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- [00:00]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:05]
Cecilia Skog
BBC Sounds Music Radio podcasts.
- [00:09]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
You're about to listen to Extreme Peak Danger with me, Natalia Melman Petruzella. New episodes will be released on Mondays, so mark it in your calendar and find them wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the uk, you can listen to the full series now first on BBC Sounds. Enjoy. It's the evening of July 31st, 2008. Frederick Strang is sitting outside his tent in K2's camp, four, more than 25,000ft above sea level. It's the night before the final push for the summit.
- [00:46]
Frederick Strang
I had this vision of making the first documentary about K2 in high definition. So I had this huge camera with me in the camera. I was looking up the mountain the last stretch and I saw this huge overhanging face, the serac.
- [01:06]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Serac comes from a French word meaning crumbly white cheese. But on K2, it's the name for massive blocks of glacial ice. The biggest of them all is near the top of the mountain. It sits like a great cliff of jagged, broken up ice. It's huge, practically two football fields long, and it looms over all the climbers below. And just like its namesake, this serac is known to crumble too. By day, the ice contracts in the heat of the sun, and by night, at well below freezing temperatures, it expands.
- [01:43]
Frederick Strang
It really grabs hold of your spine and it shakes you so violently because it is so dangerous, it's scary.
- [01:54]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
It's important to keep track of the serac's movements. Dr. Eric Meyer, Frederick's teammate, had seen some photos taken two weeks earlier, but now he's looking at the real deal up close.
- [02:06]
Dr. Eric Meyer
I was a bit taken by surprise because of what I saw in the seracs. And then comparing those to the photographs made me really concerned about the route. The seracs were much more broken up, less consolidated. This last few days of cold nights, warm days, was undoubtedly going to contribute to icefall. Huge pieces of ice. Some of them are the size of a boxcar, some of them are the size of a refrigerator, some of them are only as big as a bowling ball, but all are big enough to kill you.
- [02:43]
Frederick Strang
It can trigger at any moment, a Russian roulette. Honestly, we were scared to death.
- [02:53]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
One of Frederick's other teammates is feeling a little more upbeat, CHEERING.
- [02:57]
Frederick Strang
He said, I'm not. And he was laughing around and joking and we all started laughing.
- [03:03]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Shiring Dorje. He's been climbing some of the world's tallest mountains since he was just 16 years old. As the mom of a teenage boy, I can tell you that this is very impressive.
- [03:14]
Frederick Strang
Bring out your cups, Shiring said. Let's have something to drink. And I think this was our separate ways of handling this very, very scary situation.
- [03:29]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
The teammates spend the rest of their evening sipping hot drinks and telling jokes, trying to distract themselves from the fact that in just a few short hours, they'll be climbing in the shadow of a terrifying crumbling wall of ice.
- [03:43]
Shiring Dorje
Let's get the stoves going. Tomorrow's gonna be a very tough day.
- [03:50]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
I'm Natalia Melman petruzella from the BBC. This is Extreme Peak D Episode 3 the Death Zone Dr. Eric Meyer and Shiring Dorje first met four years earlier on the northern side of Mount Everest.
- [04:25]
Dr. Eric Meyer
He was just this larger than life, extraordinary individual. I can remember him greeting everyone in the morning. Good morning, everyone. And I said, this is a guy I got to get to know.
- [04:40]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
The pair would spend hours talking over coffee as they overlooked the surrounding mountains.
- [04:45]
Dr. Eric Meyer
It was the beginning of an amazing friendship.
- [04:50]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Shearing is from a tiny community in the remote Rolwalling Valley.
- [04:55]
Dren Mandich
I born in the Rolwaling. It's very peaceful and hidden. Valley is Rolwaling.
- [05:00]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
It's part of the Himalayan mountain range that cuts through Nepal. Shiring's full name is Shiring Dorji.
- [05:07]
Dren Mandich
Sherpa. S H E R P A Sherpa.
- [05:14]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Sherpas are an ethnic group from the mountain regions of Nepal and Tibet who can trace their lineage back thousands of years. Like his ancestors before him, Shirin grew up around high altitude mountains. They're in his blood, literally. There's research that shows that ethnic Sherpas have fewer red blood cells than us lowlanders, meaning they typically have less oxygen in their blood and that their mitochondria, a vital part of your respiratory system, uses oxygen more efficiently. This can help some of them to fare better at higher altitudes, so much so that Shearing can actually find it difficult to function at a lower altitude.
- [05:50]
Dren Mandich
When I go down for sea level, my body is like very weak.
- [05:55]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Shearing grew up on a yak ranch and spent a lot of his spare time rock climbing, even when he was supposed to be in school.
- [06:01]
Dren Mandich
Yeah, that teacher is very unhappy.
- [06:08]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Schering's mother died when he was just 12 years old and he had to drop out of school to help look after his siblings.
- [06:14]
Dren Mandich
Take care of my sister and my brother and old family.
- [06:19]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
If you come from Rohl Walling, you're pretty much guaranteed to end up working on the mountains because employment Opportunities are limited.
- [06:27]
Dren Mandich
Our job is mountain climbing. Otherwise we have no job in the Royal Valley.
- [06:32]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
When he was just 13, Shearing started working as a kind of porter who would carry and set up equipments on local mountains. The year after, he moved to Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city. He could pick up more work there. But while you could say Shearing was pushed into this line of work by circumstance, he. He ended up having a real knack for it. By age 16, he'd already climbed Everest. Soon he graduated to guiding High Altitude Expeditions and even founded his own company.
- [07:00]
Dren Mandich
I've met a lot of good people in the mountain. The mountain is really good for international friends.
- [07:08]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Friends like Dr. Eric Meyer. And after meeting on Everest, Eric helped Sheering build a new life with his wife and daughters in the U.S. they're now so close, they call each other brother.
- [07:18]
Dren Mandich
Brother Meyer. We have a lot of history. We climb mountain now. We are like family.
- [07:28]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
By 2008, Sheering is 34 and one of the best guides in the biz. So Dr. Eric wasted no time in getting him on board for his latest K2 trip.
- [07:37]
Dr. Eric Meyer
I introduced the idea. Let's bring Searing Dorje not as a working Sherpa who's working on the expedition, but as a regular member of this team.
- [07:46]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Normally, if a Sherpa is present, they've been hired to do a job. But Dr. Eric sees shearing as an equal and essential teammate.
- [07:54]
Dr. Eric Meyer
If you have the chance to have Michael Jordan on your basketball team, why wouldn't you pick Michael Jordan?
- [08:00]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
A few days before the final climb, in the big summit meeting at Base Camp, the team leaders signed that special contract which outlined everyone's responsibilities. They all agreed that an advance team of mostly high altitude workers would leave before the other climbers to fix essential guide ropes to the mountain face. Each team nominated their top climber for the task. Shearing isn't working on this trip, but because of how respected he is and given all his climbing experience, he's also part of the advance team. Around midnight on August 1st, summit day, all the climbing teams are in Camp 4. Shiring and the rest of the advance team are running a little behind schedule. There's been some confusion around missing equipment, but they've managed to get on their way. As the rest of the camp is starting to wake up, Norwegian climber Cecilia Skog is already practically bursting with excitement.
- [08:54]
Cecilia Skog
We're so eager to get started. The weather is so nice. There's 1 trillion stars, and it's like being in a dream. Everything seems to be in place. To be able to get as high as we can.
- [09:12]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
At about 3am, Cecilia and her teammates start working their way up the final stretches of K2. The plan is to stagger everyone's departure time to avoid overcrowding. Teammates Dr. Eric Meyer and Frederick Strang are some of the last climbers preparing to leave Camp 4.
- [09:31]
Dr. Eric Meyer
You start out really trying to force yourself to eat and, and drinking tea, anything warm. You're putting on your layers, your down suit. You're climbing inner boots, and you're climbing outer boots. You get out of the tent, put your crampons on.
- [09:48]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Crampons clip onto the bottom of your climbing boots. They're covered with spikes that help you dig into ice and rock.
- [09:54]
Dr. Eric Meyer
I was particularly focused on making sure I had my full medical kit with altitude medicines and antibiotics, wound care kit, those kinds of things.
- [10:06]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Dr. Eric and Frederick are still feeling nervous about this final part of the climb. The delays in missing equipment have only exacerbated things, and they don't have their brother shearing to lift their spirits. He's hours ahead of them by now. But they're also excited. They're so close to finally setting foot on the summit they've been dreaming of all summer. So once they're all packed, they head off, too, full of anticipation. All of the climbers who are attempting to summit K2 are now on the move. Right out of camp four is an area called the shoulder. It's pretty flat, basically a vast snowfield. This is, relatively speaking, the easy part. But as Cecilia and her teammates pass through it, they notice something weird.
- [10:52]
Cecilia Skog
Suddenly we see a lot of ropes. Okay, why is there a rope here? It's not steep.
- [10:58]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Some teams seem to have requested that ropes be placed at lower sections of this final push to give their climbers an extra helping hand, which wasn't what was agreed upon.
- [11:08]
Dr. Eric Meyer
It was conflicting with the plan that we had witnessed in the planning meeting.
- [11:14]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
As they continue up the shoulder, it doesn't take long before they're confronted with another, much bigger problem.
- [11:21]
Cecilia Skog
When we get to the bottleneck, there's such a long queue.
- [11:28]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
At an altitude of 26,900ft, the bottleneck is a thin, near vertical path of ice and snow, barely wide enough to fit a single file line of climbers. It's wedged in between two faces of black rock, and if that's not intimidating enough, the whole thing sits directly under the huge, looming serac. If there's one place on K2 where you do not want to be stuck in a long line, it is right here. Cecilia feels a pit forming in her stomach.
- [12:00]
Cecilia Skog
We've spent so much time on this really easy terrain. I have this gut feeling that I'm not in control of this climb.
- [12:13]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Further down the mountain, back near the start of the shoulder, Dr. Eric and filmmaker Frederick are still on the move. It's about 6:30am The Morning sun is just barely beginning to peak from above the horizon. Looking up ahead, Eric and Frederick can also see the traffic jam forming around the bottleneck. They instantly appreciate how dangerous the situation is.
- [12:35]
Shiring Dorje
The bottleneck looks scary.
- [12:40]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Shit. Eric and Frederick stop climbing. They're watching the chaos of the traffic jam unfurl up ahead, knowing that every setback for those climbers is going to come back on them. Frederick is frustrated.
- [12:54]
Shiring Dorje
This is one of my more, more disappointing days I had for a very long time. And we are way back. We are really late. I don't know what the fuck we're gonna do.
- [13:11]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Both Eric and Frederick are staring up at the serac again.
- [13:15]
Dr. Eric Meyer
Once you're in climbing the bottleneck, it's so steep that you're really not looking up any further at the overhanging ice. But when you're still below it, you see it in perspective.
- [13:26]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
From their vantage point, they can see.
- [13:29]
Frederick Strang
Every deep, terrifying crack it can trigger at any moment. To limit the risk, the idea is to climb through this area as fast as possible.
- [13:41]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
But with this epic line, that's not going to happen. Frederick's Swedish hometown of Nerke has a motto. In this moment, it starts ringing in his ears like an alarm. It's never too late to give up in ordinary circumstances. I think it's fair to say that this is not the most uplifting or encouraging advice. But there is nothing ordinary about this situation. Another memory from back home flashes across Frederick's mind.
- [14:09]
Frederick Strang
I remember leaving Arlanda, which is the international airport in Sweden, and my father said, my son, if something feels wrong, you have to promise us to turn around.
- [14:25]
Dr. Eric Meyer
You've put months and months of preparation and effort into getting to this point. To turn back is just one of the hardest, hardest things that a climber can do at that point, especially when you're physically still capable of going upward.
- [14:41]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Dr. Eric's shoulders droop with disappointment as he turns to Frederick.
- [14:45]
Dr. Eric Meyer
We just looked at each other and shook our head like it's not our day.
- [14:52]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Before they turn around, Eric and Frederick radio to the climbers up above them.
- [14:57]
Frederick Strang
We try to warn them that you're spending too much time underneath this rack. But we only got reply from Shiring.
- [15:06]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Just like the night before, Shiring isn't phased not enough to stop anyway.
- [15:11]
Dren Mandich
I very confident I want to go summit. I can do it. Only one chance.
- [15:18]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
As for the other climbers, we did.
- [15:21]
Frederick Strang
Not hear anything from anyone else. We never got a reply.
- [15:32]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
After climbing through the night, Cecilia and the rest of the Norwegian team are clustered under the bottleneck at just under 27,000ft. They're alongside the Korean team, the Serbian team and all the rest of the climbers going for the summit. Everyone's underneath the huge seraph. At sea level, the concentration, concentration of oxygen is typically around 20%. Up here, it's drastically lower, closer to 7%. At this altitude, none of your body's organs or tissue, including your brain, is getting enough oxygen. It's called hypoxia and it really puts your decision making skills to the test.
- [16:08]
Dr. Eric Meyer
The longer you're in that realm, the less able you are to think like you're in a chess match. Less likely you can gauge the consequences of actions three or four steps down.
- [16:21]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Of course, the effects are not restricted to the head. They're cascading all throughout your body. The lack of oxygen means you're breathing deeper and more often. This is your body's way of taking in as much air as possible. But all this effort only makes your heart beat faster and faster. Your body's expelling more energy than it can generate. So you're also rapidly losing weight. Essentially this High up above 26,000ft, acclimatization is no longer an option. Instead, your whole body is slowly shutting down, which is why this area is known as the Death Zone. The safest thing you can do here is to get out as quickly as possible. But right now, Cecilia Skog is part of an enormous queue of climbers who have all ground to a halt.
- [17:17]
Cecilia Skog
We hear people saying there is no.
- [17:19]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Rope on the bottleneck because the advance team had started placing the guide ropes too early. They've run out right in the spot where they need them most. Now the rest of the climbers have caught up with them.
- [17:31]
Cecilia Skog
I was just thinking that there's maybe been a miscommunication.
- [17:36]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
One big glaring reason for all this confusion is that none of the climbers, advance team or otherwise, has ever been up this high on K2 before. The only person who has been is Shaheen Beg.
- [17:48]
Cecilia Skog
He was in charge of where all the ropes should be fixed.
- [17:53]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
But Shaheen's not here. He got sick at Camp 2 and.
- [17:56]
Cecilia Skog
Had to be rescued because he had to go down. There was no leader of the fixing team.
- [18:03]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Without Shaheen's guidance. It's now clear that all the previous careful planning has gone up in smoke. There's no use standing around pointing fingers, though. That's only going to waste more time. So Cecilia and her teammates leap into action. They start working their way down the mountain back to the ropes they passed earlier.
- [18:23]
Cecilia Skog
We are cutting down the rope and taking it up higher on the mountain.
- [18:31]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Once they're back at the bottleneck, they pass the rope to Shirang and the other advance team members. It takes hours. The group can only move as quickly as the ropes are set. And even once they're able to clip onto the newly placed ropes, they can still only go up the bottleneck one at a time, always under the shadow of the serac. Eventually, people do get moving. Cecilia manages to get above the bottleneck, and it's standing there with 100 meters of rope in her hand when she comes across one of her fellow climbers. It's Dren Mandich, a member of the Serbian team.
- [19:04]
Cecilia Skog
He's decided to change his oxygen.
- [19:09]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
But before he helps himself, Dren offers to help Cecilia.
- [19:13]
Cecilia Skog
We communicate that I'm just gonna sit down on my knees so he can put this rope in my backpack.
- [19:21]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
This small gesture is typical Dren. He's a gentle guy, an animal lover who spends his spare time while not on the mountain volunteering at his local zoo. But Dren is as brave as he's kind. On a previous expedition, he'd risked his life to save a fellow climber who he barely even knew. Once he's done helping Cecilia put the rope in her backpack, Dren tries to move out of the way for her.
- [19:43]
Cecilia Skog
We are going to cross each other on the same rope, and he climbs above me and is on the way around me.
- [19:53]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Dren unclips himself from the rope to try to get past Cecilia. But in that moment, disaster strikes.
- [20:02]
Cecilia Skog
He falls on top of me. So we fall together. I could hear Rolf screaming my name. And then I stopped.
- [20:13]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Cecilia is still clipped onto the rope, but Dren isn't. He keeps falling.
- [20:20]
Cecilia Skog
I see him disappear down the bottleneck.
- [20:25]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Dren is tumbling down hundreds of feet of ice, snow, and rock.
- [20:29]
Cecilia Skog
When I get up on my feet, I can see that he's standing up on his feet. And we're like, oh, he's okay. He's fine. But then he falls again.
- [20:53]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Dr. Eric Meyer and Frederick Strang are in their tent back at Camp 4. They're busy commiserating over their missed summit opportunity when they hear some distressing news.
- [21:03]
Dr. Eric Meyer
Do you know if there has been an accident over.
- [21:08]
Frederick Strang
There? Was a Serbian climber who had fallen down.
- [21:11]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Frederick takes his camera out and switches it to zoom mode. He peers through the viewfinder, trying to spot where Dren Mandich has landed.
- [21:19]
Shiring Dorje
Is he in the rock?
- [21:21]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
After a few minutes, Frederick finds Dren right there at the edge. Dr. Eric radios the others to let them know.
- [21:28]
Dr. Eric Meyer
Yeah, we can see a lone figure down in the rocks at the bottleneck.
- [21:35]
Shiring Dorje
He's moving.
- [21:36]
Dr. Eric Meyer
He is moving over. Fred and I knew we had to go attend to this person.
- [21:42]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
This is mountaineering code. If you know someone is in trouble and you can help, you're duty bound to do something.
- [21:48]
Frederick Strang
I jumped into my shoes.
- [21:52]
Dr. Eric Meyer
I started gathering a medical kit and.
- [21:54]
Frederick Strang
Filled my backpack with oxygen, sleeping bag, a mattress, some rope.
- [22:00]
Dr. Eric Meyer
Fred was ready to go a little sooner than I was, so he started out and I followed behind him.
- [22:06]
Frederick Strang
I was telling myself, this is not the day when people are going to die. We're going to fix this.
- [22:17]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Dren's teammate, Predrag Zagorach, is thinking the same thing as he rappels down the bottleneck.
- [22:23]
Predrag Zagorach
He's alive, and I'm going down to help him.
- [22:27]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
As he descends, Predrag is keeping his eyes locked on Dren. He was moving earlier, but now he's motionless.
- [22:39]
Predrag Zagorach
When I came to him, he was laying face down the mountain. I secured myself in my ice ax. I turned him around.
- [22:49]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
When Predra gets a look at Dran's face, he can see that it's pale, almost gray.
- [22:56]
Predrag Zagorach
No signs of life, no breathing, nothing. You know, I tried to find the pulse on his neck. Nothing was there. So I, of course, tried to do some cpr.
- [23:10]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Predrag starts pumping his hands up and down on Dren's chest, trying desperately to restart his heart, but there's nothing he can do. The one thing Predrag knows is that he can't face the idea of leaving Dren's body here on the mountainside.
- [23:31]
Predrag Zagorach
We said, okay, we will lower him to Camp 4. It's much flatter area so we can put his body somewhere more appropriate place.
- [23:39]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
They wrap Dren's arms and legs with rope and cover his face with the Serbian flag they'd hoped to raise over their heads while standing together triumphantly on the summit.
- [23:49]
Predrag Zagorach
In that moment, Friedrich came up to us.
- [23:52]
Frederick Strang
I knew that it was too late and it was very sad. Here we were at this beautiful day and things had gone wrong so badly. The Serbians tried to convince me, helping him to bring him down to the High's camp, but at least trying to give him a proper burial there.
- [24:11]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Frederick is really uneasy about this. He knows that moving Dren's body will risk the lives of everyone present. Deep down, through all the grief and shock, Predrag knows this too.
- [24:21]
Predrag Zagorach
Rescue from above 8000 meters is very dangerous, almost impossible. And especially lowering a dead body just makes no sense. You know, we were not thinking straight or thinking at all.
- [24:37]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
There's a real battle between Frederick's head and heart. In the end, his heart wins out.
- [24:42]
Frederick Strang
I just wanted to help the fellow Serbian climbers and give some dignity to Dren.
- [24:50]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
They're joined by Jehan Beg, a young Pakistani porter. Jehan saw what happened and wants to offer his help. Together, Jehan, Frederick, Predrag and another Serbian teammate start maneuvering Dren's body down the shoulder.
- [25:06]
Frederick Strang
The idea was that we would lower him two on left side and two on the right side with ropes, one step at a time.
- [25:13]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
They've placed a sleeping mat under Dren's body to help it slide down. It's acting as a kind of stretcher. And so far the risky plan is working.
- [25:22]
Frederick Strang
I did not know that my camera was on. It was in my pocket.
- [25:27]
Shiring Dorje
So put this much faster with that rub there. No problem.
- [25:32]
Frederick Strang
And we auto here and it was recording everything.
- [25:36]
Shiring Dorje
Guys, if you do fall, you release, okay? It's our lives too, okay?
- [25:43]
Frederick Strang
Remember, you're so tired. On 8000 meter, even putting on a shoe is exhausting. It's just unbelievable how heavy a person can be who is not helping. It was a tremendous load.
- [26:00]
Shiring Dorje
Okay, Slowly.
- [26:03]
Frederick Strang
Suddenly, Gian Beg, he lost his footing above me and he fell and bounced into my back. So I was almost tripping and falling, but I stood up and corrected myself. But he started sliding down on my right side and he hold onto the rope. And the rope went around my legs.
- [26:28]
Predrag Zagorach
Stop, stop, stop.
- [26:32]
Frederick Strang
I'm standing there and I can't move because the rope is wrapped around my legs. Everyone was panicking because we knew that if Yan and I would fall, we would probably drag Jen's body and we would start sliding down the mountain. And the Serbians could not support that entire weight.
- [26:57]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
As Jehan panics, Predrag and the others try to get through to him.
- [27:01]
Predrag Zagorach
Just stand up, come back, and we can continue. Release the weight of the rope.
- [27:07]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
As all of this is unfolding, Dr. Eric arrives on the scene.
- [27:11]
Dr. Eric Meyer
I can hear Fred's voice to this day shouting, release the rope.
- [27:15]
Frederick Strang
Release the rope.
- [27:16]
Predrag Zagorach
Release the rope.
- [27:17]
Dr. Eric Meyer
Release the rope.
- [27:19]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Release the rope. Release the rope. Release the rope. On the next episode of Extreme Peak Danger.
- [27:40]
Frederick Strang
We could not believe what had happened.
- [27:43]
Dren Mandich
What the hell?
- [27:43]
Cecilia Skog
People are Doing she turn around. This is crazy.
- [27:47]
Frederick Strang
It was like a nightmare.
- [27:54]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Extreme Peak Danger is produced by Lee Meyer and Amalia Sortland. The editor is Josephine Wheeler. Sound design and mix by Nicholas Alexander. Original music by Adam Foran. Our theme music for Extreme Peak Danger is by Silverhawk AKA Cyril Poirier and Adam Foran. Our production managers are Cherie Houston and Joe Savage. Story development by Amalia Sortland. Our commissioning editor at the BBC is Dan Clark. Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive producers. And I'm Natalia Melman Petruzella, your host and executive producer. Extreme is produced by Novel for the BBC. What happens when at home DNA tests reveal more than you bargained for. My birth mom was still here. She's still alive. Six new stories of reconnecting and rupturing families. I just couldn't believe it. I. I had a sister after all. Lives upended and long buried secrets.
- [29:06]
Lee Meyer
I then wrote back and said, look, the ripples from this will be enormous.
- [29:12]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
What do you want to do? The new series of the Gift. With me, Jenny Kleeman from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.
- [29:29]
Amalia Sortland
Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation.
- [29:44]
Lee Meyer
It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing.
- [29:51]
Amalia Sortland
But soon that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker. A journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders.
- [30:04]
Lee Meyer
I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone. I don't have my bank cards. I have nothing.
- [30:09]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.
- [30:15]
Amalia Sortland
World of secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series, we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry, where the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations.
- [30:31]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize.
- [30:39]
Lee Meyer
And it's like this secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand.
- [30:57]
Amalia Sortland
Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network.
- [31:01]
Lee Meyer
I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future.
- [31:24]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
To bring it into the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power.
- [31:35]
Amalia Sortland
World of Secrets. Season 6 the Bad Guru Listen, wherever you get your podcasts SA.