Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Today you are going to hear from James. He’s a young man who lives in England, and he has quite a scary story about something that happened to him one day at work, in 2019.
He and his partner were cutting down a huge tree, and things did not go as planned. I’ll let James fill in the details.
And at the end of today’s episode:
- A new podcast for you to check out – Minds of Madness
- You can sign up for my email newsletter
- Raw Audio episode 4 is live
Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
Welcome to What Was That Like. I’m your host, Scott Johnson. This is a show where we talk to regular people – people just like you and just like me – who have found themselves in an extremely unusual situation. We’ll hear their stories and get inside their head because we all want to know what was that like. More information about each episode at whatwasthatlike.com. Here we go.
Today you are going to hear from James. He’s a young man who lives in England, and he has quite a scary story about something that happened to him one day at work, in 2019. He and his partner were cutting down a huge tree, and things did not go as planned. I’ll let James fill in the details.
And after James tells what happened that day, stick around for a few more things. There’s a podcast I want to tell you about, and you can now sign up for my email newsletter, AND, Raw Audio Episode 4 is live with more 911 audio.
And now, here’s my conversation with James.
Scott
How many trees would you say you’ve actually taken down in your career?
James
Probably somewhere in the region of 75 to 100 trees. I went and did a few courses first before you can shut them down on a golf course. So I did the CES 30, 31, 32, I think, which is the maintenance of the saw, chopping wood on the floor cross-cutting, and chopping trees down that were up to 380 millimeters across in diameter. Then, the next one was over 380. That one taught you, sort of, the use of wedges and the use of a winch to take them down.
Scott
So each one would, kind of, build on the previous one. I assume CES stands for chainsaw?
James
I’m not too sure, to be honest with you. I mean, it wouldn’t make sense.
Scott
I guess so, yeah. What we’re going to talk about today took place in a golf club in Preston, England called Leyland Golf Club. How big is it? I mean, here in the US, we have what is called country clubs and they’re just huge. What’s this club like?
James
I mean, I think we’ve got somewhere around 500-700 members. I mean, we’re fairly big. We’ve got a clubhouse. We’ve got a dining area, a bar, and a full 18-hole club, but it’s sort of an inland parkland sort of members club.
Scott
Was tree removal your primary job there? Is that what you did most days?
James
It wasn’t. I’m a green keeper, so I look after the ground, I do the mowing, fertilizing, and taking care of everything. My deputy was Charlie – he took down the trees – but he was sort of getting out a little bit and he wanted to, sort of, take a step back, so they decided to train me up. That’s when I went on the courses and I started chopping trees with Charlie. I realized that I wanted to chop even bigger trees, so I went and did my next course, which was over 380. Then, we kind of just took them out mostly in winter so as to not disturb the golf too much. But yeah, it just became part of my job.
Scott
That makes sense. So Charlie was the main person taking down trees. Then you found, “Hey, this was kind of fun” so you wanted to kind of move ahead with it, then.
James
Yeah. He sort of looked after me, mentored me and watched to make sure I was doing things that I should be doing. So I sort of did the work and got the practice.
Scott
I’m wondering. When you have a golf course, all the holes are already laid out, everything is kind of where it’s supposed to be, what situation would come up where you have to take a tree down?
James
Well, usually it’s either due to shade or movement across the greens. If you’ve got a green that’s just surrounded by trees, it doesn’t get that sunlight so it’s not growing very well and it doesn’t get that light across the surface, so the microbiology starts to go downhill. So you want to, sort of, clear trees around greens so that they dry out and grow across them. In this case, it was just a row of leylandii, which are like conifers. They were a bit unsightly – they weren’t a native tree – so we just decided that we were going to take them out.
Scott
Okay, well, let’s talk about what happened that day. This was a particular tree. What kind of tree was this and how big was it?
James
It was a leylandii which is, basically, a big tall conifer. It was about between 30-35 foot tall and about 3.5 tonnes. I think it was 380 millimeters across in diameter on the trunk.
Scott
When you say 30-35 feet, I mean, that’s a three-storey building, so that’s a big, big tree. And did you say 3.5 tonnes?
James
Yeah, about there.
Scott
And you were working with Charlie that day?
James
Yes. So I got there in the morning. Then, we had our brew and we got dressed. We put on our chainsaw pants, our boots, our helmet and gloves. Then, I went and sharpened my saw up to make sure it was ready for the day. Then, I guess he went to the site. It was the 28th of January, 2019. It was a Monday. It was about -4, I think, in the morning, but it was sunny. It was nice. The day was coming around.
Scott
-4 degrees Celcius?
James
Yes. Sorry. -4 degrees Celcius.
Scott
I know Fahrenheit because I’m just a dumb American. That would probably be like 25 degrees Fahrenheit or something like that. So it’s a cold winter day?
James
It was chilly, yeah. The pants and boots are quite heavy and everything. When you start working, you get pretty warm. I was wearing my sandals, T-shirt, jumper, and just a hoodie over the top.
Scott
do you have to sharpen your chainsaw every day?
James
Not every day. It depends on what you cut. Leylandii got sap in them and they make your saw go quiet and quick.
Scott
So you’re approaching this huge tree. How do you plan or how do you strategize on where to make it fall? I know this can be a pretty exact science. I mean, I’ve seen some videos where some professional tree removal team is taking down a big tree in a populated neighborhood, and they have to aim it and have it come down, like, right between two houses and it goes right where they wanted it to. But then, I’ve seen other videos where it didn’t quite happen that way – it came down and splits a house in two. So obviously, there’s a lot of planning ahead of time that goes into this right?
James
There is, yes. We went and had a look at it. Firstly – my boss and my deputy – we decided to cordon off the fairway so that there weren’t golfers walking past to prevent any sort of danger to them.
Scott
Because you wouldn’t want the tree to fall on someone you wouldn’t know.
James
No, that’s the last thing you want. So we decided which way we wanted it to go. To the left of us was the green. We didn’t want to drop it on the green, so we decided to take it straight out across the fairway. We decided on all that – what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. Then, he sort of left us to it. We went over to it. We marked it up. We decided where we were going to put the gulf cut, which is like the triangle piece of wood that you take out at the front, that determines which way it’s gonna go – you would, sort of, line that up with the direction you want the tree to fall. So we did that and took that out.
Just before, there was another one of my work colleagues– he was coming to help us, sort of, take the branches away and help us clear up after we chopped it down. He just nipped back to the shed to get his helmet. Then, he was coming back to give us a hand in moving all the branches. So he set off. Charlie and I started chopping the tree down. We did the gulf cut – we did the back cut – and we use wedges. A wedge looks like a block of cheese – I guess, like a triangle-shaped piece of cheese – but it’s made out of metal and you hit it into the back cut with a sledgehammer and it, sort of, lifts the tree open and leans over the hinge, which makes it fall over.
We’re pretty used to this. We got them, I practiced with them, and we did it quite a bit. We took quite a lot of trees out with them, so I was used to using them – so was Charlie. We did that and we started hitting the wedges in. Obviously, the chainsaw was turned off by the side of me at that point – we’ve taken our defenders off. We could hear the tree cracking. When it starts to fall – it starts to crack – the hinge starts to split. We were listening for that and we kept whacking the wedges in and it started cracking. We thought, “There it goes.” So we started to walk off to the left of us. We were walking away and we were chatting about something. Then, I remember saying with panic, “Oh shit! Oh look!” or something like that. Something got my attention, I turned around, and it was just dark. I didn’t really get what was going on. I had about a second later.
Scott
You said it went dark because this tree was so huge and it covered most of the sky as you’re looking up and seeing it coming toward you.
James
Yeah, because behind us at that time was the sun that was rising. I remember turning around and didn’t really get what was going on. When I chop the trees down, it doesn’t usually sound that loud. However, when you’re in the middle of it, it’s loud. You can hear the branches, sort of, coming into the floor and the foot of the trunk is on the ground, and it was pretty loud.
Scott
So you knew it was falling and you weren’t watching it, and it just fell in a completely different direction than what you expected it to fall.
James
It fell pretty much 90 degrees to where we had aimed it.
Scott
Do you know now, after the fact, why it fell that way?
James
Not really. I mean, some people have their side and other people have different opinions. I mean, no one could really come to any massive conclusion apart from the fact that it was an accident.
Scott
A tree that big does what it wants to do, I guess.
James
Yeah, gravity just took it wherever you want it to go. I mean, I don’t remember much about it in me, but the next thing I remember was that I was, sort of, led in a cocoon of branches right in the middle of the tree. The trunk was about 2-3 foot to the left of me. I remember calling out to Charlie and he was sort of 2, 3, 4 on the other side of the trunk. Fortunately – I didn’t know this at that time – there was a mound next to the green that the tree had hit, which means that the trunk didn’t go all the way down to the floor. I think if it hadn’t gone all the way down to the floor, it would have been game over.
Scott
Right. Cuz it kind of fell in between the two of you.
James
It fell in between the two of us, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t a big mound, but it was substantial enough for the trunk to not actually reach the floor – it was raised slightly.
Scott
If you were just 2-3 feet from where the trunk was– obviously, the largest branches are closest to the trunk. So you got hit by some pretty big pieces of wood.
James
Yeah, it flattened me. So my feet sort of slipped out in front of me. It hit the back of my head, folded my head towards my toes, and then just, like, crushed me enough. Then, I bounced back. I remember, sort of, laying down and I had a tree around me. Obviously, I was quite a long way from the outside of the tree at this point. Then, I guess I had that little moment where my adrenaline was pumping and I was just thinking that was crazy. I was trying to work out what had happened. Then, the pain kicked in and it was some serious pain. I’d say it was probably maybe a couple of seconds. I was just working stuff out and trying to figure out what’s going on, then I overcome my pains. I mean, not much was going through my head. At first, I was just sort of screaming.
Then, Charlie was speaking to me and he was saying, “I want you to breathe and calm down. Just take some deep breaths. We’re going to be alright. We’re gonna work through.” I think I wouldn’t have done as well as I did. So he sort of brought my breathing back down and calmed me down. We were just talking and he was trying to have a little bit of a laugh at me and keep me going. I was led in this tree – in the cocoon – and I couldn’t move. I eventually managed to grab hold of a branch above me with my arms and pull myself backwards and, sort of, line myself up a little bit so that I was comfier. Charlie rang my boss, Scott, and told him what had happened and that we need rescue. Then, he got in touch with the ambulance and fire and told them to come down. We have to wait for them. I think I was there for 2 hours until they had me in an ambulance.
Scott
So you were on the ground under the tree for 2 hours?
James
Yeah. Guy was on his way back. He eventually arrived – I mean, not eventually. It took him a couple of minutes. He was running. It was his first day in training. He was sort of trying to keep me talking. I was finding it hard to breathe because of the pain in my back. I was just speaking to Charlie and Charlie was telling Guy that I was okay. We did that for a little bit until the ambulance and the fire brigade turned up. Then, they were sort of talking to us and keeping us going. My boss came over to me and asked me if he should ring my mom and I said no. She’s a worrier. I thought she won’t be able to do anything.
I was stuck there until somebody got me out. I waited until I got to the hospital and until people started arriving at 7. It took ages for the fire brigade to turn on the little electric saw, sort away the branches, pull them to the side, stack them up, and get them out of the way so that they could get to me. It took them a long time to get to. They came to me first. I remember laying there under the tree and they were asking what sort of pain we were feeling. I said my back was ruined. I asked Charlie what was wrong with him and he said, “I think I broke my leg.” I remember thinking, “You’re lucky.” I thought he’d done really well out of it. I mean, as we get further into the story, I’ll explain he didn’t do so well.
Scott
When the tree was removed. Could you move or did they tell you to just stay still and they moved you?
James
I mean they told me to stay still and not move. I mean I couldn’t move anyway. There was no way I was moving. It was so painful. They got hold of a branch. When they eventually got to me, there was a branch that was underneath my back. I remember him pulling that branch out and that hurt quite a lot. They eventually got in with the spinal board, slipped me out on the spinal board, struck me up in a spider brace, and put me in a head brace. They lifted me up, took me to the ambulance, and sort of tended to me in there. I had quite a substantial compression fracture to my second lower vertebrae in my spine, and three knackered ligaments and tendons in my ankle as well.
Scott
So it wasn’t just your spine. Your ankles was-
James
Yeah, my ankle. I didn’t realize it at that time and I didn’t notice for a while that my ankle was busted. When they tried to take my boot off and it wasn’t coming off, that’s when they sort of realized that it was larger than it should be. So they started giving me pain medication when I got into the ambulance to try and get rid of the pain, but I wasn’t touching it and I couldn’t take a big enough breath for it to have any effects. So, they put an IV line in and started giving me morphine. I think they gave me, like, 5 shots. By the time I arrived at the hospital, I felt like I wasn’t feeling much pain anymore. They started cutting my clothes off in the ambulance on the way down. I remember they wanted to cut my braces off but I’d only just gotten them for Christmas, so I asked if I could keep them and they said, “If I could take them off myself, then go wild.” So I did.
Scott
What are your braces? Can you describe that?
James
Sorry, yeah. They fasten, sort of, the back of my pants off my shoulders and fastened to the front of my pants just to hold off. So it was just funny. I just wanted to keep them because I’ve only just gotten them. So I asked him if I could keep them, and they let me. Then, I asked them if I could take my phone out, get a selfie, and let people know what was going on, and he said “That is alright as well.” So I managed to take a selfie in the ambulance on the way there.
Scott
And we’ll post that picture on the website for this episode for people to see.
James
Yep, that’s fine. So they gave me the morphine and I was alright. By the time I got to hospital, I was still sore but I wasn’t in agony. They wheeled me in. Not long after that, I think, Charlie came. His ambulance drove on the grass and, on the way out, it got stuck. I remember him telling me that everyone at work has to push the ambulance out of the grass. We were both alright by the time we got to the hospital because we were both fed morphine. He was in the room next to me with, like, a sliding partition. We were chatting and, sort of, keeping each other going. Then, they sort of took me down to a proper ward – the neurological ward – and that’s where I sort of stayed until my operation.
Scott
What was the procedure in the operation? What were they going to do?
James
Originally, they weren’t going to do anything because, when I first got there and whenever everyone arrived, they said that they cleared my spine and it wasn’t a problem. They said they were going to put me in a back brace and send me off. I remember saying that unless they were sending me home with a bed, I don’t think I am going to make it because I couldn’t get out of it. He started prodding down my back to check what was going on and I yelped when they press it on there. They sent me for a CT scan and that’s when they saw what was going on with my back. That’s when they decided they were gonna have to keep me in and took me to the neuro ward. I was going to have my operation on Tuesday, which was the following day, but I couldn’t unfortunately, because they wanted a special surgeon from Manchester to come and do it, but he wasn’t available until Wednesday, so I had to wait. I wasn’t allowed to have anything sweet on Monday night because they said that my surgery was on Tuesday morning. Then, they said that I couldn’t have anything to eat on Tuesday either because my surgery is going to be on Wednesday. So I think I ate a slice of toast and an apple in, like, 2-3 days.
Scott
What would be ironic is if the surgeon was delayed because he was on a golf trip. Wouldn’t that be weird?
James
Nah, I think he was doing something in Manchester. I’m not too sure. He came down on Wednesday anyway and they wheeled me down. Oh, I have to go for an MRI scan before that. The surgeon couldn’t do it without an MRI, so that was another nightmare that we have. What had happened was as the tree had folded me over, it forced one of my vertebrae to go flat and the rest of it, sort of, ooze out the back and knits my spinal canal right where all the nerves are between the vertebrae in the back plate. My surgeon was saying if that severed, then my legs would be of no use to me. I’ll send you the picture of that and people can have a look at it, but it was pretty close to being severed completely. So they sent me for an MRI and they wheeled me down there. I don’t know whether they move you across. When they need to take you somewhere, they would sort of get a hold of your bedsheet and put, like, a plastic panel between the bed that you’re on and the bed that they push you around the hospital, and pull you across onto this side of the bed. Then, they can take you wherever you need to go. They were doing that.
I got to the MRI place and there’s no cushioning. It’s just plastic – the board that you have to go in the MRI scanner on. They were pulling me across – I have to say it was only a half an inch drop between the plastic board on – the MRI, and there was a knock when I dropped onto the MRI and it moved the bone slightly further in. I remember going back to my room after that. I have my doctor come up and said that there was skin bubbling up around my left knee. I remember saying, “This isn’t good. What’s going on?” and he sort of explained to me that there was nothing he could do until my surgeon got there. I have to just basically live very still through that night. If my leg was still working by the next morning, then they would go ahead and do the opposite. So I didn’t sleep, I didn’t move, I didn’t do anything, and I prayed that my legs wouldn’t work in the morning so that I could go for the operation.
Scott
So there was a danger. Did they ever think that you may not walk again?
James
They did, yeah. I mean, they didn’t say it directly to me. The doctor – the pre-op man – was pretty promising. He said, “You can not have the op. It’s very unlikely you’ll ever walk again. It’d be 3 months, at least, in hospital. We’re not sure if it will work. You can go for the op.” They told me that they’ve done lots of them and I’ll be alright and everything, but they told my mom later on that it was a 50-50. So I was in operation for 7 hours in total. They took me down and they gave me ketamine for my art which was a new experience for me.
Scott
What is that?
James
Ketamine. It’s a horse tranquilizer, but they use it for pain. I’ve been on morphine and it wasn’t really doing much. So I asked them, “You better be giving me something better than morphine because I’ve already been taking that and it’s not done much.” They said it was going to be ketamine. I’ve never had an event like that, so that was a new experience for me. Anyway, I went down to the waiting area. I remember asking the nurse, “How did the operation go? We’ve not even been in for a year.” So she was having a laugh at me. They wheeled me in and I became unconscious at that point. From what I’m aware, I’ve got 9 scars on my back. They went in with keyhole and they cut the piece of the vertebrae that was nipped in the back plate. Then, they drilled into the wings on the side of the vertebrae and they put screws in. So I’ve got 8 screws. Then, they put 2 bars in – 2 metal bars – on either sides. I think the screws are titanium and the bottom is steel, I think. They put them in and then they sealed me back off, and that’s what I’ve got now. That’s what I’ll always have.
Scott
So you will activate some metal detectors when you go through the airport…
James
I will. Yes, I do beep when I go through security.
Scott
How did Charlie end up?
James
He completely shattered his hip, his fibula, tibula, and his legs – so his shin was just gone. I think it was in, like, 25 pieces. When he originally arrived at the hospital, they just said to him, “There’s nothing we can do. We’re going to have to amputate it.” The doctor, again, from Manchester had a look at it and I think he came down and said, “We’ll give it a go.” So they did. I think he had 7-8 operations – he has lost count, but it’s not a lot. They basically screwed it back together. They put a big framework on his leg. A lot of rods and pins went through his leg with light screws on them. Every couple of days, they would come around and tighten them and it would force the bones back together. He’s going in for an operation, I think, in a couple of weeks to have the last two screws taken out of his knee and then he’s metal-free.
Scott
And he’s walking?
James
Yeah, he is walking but he took a lot longer than me. I think he was in the hospital for a couple of months maybe. So his recovery was considerably slower than mine. I was out in a week.
Scott
It sounds like – based on where you guys were standing and where the tree fell – both of you got pretty lucky in this.
James
I think we got amazingly lucky, yeah. I mean if we were 2 foot the other way, or if the tree had fallen 2 foot the other way, or if the trunk had actually hit the floor and not hit the mound, I’d say it could have played out a lot different.
Scott
You’re still having ongoing treatment?
James
Yes. So I mean, after my surgery, I came out and I was alright. Then, the second day was when I really started getting a lot of pain. I started having spasms. I think my body started rejecting what was put in, so I started having full-body spasms. I would just grip hold of the bed and scream. I remember my next-door neighbor, Robert – he was an old fellow, he was lovely – went and called the nurses and said, “I think the boy next to me is dying” because I was just having such bad spasms, but that died off towards the afternoon the next day. I remember the physios coming round and they said to me that they were going to get me up and I didn’t believe them, but I wanted it to get up. I’m a very active person. I love the outdoors. I love going and doing things and being outside. Just laying in a hospital bed not being able to move or do anything was killing me, so I said, “Let’s go for it.” So they put me on my side, rocked me up, and they went through the process of helping me stand up, and I did. I think I took a step – maybe two – put my head out the window and breathe my first bit of fresh air in 3 days, so that was nice. Then, the next day, I got out and walked through the door and back – I think they sort of helped me. I walked over to the door and turned around and walked back by myself and recorded it on my phone. I’ve still got the recording, on my phone, of my first step in learning how to walk again. Then, I just kept going. I just kept walking further and further every day. On Saturday and Sunday, I managed to get out of bed and go for a walk by myself. Obviously, all my friends, families, and everyone was coming down seeing me and helping me walking, bringing me chocolates and things to drink, so all of that was nice.
So on Saturday and Sunday, I was walking by myself. On Monday, I came home and I didn’t really do much. I spent a lot of time in bed just relaxing and letting it heal and whatnot. Then, I got my walking stick and off I went trying to walk every day. I’d walk around the roundabout and then I’d walk to the next roundabout. Once I started walking and getting in cars– obviously, my dad was driving me at about that time. I had to go to physio at the hospital and I remember them saying something the first first time I got there. I wanted to know if I could– I used to ride horses when I was younger. I mean, I still sort of do but not as much. They said to me that I wouldn’t ride a horse again. They said, “No, we don’t think you’ll do it.” So that immediately tweaked in my head and I was like, “I got to get back on.” So I built myself off and I went and bought a solid back protector and got all my gear back out. I’ve had a horse for about 11 years, so I trust her and I got back on it and did it. It was just a good little feeling when someone says that you’ll never do that again and–
Scott
You’re gonna prove them wrong.
James
Yeah. I’m still in physio about once a month at the moment. It’s never going to be quite the same. When you wake up stiff in the morning and you want to put your socks on, you can’t quite reach it because you can’t bend far enough. I mean, my ankle is not great either. If I’m walking on grass and I step a bit on uneven ground, it tends to give up on me because the tendons are now longer than they should be, so it doesn’t hold itself – it’ll just go.
Scott
What was your age when this happened? How old were you?
James
I was 23. My 24th birthday was on the 24th of February, so I missed out on that one as well.
Scott
It seems like you’ve benefited from your youth and your body was able to bounce back and get back to walking and everything quicker than maybe an older person.
James
Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t easy but I wanted to go and do it. So I forced myself to get out of bed every morning and go downstairs. At first, people helped me do things but, gradually, I sort of managed to do my own thing. I’ve done quite a lot. Recently, I’ve obviously started walking further every day. My friend Dan, who I think was there every day when I was in the hospital helped me out and did anything that I needed to do. We just walked up Snowdon the other week, so I’m doing all right. I mean, I get days when I’ve done too much – like, after Snowdon, I was tired and was a little bit sore, but I would just have a day’s rest, it comes round, and then we go again.
Scott
Have you gone back to tree removal?
James
I have, yes, pretty much. I had 6 months off after my accident to recover and get myself back to– I mean, I went to the gym and tried to build myself up ready to go back to work, and so I did. I said to my boss that I wanted to go and do it. He wasn’t overly keen but he let me. So I went out with a pulsar – which is basically just a 15-foot chainsaw – and I started chopping little limbs off and getting the feel for it again. Then, I went and picked up my proper chainsaw and I’ve chopped nothing major. I’m not chopping anything big anymore and I’m definitely watching where it’s going. But I’ve chopped a few smaller trees out.
Scott
I would imagine that, after what happened, you probably keep a pretty good eye on which direction the tree is gonna fall.
James
Oh, yeah. I mean, I usually walk as far away as I can and keep an eye on it
Scott
Hey, just a few things before we head out the door. First up, check out this podcast from my friend Tyler! It’s a true crime podcast called Minds of Madness.
911 Operator
911 What’s your emergency?
Tyler
Every 60 seconds, a person is murdered somewhere in the world.
Woman 1
There was a shootout outside my house. I can’t believe this.
Tyler
What causes ordinary people to do unthinkable things?
Woman 2
He stabbed me in my neck and he said,” Look how easily I could have kill you.”
Tyler
The minds of madness is the true crime podcast that examines the most disturbing criminal minds. We shed a light on the devastating impact these violent crimes have on the victims and their families.
Woman 3
When you get calls in the night, you know they’re not good or the wrong numbers.
Tyler
You’ll hear about the incredible strength of the survivors and what they did to fight back.
Woman 4
I was studying his face because I was thinking, “If I get out of this, I’m gonna get you someday.”
Tyler
Subscribe to the Minds of Madness podcast today on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify and Google Play.
Scott
So check that out and let me know what you think of it!
And I’m starting something new. I’m sending out an email newsletter. You can sign up for it, and it’s free of course, at WhatWasThatLike.com/email. The email will go out on the day a new episode is released, so you can see what that episode is about. And I’ll also be including some other interesting things I happen to come across, stuff I don’t talk about here in the podcast. So get on that list, and you won’t miss anything! You can also sign up by going to the website, and clicking on Email.
And finally, Raw Audio episode 4 is now live. The Raw Audio episodes are actual 911 calls and the stories that go with them.
In this episode, we hear from a man who shot his wife, and then 2 days later he calls 911 to say that she is still alive.
Man 1
On the 4th, which would have been 2 nights ago, at 4 AM, I shot my wife in the temple of her head and I thought I killed her, and I put her in the freezer.
Scott
We’ll hear the call made by a lady in Ohio who is panicking because she has a boa constrictor on her face.
911 Operator
Hello?
Woman 5
I have a boa constrictor on my face!
Scott
And we’ll hear the 911 audio from a man who called to report some kids playing near a local railroad track, and then the real emergency happens while he’s on the phone.
911 Operator
Are they okay, sir?
Man 2
No. I think someone’s screaming. Oh no…
Scott
The Raw Audio episodes are available as exclusive bonus content, and you can have those episodes come in to your phone or however you listen to podcasts, automatically, just by being a supporter of this podcast for $5 a month. So if you want to get all the past and future Raw Audio episodes, you can do that at WhatWasThatLike.com/support. And I thank you for supporting the show!
I’ve got some great stories in the works here at What Was That Like, and the next one will be out in two weeks. See you then.