All language subtitles for The.UnBelievable.with.Dan.Aykroyd.S03E20.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[mysterious music]

We've featured some
of the wildest

life-and-death
stories ever told,

but these, the most
outlandish of them all,

like a frequent flyer whose
trip took a serious detour.

- One minute, Vesna's doing
her flight attendant duties

at 33,000 feet.

The next minute,
a bomb goes off.

The plane is blown
into multiple pieces.

Passengers are getting
sucked out of the aircraft,

and it begins to
take a free fall.

- Or a high-stakes
showdown in midair.

- They're going to shoot at
each other in hot air balloons

over the city.

- It's pretty much guaranteed
that at least one of them,

probably both of them,
are going to die.

[gun blasts]

- How about the one
where a beloved pet

becomes a deadly projectile?

- The dog is getting closer
and closer to this balcony.

- It falls the 13 floors.

[claps]
[horn honks]

- These are the most
shocking dances with death.

So strange, they are
truly unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

In the early 1900s,

one man sets out to change
the future of flight

and ends up forever leaving
his mark on aviation history.

[tense music]

- Franz Reichelt is an Austrian
tailor living in Paris.

He makes dresses for a living,

but his real passion is this
new, budding field of flying.

- In 1903, the Wright brothers

take their first
heavier-than-air powered flight,

and everyone is aviation
crazy, especially the French,

'cause the French also
invented the hot air balloon.

- [Kavitha] In 1910, flying
is extremely dangerous.

He sees all of these pilots
dying in these test flights,

so he wants to do
something to help out.

And up until this time,
parachuting technology

has really only been used
for jumping out of balloons

and very high altitudes.

So there's this push to find
new parachute technology,

much lighter weight,
for pilots themselves

to be able to jump
out at lower altitudes

when they're taking these test
flights around the country.

- [Dan] Coincidentally, a
French aviation organization

offers a hefty prize

to anyone who can
create a smaller chute.

- So, Franz decides
to enter this contest

and take his expertise as a
tailor, using silk and rods,

and he ends up
developing a wingsuit.

- It looks like a Batman suit.

It looks like something out of
a futuristic superhero movie.

- [Dan] More peculiar
than his design

is his method for testing it.

He puts it on a dummy and
tosses it from the window

of his fifth-floor
Paris apartment.

Unsatisfied with the
results, Franz decides

there's only one way to
truly know if it works.

[tense music]

- [Kavitha] He puts
on his own wingsuit

and climbs out of his
fifth-floor window,

and he breaks his leg.

- But Franz is onto something.

He goes, "Ah-ha-ha-ha,

I didn't give my
wingsuit enough time

to gather enough air
to create resistance.

I need to go higher."

Luckily, he's in Paris,
and at this point in time,

the tallest structure on
Earth is the Eiffel Tower.

- He starts petitioning the
Paris police to allow him

to throw winged dummies
off of the Eiffel Tower

as part of a test
for his new suit.

- [Dan] Surprisingly, not
only do the French authorities

grant permission, but
it becomes big news.

- Franz is so excited to
show the world this wingsuit.

He puts out a press release
that he has found the solution

of aviation safety.

- [Dan] On the cold morning
of February 4th, 1912,

Franz arrives at the
Eiffel Tower, sans dummy.

- It's Franz himself,
dressed in his wingsuit.

Everyone goes,
"Where's the dummy?"

and he goes, "There
is no dummy."

- [Dan] From this moment on,
Franz Reichelt becomes known as

"The Flying Tailor".

- His friends are
pleading with him,

"You're not gonna
do this, are you?

You're not gonna actually
do this yourself?"

But Franz is convinced
the suit will work,

and he's gonna prove it.

- [Austin] Franz is leaning
forward on the edge

of the parapet of
the Eiffel Tower.

- [Kavitha] He hesitates
for about 40 seconds.

He seems to actually
have second thoughts

for the first time
in this story.

But then Franz sees
the crowd below him,

and he waves and he
says, "A bientot,"

which means, "I'll
see you soon."

And then he jumps.

[uneasy music]

- [Dan] The parachute
never fully opens.

Two seconds after jumping,
Franz hits the ground and dies,

leaving a six-inch-deep,

Franz-shaped imprint
in the ground.

- [Yohuru] This is the
genius of madness.

When it works, we
celebrate those people

who are willing to
push through as heroes,

and when it fails, it's
very easy to dismiss them

as being crazy.

- [Dan] While Franz Reichelt's
leap ends in tragedy,

60 years later, another
fall makes history

with a far more
surprising outcome.

[airplane engines roaring]

- This particular day in 1972,

Flight 367 takes off,
bound for Copenhagen,

aboard which is a
23-year-old flight attendant

by the name of Vesna Vulovic.

- One minute,

Vesna's doing her flight
duties at 33,000 feet.

The next minute,
a bomb goes off.

[explosion blasts]

The plane is blown
into multiple pieces.

Passengers are getting
sucked out of the aircraft,

and it begins to
take a free fall.

This took place in the
'70s during the Cold War,

and some sources say that
this was a briefcase bomb.

- [Dan] It's unclear
who is responsible,

but what is certain is Vesna

is not supposed to
be on this plane.

She's not even supposed
to be a flight attendant.

- She has chronic
low blood pressure,

and that should disqualify her

from that kind of an occupation.

- Because you could
potentially pass out

when you get to altitude.

- [Dan] But Vesna is so
determined to get her dream job,

she figures out a workaround
for her medical exam.

- Vesna is quite ingenious.

She really only needs to
have normal blood pressure

during the time of screening.

- In order to bypass
this screening,

she drinks five or
six cups of coffee,

jacks her blood pressure
up, jacks her heart rate up,

goes in, passes the test.

- [Dan] And there
is another reason

why Vesna should not be
on this specific flight.

It's supposed to be her day off.

- It was actually meant to
be someone else's shift,

but Vesna decides, "Hey,
it's going to Copenhagen.

It's a city I've
always wanted to see.

I'll take the shift

even though it's not
supposed to be mine."

And it turns out to
be a fateful decision.

- [Jason] When the
bomb goes off,

[explosion blasts]

Vesna happens to be
behind the drink cart,

and as the plane starts
taking a free fall,

the cart pins Vesna to
the back of the aircraft.

At this point, Vesna
loses consciousness,

and she's passed out.

- She free-falls 33,000 feet.

That's six miles, pinned
between the food cart

and the fuselage of the plane.

- [Dan] It may be the first
time that airplane food

saves someone's life,

but the unlikely
circumstances continue.

- Vesna is traveling from
33,000 feet in a dead free fall.

[air whooshing]

So this is gonna take
her about three minutes

until she hits the ground.

- And during that time, she's
still in the tail section.

This forms a kind of
rigid cage around her

that will somewhat protect her,

and the tail section
has a surface area

which will slow down the
descent to some extent.

It is like the world's
worst parachute.

- [Dan] Then, another
unbelievable coincidence.

- [Adam] The wreckage
lands at such an angle

that she doesn't really
absorb all the impact,

and she's alive.

She fell over 33,000
feet without a parachute

in a damaged airplane that had
been ripped apart by a bomb,

and is alive.

[dramatic music]

- [Chris] She has a skull
fracture, a cerebral hemorrhage,

she has multiple
fractured vertebrae,

she has both legs that
have been fractured,

and a fractured pelvis as well.

This is actually quite amazing

that this is all
that she has injured.

- [Adam] People theorize
that, essentially,

her low blood pressure

is what keeps her
heart from exploding.

It's like an underfilled
water balloon;

had she had normal
blood pressure

with that rapid
depressurization of the cabin

and the impact with the Earth,

that easily could have made
her heart explode in her chest.

- [Dan] While she miraculously
survives the impact,

she needs immediate
medical attention.

- Somehow, the first
person to come along

to check out the wreckage,
they hear her screaming.

They see her.

- And it so happens that he is
a former World War II medic,

and he's seen a lot
of battlefield trauma.

So he's able to take care
of Vesna until help arrives

and she's brought to a hospital.

- Vesna is in a coma for a
few weeks after the accident.

When she finally awakes,
she's partially paralyzed.

- [Jason] 10 months
after the accident,

Vesna actually regains
her ability to walk,

and for the rest of her
life, she's got a limp.

But the fact that she's now
walking less than a year later

is unbelievable.

- Vesna's plunge lands
her in the history books

with a world record no one
is in a hurry to break.

- Of all the dangers
you might watch out for

on a quiet walk, this one
isn't on anyone's list.

Our tale begins, fittingly,

high up on an apartment
building's unluckiest floor.

[mysterious music]

- In Buenos Aires in 1988,

the Montoya family has this
apartment on the 13th floor.

Their son is playing with
the pet poodle, Cachi.

- And the son throws the ball

towards the open
door to the balcony,

and the dog goes
bounding after it.

- As it is getting closer
and closer to this balcony,

the dog tries to stop.

The dog does not.

- Cachi falls the 13 floors,

which is heartbreaking if
you are an animal lover.

- [Matthew] At that very moment,

a 75-year-old woman
named Marta Espina,

she's walking around
her neighborhood

doing some shopping, and
then all of a sudden...

- [claps] Cachi falls directly
onto the head of Marta.

They both die.

- [Matthew] The impact
constitutes, essentially,

a blunt-force
trauma to the head.

[siren wailing]

- [Dan] But the tragic chain
of events doesn't end here.

- [Holly] Another woman named
Edith is across the street,

happens to see this.

Immediately, her good
Samaritan intent kicks in.

She jumps up to run
across the street

to check on this woman.

- [Sami] And she...

[horn honks]
[tires screeching]

[claps] Gets hit by a bus.

So now you have Cachi the
poodle, you have Marta,

you have Edith.

- [Holly] There is a third
person, a man who apparently

has just come out the pharmacy
with his prescription,

sees all of this play out.

- It's too much for him to take.

He has a heart attack, and
he dies there on the spot.

The fourth casualty of Cachi
the poodle's game of fetch.

[pensive music]

- The odds of death by
poodle are pretty slim,

but nothing like what
Shenandoah National Park Ranger

Roy Sullivan is up against.

It all starts during a
thunderstorm in 1942.

As Roy takes shelter
in a fire tower,

it's hit by lightning.

[thunder crashing]

- And after eight lightning
strikes on that tower,

it's now ablaze, and
Roy has to escape.

Well, on his way down the tower,

[thunder crashing]

he's struck.

It burns through his shoe,
yanks off his toenail,

but he lives through it.

- When you are
struck by lightning,

[thunder crashes]

an extremely large amount
of electrical current

flows through your
body, to the ground.

This is potentially
lethal for most people.

- [Dan] The odds of being
struck by lightning

are just one in
15,300, pretty low.

But Ranger Roy is about
to defy those odds,

again.

[dramatic music]

- He is driving his pickup truck
during an electrical storm,

and a tree adjoining
his truck is struck.

[thunder crashing]

The lightning rebounds
into the cab of his truck,

setting his eyebrows
and hair afire.

- [James] But twice is
apparently not enough for Roy.

[thunder crashing]

The third time, lightning
bounces off of a transformer

and strikes him, but this
time it leaves its mark.

It's a Lichtenberg figure,
so-called, across his back

in the shape of
a lightning bolt.

- [Dan] Roy is now tied with
a man named Walter Summerford

as the only known people who
have been struck by lightning

three times, for at
least two years.

That is, until...

- [James] Roy's struck again!

Fourth time.

This time, it sets
his hair on fire,

and he's got to put that out.

He takes a wet cloth,
pats it on his head,

and puts his hair out.

- So now Roy,

the most-struck-by-lightning
man on Earth,

travels everywhere with a
can of water at the ready

just in case he is struck
and set upon fire again.

- [Dan] Unfortunately,
that can of water

is going to come in handy.

- He's driving down
a mountain road.

He sees evidence of a lightning
storm on the horizon.

[thunder crashing]

He flees in the other direction.

- He starts driving away
as quickly as possible,

can of water at the ready,

appearing to be at a safe
distance from the ominous cloud

that he feels is following.

He emerges from
his pickup truck,

only to be struck again.

Hair on fire, eyebrows on fire,
can of water over the head.

Roy was prepared this time.

- It's the same show
all over and over again.

[thunder rumbling]

- [Dan] Incredibly, Roy
is struck two more times,

the last after he leaves
what already was for him

a dangerous job.

- When Roy finally retires
from the park service,

his seventh and final time
happens while he is at leisure.

[thunder crashing]

He gets struck while fishing.

- Roy, in short,
is a miracle man.

The chance of being
struck by lightning

seven different times
is one out of 10

to the 28th power.

The chances of being struck
and surviving seven times

put the odds even
further off the margins.

And it would be
considered impossible

but for the fact that it
happens to Roy Sullivan.

- [Dan] Even his own wife
isn't safe around him.

- It's no surprise that
his wife would be dismayed

because when she's
hanging clothes one day,

when he's 100-some feet away,

[thunder rumbling]

she herself gets
struck by lightning.

[thunder crashing]
[wife shouts]

- [Dan] Surprisingly, she
doesn't file for divorce.

- The way Roy chooses
to deal with this

attraction that he has for
things that kill anybody else,

is he decides to own it.

He becomes the Guinness
World Record holder

for the number of
lightning strikes

that someone can live through.

He gives lectures.

He has the artifacts from
when he's been struck.

He essentially becomes the
human lightning rod for real.

- His superhuman ability
is that he shows us

that the word "impossible"

should be used very
sparingly, if at all.

- Turns out lightning
does strike twice.

And in Roy's case, five
more times after that.

- St. Petersburg, Florida, 1951,

a widow named Mary Reeser is
having dinner with her son.

She then tells him
it's time for a nap.

What happens next is,
well, unbelievable.

[mysterious music]

- Mary Reeser gets home
one night to her apartment,

plops down in her overstuffed
upholstered easy chair,

pops a couple of sedatives

'cause she's trying
to get some rest,

passes out, and goes to sleep.

- 8:00 a.m. the next morning,
her landlord, Pansy Carpenter,

smells some smoke.

So she goes, and she
touches the doorknob,

and it's too hot to touch.

So she fears, rightfully so,
that there's a fire inside.

[knocking]

- The police department
is immediately called,

and they show up, and
when they open the door,

they see something that
they've never seen before.

[tense music]

- Very little is
left of the chair,

just some springs
and some debris.

There's a pile of ash
where Mary was sitting.

One of her feet is completely
intact, still in the slipper.

- Stranger still,

nothing else in the
apartment has caught fire.

A pile of newspapers, feet
away, completely untouched.

Light switches on
the wall are melted,

but the outlets on the
bottom are still operational

and perfectly intact.

- [Victor] The pictures
are on the walls.

The floor, perfectly fine.

The ceiling, no smoke damage.

And yet, Mary Reeser,
burned to a crisp, gone.

- [Dan] So what caused Mary
Reeser to suddenly go poof?

- For a human body
to be fully cremated,

you have to be in a fire that
is upwards of 3,000 degrees

for upwards of three hours.

Perhaps she lit a cigarette,

the cigarette lit her clothes
on fire, and she burned.

Yet somehow, fire didn't
spread to any other apartment.

No one smelled smoke, saw smoke.

- There's just no way
that any household fire

would be able to consume
a human being that way.

- [Dan] Even more bizarre,
Mary's skull is found,

but it's mysteriously smaller.

- In a normal cremation setting,

the human skull
is going to crack.

- In her case, the
skull shrinks down

to the size of a baseball.

- Now, doesn't that
sound suspicious?

- The authorities
begin to wonder,

is there some Soviet
weapon at play?

So the FBI begins
investigating this.

- [Dan] It's so perplexing,

it makes it all the way up
to Director J. Edgar Hoover.

- [Matthew] He
looks at this case,

and he's so concerned that he
actually lets the president,

Harry S. Truman, know about
this case going on in Florida.

He employs his top forensic
anthropologist at the time,

Wilton Krogman.

- [Dan] Wilton Krogman is a
pioneer in the forensics field

and the most qualified man in
the country to solve the case.

- He shows up to the scene,

and he has no idea
what's going on.

How does a skull
shrink in a fire?

That's not a thing that's
supposed to happen.

- [Dan] Desperate, the
FBI entertains a number

of strange possibilities.

[tense music]

- Now, a lot of people
speculate foul play

and that someone had
come in and doused Mary

with kerosene and
set her alight.

- All the associated
things that you would have

inside of an arson case
with an accelerant,

all the samples
that were collected

and sent to the laboratory,

none of it comes back
with any sort of traces

of accelerant in it.

- The next theory
the FBI investigates

comes from an anonymous tip.

- An anonymous person calls up

and says that a fireball
came in through the window,

lights Mary on fire.

[explosion blasts]

- Gave an official
statement, said, "I seen it.

A fireball came in her
window and hit it."

[tense music]

Generally speaking, fireballs
don't fly through windows.

- What it could be is another
unexplained phenomenon

of ball lightning,
which is controversial.

It may or may not exist.

I mean, how much credence do
we put into anonymous tips?

I mean, right there, we think
it's a little bit of BS.

- [Dan] Is it possible the
most likely explanation

is also the most unbelievable:

spontaneous human combustion?

- Spontaneous human combustion
is an idea that someone

just, all of a sudden,
bursts into flames,

and it only impacts
the individual,

and it doesn't
impact anything else.

- Spontaneous combustion
does happen in nature.

With hay bales, you
have wet and dry hay.

The wet hay's still alive,

going through its
respiration process,

taking in carbon dioxide,
pumping out oxygen,

and this creates heat.

So you'll have hay bales that
just spontaneously combust.

[flames whooshing]

- [Dan] The question is, could
this also happen to humans?

Shockingly, there have been
roughly 200 recorded cases

of spontaneous human
combustion in history.

- In 1470, there is an
Italian knight in Milan

who, after a night of drinking,
according to witnesses,

begins to actually
belch up flame.

And finally, his
entire body combusts,

seemingly from within.

- [Dan] But in Mary's case,

the FBI is unwilling to list
spontaneous human combustion

as the official cause of death.

What they come up with
isn't any less strange.

- So, the belief is
that Mary succumbed

to something known
as the wick effect.

In essence, the body is
an inside-out candle.

The clothing is the
wick that catches flame,

but the combustible
hydrocarbons found in human fat

literally served
to fuel the fire.

- Because she's an overweight
woman that was also a smoker,

the FBI suggests that the
cigarette burns her nightgown,

which causes her
to go up in flame.

Because she's a heavier
woman, that leads to the fire

continuing to burn for
a longer period of time.

- [Dan] Not everyone
accepts this answer.

- There are lots of
problems with this theory.

The first of which is
that millions of people

fall asleep with lit cigarettes,

and they don't usually
end up cremated.

- So people are thinking,

"Why would you not wake up if
you are currently on fire?"

- Even with sedatives, there's
still a great likelihood

that a person would
start thrashing around.

Spontaneous human combustion,

it's the last place
investigators want to go,

but sometimes they're
forced to go there

in the absence of any
other explanations.

- I think it's a damn
strange world. [laughs]

I never take anything
off the table

until we're absolutely certain.

[intense music]

- The forensic anthropologist
hired by the FBI

has this to say: "Were I
living in the Middle Ages,

I'd mutter something
about black magic."

- Some leaders face war,
famine, or political unrest.

For one 16th-century
Austrian mayor,

the real threat is
right under his nose.

[pensive music]

- It's the 16th century,
and Hans Steininger

is the immensely popular
mayor of Braunau am Inn.

Everyone loves him.

He's elected for six
consecutive terms,

but that's not what
he's famous for.

- Hans is a sight to see.

He has a beard that's
4 1/2 feet long.

Now, when it gets to
the end, it forks.

It's so long, it reaches
all the way to his feet.

- [Dan] Mayor Hans even
has his suits custom-made

to keep his beard
neatly rolled up

and tucked into
his breast pocket.

Braunau am Inn flourishes under
his leadership for decades,

until one day, when
things get a little hairy.

- [Hakeem] September 28th,
1576, all mayhem breaks out.

The town of Braunau
am Inn catches fire.

It's 1576.

There's no such thing
as a fire engine yet.

There's no such thing
as a fire department.

Now, the mayor has an emergency
that he has to handle.

- Atop a really long staircase,
Hans surveys the scene,

and he just sees his
entire town in flames.

So, to go save the town and
direct the rescue efforts,

he takes off running
straight down the stairs.

However, in his haste,

he forgets to tuck his beard
into his little beard pocket.

- [Hakeem] Almost immediately,
his 4 1/2-foot beard

tangles up in his feet,

and he's just tumbling
down these concrete stairs.

- [Austin] Tip over top,
over tip, over top,

into the town square.

- [Dan] By the time
he reaches the bottom,

his neck is broken.

- This is probably
the first time

in the history of the world

a mayor has been killed
by his own beard.

- [Dan] But the people
of Braunau am Inn

find an unbelievable way to
honor the mayor's legacy.

- Hans may have been lost
that day, but not his beard.

His beard is snipped
off before he's buried

and is kept by his family

and passed down from
generation to generation

until finally, in the
20th century, 1919,

the beard is
bequeathed to the city.

- And to this day, it is in a
4 1/2-foot-long glass box,

embalmed for everyone to
remember Mayor Hans Steininger.

- A beard may have
brought one man down,

but centuries later, another
man takes a much sharper blow.

[tense music]

- Phineas Gage is a
25-year-old railroad worker

in the town of
Cavendish, Vermont.

- Phineas is a professional,
hardworking, brilliant citizen.

- His specialty is explosives.

'Cause they need to lay
down railroad track,

you have to blow
up a lot of rock,

and so he's the guy
that sets the charge.

- [Mitch] As part
of Phineas's job,

he has a 3 1/2-foot iron bar

that he uses to tamp
down the gunpowder.

[hammer tapping]

- [Austin] But it's very,
very, very dangerous work

because it's black powder,

and black powder can go
off like that. [snaps]

[tense music]

- He strikes the rock just so
with his rod, creates a spark.

[explosion blasts]
[debris clattering]

- That tamping iron
essentially became the bullet.

[tense music]

- [Edward] It shoots upward, and
it goes right into his cheek,

[Phineas yells]

passes behind his left eye, and
then out the top of his head

through the frontal left lobe.

It flies 80 feet away
from the explosion.

[metal clinking]

- Everyone is absolutely
certain the man is dead.

To the shock of his
crewmates, he stands up,

starts walking around,
asking what happened.

He doesn't seem
particularly alarmed.

Because the tapered end of
the bar exits his skull,

he is spared
greater brain damage

than he otherwise
would've suffered.

- [Dan] Doctors manage
to stop the bleeding,

but they wonder, what are
the long-term consequences?

- Phineas was known
as an easygoing,

likable guy before his injury.

The person who returns
to the railroad crew

is argumentative, abrasive.

- He's irritable,
short-tempered, impulsive,

and he's kind of a jerk
to everybody around him.

- He's prone to
alcoholism and violence,

and we could say definitively,
these are two different people.

- Gage becomes kind of
a medical curiosity,

and people are wondering how
then on Earth he survives,

and also, what is it that
has changed his personality?

And it's really, in some ways,
the beginning of neuroscience.

- The way the rod goes
through his brain,

it pierces an area of the brain

that controls
emotional responses.

- [Brian] The frontal lobes.

Frontal lobes are
really super important

for behavioral control.

When Phineas severely
damages his frontal lobes,

it's like a brake
has been taken off of

his behavioral regulator.

And it is not
uncommon with patients

that have frontal lobe damage
that they act impulsively.

They can act aggressively.

- Prior to this, people
thought personality

was sort of like an
extension of your soul.

It was some sort of
ethereal part of you

that, you know, you had
to work on all the time,

as opposed to something that
literally came out of synapses

and cells and things
in your brain.

- What I find fascinating
about the Phineas Gage case

is that 175 years later,

scientists are still
studying his case.

He is that important
in the history

of our understanding
of the human brain.

- [Dan] What eventually
becomes of Phineas Gage?

- Because of the
changing character

that transpires in Phineas,

he can no longer get
along on crew work,

and he actually finds
work driving a stagecoach

in South America, in
the nation of Chile.

- Phineas Gage continues
to turn heads to this day.

His skull and the iron
bar that passed through it

are on permanent display

at the Countway Library of
Medicine at Harvard University.

- We're all familiar
with the old saying,

"Pride goeth before a fall."

But in the case of one very
confident safety expert,

this expression becomes
quite literally true.

[pensive music]

- Garry Hoy is a highly
regarded Toronto lawyer

who specializes in building
safety and compliance.

On top of that, he also has
a degree in engineering.

This is a guy that
absolutely loves his job.

- July 9th, 1993, and Garry Hoy

is there at the Dominion
Tower skyscraper in Toronto

for an office party.

It's a welcome party for young,
college soon-to-be grads

applying for apprenticeships
at his law firm.

- [Sami] Because he is so
passionate about building safety

and about engineering
structures,

he wants to showcase
the resilience

of the windows of the building.

- His offices are
the 24th floor,

and he decides to show
them his party trick.

[suspenseful music]

- So he tells
everybody to step back,

and they give him room.

He backs up and starts running.

- [Sami] He launches
himself at this window.

- And he bounces
right off of it,

and he says to everyone,
to a round of applause,

cheers, and laughs, "Look
how strong that glass is."

- Feeling the high of
the crowd's reception

to his party trick, he goes,
"I'm gonna do it again."

- [Dan] Garry backs up, and
he sprints at full speed

towards the shatterproof window,
24 stories above Toronto.

[window thuds]

- [Chris] The window
doesn't shatter.

- However, the glass
and its entire frame

separate from the side
of the skyscraper.

And now, Garry, to his
surprise, is riding

a full, intact pane
of skyscraper glass

down to the ground of Toronto.

- [Holly] Unfortunately,
he's killed.

But he's right!

His windows are actually as
resilient as he always claimed.

He just isn't taking
into account the frame,

which is the failure point,

and that was the
ultimate demise.

- [Dan] Garry proved
that showing off

can have deadly consequences.

But our next story takes
that idea even higher,

as two men in 19th-century
Paris risk everything for love.

[tense music]

- So we're in Napoleonic
France, 1808, in Paris.

We have a famous dancer
at an opera house.

A gorgeous lady,
Mademoiselle Tirevit,

and two gentlemen are
desperately in love with her.

- So one guy, Monsieur Grandpre,

decides to get her an
apartment in the city

so that he can visit her there.

But this plan backfires
when he realizes

that he's not the only
gentleman caller visiting her.

There's a second man
named Monsieur Le Pique.

So Monsieur Grandpre challenges
Monsieur Le Pique to a duel,

a real, to-the-death duel.

- [Dan] But this isn't
going to be a regular duel.

No, they plan
something much bigger,

something much more chic.

- They're going to
shoot at each other

in hot air balloons
over the city.

- [Dan] And not
just at each other.

The goal of this
high-stakes game

is to shoot down the
opponent's balloon.

- So this dancer
must be very special

because it's pretty
much guaranteed

that at least one of them,
probably both of them,

are going to die.

- They schedule this hot air
balloon duel for a month out,

and you would think, having a
month to reflect on this plan,

somebody would've
come to their senses.

- [Greg] But no one's
head cools down.

No one thinks to themselves,
"Maybe this isn't a great idea."

No, they all go forward with it.

- [Dan] On May 3rd,
1808, it's showtime.

As the crowd gathers in
the Tuileries Gardens

just next to the Louvre Museum,

most people think they're
watching a simple balloon race

until they see the guns.

- [Kavitha] And this
isn't even the strangest

part of this story yet.

Dueling, it's common practice
to have a second man with you.

But in this case,
you need to find

someone who is
such a good friend

that they're willing to get

into this hot air
balloon with you,

knowing that they
will likely also die.

So that's gotta be a
really strong friendship.

- [Dan] As the
balloons lift off,

the mostly unsuspecting
crowd begins to cheer.

[uneasy music]

Now nearly 2,000 feet
above the city of lovers,

the duel begins.

But first, they must
follow the code duello.

- This isn't like a Western;

you don't have two
guys standing there,

both ready to draw, and
they do what they want.

The code duello sets
very specific rules

for how a duel is conducted.

- The most important
part of this code to note

is that the man who
accepts the challenge

gets to shoot first.

So in this case,
because Grandpre

extended the
challenge to Le Pique,

Le Pique gets the first shot.

- He doesn't have
to hit Grandpre;

he only has to hit this
large, floating balloon.

[gun blasts]

- But Le Pique, who had
a month to practice this,

totally misses.

- That now gives Grandpre the
opportunity to fire his shot,

while Le Pique has to just
stand there in his little basket

and pray that his opponent
is as bad a shot as him.

[tense music]
[gun blasts]

His shot rings true,

it blasts a hole through
the hot air balloon.

The balloon deflates,
just as you can imagine.

Le Pique and his second both
fall like rocks from the sky,

and are dead.

- There's a certain
romance in dying for love

by bullet in a hot air balloon.

But being the unlucky
friend along for the ride,

not quite as poetic.

- Swimming alone in
the middle of the ocean

can be a risky
endeavor, as one man

in the early 1960s can
certainly attest to.

[tense music]

- By 22 years old,
Australian Rodney Fox

is already a
spearfishing legend.

In 1963, he's determined to
hold onto his local title.

- He is free diving without
a tank, taking deep breaths,

and combing the reefs
off of Aldinga Beach

in search of exotic fish.

- [Dan] What Rodney
doesn't realize

is that he is also being hunted.

[Rodney screams]
[water splashing]

- [Edward] Suddenly, he's
slammed from the side.

His spear gun is
knocked from his hand.

His mask is torn from his face.

His first thought is that he's
been struck by a submarine.

- Rodney isn't sure
what's happening,

but what he does know is that
he's moving through the water

faster than he's ever
moved in his life.

Rodney feels an intense pressure

from his hip to
above his shoulder,

and all the air just suddenly
expelled from his lungs.

Then very quickly, he realizes

that he's in the mouth
of a great white shark.

[dramatic music]

- [Edward] He's weakened
by the loss of blood

and also the lack of air.

So he reaches for
his diver's knife

and begins jabbing the shark
near his eyes, near his gills.

Incredibly, he actually feels
the shark letting him go.

- [Dan] Most would try
to flee from the shark,

but quick-thinking Rodney
goes on the offensive.

- [Thor] Rodney rushes toward
the shark and bear hugs it,

wrapping his bloody arms around
its great, sandpaper-y belly.

This is similar to a
tactic used by seals.

When they're attacked
by great white sharks,

they crowd close
to its midsection

to stay away from
its deadly jaws.

- Now the shark wants
to get rid of Rodney,

so it shakes him off.

And once free, Rodney is
going for the surface.

- He looks down as he's
kicking his way to the surface,

and through the bloody
murk of the water,

he can see the shark
is coming at him.

- The shark goes in
for another bite.

But to Rodney's surprise,
the shark doesn't bite him.

It goes for the bag of
fish that he has speared.

- [Dan] This may sound
like a lucky break,

but the bag of fish is
still attached to him.

- [Thor] So when the
shark takes off,

Rodney is dragged by the bag

back down toward
the ocean floor.

By some last-minute miracle,
the line snaps on its own,

and Rodney is free to
swim toward the surface.

[Rodney gasps]

- Rodney breaks the surface
and begins to gulp air,

and he sees that a boat
is bearing down on him.

And it turns out that the blood
that is pouring out of Rodney

has created essentially a
dye marker to locate him.

- [Dan] As Rodney is
pulled onto the boat,

the only thing holding him
together is his wetsuit.

- He is in terrible condition.

There's this giant bite
mark going from his shoulder

all the way down to his hip,
and his organs are hanging out.

Every rib on the left side
of his body is cracked,

and his lung is punctured.

- It takes almost 500 stitches

to put Rodney back
together again.

But he survives

and fights his way back
to a full recovery.

- [Edward] Rodney's massive scar

becomes the stuff of
spearfishing legend.

Some say the encounter
inspired Peter Benchley

when he was writing
the book "Jaws."

- 2,000 years before Rodney's
unbelievable encounter,

another man is
attacked by an animal,

not exactly known for
its predatory instincts.

[tense music]

- Aeschylus is a famous
Greek playwright.

He is the Shakespeare of
ancient Greek tragedies.

He restructures how
Greek plays work,

and he makes them more
fun and more interesting.

He wins awards and
contests all the time.

He is prolific and
an absolute genius.

- [Dan] But one sunny afternoon,

something happens that
seems like the plot

in one of his own stories.

- So one day, Aeschylus is in
the southern coast of Sicily

in a town called Gela,
sitting on a rock

gazing upon the ocean,

when all of a sudden
a really hard object

hits him on the head.

- It turns out that
there's a hungry eagle

that has been fortunate enough

to obtain a nice-sized
tortoise, and it's flying about

because it wants to
find a nice big rock

so that it can drop it

and have the tortoise shell
crack open, and it can feast.

Unfortunately for him,
our playwright Aeschylus

suffers from
male-pattern baldness.

So from the sky, from
the eagle's perspective,

his nice shiny scalp appears
to be the perfect rock.

- Aeschylus goes
down in history,

not only as the
father of tragedies,

but also as the only human being

known to have died
from falling tortoise.

[mysterious music]

- Whether it's dog falls, free
falls, or freak accidents,

they all have one
thing in common:

they're the very best
life-or-death stories

ever told on "The UnBelievable".