Citation Needed - Highest falls survived without a parachute

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

List is located here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_falls_survived_without_a_parachute

Oh my god, this is so amazing. Wow. Wow. I can't believe you went free sky diving lessons. I know. So lucky, right? Are you guys excited? Way excited.

All right. Let's do this thing. Well, what's this week's citation needed to essay about? Wait, why? Well, here's the thing. whenever you realize a surprise for us, or we're all like, wake up in a place, usually, as he's doing pre-show shenanigans, they don't have the schedule for that.

Oh, yeah, this week is, uh, highest ball survived without a parachute. I knew it! Oh, come on, you ruined it! Seriously, you sabotaged our parachutes man I mean it was right there you guys can't blame me for this very much can't blame yes very much so yes yes I think I'm still gonna jump What I'm just not I feel pretty tired.

You know, I don't know. It's just where I thought I'd be. Or, you know, like... It isn't even who I thought I'd be. I feel like maybe whatever version of me was supposed to be happy just... It's not possible for me anymore. You know, like maybe I just... I maybe miss my shot, guys.

There's a buffalo wild wings near the airport. Oh! Oh yeah, never mind, let's do B-Dubs instead. The sketch is a bomber. Well, this is what happens when we don't die. This is what happened. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed! Podcast where we choose a subject, we just single article about it on Wikipedia, pretend we're experts.

Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Heath, and I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend. I do not like heights. And of course, somehow I'm gonna be hosting this episode about my literal recurring nightmare that I really, really have a lot. So, now I list your fears.

I'm joined by Cecil, who fears the economic injustice of his childhood. And Tom, who fears the evil nature of humanity. And we're done giving attention. Okay, not cool, man. Tom and Cecil got fun once, okay? Okay. With your help, we can then poverty one gig job at a time.

I just ask so much I fear the evil nature of humanity heath it's that I trust it. Just yeah I'm with you bud. All right let's get right into it Cecil what person place thing concept phenomenon or event are we gonna be talking about today today we're to talk about the highest fall survived without a parachute. Great. And I'm assuming you were somehow naked in high school during a nightmare and you came up with something more fun to think about for this. You know guys, as I sat on my doc staring at the water, thinking about this week's topic,

okay, not cool to do my thing, Cecil. Huh? What angle were you staring at the water at? Huh? Is that Cecil? Is it feel good? What was the angle? The angle of horizon to my lifetime. The notion of surviving a fall from great heights without a parish, you'd fill my mind with such awe and wonder. It's remarkable how some individuals have to find the laws of gravity and emerge from such harrowing situations with their lives intact from the stories of Vesna Volvick, who

miraculously survived a 33,000 foot plunge. No, I'm coming around. I'm liking this. Yeah, keep going. When her plane exploded to Alan McGee, who fell from a B17 bomber without a parachute during World War 2 and lived to tell the tale. These accounts remind us of the human spirit's resilience and the unpredictable nature of

fate. These tales serve as a testament to the strength of the human will to survive, even in the face of unimaginable odds, leaving us pondering the depths of our own courage and the mysteries of our existence. That felt good. Oh, such a good one. Okay. No more shrooms before we write citation unit essays, all right?

I'm putting on the whiteboard. This is what happens. I just loaded all of Tom's prequels into Chachy PT and it's got that all. Oh, God damn it. Oh, this is great. Tom's greatest fear. It was crazy. No, I'm doing everybody's greatest fear.

We're going to work your guys as soon. Don't worry Tom's greatest fear. That's that person too. No, I'm doing everybody's greatest fear. We're gonna work your guys' insum. Don't worry. Mine are real. No, mine are happening every day. That's not fair. All right. So let's start with people. Don't use mine seriously.

Don't use mine. So let's start with people who have fallen the shortest distance first. AKA Pussies. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha is belt during the time of his accident, he was jumping from a plane four or five times each week. Okay. When the people on this list have their like annual retreat together that I'm assuming they have, this guy James definitely takes a whole bunch of shit from everyone. I'm in this monster.

They're like, what up to low dive? Cool. Yeah. James is here. No, no, no, no, you're cannonball. Totally. That was awesome. Remember, remember, did that?

Oh, he totally can. You mind reaching up and grabbing my bed roll from the top shelf, and then you might not listing it on Wikipedia when you do that stuff. I'm so sorry. Jesus Christ. Really hurt. When his accident occurred, he was skydiving in Kamchatka,

a place only known as a great territory to station your troops if you want to invade the Americas as a risk board to station your troops. If you want to invade the Americas as a risk board game enthusiasts. We're doing it. Come, Chateca also has a bunch of geothermal and volcanic activity as it's right in the ring of fire on the Pacific Coast of Asia. There's 160 volcanoes there and 29 of them are still active. The peninsula also has a large group of them that UNESCO has designated as a world heritage

site. Kamchatka also has pretty high up in the northern hemisphere on the coast of Russia, so it has the nickname Land of Fire and Ice. Okay, that is a lot of geographical background. Cecil, if he doesn't land in one of the volcanoes, I quit the Sessay. It's relevant. Give itessay. It's relevant. Give it a time. It's relevant. Okay. James was also a documentary cameraman. The jump in question was a plan to get some footage of an athlete falling, but looking like they're

flying past a large column of steam. The steam was shooting out of a mountain. Thank you very much. You're shouting since so you're shouting. The plane's five degree angle. Yeah. Perseed with all and wonder, please. Okay. All right. The plane was going to go above it and the two skydivers were going to jump out. The shot would have to be precise since the column of steam

was only a couple hundred feet tall. When falling from an airplane at a high velocity, that leaves very little room for error on both the shot for the documentary and landing safely. Okay. Every time this guy gets done telling the story at this point, one guy is like, Hey, man, have you heard? Yeah, I know about green screens now. Thank you. Obviously, now I know that. The plan after they capture the footage was to pull the rip cord at around 150 to 200 meters in the air. Because the people who live in the US, that's a point nine golden gate bridges

tall. When they jumped, James got into sort of filmmaker mode and he was looking through the viewfinder on the camera. Well, objects in camera are sometimes closer than they appear. And when he finished the shot, he looked down and he saw that it was like two or three seconds above the ground. That is actually one metric. Oh, shit. If my conversion table is right here. Yeah, no, that's definitely right.

Yeah. Without thinking, he said he pulled the parachute, but it never really did much. Here he is. Quote, the parachute barely unfurled, but swung my feet up above me like a child on a swing. That's a weird choice of similarly. You know when a child almost dies. Like that, but I'm an adult. The continuing the quote, then the ground hit me full in the back with the force of a truck. The impact left me unconscious for a few seconds as I opened my eyes to overwhelming emotions

race through me. The first was elation and having survived. And the second black jagged fear, I was certain straight away that I had broken my back. The pain in my spine was so immense that I had no doubt about this at all." Okay, how long do you think the other guys kept going, whoo, before they noticed James and you kind of drove over the day? To rescue him from the mountain side, they had to deploy a helicopter and a crew of a dozen mountain guides with a stretcher.

He was stuck inside a one meter deep crater that he made with his impact. So they had to they had to pry him out of it. Wait a minute. Was he a coyote? It was like James shaped. Actually, cartoonish. While he was lying there, he said his lungs were slowly filling up with blood because of his internal injuries. He was agonizing over his last words he wanted someone to communicate with his family and he decided on,

quote, I'm sorry this happened. I love you." End quote. Okay, that one's my darling, you two, fuck no, wait, no, no, no, beans. He agonized and what he came up with was oopsie, love ya. Like writers at shoebox greetings better watch the fuck out, huh? Yeah. He was airlifted to the local hospital that loaded him onto a plane and then they flew to Moscow. And then he had a CT scan that showed while his back was indeed broken. It was not the kind that makes you lose use of your limbs.

So he was flown back to the UK and fitted with a back brace. According to James, he was up about a week after his fall. Impressive. And the account I read from him seems like he wrote it while he was convalescing. He mentions that after his fall, his wife, who was an Abbott's guy with Iver, did jump again. And he also planned to do so when he fully healed. Okay. If she ends up on the list for surviving a bigger fall, that's fucking amazing. Just like every dinner party they go to. She's like, no, that's awesome.

6,000 feet. Holy shit. That's such a big thing. All right. You guys ready? Next up is Julie Copacky. She was born in Lima, Peru, the only child of two German suologists. Nazis.

Thank you. Not. He's got parents. That is what they're going to Germany to Peru, right? Then Nazis. Okay. Her parents worked at the Natural History Museum in Lima and then they moved to the Namazam, Nazi Museum.

Rainforest to establish a research station. Research on eugenics. Yeah. Jesus. Definitely Nazis. Like she's born in like 1953 or something like that. It's very clearly her parents are Nazis. Like she's born in like 1953 or something like that. It's very clearly her parents are Nazis. 100%

Okay, so the research station in the Amazon rainforest is going to be very important later on. She was traveling home after graduation ceremony from school with her mother on Christmas Eve on Lansa Airlines. Her father suggested they use a different airline since that one had a bad reputation. lines. Her father suggested they use a different airline since that one had a bad reputation. So bad that while it was 10,000 feet or 3000 meters up in the sky, got struck by lightning and it disintegrated. And that pilot Roy Sullivan. Oh, call back now. You know, rest the story. And it was, it's like way worse than it sounds. Really? So like Nazi mom survives or something? Okay.

All right. Okay. Before the lightning strike, the plane was flying through this massive turbulence. She wrote in her memoir of the incident, quote, bags, wrapped gifts, and clothing fall from overhead lockers, sandwich trays, soar through the air, and half finished drinks spill onto passengers heads, people scream and cry. Okay. And quote, the scream and cry. Okay. And quote, tragic.

The plane was struck with lightning. Eat this there. And then half finished. He's like trying to bite him out of the air like he's playing fucking bobbing for apples. Just trying to bite the sandwiches as they fly by. The plane was struck with lightning and then it took a nose dive and she was sucked out the window with the other chairs. A pilot should have picked a different route, but he was a lazy boy.

Okay. Come on. That was so cute. Thank you. Thank you. Is that a wing back chair? Doesn't sure. That's a chair.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Somebody was going to catch her, but they couldn't give chase. Shays. Shays. Shays. Shays. Shays. They couldn't be. Besides this week, Tom, yeah, we were all. It's, um, important. Kopaki was strapped to her seat and her row of seats stayed together as they fell to the ground. Nothing else around her mind. you just her row of seats. Here's a quote from the article about her quote, the trees in the dense Peruvian for rain forest

looked like heads of broccoli she thought while falling towards them at 45 meters per second. End quote, she passed out because of fear or because she was spinning like a top as she flew to the ground and her brain mercifully reset. But when she woke up the canopy was above her. She really took that hole, stay seated until the plane has come to a complete stop admonition to heart. You know, actually appreciate that. What do you fucking stands up? Sit the fuck back down. Where are you going? Where are you going? Are you in the first row? No, you're not going anywhere. Yeah.

He just says that you literally can't stand up in an airplane. That's a part of it. Yeah. He just says that you literally can't stand up in an airplane. That's actually because I always book in the middle seat, which is pretty fun. Brutal. Julie was pretty messed up. She had a broken collarbone, big gash on her right arm. She also had an eye injury and a concussion, but one thing she was good at was living in the jungle, years of living there and survival training saved her life. She in fact was in a familiarish jungle, not really that far from where she lived.

She knew to follow the river and that quote, her father had warned her that the piranhas were only dangerous in the shallows. So she floated midstream, hoping she would eventually encounter other humans. I love the idea of piranhas being like a little bit afraid of the deep end in this. Piranhas edging out from the shallow part. He like stop, stop pushing me, stop, stop, stop. You go, you go. People literally imagine us.

What are we possibly at? This is crazy. Oh my God, it's cold. It's cold. I'm going back. I'm going back. It was the middle of the rainy season. So she was wet and cold for several days in the wilderness. She had cut her arm and sorry if you're squeamish

listener, but it had insect larvae in it. And she was walking around in a days because of the concussion and she only found a packet of lollipops she could eat. Junkled lollipops? I think from the crash. Yeah, man. It was from the crash, man. You know, like a thousand percent, she was deliriously licking a mushroom and walking Go Mollipop. I think from the crash. Yeah, man. It's from the crash, man. Like a thousand percent, she was the learcyl, licking a mushroom and walking around the whole time. It's like a toad holding onto a stick, she thinks it's a lollipop. I've found jungle mushroom.

She finally runs into a human and they're like, hey, the toad's like, this has been the best 48 hours in my life. I will give you anything to shut the fuck up right now. I'm a tot. She couldn't let a fire. She had no shelter. And on the 10th day of her trek, she came across a small fishing hut that was unoccupied. She used a can of gas she found in the hut to clean the maggots out of her arm.

And she stayed in the cabin that night. She was found the next day by local Peruvian fishermen. They used a canoe to transport her to a more populated area where she was then airlifted to a hospital. Lulu Lulu, do efficient stuff, simple, pooh, efficient stuff. It's my favorite. Fuck, it's a dead Nazi. Oh, damn it.

This is my week now. This keeps happening. This is my week. So those fishermen just like come back home and there's like an unexpected girl there. I know those fishermen. There's a dopey and doc and bashful. And these get happy and grumpy asleep. They suspect that either her seats slowed her descent

or that she was caught in an updraft of the thunderstorm and that's loader. Either way, she is the only survivor. They do think that 14 other people might have survived but they succumbed to their injuries. The seats might have slowed the falling. That's like that airline sold the fuck out of their economy plus or whatever. After the news came out about seats, make you sort of fly.

And people who gave a verbal confirmation to the exit roast speech on the first time they all survived too. Yeah, they all. No one did that weird like, you hear you thing. They just fucking said yes out loud to the nice waitress for the air. It's listen to podcasts. Next is survivor Christine McKenzie, a South African skydiver. Christine was making her 112 job. She had a failure of both her main

and emergency. Christine. Now, she did have a failure of both her main and emergency parachute. And this is considered extremely rare, according to members of the Johannesburg skydiving club. I mean, I would fucking hope so. That's good. It wasn't once. It almost never happens. She jumped from a height of 11,000 feet or 3,400 meters.

She hit some power lines that slowed her fall and then she hit the ground and only fractured her pelvic bone and had some bruising. She was walking pretty quickly after the accident and made a full recovery. Yeah, it actually wasn't the original fall that was the problem when she hit the power lines. She got sproya yoying to up twice the time in the air. And that was the one that did the day. Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, honestly, I'm shocked she survived.

I am glad the power lines offer enough resistance to slow her down, but I demand a battery of test later. Tom, I'm positive she survived. Larissa Savus Gaia, Savus Gaia. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly. Survived a plane crash and fell from 17,130 feet or 52 20 meters. She was the sole survivor of Arrow Flit 811. Larissa boarded a plane with her husband when they were coming back home after their honeymoon.

They chose seats in the back of the plane, and the plane itself collided with a strategic bomber over Soviet Russia. The flight plan of the bomber crossed into civilian airspace without military or civilian control, notifying each other. And the planes collided and she was thrown from her seat into the aisle. The collision had ripped off both wings of the plane and some of the fuselage. That's not good. And then she somehow got up and returned to her seat and buckled her safety belt, probably

because I guess the light was on and she heard that bell, that like ding or whatever. Yeah, you're getting trouble. I'm not sure if she put her seat tray up, but she was sure that her husband was dead and she held on tight and the rest of the airplane just. She's like, hey, I just want to get back into my window seat. Just don't roll your eyes. Get you, no, you get up for you, scooch out. I mean, what are you doing over you? Lap down the door. You fucking get out. As the plane ripped itself apart, she stayed in her seat. Now, reading a brief account, I wasn't sure if the seat itself just fell or if there was part of a plane attached

to it, but supposedly branches from Birch trees soften this crash here. She woke up in the middle of a birch forest with her arms fractured and no teeth. Several ribs were broken and her spine was also broken. She drank water from a puddle, and then when a helicopter flew overhead, she tried to get its attention, but she could not. She eventually walked out of the forest and was found by rescuers. She made a full recovery, but she couldn't actually talk about the incident until the Soviet Union declassified it 10 years later. 10 years later. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed in the Soviet Union.

It's been 22 years. We here in the US are still holding strong about that plane over Pennsylvania on 9-11. You got to be kidding me. You got to be kidding me. Oh, hi. All right. Speaking of which, it's time for a quick break for something we call uppercall of nothing, even though it's never made any sense to call it that. Wait a minute for a bit. Hey everybody, welcome to people who had it coming grief support.

My name is Rick, your loss is valid, your pain is real, and some things are not okay to joke about. I'll go first, lost my brother Greg in a terrible voting accident last year. His mega yacht was viciously attacked by Orca Whales and, well, he was drunk and he tried to bribe the whales to leave him alone and he was eaten on TikTok. That is tragic and not funny at all. So sad. Okay, who wants to go next? I guess I'll go next. I'm Chris, because in Clyde, jumped out of planes for a living, and man, he loved jumping out of airplanes just all day, every day. And then one time, he fell out of a plane and he died.

Unexpected. Traject. So tragic. Thank you. We were all very, very shocked. How could you not be shocked? Right. Sorry, is this where people who complained

about the Titan II episode of Citation needed support group comes, is this it? Sure is friend. Come on in. come on in. Come on in. And we're back. When we left off, some fucking amateur made it like 17,000 feet or ever. Anybody with a serious number, seasonal? Thank you, Heath. Nicholas Alchemyde survived a fall of 5,500 meters or 18,000 feet in 1944.

He was one of seven crew members on a bomber in the British Air Force. His plane was attacked and caught fire. It plummeted to the ground and Nicholas had two choices. Staying the aircraft and burned a death or jump without a shoot and die on impact and he chose the latter, which is obviously the right choice. I'm like, oh, should I smush instantly or scream in fire for a while and then smush against the game's fucking laptop? Like, what do we do?

Yeah, I think what you're forgetting is the right thing to do is to ride the plane to the ground. And then at the last minute, you jump up, jump up at your fun. Right, jump up. You step out, let's write it the last second. Let's write it the last second. It would work.

And I told my parents that they were like, we don't know exactly why I know, but it's no. That's not right. But it's definitely no. Definitely. Neither this artist nor this music teacher were prepared to tell, but it's no. That's definitely no. Definitely. Neither this artist nor this music teacher were prepared to tell you why it's no, but we can't tell you how we blame ourselves. Please don't grow up to be a podcast.

So Nicholas, Nicholas got lucky and he landed on a big pile of snow and his fall was slowed by pine trees. He fell through. He sprained his leg. That's it. But his troubles weren't over. He was captured by the Germans. Initially, incredulous, they did not believe his story, but after searching the wreckage

of the plane, they found out that he was telling the truth. And then, quote, the Germans gave Alkmade a certificate testifying to the fact and he was a celebrated prisoner of war before being repatriated in the May of 1945. What? Ruse, did they think he might have been pulling? Like, stage of fake, amazing survival, get captured by Nazis and then be like, psych, got him? No, that's not it.

Right? I'm a prisoner of war him. No, that's right. I'm prison or more now. Guys, I feel like we are maybe giving out too many certificates. Can I say something? I don't think that's a thing. Yeah, I like my heroes who weren't captured. Oh, yeah. Brutal.

Alan McGee also had a fall from a bomber. He was an American airman and he was a ball turret gunner in World War II. On his seventh mission, he was in a flying fortress nicknamed Snap Crackle and Pop. The turret was hit by Flack and disabled. So he exited it and he found that his parachute had also been disabled by the same Flack. The plane was hit and it lost a wing and it started to plummet to Earth and with a loss of pressure, McGee blacked out. And then he was tossed from the plane and he fell 22,000 feet, which is four miles or 6.7 kilometers to the ground.

Must make note of altimeter for Wikipedia. He hit a building with a glass roof. So he fell all that way, hit a building with a glass roof. This is the San Nazaire train stations glass roof and it slowed his fall and he survived. Quote, McGee was taken as a prisoner of war and given medical treatment by his captors. He had 28 trapemal wounds in addition to his injuries from the fall, several broken bones, severe damage to his nose and eye, lung and kidney damage, and a nearly severed right arm. End quote. He got a purple heart and an air metal for meritorious conduct.

And he died at the age of 84 in 2003. Another World War II story. This one is about Ivan Chizov. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Force, and his bomber was attacked by German aircraft. So he bailed the high at which he jumped is not sure, but some of his crewmates say it was 7,000 meters or 23,000 feet. He said it was 5,000 meters, but either way, he jumped from the craft.

Initially, he didn't want to pull his rip cord because he was worried that the fighters would see him and try to shoot him out of the air. Yeah, then he could die. But a few plans survive contact with the enemy and the enemy in this case was the thin atmosphere and no supplemental oxygen. See, he lost consciousness and he never had a chance to pull the parachute. Hit the ground at an estimated speed of around 190 to 240 kilometers an hour or 120, 250 miles per hour. He kind of stuck the landing though. He hit the edge of a snowy ravine and then kind of slid down it like some sort of unbelievable stunt from the fast and the furious. Okay. First of all,

Cecil. Family. That's real. Obviously, you know, like he hit the Nas right before he passed out or something. Right. Right. Right. That's right before you. Yeah, Tokyo snow drip. The Nas is Jesus Christ, by the way, in that movie universe. It is. Yeah.

He's found by his own troops with severe spine injuries and a broken pelvis. He was brought to a nearby army hospital where he was operated on by a surgeon and he was able to fly a few months after his fall And he requested combat duty, but he was assigned instead to become a navigational trainer Yeah, his boss was like maybe mr. Parachute or no parachute. I can't decide. It's a desk job for a Well executive function training all right So who has the record for the longest fall? That would go to Vesna Volovic. And now flight attendant for JAT flight 367.

Vesna was not scheduled to be on that flight, but the company had confused her with another flight attendant with the same name. So she was excited to be going to Denmark and she had planned on spending all day there and went shopping with other crew members. So the flight started in Stockholm and then it landed in Denmark. And this is where Fesna boarded the plane with her colleagues. The crew noticed one agitated passenger disembarked and then they believed that this was the person who had put the

briefcase bomb on the plane. They think he boarded in Stockholm, checked the bag and then when he left the plane, he disembarked without it and he continued on this way. I feel like maybe the two vests has did like rock paper scissors and the one who didn't get on the plane tells the story all the time. It's like fucking paper. Paper is the best. The plane exploded above a village in Czechoslovakia. It depressurized and then a bunch of the crew were ejected. Now, Vastna was lucky, I guess. And she was pinned in place by the beverage cart and stayed in the fuselage. She also passed out because she had low blood pressure.

And this was a condition that she was aware that she had and she probably would have not passed the physical for the job, but she downed a bunch of coffee before the physical and it worked. And then she, you know, her being a ragdoll also probably helped her survive. Wow. Impressive. By the way, just a reminder, she fell over 33,000 feet. And those reunions, she just walks in and she's like 33,000.

And like everybody's in the high five and buying him rounds. James, get her coat. James, get her coat. Just grinding right right the face of 6,000 cannonball guy. Fuck you. Don't hang it too high, man. If you slodge hit trees and deep snow and then it crashed and that cushioned her fall.

Quote, she was discovered by villager Bruno Hock, who was, who heard her scream amid the wreckage. Her turquoise uniform was covered in blood and her stiletto heels had been torn off by the force of the impact. Hock had been a medic during the Second World War and he was able to keep full of it alive until her rescuers arrived. End quote. I had a joke about cookies or pretzels here, but I should say for our listening audience that gentlemen's last name is spelled H-O-N-K-E. Cecil is not having a stroke.

After this, she was rushed to the hospital and she fell in a coma. She had sustained a fractured skull, broken ribs, a cerebral hemorrhage, two broken legs, three broken vertebrae, a fractured pelvis, and a partridge, and a pear tree. She was temporarily paralyzed, and she had amnesia about the incident. She remembers greeting and boarding passengers, and then the next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital a month later. She was in the hospital for six months for recovery, and she never fully recovered, but

after 16 months and several surgeries, she was able to walk with a limp. Here's a quote here, a volovic attributed her recovery to her Serbian stubbornness and a childhood diet that included spinach, chocolate and fish oil. One quote. Okay. And if you had a summerized, what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Eat everything with the heaping helping of spinach and fish oil ganache. That's what I'm doing with this. And are you ready for the quiz? I am ready to stick the landing, Keith.

All right, Cecil. As someone I know who hates air travel, why did you pick this topic? Hey, seriously, man. B, you see me writing essays about social media and AI? You're gonna see no, you don't. D, no, you don't. See, but in this one, the people won when they fell. The ones about AI, they won't.

So I'm gonna go with love. I'm gonna go with love. Spooker's for my next episode. It's actually uplifting. Okay, you made my fears worse. So that's the right answer. All right, Cecil, people who make this list, obviously deserve an official award. It's so impressive.

What's the best name for that award? Hey, the splatter day saints or the way to high is been trophy. The Noelle prize in a literature lit. That's the best one. That's the past. It's past of a light. No.

Means way to high is land better. Rip cord Pulitzer. Oh, no. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with secret answer D, all the above. Correct. It was actually rip gourd. Pulitzer, that's so good. Fuck you.

Whatever. That's awesome. All right, Cecil, if we learned anything from this week's episode, it's that if you want to survive a fall from the sky, you have to black out. How is our cast insured our safety? Hey, the way Heath and Tom drink on plain. Be Cecil's uncanny ability to never leave his house. See, Noah's killed myself with my own heart before you can't attitude. Or D, Eli's 11-dramamine pre-flight ritual.

Oh, come on, you know it's E, all the above. That's right, indeed it is. Cecil, nicely done, you nailed all the questions you are the winner. Fingers crossed, it's Noah next week. Or maybe it's me. We'll find out. All right, well, for Cecil, Noah, Eli and Tom,

I'm Heath, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and Noah will be an expert on something else. To be now and then, you can check out cognitive dissonance, God off of movies, skating atheist, skepticrat, Theodimitis, seasoned liberally, and thearole dads. And if you care about the scourge of heart disease,

the silent killer, Sweeping our nation. You can make a per episode donation at hatredround.com slash citation pod. Or you can go to modestneeds.org and help out a person who really needs a blah, blah, blah, that's what Noah said to do. OK, and if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with some social media,

or take a look at show notes, at catsytitationpod.com