TOP 5 Bingeable • People Went Anyway...They'll Never Learn

today we have a special bonus video for you guys It's a collection of five fan favorite episodes that are all about places you can't go and people who went there anyways They have all been totally remastered So even if you have seen or heard any of these stories before this will be like a brand new viewing experience But before we get into those five stories if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once a week

So if that's of interest to you please secretly paint over the like buttons iPhone camera with see-through paint so their Face ID never works Also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads Okay let's get into today's stories [Music] [Music] Sevnikica is a gorgeous town right in the heart of Slovenia situated right along the Sava River which is one of the longest rivers in Europe The section of the Saba that flows past Sevnikica was a popular destination for kayakers and canoists up until 2008 when

a hydroelect electric dam was built across it creating a sort of dead end for anyone trying to go through that section of the river They would have to stop at the dam get out walk around and then pick up the river on the other side or that would mark the end of their trip that day In 2008 while this dam was still under construction the mayor of Sepnika who was in favor of the construction of this dam he understood that this was kind of a bummer for the people in town While the dam itself was

going to provide more electricity for the town it did kind of end an era And so he decided he would organize a final trip down the Sava River past the dam while they could still go right past it And he was calling this trip the final descent And so he went all around town asking people if they wanted to come and he finally recruited 27 other people to come with him on this final trip And so a few weeks later on July 3rd after all preparations were made the mayor and the rest of his crew

they made their way upstream to this loading area where four canoes have been set out for them And the staff people that had actually provided these canoes they offered the group life jackets And virtually everyone in the group turned it down It's unclear why they turned down the life jackets but one could guess that you know the river itself was incredibly calm and they were not expecting to be on the water for very long And so they just decided they didn't need one And so after all 28 people got into their canoes seven people per

canoe they pushed off the shore and they began their slow trip down the river And the mayor had actually hired a photographer to come along with them to document their journey So as soon as they take off the photographer is looking around taking pictures and filming The weather was beautiful and the water was calm and everything was just going really really well But about 15 or 20 minutes into their journey they turned this corner and they got a clear view of the dam which was about 1,000 ft away from them at the time Now the

dam was not done yet but it was pretty close to being done And so the actual structure of the dam it was built And so even from 1,000 ft away it was very obvious to tell that up ahead there's these big cement archways where the water flows down over this dam And the whole group pretty much immediately saw they had a problem The plan according to the mayor had been they would get to this dam but on the left side of the dam there was going to be a strip of waterway that had not been

blocked off yet Because when this dam was complete it would completely obstruct the river side to side But because it wasn't actually done yet the construction crew had told the mayor that "Yep the left side there's going to be an area where you can basically just casually go right past You won't go down the dam It's totally safe." But here this group is on the water looking at the dam And even from 1,000 ft away it was obvious there was no sideway to get around the dam You clearly had to go through the dam or

you had to get out and go around the dam Now the river was moving very very slowly there wasn't a strong current and so there wasn't some urgent decision that needed to be made about what they were going to do The group intuitively knew that the right choice here is to you know go to the side get out of your canoes and either go around or just end the trip right there But the mayor and a few of the other people in the other canoes got the idea that hey why don't we just go over

the dam i know we're not supposed to and the construction crew explicitly said don't go over the dam It's extremely dangerous But from the looks of it it doesn't look that bad And truthfully it did not look too bad This was not some enormous dam with some huge drop off It was actually a pretty small dam where the water kind of went down this fairly small embankment that was maybe 10 or 15 ft long And at the bottom of this embankment was some semi-rough water But overall it just looked like it might be kind of

fun to go down this dam like you'd be going down a slide with your canoe And so the mayor was really keen on doing this He made it seem like it was going to be fun it was going to be an adventure So before long three of the four canoes were fully on board with the idea of just going over the dam The fourth canoe that was not prepared to go over the dam had the photographer in it And they said you know we're not comfortable with this but we'll pull up next to the dam

and we'll just film you guys going over the dam It'll be really cool And so after making their plans about who was going to do what the four canoes continued down the river And when they got about maybe one or 200 feet away from the entrance to this dam the fourth canoe with the photographer pulled off on the left side of the river They got out and the photographer lifted up his camera and he began filming the other three canoes as they made their approach into the dam Now the video from this photographer that was

released to the public it shows the first of these three canoes actually going into the dam And you see these seven people on this canoe They're kind of happy and excited looking They have nervous anticipation like they're about to start a roller coaster or something and they're making their way into this dark section inside of the dam They're basically going through the gates of the dam where they're going to go down this embankment And as they go into the darkness as you begin to lose sight of them you see the back end of the canoe

suddenly pops up because now they're going down the actual dam itself They start sliding down and then you hear someone in the canoe start to scream and then it goes completely silent and then the video just ends That canoe right after it slid down that downs slope it would reach the waters below but the canoe would capsize throwing everyone on board into the water And these seven people they didn't even have a chance to catch their breath before they were sucked under Not only because the water was rough at the bottom of the dam and

kind of was churning and pulling them under but also because this is a hydroelectric dam And at the bottom of the dam underneath the water where they were were all these big openings to underwater tunnels and these tunnels functioned like vacuums It pulled water down inside and then ran the water past a turbine causing it to spin and that would generate the electricity That's what the dam actually did And so after the water was pushed past this turbine it would be jettisoned out somewhere else downstream Now even though this dam was not fully operational yet

these tunnels and the turbines at the bottom of them they were operational So as these seven people are dumped into these incredibly dangerous waters and they're getting pulled down towards these tunnels the other two canoes they have no idea what's going on with this first canoe And so they just continue on and they go over the dam The second canoe that went down the dam they also capsized at the bottom All seven occupants were thrown out and they were sucked down underwater almost immediately The third canoe that went over the dam they did not capsize

And so after they cleared the dam and kind of paddled away they began looking around for the other two canoes that should have already been down there And there was nobody out in front of them And so they turned around thinking maybe they're closer to the dam And they don't see anyone But they see one of the canoes is completely flipped over and the other canoe has been broken apart in the churning waters right at the base of the dam And they see the wood from this canoe just getting tumbled around And so this third

canoe immediately turns and tries to paddle over to the base of this dam to try to start pulling people out of the water But when they get over there there's no one there The 14 people that had been in these two canoes they're gone Ultimately 13 of the 14 people that fell in the water that day would perish And one of the fatalities was the mayor The only person who survived who fell in the water was actually the mayor's wife who by some miracle managed to swim out of the grasp of these tunnels under the

water and made it to shore Over the next several days and weeks police divers were able to eventually find all 13 bodies one of which had traveled 25 mi away to Croatia No information was given about the state of the bodies when they were found And so we don't know if having been sucked down through these tunnels and forced past these underwater turbines played a role in their death All the public knows is that all or most of these 13 people were sucked down into these tunnels and then they died I have a major announcement

Ballin Studios the home of the Strange Dark and Mysterious has launched another brand new show It's called Late Nights with Nexo It is totally free It's a podcast and it's hosted by none other than Nexo who you might already know from YouTube who's been around for many years He's got millions of subscribers on YouTube He's got this incredible immersive storytelling style So if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious I know you're going to like Late Nights with Nexo And the stories the mysteries the kind of bone chilling crazy stuff he's going to

cover on this podcast will be exclusive to the podcast So you can't get these stories on his YouTube channel You can only get them on this Ballin Studios production Okay so it's called Late Nights with Nexo It comes out every Wednesday And at the end of today's YouTube video we're going to play you a sneak peek of the first episode But beyond that after this YouTube video is over you can just look up Late Nights with Nexo on any podcast platform and you can listen today to the first two episodes because they're live right now

So again if you are a fan of the content you already get on this YouTube channel The Strange Dark and Mysterious you're going to love Late Nights with Nexo It's a free show out of Ballin Studios every Wednesday Enjoy [Music] In the early 1980s John Harter was the classic athletic popular kid at his high school in Delaware Ohio which is a relatively small town just outside of the state's capital But unlike most stereotypes that paint high school jocks as being these total jerks that bully people and they're kind of stupid Jon was none of those

things He was incredibly friendly and very warm-hearted and seemed to get along with everyone John also was known for having a great sense of humor In particular he liked to play these kind of harmless pranks that would make people smile like the time he very enthusiastically joined the cheerleaders during a high school pep rally despite not actually being a cheerleader himself John was set to graduate from high school on June 5th 1983 And his plan was to study accounting at Kent State University the following year A few weeks before his graduation John's High School began

selling these tickets to a grad night at a huge amusement park called Kings Island Kings Island was located about 2 hours west of John's High School and it was home to dozens of roller coasters water slides and many other attractions During their so-called grad nights this amusement park would shut down their public operations and not let anybody into the park that did not have these special student tickets that they gave to local area high schools John who was 17 years old at the time was very excited at the idea of going to this grad night

And so he went and purchased tickets along with about 20 other students from his high school At about 3:30 p.m on Friday May 13th John and the other students who had bought grad night tickets met up outside of their high school While this was a school sponsored trip these students were responsible for driving themselves to the park And so after all the students were accounted for they all piled into a couple of their cars and they began their journey to the park After a few stops along the way to get food and go to the

bathroom the students finally arrived at the park at about 7 p.m And on the drive John who had been a passenger had drank half a bottle of rum and about 3 to six beers And so when he got out he could barely stand He was so drunk And so the students made their way over to the front gate They showed the attendant their grad night ticket and they were allowed inside And surprisingly despite it being this special night where only people with these tickets were allowed in it was still pretty crowded There were lots of

students that apparently wanted to come to this event Once John and the rest of the students from the Delaware high school had come inside the park there was no rule that they had to stick together for the duration of their time there And so they all kind of broke into their separate groups and went their separate ways In John's particular group was his girlfriend Pam And for the first hour they were in the park together all they did was bicker and fight Onlookers would say Jon looked visibly upset and very emotional and very drunk By

8:30 p.m when Jon's group had gotten in line for this roller coaster Jon was now openly saying "I don't want to be here anymore I just want to go home." It was pretty obvious he was still just mad at Pam And that's why he was saying all this was just trying to make Pam feel bad And so some of the group members told Jon just "Hey man calm down You're overreacting Just try to enjoy this ride and then afterwards we'll get some food It'll be fine." But it was pretty clear that Jon was really worked

up and seemed incapable of having a good time at this point But regardless John and the rest of the group they got on this ride at about 900 p.m And then after the ride was over they disembarked and they walked away from the ride to regroup and figure out what was next And they're looking around and John is nowhere to be found And so after waiting for a few minutes and actually walking around looking for him they decided that you know what he was really upset before he got on this ride He probably just wanted

to walk away and be by himself for a bit I'm sure we'll see him later in the night So John's group without Jon just continued going around the park going on different rides And for the next few hours they kind of forgot about Jon It wasn't until the end of the night when over the loudspeaker the park officials said "Okay we're closing the park now." That they started walking out and wondering where Jon was And they were convinced you know what i'm sure he's back at the cars He's probably waiting for us cuz he just

wants to go home So they leave the park They get out to their cars in the lot and Jon's not there And so at this point the group's starting to get a little bit concerned because no one knows where he is They're meeting up with the other groups from their high school No one's seen Jon And so they're all just kind of staring at the front gate waiting for Jon to come out but he doesn't And then eventually the lights in the park start shutting down And the security guard comes out front and locks the

front gate And that's when the group knew they had a problem After an extensive investigation by police this is their best guess as to what happened to Jon After Jon and his small group rode that roller coaster around 9:00 p.m Jon very quickly disembarked the ride before anybody else in his group could see him And then Jon stumbled his way towards the replica Eiffel Tower that this park was famous for This tower stood at about 300 ft tall and was built to be an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris France But this one

at King's Island was only a third the size It had three elevators that went up the center of the structure and the elevators would stop at a 50-ft platform and a 275 ft platform where guests could look out and have a great view of the park While today the only way to access these two viewing platforms is through these elevators at the time John was at the park in 1983 the park actually had a flight of stairs that went from the ground all the way to the very top of the tower that went right up

the middle of the structure And the public was allowed to take these stairs all the way up to the first platform that 50- foot platform And while the stairs did actually continue beyond that up to the 275 foot platform the public was not allowed to go any higher on the stairs than that first platform And so if you took these stairs once you got to the 50ft platform there would be a big fence right on the stairwell preventing you from going any farther And it says authorized personnel only Don't go any farther And so the

only people that would walk up those additional flights of stairs were staff that had a special key When Jon stumbled his way over to the base of this replica tower he did not get on an elevator Instead he took the stairs So he made his way up to the 50-ft platform And then when he got to this 6-ft tall gate preventing him from going any farther he just climbed up and over it and continued walking up the stairs And nobody stopped him He finally came to a stop just below the 275 ft mark And so

he's on the stairwell And at this point he turns and faces the inside of the tower It's all these metal beams all over the place And he climbs over the railing of the stairs he's on And he climbs onto this narrow beam that's actually a part of the support structure of this tower And he grabs onto the beam above him and just begins walking along this beam towards the center of the tower where the three elevator shafts are Now there's no safety net on either side of Jon So if he slips and falls he's falling

hundreds of feet to the ground And if he keeps walking and actually gets into the elevator shaft there's nothing protecting him from being struck by one of the elevators because the people who built this tower were not thinking about people walking on these exposed beams hundreds of feet up into the air This is a totally dangerous and unauthorized area But Jon just continues shimmying across this beam until he does get to the middle of the tower And now he's literally standing looking down into the elevator shafts And as he's most likely looking around admiring where

he was one of the elevator cars below him began to start moving To understand what happens next you need to have a rudimentary understanding of how this elevator worked A large metal rope was attached to the top of the elevator car And from there it was thread up the elevator shaft all the way to the top where it was fed through a pulley that was anchored to the ceiling And then that rope was fed right back down the shaft to the bottom where it was attached to a counterwe A counterwe is just a large heavy

weight that's designed to balance this elevator car on this pulley system Without the weight the elevator car would just slip off of that pulley And so anytime the elevator car moved up the counterwe would move down and vice versa making sure that car was always balanced And so Jon is standing right on the edge of this elevator shaft presumably just kind of looking around admiring where he was when down below him that elevator car starts to move and it starts to actually descend away from Jon And so the car itself is not necessarily a threat

to Jon However its counterwe is because if the car is going down its counterwe is going up and it's right in the path of Jon And so as Jon is leaning out over the shaft looking around this counterweight comes screaming up and picks him off of the beam he's on and carries him up into the shaft The impact on Jon was so strong that it's believed he was actually impaled on some of the exposed metal wiring on top of this counterwe and he got totally tangled up in all of the cables on top of there

And so as Jon is desperately trying to free himself the elevator operator there was always a staff member inside of these elevator cars he actually noticed when Jon got stuck on the counterweight But of course this worker would have no idea that's what it was They would later recall it just felt like the car suddenly jumped And so this worker fearing that something had gone wrong with the elevator car itself he decided he would ride it all the way to the bottom let everybody get out and then ride back up to the top totally empty

to make sure that the car actually worked before allowing people back on And so the worker went to the ground everybody got out he closed the doors he began his ascent He got to that first platform at 50 ft no issues He got about 10 ft above that first platform so at about 60 ft When all of the sudden he hears an unbelievably loud thud on the roof of his elevator car causing his car to immediately come to a stop And then blood began pouring over the sides of the car over the windows After getting

stuck on the counterwe John probably did everything he could to try to free himself but he just couldn't do it However when that elevator worker decided to go back up again to test the capacity of the elevator car it reversed the direction of the counterwe that Jon was stuck on And so as that car was going up Jon began going down And it was on this descent that parts of Jon's body must have been dangling off of this counterwe And they must have struck one of the beams as he was going down And that beam

effectively pried him off of whatever he was stuck on and threw him over the edge into the center of the shaft And so John would fall 200 feet and he would land on top of that elevator car dying instantly The park was very quick to block off the ride and the whole scene and got police involved very quickly So only a very small number of guests and employees were aware an accident had even happened and very few of them were aware that it had been a fatal accident As for the police they knew they had

a dead body but they had no way to identify the body There was no ID cards on Jon and so they had no way to let his friends know that were in the park or to tell his family And so it wasn't until that night when John's friends are out in the parking lot waiting for Jon to come out again that they got really worried and they went up and spoke to a security guard at the front of the park And that security guard after hearing their story would tell them that actually there had been

an accident in the park and there was a body and the police are still trying to identify this body and so maybe you guys want to go over to the hospital and see if it's your friend So sure enough the friends went to the hospital and they would confirm that the body was John Harter To this day no one knows for sure why Jon did what he did Some say he was just drunk and it was a dumb decision that led to his death Others say he was suicidal but many of the people that were

close to him say "No way he was not suicidal." And other people say you know Jon he loved attention And so perhaps this was a dangerous stunt gone too far But regardless of his reasons Jon had clearly intentionally entered an area that was off limits and it got him killed [Music] In the spring of 2017 Antonio Navaret was on top of the world Just a year earlier the 21-year-old Florida resident had met the love of his life a young woman named Daisy Martinez And now Daisy was pregnant And so she and Antonio were very excited

about starting a family together For the time being Antonio and Daisy were living with Antonio's parents in his hometown of Wama which is a quiet rural suburb just south of Tampa But Antonio had a bright future ahead of him Ever since he had graduated high school he knew what he wanted to do with his life He wanted to be an auto mechanic and he had the skills to do it From the time he was a toddler he had always been obsessed with cars breaking apart his toy cars and putting them back together And then as

he got a little bit older he began drawing these very intricate drawings of cars that he loved or designs for new cars And then when he was a teenager he began actually tinkering around with real cars until he finally acquired a car of his own It was a white Chevy low rider pickup truck that he tricked out with all these fancy lights and special rims and this huge sound system that took up most of his back seat It was thanks in part to this truck which he nicknamed Casper that Antonio who was too shy to

be much of a ladies man met up with Daisy in the first place Antonio had driven Casper to a local car meetup for other car enthusiasts where you could basically park your vehicle and you could walk around and see what other people did to upgrade or enhance their vehicles And so while Antonio was there he was walking around when he saw on the far side of this meetup there was this unbelievably beautiful young woman And he found himself just staring at her He couldn't help it And this young woman who was Daisy she eventually would

look up and she would smile at him And the rest as they say was history 6 months later not long after Daisy had moved in with Antonio at his parents house and the couple had announced to their delighted families that they were going to have a baby Antonio got yet another good piece of news He'd landed a good job with a company that did maintenance work for Tampa Electric Company's Big Bend Power Plant which was located in Apollo Florida which was about 10 miles to the east of Antonio's parents' home Now this was not Antonio's

dream job He still very much wanted to eventually become an auto mechanic But this job paid 12 bucks an hour nearly double what he was used to making And so with this job he and Daisy would finally be able to raise enough money to get a place of their own hopefully before the baby arrived that fall Also Antonio had been told by other people who worked at this company that this was actually a really easy job That pretty much you just rolled around on golf carts all day picking up trash It was perfect A few

weeks later on June 24th Antonio found himself driving in his truck to the Big Ben power plant for his first day on the job As he drove he would have glanced over at the picture of Daisy he had taped to his dashboard She was the only woman he had ever loved besides his mother When Antonio arrived at the Big Bend power plant he was totally amazed at just how enormous this thing was It was basically this huge factory that sat right up against the water and there were four huge smoke stacks coming out of the

ceiling of this factory with white smoke billowing out of them This plant produced electricity and they did this by burning coal This process was done in four distinct units that were inside of this factory that Antonio was looking at And each of these units is comprised of a humongous boiler which is basically a 12story tall oven And so coal is loaded into this huge boiler and it burns at the bottom of the boiler creating some steam And that steam goes up the boiler and begins to turn these huge turbines creating the electricity And then the

steam just continues up the boiler and then out its respective smoke stack into the air In newer units the airborne ash which is a natural byproduct of burning coal is captured inside of the boiler But at Big Bend three of their four units were built in the 1970s so they were older models and they did not capture the airborne ash inside the boilers Instead the ash would get heated up so much that it would melt and turn into a substance called slag which basically is molten lava like the stuff that comes out of volcanoes That's

what slag is And so as this slag kind of builds up inside of the boiler it would go through this man-sized hole at the very bottom of the boiler And right below that hole is this 30ft tall water tank called a cooling tank And this red hot slag it basically dumps down into that water which cools it off turning it into these kind of glassy rocks And then they settle at the bottom of this 30foot cooling tank And at the bottom of the cooling tank is this grinding mechanism that pulls these hardened cooled off little

boulders of slag into it and it crushes them up and spits them out on the other side as little tiny bits of slag chips And then these chips get sold for use in everything from sandpaper to roofing shingles So after Antonio had spent several minutes just admiring this gargantuan building he would be working in he gathered up his things He hopped out of his truck and he headed toward the front doors That day and the next couple of days were very uneventful for Antonio He basically just sat in a breakroom and watched videos about safety

and training And then when he wasn't doing that he was out trying to navigate around the inside of this huge factory which was basically this huge maze And he found very quickly that it was a very hazardous place to work as there were huge trucks moving around inside of it It was super loud and there was just heavy machinery operating constantly all around you But after several days of just kind of walking around and asking people what things were Antonio felt like he had a pretty good handle on the layout and also on what his

job would entail On Thursday June 29th so just 4 days into doing this new job Antonio woke up in his parents house in a really good mood because the next day that Friday Daisy was going in for an ultrasound and they were going to find out whether their baby was a boy or a girl and he was very excited about this And so Antonio came downstairs He grabbed a quick bite to eat and then he kissed Daisy on the cheek and he headed outside into his truck and began the commute to work A few hours

later Antonio's mother was in the grocery store when she pulled her phone out of her purse and she noticed Antonio had called her and she missed it but he had left a voicemail And so she played the voicemail and then put the phone to her ear And what she heard was quite possibly the most traumatic thing a mother could ever hear from their child After leaving the house that morning Antonio drove all the way to work no problem He parked in the lot He went inside the building And initially the day was like any other

day He just kind of drove around the facility and picked up trash and that was it But just a couple of hours into his shift Two fairly significant issues arose simultaneously inside of unit 2 in the boiler the slag that was building up had somehow created a sort of plug over that man-sized hole where the slag was supposed to dump into the water chamber And so as more and more slag was being created as the ash melted it wasn't draining into that chamber And so all of this slag was just building up on top of

itself inside of the boiler And then in the water chamber completely unconnected from the issue in the boiler the slag that had fallen into the water chamber that had cooled and settled at the bottom it had landed in such a way that it actually blocked the grinding mechanism And so none of the cooled slag boulders and rocks were being ground up and expelled out the other side And so they needed to fix these two issues quickly otherwise unit 2 would become basically ineffective Now the safe way to fix these two blockages would be to start

by turning off unit 2's boiler And then once it was off you could drop dynamite into the boiler itself and break up the blockage over the man-sized hole and you could send a team into the water chamber after you drained it to chip away and move the blockage over the grinding mechanism However turning a boiler off at a power plant is extremely expensive And so the Tampa Electric Company decided you know what let's just have them fix these blockages without turning the boiler off And so at 4 in the afternoon a senior plant manager rounded

up five other employees which included Antonio to come with him and do these repairs inside of unit 2 And so the plan was to empty all the water from the cooling chamber of unit 2 And then once it was empty they would open something called the doghouse door which is on the outside of the cooling chamber towards the bottom They would open that up giving them a line of sight into the bottom of this cooling chamber where that grinding mechanism was where all those slag rocks had kind of come to a stop on top of

it And they would fire water cannons into the bottom of this cooling chamber to attempt to dislodge these slag rocks off of the grinding mechanism And then after they cleared that blockage they would shut the doghouse door and they would somehow deal with the blockage inside of the boiler But that felt like a secondary issue They needed to make sure the grinding mechanism was cleared before they did anything else Now you need to understand that this company had asked their employees to do this type of repair before to do it with the boiler still on

And in the past nothing bad had ever happened And so these six guys including Antonio must have thought this was just totally routine that we would never be asked to do something like this if it was extremely hazardous But it would turn out what they were doing making these repairs with the boiler still on was quite possibly the most hazardous thing they could possibly do at this plant But either way the six-man team made their way over to unit 2 and they began taking up positions with their water cannons right in front of the doghouse

door Antonio's job for this operation was actually not to be involved in getting the slag free He was just going to be there to clean up during and after the operation And so he stood kind of in front of the doghouse door but maybe 10 or 15 ft back just kind of standing back watching the other guys do their jobs Now you need to understand the scale of the machinery in front of Antonio and these other men You have the water chamber which is 30 feet tall And then above the water chamber is the 12story

tall boiler that is still on So there's coal actively burning inside of it There's red hot slag So like lava just kind of tumbling around inside of it And the steam inside of this boiler is well over a,000° F And so they are dwarfed by this totally dangerous piece of machinery But eventually their operation begins The senior plant manager has the water chamber drained And then after it's empty they open the doghouse door and Antonio watched as the other five men took turns with their water cannons firing them through the store at the big slag

rocks that are sitting on top of the grinding mechanism And it wasn't really working that well but they were starting to make some progress And Antonio likely was just kind of getting bored waiting for this to be over because there really wasn't much for him to do There wasn't much cleanup And then as he's standing there something horrible happened Because the boiler had been left on all that ash was still getting melted and turned into slag And the slag was not being drained because that plug had formed over the man-sized hole in the boiler And

so you have all this slag that's building up building up It's getting heavier and heavier and heavier And about 20 minutes into their cleanup operation the weight of all that slag broke through that plug immediately creating an opening where all this red hot slag this lava came tumbling down It rebounded on the back end of the empty water tank and shot out of the doghouse door like a tidal wave of hellfire And in seconds thousands of gallons of this lavalike substance was all over all six men And it was like a wave going over them

And then after the slag hits the ground they were all standing in 6 in of basically lava that stretched in 40 ft in any direction Now unlike trying to run in let's say mud or deep water where you're just kind of moving slowly every step you take in this slag basically your foot melts into the slag So with every step your shoe melts then your skin melts then your bones melt into this substance And so all these men after immediately being hit with this stuff and catching on fire literally they likely tried to start running

but it was like their bodies were slowly consumed by this slag feet first And so Antonio tried to run like the rest of them but he couldn't go anywhere and he fell onto the slag So he's laying on his side And as he's melting and burning to death he reaches into his pants pocket with his free hand and he pulls his phone out and he calls his mother She doesn't pick up and so he leaves her a voicemail and all he says is "Mom mom I'm burning Please call the cops Please mom." And in the

background of this voicemail all you hear is the hissing sound of the steam and slag pouring out of the boiler In total five of the six men that were a part of this repair operation would be killed from this tidal wave of slag Antonio would be one of them Tampa Electric would end up paying out a settlement to each of the families of the [Music] deceased Something most people don't know is you can't just put scuba tanks on and then dive down to any depth and come right back up again The compressed air inside of

those scuba tanks would be a mixture of oxygen as well as most likely helium and nitrogen And when you're breathing that compressed air the oxygen would get breathed up and then not linger inside of your body But the other inert gases the helium and the nitrogen they would be breathed up and then absorbed into your bloodstream and they would stay there until you resurfaced Now it's completely harmless as long as you understand how it works getting those gases out of your body In a nutshell as you ascend these inner gases will leave your body on

their own but it's a gradual process If you rocket to the surface before this takes place these inner gases will not leave your body and they'll expand inside of you and your body will become the equivalent of a shaken up soda can And so at best having all these bubbles inside of you is very painful At worst it's lethal The term for this condition is decompression sickness but it's better known as the bends The way divers protect themselves from getting the bends is on their ascent they do what's called a decompression stop This is something

that is planned into the dive where they stop at a certain depth for a certain amount of time and that guarantees the inner gases have diffused out of their body before they reach the surface Now the deeper you go the more decompression stops you'll have to do and the longer they will take For example ascending from 2,000 ft would take over 33 hours to do safely But luckily none of us are trying to dive down to 2,000 ft Well unless you're trying to be an oil and gas saturation diver Saturation divers or SAT divers do

construction and demolition at depths of up to 2,000 ft below the surface But they don't spend 33 hours ascending after every single dive Instead after their dives they're artificially kept at their working depth The way this works is the sat diver climbs inside of a pressure chamber on board a ship or on board an oil rig And this chamber also doubles as their living quarters There's beds and there's a bathroom but it's laughably small and uncomfortable It looks like a small submarine And once they go inside they seal the door and then they pressurize it

to match the depth that they're going to be working at at the bottom of the ocean And then also there's another pressure chamber called the dive bell that's connected directly onto the side of the chamber And that's also pressurized to match the working depth When it was time for the sat diver to go to work they would put their dive gear on inside of the chamber They would crawl directly into the dive bell They would shut the door behind them and seal it And then people outside of the dive bell would physically disconnect it from

the chamber And then using a crane they would place it in the water and then lower it down to their working depth And once they get down there because the pressure inside the bell is equal to the pressure outside the bell they can just slide open a door on the bottom and the water does not come inside And so the divers do slip through this hole and they do the work they need to do And when they're done they come back inside the dive bell They shut it up And then using the radio they communicate

with the people up on the boat or up on the rig and they raise the bell back up They reattach them to the chamber They go inside They take their stuff off There's bunk beds and there's a bathroom inside of the chamber and that's where they hang out until their next dive This process is repeated for days and days and days keeping them saturated with these gases And then at the end of their shift which is usually about a month long they will have one long decompression they do inside of the chamber While this system

is highly efficient it does not change the fact that saturation diving is extremely dangerous and terrifying The sun doesn't reach below 700 ft So most of the time these divers are in complete and total darkness and it's unbelievably cold down there and so their suits have hot water pumped into them through a tether that's connected to the dive bell But if that were to fail hypothermia would kick in almost immediately They have flashlights but the water is so full of sediment around the areas that they work that shining the light is basically like shining it

into fog You can't really see very far besides right in front of your face Sat divers also report that sometimes the water around them will suddenly move violently and they'll look around but their crummy light and lack of visibility means they can't see what it was but they know it's a large animal that's checking them out Other times these fairly large fish will swim right up to them and come right under their light It's almost like they're being affectionate with the diver but they're not being affectionate They're trying to hide behind the sat diver from

some large predator that's out there watching them Experienced sat divers have learned to just accept their harsh environment down there and don't easily get scared But there is one thing that all sat divers are afraid of and that is a lost bell When sat divers are down at their working depth the dive bell that's brought them down there is usually situated right next to them just kind of floating in the water And this dive bell is connected to the ship or the oil rig above by a cable And if that cable were to snap the

dive bell would fall to the bottom and it would take with it the divers because they're always tethered to the dive bell If the divers survived the crash to the ocean floor they would then just be trapped and have to hope that someone comes down to get them at some point before they run out of air or they succumb to hypothermia While a lost bell scenario is incredibly rare it has happened before On August 7th 1979 Richard Walker was inside of a pressure chamber on board a ship in the North Sea He was a saturation

diver who for the past 10 days had been in saturation and honestly was just over it He wanted to go home to his wife and his 15-month-old daughter That evening before his scheduled dive he wrote in his journal "Dear God I just want to get out." Soon after writing this entry he and his partner Victor Gil put on their dive gear and hopped into the dive bell The bell was detached from the chamber and then brought over to the side of the ship And right before they lowered it into the water somebody noticed the location

transponder that basically beamed up where it was down below had become loose And so the decision was made to just remove it And so after they pulled it off they lowered the dive belt onto the water and then slowly lowered it down to their working depth which was 485 ft Once they got down there they opened up the hole at the bottom of the bell And then they began taking turns exiting the bell to go work on this underwater structure A few hours later at 2:45 in the morning Richard was the one outside of the

dive bell and he heard something behind him and he turned around and he saw the dive bell had slightly tilted on its side Right as he noticed this the radio in his helmet kicked on and told him he needed to go back inside the dive bell immediately and they were going to try to pull them back up And so Richard went inside the bell He closed the hole behind him and that he and Victor listened to the radio as they told them that the main cable holding the dive bell had slipped out Now this main

cable was not the only thing connecting the dive bell up to the ship There was also another clump of wires and tubes that was called the umbilical that ran all their power and hot water and their comms down to the dive bell But this umbilical was not meant to be loadbearing But as it stood with this main cable gone the umbilical was holding the dive belt from slipping to the bottom of the ocean And so the crew up on the ship decided their only choice was to use the umbilical to reel this dive belt back

in And so they began pulling them up by the umbilical and almost immediately it completely snapped and the dive bell fell to the bottom of the ocean about 50 ft below Now normally a dive bell would have what's called a clump weight hanging off the bottom of it And in an emergency you could detach this clump weight and the dive bell is buoyant enough it would go up to the surface But Richard and Victor's company had cut corners and not used a clump weight and instead attached weights directly to the dive bell which meant when

they hit the ocean floor the actual dive bell was sitting on the ocean floor where that hole they would normally escape from was pressed into the seabed So they could not get out of their dive bell Whereas if there had been a clump weight the clump weight would have hit the ground and the dive bell would have hovered slightly over it And so worst case scenario they could have gotten out and done a wet transfer into another dive bell So with the umbilical cut they had no radio communication They had no heat They had no

light And they had very little remaining oxygen And so all they could do was just sit in darkness and hope somebody rescues them Less than 30 minutes later another dive ship arrived and offered to help Now they were not expecting to dive that night So it took about 3 hours before they actually had their rescue divers in the water And unfortunately because the location transponder had been removed from the dive bell before Richard and Victor went under it made it almost impossible for these rescue divers to find it But after an hour of looking around

they finally found it It was 7:00 a.m and they went right down to the port hole and they shined a light inside of the dive bell and inside Richard and Victor are given the thumbs up like "Hey we're okay We're just ready to get rescued." The fact that Richard and Victor were okay was communicated back up to the surface and everybody on top was so excited so relieved And in fact they called Richard's wife and they told her that "Hey there's been an accident but your husband's just fine He'll be out very soon." But despite

these rescue divers locating the dive bell because the ship up above that they were attached to kept moving around it was proving to be extremely difficult for them to stay over the dive bell And so for the next 2 hours these rescue divers desperately tried to thread a new wire through the top of the dive bell but it was going so poorly and they kept going around and shining their light into the port hole to check on Richard and Victor And it was very clear that their situation was getting worse and worse by the second

They were not giving thumbs up and smiling They looked panicked and desperate and they had been without heat now for hours and it was obvious they were running out of oxygen Finally at 9:00 a.m so 6 hours after Richard and Victor had first hit the seafloor the rescue divers managed to get a new cable through the top of the dive bell And before they signaled to have it brought back up again they shined a light through the port hole to check on them one more time And they saw that Richard and Victor were just sitting

there with their head in their hands They were clearly still alive and lucid But it was like they understood they have very little time left And if this doesn't work they're doomed At this point the rescue divers called up and said it was ready They got pulled up to the surface And then the ship began pulling up the dive belt And almost immediately the cable snapped And everybody up on the surface knew that at this point it was almost impossible for them to survive But nonetheless rescue divers went down And it took a while to

find the dive belt cuz it had moved But when they did they shine the light through the port hole and Richard and Victor were still very much alive But they were not looking to interact with the divers at the window anymore They were just sitting there looking down They were despondent It was like they were making peace with what they understood was going to happen They were not going to get out of there And over the course of the next several hours as these rescue divers tried desperately to get a new cable through the top

of the dive bell they kept checking on Richard and Victor And each time they checked they would slouch lower and lower in their seats until both of them were laying on their side And then finally the rescue divers got a cable through the top And then afterwards they went back up to the ship And then the ship was able this time to pull the dive bell up and back on board But when they opened the door both Richard and Victor had passed [Music] away At 7:20 p.m on Friday January 12th 2007 19-year-old college freshman Wade

Steffy walked into Ford Dining Hall which is one of five dining halls on Purdue University's campus Purdue is a prestigious American university located in Indiana that is known for its excellent athletics and academics Wade who was an aviation technology student and was at Purdue on a full academic scholarship grabbed some food and then sat down at a table with some friends This was the first Friday of the 2007 spring semester And so Wade and his friends at the table and the hundreds of other students that were sitting all around them were buzzing with excitement about

what they were up to that night and what they were up to that weekend And so Wade and his friends they sat there chatting about their plans for about an hour And then at around 8:20 p.m Wade realized he needed to leave And so he stood up He said goodbye to his friends He carried his tray to the trash can And then he made his way out of the doors he came in on And so once he was outside of the dining hall he immediately turned right and walked the very short distance to the building

that was right next to Ford dining hall And so that building was called Owen Hall and it was a dormatory Now this was not WDE's dormatory He actually lived in a different dorm called Kerry Quad West which was located on the other side of Ford Dining Hall And so Wade goes inside of Owen Hall because he has some friends in there and he makes his way to their room And when he goes inside he sees they're all kind of sitting around chatting and drinking some alcoholic drinks And so Wade sits down and he has a

couple of drinks and he just hangs out with his friends for about an hour And so around 9:30 p.m Wade and the other people he was with in this room they left Owen Hall and they walked the half mile away from campus to the west to this huge party at a fraternity And so Wade would stay at this fraternity for several hours until about midnight at which point he pulled one of his friends aside and he told them that he just remembered he had left his jacket inside of Owen Hall and so he wanted to

go back and retrieve it The dorms on Purdue's campus all lock at night and so the only way you can get inside is if you live there and so you have a key or if you know someone who lives there who will open the door for you And so during his walk back to Owen Hall Wade would make six phone calls in an attempt to get someone in Owen Hall to open the door for him But four of his phone calls would just be the wrong number And so the people that were picking up and

he was asking to open the door they didn't know what he was talking about out and so they hung up But he did call two people that did live inside of Owen Hall However they didn't answer their phones And so around 12:30 a.m Wade arrived at Owen Hall He put his phone back in his pocket and he just walked up to the doors which were locked and he just started knocking And eventually a resident of Owen Hall who didn't know Wade and Wade didn't know them they heard the knocking and they came out to the

door to see what was going on And they looked through the glass and they saw Wade And apparently they decided that Wade looked too intoxicated to let into the building And so they refused him entry And so Wade apparently stood there He kept knocking for a little bit but he eventually just kind of gave up He turned around and he walked away Fast forward a few days to Tuesday January 16th and WDE's roommate who had actually been gone all the past weekend he returned and the first thing he noticed when he got back to his

dorm was that Wade was not in the dorm And so he called and texted Wade but he didn't get a response And so the roommate went out around the floor that they lived on to ask people if they had seen Wade And no one had seen him since the previous Friday And so starting to get pretty concerned the roommate called WDE's family to see if maybe they knew what was going on with him but his family had no idea And so by the end of that day the police had been contacted about Wade potentially being

missing And they in turn contacted WDE's cell phone provider and they were able to determine that WDE's cell phone was still showing up somewhere on Purdue's campus although they couldn't figure out exactly where So that evening a massive campuswide search was launched with hundreds of police officers and volunteers Even the school's equestrian club came out with their horses to search the nearby woods But despite this huge search effort that would go on for several weeks the only thing they would find of WDs was one of his shoes It was found on January 20th so just

4 days into the search and it was located right outside of an exterior door that led into a maintenance room inside of Owen Hall But when they searched this maintenance room Wade wasn't in there Finally after nearly a month of searching when they still had not found Wade the official search was called off On March 19th roughly 2 months after Wade had been reported missing a maintenance worker was downstairs in the laundry room of Owen Hall when they heard a strange popping sound At first the worker thought it was actually coming from one of the

washers or dryers that was on And you know maybe there's a loose coin or some piece of metal that was inside of the washer or dryer that's getting banged around inside and that's making the sound And so this worker began walking around the laundry room kind of listening in to each of the washers and dryers that were on to see if they were making this sound And so as he's doing this he hears the popping sound again but it's clearly not coming from any of the washers and dryers In fact it's not even coming from

inside the laundry room It's coming from somewhere out in the hall Curious he leaves the laundry room and he goes out into the hall And as soon as he's standing in the hall he hears the popping sound again And this time it was obvious that it was coming from behind the closed door that was directly opposite the laundry room So the worker pulled out his big set of keys He opened the door that was directly in front of him and he stepped inside Moments later he would make a big discovery Based on that discovery and

the investigation that would follow it this is a reconstruction of what happened to Wade Steffy In the early morning hours of January 13th right after Wade had been denied entry into Owen Hall because the student who was in there who didn't know him thought he was too intoxicated Right after that happened Wade left the front doors and made his way around to the left side of the building to look for another way inside And when he got to the left side of the building he found another door Now even though this door did not have

a sign on it that said "Keep out." It was fairly obvious that this door was not designed for students to use There was a metal railing that lined the outside of the store clearly to prevent pedestrians from getting to the door And the door itself was actually not built at ground level It basically was built at basement level So you'd be standing at this railing looking down at the door and down in front of the door was a slab of cement right out in front of it that gave the door enough clearance to be able

to open And so basically there was a railing around a pit and that was where the door was The proper way to get to this door was to literally climb over that railing and jump down into this pit And then you need a key to open this door because it was always locked Well it was supposed to always be locked And so when Wade saw this clearly offlimits store on the side of Owen Hall in his drunken state he decided it would be a good idea to try to go into it Because in his mind

he thought you know whatever is behind the store doesn't really matter As long as I can just get inside of some part of Owen Hall I can find my way up to my friend's room and I can get my jacket And so he rushes over to the railing He climbs over He leaps down into that pit area He grabs the doorork knob of this offlimits door and he pulls on it and it's open And so he opens it up He steps inside and it's totally pitch black and all he can hear is the sound of

machines humming and worring in the darkness And again in his drunken state he decides this is still a good idea His only concern was he couldn't find a light switch And it really was basically pitch black in here And he was worried once the door shut not only would his only light source be totally cut off but it might actually lock behind him and then he'd be trapped inside of this room And so he took off one of his shoes and he tucked it in the door jamb of the door he came in on to

keep it open And so with the door propped open behind him he began walking into this room And pretty much right away he bumped into this big metal structure He couldn't see what it was cuz again it was too dark But he could feel it and he could tell you know it was a flat metal structure It felt like a machine of some kind and he could hear that it was one of the machines that was buzzing and worring And so he just decided he would try to walk around it cuz again his goal is

just to get through this room and find another door somewhere and kind of continue his journey up into the dorm And so Wade began moving his way left along this machine kind of believing it was going to come to a stop at some point and then he could walk around it But it would turn out this machine was very big very wide And so by the time he actually got to the left edge of this machine he was practically right up against the wall of the room he was in And when he got there he

realized the space between the side of the machine and the wall of the room was big enough that if he turned sideways he could basically squeeze his way past it Now he had no idea how far into the room this strange machine went but in his drunken state he decided it was a good idea And so he turns sideways so his back is to the wall of the room and his chest is going to be facing the machine and he begins pushing himself into that narrow space And so as he's making his way his hands

are up kind of protecting his face and neck And at some point he kind of begins to trip Now he didn't actually fall because he's basically wedged into this tight space But for a second he reflexively grabbed with his hands onto this machine right in front of him and just by chance his left ring finger slipped into a very narrow hole that was about 2 in deep The room that Wade was inside of was called an electrical vault and it contained six large transformers one of which WDE's finger had just stuck inside of The job

of these six transformers is to take the high voltage they receive from the main power grid and then transform it hence the name into lower usable voltage that gets dispersed into Owen Hall for residents and teachers Even though the outside of these transformers had mostly been covered with protective materials that mitigated the electrocution risk there were still several parts of these machines that there was just nothing you could do They just presented a really high electrocution risk And one of those sections you needed to be extra careful with was that 2-in hole that WDE's finger

slipped inside of At the back of that hole was an exposed electrical conductor And the second the tip of his finger touched that conductor between 2,000 and 4,000 volts of electricity were pumped into his body For reference when people get executed via the electric chair they are electrocuted with 2,000 volts of electricity Wade likely died instantly But because of the fact that he was kind of wedged between the transformer and the wall after he died he didn't just slump onto the ground Instead he remained in a semi-upright position with his finger still stuck inside of

that hole And so for the next two months his body just continued to be electrocuted every second Finally sometime in March as a result of WDE's body fluids draining out of him the electrical current that was being pumped into him altered its course and began snapping outside of his skin into the ground And so the sound of the electrical current actually striking the ground was that popping sound that the maintenance worker heard The door that the maintenance worker opened in order to investigate the sound was the only other door that led into the electrical vault

The other being the exterior door that Wade had gone in on Initially when the worker opened that door and looked inside of the vault he actually didn't see Wade but he smelled something funny and that was what led him to walk into the room and make his way around and that's when he spotted Wade's body earlier on January 20th when they found Wade's shoe which at some point had just slipped out of the door jam So it was not propping open the exterior door when it was found It was just sitting in that pit area

and the exterior door was shut And so when they found that shoe the police they did go inside of the electrical vault but they didn't go in through the exterior door They went around and went in the same door that the maintenance worker opened from right across the hall from the laundry room And when they opened it up they just looked into the room They didn't walk into the room They just looked from the doorway And from their perspective they couldn't see Wade And so that was why initially they had said you know Wade is

not inside of that room Ultimately because that exterior door to the electrical vault was supposed to be locked at all times and clearly it was not because that's how Wade got in Purdue was found to be negligent And so they agreed to pay WDE's family $500,000 and they also set up a scholarship in Wade's [Music] name And now from Ballin Studios here is a clip from our brand new show Late Nights with Nexo You can find this show on any podcast platform So when you're done listening to this go find it give it a follow

and tune in every Wednesday for new episodes Enjoy You wake from a shallow sleep For a moment you think it's morning already but then you remember it's still night During the summer in Finland midnight is indistinguishable from dawn From where you lay inside your tent the night sounds perfectly peaceful Crickets chirp softly outside Not far away the lakes's gentle waves lap rhythmically against the shore It's idyllic And yet you can't shake the sense that something is wrong something imminent Then you hear it A crunch of foliage outside the tent Then a quick twang The sound

of a rope snapping Someone is cutting the cords that hold up your tent You try to escape but the tent is already collapsed down around you Smothering your cries for help [Music] [Music] [Music] You can find this show on any podcast platform Go find it give it a follow and tune in every Wednesday for new episodes Thank you so much for watching Let me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments And remember we have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now But if you're looking for a recommendation from me of

that one video that's worth your time well it's this one right here So give it a watch All right until next time See you