights, but it does occur to me that we've never been somewhere with a lot of, you know, height. I mean, I'm not i'm not like deathly afraid of heights. okay But I do remember like, got my wife Amy and I went to, I think it was Bermuda, and we went up, ah you know, like a lighthouse.
00:38:03
Speaker
um just to see the view. and It was a really windy day, and you can virtually feel the lighthouse going back and forth. And there was you know this narrow walkway, and I was just pressed up against the back of the lighthouse. I did not want to get any closer. But whatever, I i don't know. i think I really think a lot of people probably feel just about the way that I do. you know ah yeah having It's sort of like, I mean, I do get a little bit nervous. It's not my favorite, but yeah, I wouldn't listen like on the top of my fears, but I do think a lot of people recognize like, okay, this could be dangerous. Do you know what I'm talking about with the back of the knee feeling? I don't think so. I think it's more of just like a disorientation, like if it's very high or like a- Almost like a dizziness. And like just a knowledge that like,
00:38:54
Speaker
you know, death is certain if I actually do not, and obviously, not certain. Now I know it's due, you know, but that it's More likely. Well, here's here's the thing, because every once in a while I will get an email or a message from someone who asks a question that makes me wonder whether they're thinking about committing suicide. I got one a few years back from somebody who I'm still in touch with who said, how tall does the building have to be to be sure that I'm going to die? yeah And so you know my answer to that, which is not particularly reassuring, is that
00:39:32
Speaker
yeah there's there's no you know You might just be really badly injured and totally disabled for the rest of your life. there's there's no particular height, not that that's too reassuring. ah the The thing that I ended up putting in the book was a little bit about the the suicide hotline i saw that are now available. I mean, you can dial 988 if you're in sort of some kind of mental crisis and you'll get a chance to talk to people. I mean, another one of the well-known stories is a guy who jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge
00:40:05
Speaker
I probably could find his name here. if i if i Which is a common thing, right? I mean, don't they have so many people that? they They do. And in fact, he was one of the people who pushed to assure that they put nets on. So there are now nets on the Golden Gate Bridge. So it's not the place that you go, but many, many people have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and a few of them have had survived. You'll probably hear about this guy at one point. His name is Kevin Hines.
00:40:32
Speaker
And he was, this was like 2000 or so when he was 19. He was depressed. He rode a bus all the way out to the Golden Gate Bridge and walked out on the bridge and was getting ready to jump. I think if I have the story right, somebody basically said, can you, can you take our picture here? And he agreed to take their picture. And then he went back and like looking like he's going to jump over the bridge. And he said at the time that if anybody had come up to him and said, Hey pal, are are you okay?
00:41:03
Speaker
He wouldn't have jumped, but nobody did that. And he jumped. He said he immediately regretted it. And he went down feet first into the water. He was trying actually to get into that position that would be more survivable. He was injured, but he survived. And he claims also that part of the reason for his survival was like, I think it was a sea lion that helped keep him propped up in his head above water.
00:41:29
Speaker
And then ultimately the Coast Guard came and pulled him out. And he's now an inspirational speaker who talks about you know suicide prevention. So interesting story. The sea lion adds a ah bit of an almost mystical part to it. Especially because they're not known for being gentle creatures you know like and helpful. you know And I mean, you said like it's not a reassuring thought, but it might be a deterring answer of what is the height of the building to ensure that and it's like, there is no assurance, you know, so it's like, yeah don't don't do it. try Yeah. But that's, you know, that's, that's helpful in the moment too. But sure, you know, there's all sorts of things that people need to do to work on for their depression. And I realized if there's any criticism of the book that I did, it's sort of
00:42:27
Speaker
glorifying in ah in in a sense war or telling stories about suicide or whatever. So I did try to be very cautious and make the point that help can be found. And and actually what people can do to help someone they see in that situation. Because there is a stigma around suicide. People don't necessarily want to talk about it. But I think particularly if you listen to what Kevin Hines was saying, reach out to someone. Ask if they're OK.
00:42:57
Speaker
you know, say that they could call 988, get them home to a safe place.
Listener Engagement and Amazingness Scale
00:43:02
Speaker
And again, they may be suicidal because home is not a safe place. And maybe there's another place that they can go that will provide more safety or a stable environment for them than where they are at that point that led them to think suicidal thoughts.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yeah. Does he have any videos? I feel like that would be like he's an inspirational speaker. Does he have like Ted? He's written three books and I'm sure he's done videos, but the books are what what I've heard most about. um And really, you can follow him on Instagram, you can see him a bunch of places. And, you know, as far as suicide prevention, his biggest thing has been around those nets for the Golden Gate Bridge. He may have other projects he's working on. I also think it's very, it used to be that there was an 800 number you could call, now you can just
00:43:52
Speaker
do the 988 through your cell phones. And that that really is a US thing. So if you've got an audience that has people in Canada or other places, there are similar things in other countries, but at least it's sort of unified in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, i work in the mental health care field. And yeah, I think that there's stats about, I can't remember the exact step, but like just even waiting a certain amount of time, like just a short period of time can deter a lot of people. So like something like a net or something that like makes somebody have to think twice about it can make a huge difference. Interventions like that are really just very important. And then, and then having people speak out about it because of the stigma. So yeah. yeah And even hearing him say, you know, you mentioned that he said,
00:44:38
Speaker
if someone would have just asked him if he was okay. And then also that, as you hear so often, the feeling of regret immediately after that it is such a momentary thing and it does pass, but um so important to just remember, like, you know, because I often will feel uncomfortable approaching someone and it's like, okay, you know, I remember like having an experience of being like, Oh, do you need a seat? And someone like yelling back at me and it's like, okay, so they yelled at you.
00:45:07
Speaker
get over it, you know, like, because there could be it's okay to feel a little uncomfortable if it could potentially help Yeah, i Kevin Hines did say that on the bus and the whole way over, he's sobbing in the backseat. And you know, how many people would approach a stranger who is sobbing? I listened to a very good story, you know, The Moth. There's a story about a guy who, I think he was living in the Bronx or Brooklyn, crossing one of the bridges, and someone came up to him and said, there's somebody down there who's gonna jump, would you talk to him?
00:45:38
Speaker
um And so he did, he walked up to the guy, he talked to him, he convinced him to walk off the bridge, asked him if he had a ah safe place to go, um and then, I mean, to this guy's credit,
00:45:52
Speaker
first of all, just having the hood spa to go up and talk to somebody like that in a situation like that. But we could we could each of us do that. um But he ultimately invited this kid to stay at his his home for a while until he got settled. So that speaks back to well, the kind of circumstance that might be leading to someone to say, hey, you know my family hates me, a or I'm being abused, or or whatever that might mean. You say life is just, it sucks, and I'm ending. Yeah. so And you don't have to answer this if it's too personal, but the individual that you said reached out to you with that question on your website that you are still in touch with. Did they ever say, was that something that they
00:46:41
Speaker
were asking for that purpose or um oh they definitely were yeah and admitted that um yeah and and it had disappointments um you know someone who was in university and had hoped to uh get an advanced degree and uh become a you know professor i had you know a young person who had a vision of what their life was going to be like And for some health reasons, and you know working through a difficult system in a country not in the United States, that's not necessarily as liberal, um was just really struggling with that. and And honestly, still has some struggles. But I hear from him on an annual basis. And that's reassuring, I think, to both of us. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:31
Speaker
Because it is kind of like oh you know going back to how you said, you're afraid of heights and here you're you know researching and spending a lot of time with the idea of falling and surviving. I know for myself and so many of my friends who are like really into true crime, part of the fascination with it is that you know, fear of it. And so how do I keep myself safe and how do I you know learn to kind of expose myself to it and also learn the the you know the lessons that can be learned from other people's experiences.
00:48:10
Speaker
One of the questions that I get is, do you want to interview these people and talk to them? And for the most part, I don't. I have interviewed a couple, but there are something like 350 stories and there're probably a handful that I've either talked to or had you know exchanges. Because for the most part, what I want to find out is what happened at the time. And often, if it's an air disaster, there are newspaper articles, there are things that are written. They've written things themselves at that time.
00:48:40
Speaker
And one thing I think 30, 40 or 50 years later is honestly sort of less important to me, but it's more important to the, the directors and the producers of shows like The Unexplained because they wanna have a first-person discussion. um I had been approached by William Shatner's team ah probably 10 years before. And um when they when they asked me, said, okay, so what's your expertise? I said, well, I've been tracking this for so many years and I published a report on it. And they said, well, like, but are you a professor or do, you know, what was your major in college? I said, my major is German. And they were like, what
00:49:20
Speaker
If I'd majored in math in college, they probably would have used me. And then even for the, I i recorded the piece for the unexplained in I think 2021. And they called me the author of the book, which I knew I was going to write, but hadn't finished yet. So that was good enough.
00:49:37
Speaker
not just Yeah. I think also this book is interesting because it's illustrated. And the illustrations, I've been drawing my you know my whole life, well, more more dedicatedly sort of from about 20 on, um keeping a sketchbook, um carrying that around with me, trying to be an artist in my 20s.
00:50:02
Speaker
well finding out that I was not cut out to be an artist in my 20s. But I do like to draw. I got involved with a school called the Sequential Artist Workshop in Gainesville, Florida. They go by the acronym SAW. But there are a whole group of teachers there and classes that they give on doing graphic novels and, you know,
00:50:25
Speaker
sequential art is essentially another word for cartooning or graphic novels. Okay. Tom Hart is the president of that school. He wrote an amazing Eisner-nominated graphic memoir called Rosalie Lightning about losing his yeah youngest daughter or his his daughter to crib death when she was somewhere around two or three.
00:50:52
Speaker
ah So a really, really sad story, but amazingly rendered. One of my other teachers was Jess Rulison, who has recently published a book called, oh, Wounds is in the title. It's about returning veterans and the sort of mental and physical ah issues that they have and returning into civilian life, when she is published frequently in the Boston Globe and the Washington Post.
00:51:19
Speaker
So, you know, when you have teachers of that kind of level caliber, it's great. And they encourage you to sort of do it piece by piece. And the book as I did is in sort of two or four or six page sections with stories on each of these people with illustrations that are, well, I wish I could draw better, but they do the job. Are the illustrations of the fall?
00:51:46
Speaker
Yes, frequently. So, you know, the the cover has Nicholas Alkomade on it. And I have a number of different pictures of him in this particular story, like him blowing his whistle or the thing that I think is really ironic is that ah After he fell and survived, he's lying there in the snow. And what does he do? He pulls out a cigarette and some matches and lights a cigarette. And I'm kind of like, ah. This moment of, oh, hey, I'm alive. I'm going to smoke a cigarette. but liration I have something that I call the Amazingness Scale.
00:52:28
Speaker
Um, that I use to rate the different, uh, falls and you, if you fall from more than 30,000 feet, you get no points deducted. But every time, like every five or 10,000 feet down, you get more and more points taken away from you. And for example, if you have a parachute, let's say you have a parachute on, but you don't even pull the rip cord.
00:52:52
Speaker
I take away points for that because you had a parachute. Now, if you had a parachute that streams above you, I take away even more points from that. It didn't open, but it did stream and it Kept your feet, help you all that kind of stuff. And then I will occasionally give bonus points for things that I think are particularly good. For example, cigarette Kevin Hines gets a bonus point for the sea lion. It was alchemy gets one for the the cigarette. Uh, Julianna cookie. She should get more than one bonus point, but I gave her one bonus point for, um, for getting out of the jungle.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, in a drive. There are, and this is probably a good general area, but I have ah multiple categories for the people who fall. So a free faller is somebody who falls without anything. They're not inside wreckage, they're just falling. And if you're inside wreckage, then you're a wreckage rider. So those tail gunners who are in the tail sections of planes, they are wreckage riders. And then- Would Juliana be one?
00:53:58
Speaker
because she was in her seat? I would i would count that yes as a refuge rider. Now, being in a seat isn't quite like being in the entire tail section of a plane, but still she was attached to it and it it did help some. And then there are um what I would call unlucky skydivers.
00:54:14
Speaker
So people who had parachutes, but they failed for one reason or another. And in that category, I split that out separately. They're the military folks. And then there's civilian ones. Now, if you're doing a civilian skydive, you got up in that plane and you jumped out of that plane because you wanted to jump out of that plane. If you're in the military, you're in an aircraft or whatever, and you're jumping not because you want to, but because you have to. So I think those people deserve a little bit more credit. And I take points off for the the unlucky skydivers. Because they're doing it recreationally. And yeah and then there' there's a handful of people who fell off of buildings um or jump. So what is the base where you say like you take points away? Where do they start? 100 points. OK. So 100 points would be the top score, but nobody's ever gotten that. So I would i would say I think Vesna Vulevic is at 93.
00:55:13
Speaker
because she gets points off for being a wreckage rider, but no no, nothing off for altitude. And then I gave her a bonus point because there's actually a BNB that's named after her in the town where the plane came down. I thought that was worth a point. it is but but this worth the point I was looking at your book and I noticed that, let's see, I think that it has to be what, above 30,000 feet, right? To get... To have no point. I do have a minimum. The minimum may be what you're thinking of. And so, um yeah, minimum. And then this guy, ah Nicholas, because it was
00:55:54
Speaker
like 18,000 feet he didn't get like the full amount of points but 18,000 feet sounds like a lot of ah feet to me so I guess how but I'm not understanding where you came up with that because What do you mean? 30,000 feet is more than 18,000 feet. But 18,000 feet is a lot of feet. Well, keep in mind that you don't actually accelerate any faster after 2,000 feet. So he could have fallen from 2,000 feet and still be going the same speed. Now, I'm not sure that's a great argument for the point perspective. But anyway, it's it's my book. It's my skill.
00:56:33
Speaker
but it's That's the best reason. yeah Yeah. That is, period. Yeah, well, yeah. I have heard of Juliana um i on a podcast. And I can't remember which one, one of the many you know true crime where it's not necessarily always crime, but um some you know amazing thing happened. So I had heard of that one and thought it was absolutely fascinating. And I also love and got Charlie and Stephanie into watching the show called Alone. I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
00:57:06
Speaker
I only think of it because it makes Nicholas, you know, well, or Juliana being kind of left out in the wilderness. And so it's survivalists who are dropped in Patagonia or in the Arctic Circle or wherever, and they are alone and they're recording themselves, you know, and there are predators and things like that. And so then it's kind of like, oh my gosh, how do I survive? So there's something fascinating about that need to so survive, you know, even like you said, when we're on our comfortable couch watching it, it's like, oh, they're so cold and hungry, you know, if i eating need my popcorn like most me appreciate my life. But then also like, you never know what you're going to, what kind of person you're going to be if dropped in that situation until it actually totally, well, one of the the more famous sort of survivalist
00:57:56
Speaker
ah rugged mountain outdoorsy kind of people's bear grills. so yeah else Well, he survived a ah in the military, he survived the long fall with a failed parachute. So he would be a military unlucky skydiver. And he sustained significant injuries after that. But he he had won it all along to climb Mount Everest. And as sort of the the goal point for his recovery, he said, I'm going to be the youngest person to climb Mount Everest. And I'm not sure whether he still is, but I think at the time he was. And of course, he sort of built a career around this toughness, this you know outdoorsy kind of stuff. But yeah he's you know he's a long, false survivor. I did not know that. Yeah. um In terms of assignments, can I give myself an assignment then? Oh, please.
00:58:49
Speaker
I'm gonna look for that, was it Wings of Hope movie? That sounds right up my alley, I don't know. I have it on CD if you wanna come visit. Okay. Or I could send it to you. Okay, in several months then. well You could probably find it. I don't know if it streams anywhere.
Podcast Wrap Up
00:59:04
Speaker
It may be that it does. But yeah, Wings of Hope, I would also recommend the documentary, Touching the Void. That's the one about the mountain climber guy. yeah And you said that's on Netflix, right?
00:59:16
Speaker
Yes, well, no, hold on, I'm sorry. I think that's that's on on Max right now. ah The net, what you can watch on Netflix is me on the unexpected. Yes, on William Shatner. Season four, episode 11. For those of you taking notes. Okay. Got kicked out of Netflix. Well, you know, yeah they made it so you don't have to get your own account, so. I will, that will be my assignment for myself, yes, to watch season four, episode 11, as well as getting your book.
00:59:46
Speaker
Very good. Well, it's ah if if you go to my website, greenharbor dot.com, you can be directed straight on to lulu dot.com, okay which is an on-demand print kind of site that you essentially upload your files and they print the book for you as they are ordered. I have now sold more than 100 copies of this book, which was my goal for this year. Excellent.
01:00:11
Speaker
it is you know It is published by Green Harbor Publications, which is a specialty publisher dedicated to publishing the work of Jim Hamilton and his friends. Actually, you may not know this, but Charlotte and I published a book, which is also available through lulu dot.com if you want. No, I didn't know this. It's called The Haiku Year. We spent a year corresponding in haiku form.
01:00:36
Speaker
Oh my God, that's lovely. it's it's item it's I highly recommend it. That is lovely. And wait, so how did you guys, was it through text messages or like physically wrote these things? Or how did you send them to each other? It was by email. so Email. Yes, of course. days of email And it got started because, well, Charlotte sent me a Christmas present of a haiku book where someone initially decided that they wanted to write at least one haiku a day. So that book was like a haiku a day. Okay.
01:01:09
Speaker
But I was not particularly happy with that book so I annotated it and I sent it back to Charlotte, because, you know, the the haiku form should be 575. Yeah, according to some people.
01:01:22
Speaker
um also with a nature theme. We didn't really do the nature theme thing here, but we yeah we we stuck to it. And it's just interesting as a time capsule of that period of time in our lives. Yeah. Cause then you're, it's not just like, Oh, here's a haiku, but it's communicating to each other. So trying to share something. Yeah. Like what's, what's going on. And just, um, and I think it's funny at times. and Oh, I'm sure.
01:01:53
Speaker
That's really cool. I never knew that. Writers, we've got writers in that room. We're about to be kicked out. Oh, yes, we are. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us. And I will be honest, I never quite understood your ah interest in this area. But now, like, I get it.
01:02:16
Speaker
and that it makes more sense to me, although I am gonna you know immerse myself in those things we talked about over the next week or so, and so that I'm sure I'll get it more. But yeah, thank you for explaining. Well, thank you for having me. It was a delight. Yeah, what a great interest to to share with us.
01:02:34
Speaker
Very unique. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Please subscribe, comment, and like the podcast. Follow us on Blue Sky Social at Can We Interest You In, send us an email at canweinterestyouin at gmail dot.com, and join us next time.