No Way Out Vol. IX

Summary

MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

Episode: No Way Out Vol. IX

Date: February 26, 2026
Host: John Allen (MrBallen)
Theme:
Three true stories where people are quite literally trapped, sometimes in plain sight, with "no way out." Each account is delivered in MrBallen’s evocative, suspenseful narrative style, blending dark intrigue, empathy, and sharp detail.

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Episode Overview

This episode is comprised of three separate stories, each illustrating a unique scenario where individuals found themselves caught—physically or situationally—with no apparent escape. The stories are:

1. A Friendly Wave - An unsettling tale of a girl’s observation on her paper route.
2. Lookout - A harrowing WWII British submarine disaster and survival.
3. Wrong Button - A terrifying elevator discovery in a Taiwanese apartment building.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Friendly Wave

Timeframe: [02:00 - 08:12]

Story Summary:

• Setting: January 23, 1989, suburban Rochester, NY.
• Main Characters: 11-year-old newspaper girl, her mother, and their elderly neighbor, Robert Hamm.
• The girl returns from her route and reports to her mother that their friendly neighbor waved at her as usual—but was sitting awkwardly, legs straight up in the air, waving between them.
• She sees this again the next day, but this time, the man doesn’t wave back; she tries to approach but is blocked by the locked screen porch.
• The mother, initially dismissive, agrees to check on the man herself after noticing uncollected newspapers outside his house.
• Upon closer inspection, she realizes the horrifying truth.

Key Insights & Moments:

• The old man had fallen into a trash can on his porch and, unable to free himself due to age and the restrictive "V" position, was physically and audibly unable to call for help.
• For two days, he desperately waved at passersby, who misinterpreted his signals.
• By the time help arrived, he had died of a heart attack, still folded in the trash can.

Memorable Quotes:

• “All he could do in this position was just weakly wave at passerby, hoping they would see he was in trouble and go help him.” – MrBallen [07:25]
• “They just thought there was this guy sitting in his porch in this weird position, waving to people, when in reality he was dying.” – MrBallen [07:46]

Themes Explored:

• The limits of observation—how easily people miss cries for help, even when right in front of them.
• The dark irony of being "seen" but not recognized as in need.

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2. Lookout

Timeframe: [09:46 - 17:30]

Story Summary:

• Setting: July 1941, Medway River, England. WWII.
• Subject: The HMS Umpire, a British submarine.
• After falling behind a convoy due to engine trouble, the submarine is accidentally struck and sunk by a friendly ship.
• Four men on the bridge leap into the water; 34 are trapped below.
• Through rapid flooding and darkness, twenty sailors make it to the engine room—others are sealed behind a watertight door in a gut-wrenching choice to ensure at least some survive.
• The escape requires using a perilous “lockout chamber”—a predecessor to modern escape pods—which must be flooded so the internal pressure matches outside, then opened so survivors can swim out.
• A junior sailor, Killian, stays behind to operate controls, making sure others escape before himself.
• Others, too late for the engine room, try to escape through the conning tower, with a far riskier climb and no pressure equalization system—only two of four survive.
• Out of 38 crew, 14 survive.

Key Insights & Moments:

• The technical and psychological terrors of submarine life, especially the horrifying, calculated decisions during accidents.
• The haunting dilemma: who gets a chance at survival and who is left behind.
• Extraordinary acts of bravery, sacrifice, and the claustrophobic danger of underwater disaster.

Memorable Quotes:

• “They know by touch how to get to the one area that has an escape hatch, which is the engine room.” – MrBallen [11:52]
• “They had to make the heartbreaking decision to lock and seal that door, meaning the 14 other sailors… if they hadn’t already died, were now condemned.” – MrBallen [12:53]
• “Jones remembers keeping his hand on the one man that was below him. And when his hand was wet, he knew the two men below him were completely submerged.” – MrBallen [16:27]

Timestamps for Key Events:

• Collision and flooding: [10:25]
• Lockout chamber explanation: [12:00]
• Sealing of the watertight door: [12:53]
• Killian’s heroics: [14:17]
• Conning tower escape attempt: [15:11 - 16:47]

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3. Wrong Button

Timeframe: [18:34 - 28:24]

Story Summary:

• Setting: August 20, 2010; New Taipei City, Taiwan.
• Protagonist: Zhang, a 76-year-old man living with his daughter.
• Zhang notices a missing-person poster for his neighbor Chen Yanqui, a dementia patient.
• Later, Zhang, returning from a walk, inadvertently selects the 6th floor of his building instead of the 7th in the elevator.
• When the elevator opens on 6, Zhang screams in terror at what he sees.
• His daughter, alerted by a panicked phone call, calls emergency services, but they find Zhang still trapped and hysterical when she arrives.
• Police explain to the daughter that her father is physically blocked by “something” and can only escape if he personally overcomes this horrifying obstacle.
• The full story is revealed:
  • Chen Yanqui, the missing woman, had accidentally exited to the 6th floor (which requires a key to access the main hallway due to a gate installed by a security-conscious resident) and became trapped between the elevator and the gate.
  • She was stuck in the narrow vestibule for five days with no food or water before dying.
  • When Zhang’s elevator stopped on the 6th floor, Chen’s body, in rigor mortis, fell/pinned him inside the elevator, blocking the doors and creating a gruesome scene.
  • He was ultimately forced—by his daughter’s heartfelt encouragement—to move her body so the doors could close and he could escape.

Key Insights & Moments:

• A mundane mistake (pressing the wrong elevator button) unveils the tragic fate of a missing person.
• Urban architecture and privacy measures inadvertently create a deadly trap.
• Deep emotional trauma for both the victim’s family and the accidental discoverer.

Memorable Quotes:

• “He could not believe what he saw, and he just began to scream.” – MrBallen [20:18]
• “The only way for him to get out is for him to do something really specific… he’s refusing to do it; he’s too panicked. We’re trying to calm him down, but it’s not working.” – Police officer, as recounted by MrBallen [23:44]
• “But she knew she would have to hop on the phone and convince her dad that he had to do it like there was no other way.” – MrBallen [24:09]
• “Her body, which was in rigor mortis at this point, is stiff. And she was lying like a board on the ground with her feet jutting out onto the sixth floor and her upper half inside of the elevator.” – MrBallen [27:45]

Timestamps for Key Events:

• Zhang sees missing poster: [18:34]
• Accidental elevator incident: [20:15]
• Horrifying discovery explained: [23:46 - 27:45]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• A Friendly Wave: [02:00 – 08:12]
• Lookout: [09:46 – 17:30]
• Wrong Button: [18:34 – 28:24]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “They just thought there was this guy sitting in his porch in this weird position, waving to people, when in reality he was dying.” – MrBallen [07:46]
• “They had to make the heartbreaking decision to lock and seal that door, meaning the 14 other sailors… if they hadn’t already died, were now condemned.” – MrBallen [12:53]
• “He could not believe what he saw, and he just began to scream.” – MrBallen [20:18]
• “Her body…was lying like a board on the ground with her feet jutting out onto the sixth floor and her upper half inside of the elevator.” – MrBallen [27:45]

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Episode Tone

MrBallen maintains his characteristic blend of suspense, empathy, and dry, sometimes dark, humor. Each story is delivered in a descriptive, immersive, cinematic style, focusing on details that evoke empathy for the trapped, and a sense of creeping dread for the listener.

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Final Takeaways

• Ordinary scenarios—a neighbor waving, a nightly walk, a familiar commute—become sites of inescapable peril in these gripping true tales.
• The real-life consequences of small mistakes, the unforgiving indifference of circumstance, and the unforeseen dangers of everyday life are explored with poignancy and depth.
• The episode closes with a reminder of the blurred lines between the mundane and the macabre, and how sometimes, there truly is no way out.

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For listeners who missed this episode:
You’ll come away with chilling, poignant stories that linger long after, and gain new respect for the ordinary moments that unknowingly teeter on the edge of the strange, dark, and mysterious.

Transcript

[Mr. Ballin]

Today's podcast features three stories that involve people who are trapped with no way out. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called A Friendly Wave, and it's about a girl on a newspaper route who notices a man waving in a very peculiar position. The second story you'll hear is called Lookout, and it's about a submarine that runs into some horrifying issues. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Wrong Button, and it's about a man who makes a terrifying discovery inside of an apartment building. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do. And we upload four times a week Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays, and Fridays. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Follow Buttons house and replace all of their shoelaces with slightly shorter ones. Okay, let's get into our first story called A Friendly Wave. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte, paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Close your eyes, listen to Monday.com feel the sensation of an AI work platform so flexible and intuitive it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes, go to Monday.com, start for free, and finally breathe. On January 23, 1989, a mother was

[Narrator]

cooking dinner in her home in Rochester,

[Mr. Ballin]

New York when her 11 year old daughter came into the kitchen. The daughter had just finished delivering newspapers along her delivery route in their quiet suburban neighborhood. And so her mother asked her the same nightly question, how was the route? And usually the daughter replied with just a good but tonight was different. Instead, her daughter said it was okay. And the mother pried like well what do you mean? What happened? And the daughter said, well, I saw something strange. She told her mom that she delivered newspapers to this one particular old man. He was very nice and he always waved to her whenever she went by. And tonight was no different. He had Waved to her. But there was just something off about the way he was sitting. The mother asked, you know, like, what do you mean? And the daughter, she really struggled to articulate what she had seen. One, it was dark. Two, the man was sitting inside of a screened in porch that kind of obscured her view. And the awnings were pretty low, making it hard to look in. But she said basically when she had gone past, the man had waved to her like normal. But his legs appeared to be straight up in the air, like he was sitting on a chair. And his legs were like up vertical right in front of him. In fact, when he waved, it was like he was waving between his legs at her. And so when the mother heard this, she really didn't know what to make of it. I mean, the story didn't make any sense. She couldn't really understand how this guy was sitting where his legs would be straight up in the air like that. But at the same time, you know, she could tell her daughter was worried. And you know, she kind of figured that maybe her daughter's imagination had run wild here. And so she told her daughter, like, hey, look, you know, if he waved to you, then I'm sure everything is just fine. Don't worry about it. But the following night, when the girl came back from her route, once again she was even more upset about this guy out on his porch. She told her mom that once again she looked in the porch and there he was sitting there with his legs straight up in the air. Except this time he didn't wave to her, including when she made a point to stop and wave at him. He did not wave back. Now, the girl told her mom that she was worried about him and so she went right up to the door to go check on him. But the screened in porch was locked so she couldn't get inside. And you know, her view was kind of obscured because of the screen. So she couldn't really see him in there, but she didn't know what to do, so she just left. Now this story, which was already weird now did seem a whole lot weirder that two days in a row her daughter is seeing this. But the mother's thinking to herself, like, come on, this is just some older guy who loves this chair and he's fallen asleep in some weird position here. And my daughter's sort of exaggerating what she's seeing, like, this can't be a big deal here. But again, seeing the concern on her daughter's face, she told her daughter, look, don't worry about it. I'm sure everything's fine. I will go by tomorrow morning and make sure he's okay. So the next morning, a little before 11am, the mother arrived on the street where this old man lived. And as she was walking down the road towards the house, she actually spotted the mailman. And so before she went any farther, she flagged the mailman down and she asked him like, hey, is there anything weird going on with that old guy who lives right over there? But the mailman was like, no, he's just a nice older guy who waves at everybody who goes by. And so the mother thanked the mailman and did give some thought to just, you know, taking what the mailman said

[Narrator]

and turning back around and heading home

[Mr. Ballin]

and telling her daughter, everything's fine. But she knew her daughter was really worried about this guy. And so she decided she would just continue down the road and check on this guy for herself and just really make sure he's okay and then report back to her daughter. And also the mother was thinking, it's about 20 degrees outside, it's very cold. This is not really a good time for an older man to be outside so much. So what's he doing? Let's really make sure he's okay. And so the mother made her way down the road and she reached the old man's house. And sure enough, the screened in porch really did obscure whoever was inside of it. She could see a silhouette of what appeared to be this old man, man sitting there. But the first thing she actually noticed was not him, but rather the two newspapers that were sitting right on his walkway, uncollected. I mean, these are the newspapers that her daughter had left over the same period of time that she's seeing this weird thing happening with this guy. And so suddenly the woman's feeling like that's a pretty big red flag. And so she hustled her way right up towards the front. And as she did, she looked in into the screen porch and waved at this old man to try to get his attention, like, hey, are you okay in there? But the man did not wave back. And so the mother went right up to the door and she checked it, but like her daughter had said, it was locked. And so the mother, she pressed her face up against the mesh screen that kind of had been obscuring her view from a distance. And she put her face right up against the screen where she would have a clear view inside. And when she did, and she saw the old man who was in fact right there, and he did in fact have his legs up. When she saw him, she realized what was actually going on. And the second she did, she jumped back, turned around and ran away to go call the police. It would turn out the old man who lived there, whose name was Robert Hamm and he was 73 years old, he was not just eccentric and sitting weirdly on his front porch. Instead, on January 23rd, right before that little girl had come home and told her mother that this man had been acting strangely. On that evening, Robert had come out onto a screened in porch and for whatever reason, he had attempted to sit down on this trash can that was out there on the porch. But the lid didn't hold. And so Robert fell butt first into this trash can, folding him up into this V position where his legs were straight up in front of him. And Robert was too weak to get himself out of the trash can. And also because of being in this V position where his legs were pressed up against his torso, it was restricting his ability to breathe and to make any sound. And so all he could do in this position was just walking wave at passerby, hoping they would see he was in trouble and go help him. But unfortunately, nobody could really tell what he was doing, including the little girl on the paper route. They just thought there was this guy sitting in his porch in this weird position, waving to people, when in reality he was dying. And so unfortunately, because nobody came to his aid, Robert did die. He would die of a heart attack. And in fact, by the time that little girl's mother arrived at his house and put her face up against the screen, Robert was already dead.

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[Mr. Ballin]

Our next story is called Lookout.

[Narrator]

On July 10, 1941, a brand new British submarine was commissioned called HMS Umpire. Nine days later, on July 19, the submarine and her crew were told to meet up with a convoy moving north along the Medway river in England and make their way to Scotland. So Umpire joined up with the convoy, but then they started having engine problems that night and they began drifting back behind the convoy until they were basically not in the convoy anymore at all. During this time, the commander of the submarine was up in the bridge, which is the area that controls the submarine when it's above surface, just above the wing. The captain of the Empire was concerned this convoy would not see them when they came through because they were a submarine. So they're sitting low in the water and they're already all dark. They have no lights on the outside on purpose because this was during World War II and they didn't want German ships or planes to spot them. And because of their engine problems, they had drifted away from their convoy, which would have been precisely protection. So the captain decides to deviate from their course to get the submarine clearly out of the way of this convoy. And so when he started turning the submarine, the steering broke, leaving the submarine now turned, so its entire side is now facing this convoy. And they were still drifting directly towards this convoy. And so sure enough, before the captain could do anything, one of the larger ships struck the side of the submarine, immediately flooding their forward torpedoes Toledo room. And for a brief second, the submarine and the ship were kind of mangled together. And then it slipped off the ship and it sunk all the way to the bottom, 18 meters down. The captain along with the other three men that were up on the bridge with him when they were struck. They managed to leap out at the last second and were Treading water when this all happened. As for the other 34 crew members, they were stuck inside when it sunk. A number of the crew had been sleeping at the time of the crash. And so all they felt was this crash. The power goes out, they leap out of their beds, and they're landing in waist deep water water, and they're running out into the halls, kind of fumbling around because they can't see anything. And all they can hear is the sound of water pouring inside of their submarine. And so these sailors had gone through all sorts of drills to prepare for this type of scenario where, you know power is out and you're sinking. And so they know by touch how to get to the one area that has an escape hatch, which is the engine room. And after 20 of them got inside the engine room, the water levels in the hallway were getting so high that it was spilling into that room. And it was getting to the point where if they didn't seal the door, they were going to fly, flood this one room. That was their only chance of survival. And so they had to make the heartbreaking decision to lock and seal that door. Meaning the 14 other sailors on the other side, if they hadn't already died, were now condemned. But for the 20 men who now were going to be able to use this escape hatch, there was no guarantee that would work. Because to use the escape hatch on a submarine, you need to understand how it works. You can't just open a hatch on a submarine. It won't open. The pressure from the seawater presses down on it to where it literally cannot open. You might be able to open it a crack if you use a tool, but that's about it. In order to open the escape hatch, you need to use something called a lockout chamber. And so a lockout chamber is like this really tight, claustrophobia inducing thing that looks an awful lot like a gas chamber, where you step through one hatch and you shut it and you seal it so it's watertight, and then above you is your escape hatch. But you can't open it until the pressure inside of the chamber has been equalized. And the way they do that is they flood the inside of the chamber the escapee is in. And so you're standing inside of this tight space, totally sealed in. And there's a control panel inside the chamber itself. And also inside the sub, if you're lucky enough to have someone do that for you, you turn on the chamber, at which point water is dumped inside of this tight space you're in until it's completely full, and you're holding your breath, at which point you've now equalized. The pressure inside the chamber Is equal to that outside, and you can actually open the hatch. So the person inside on a breath hold undoes the hatch, opens it up, and then hopefully, your swim isn't too far, because you're already on a breath hold, and you swim to the surface. And During World War II, submariners were outfitted with a special piece of equipment. If they ever needed to leave via the escape hatch. And it was their Davis escape gear, which is basically this life jacket that's uninflated. And when you manually activate it, it suddenly inflates. And so when you go through that hatch, you, would activate it, and it would assist you to get to the surface. And so after those 20 sailors had decided to seal off the engine room, they immediately shifted focus and began getting guys into the escape hatch. And one of their most junior sailors, A guy by the name of Killian, said he would stay inside the room and operate the control panel. So everybody else had the best chance of getting out of the escape hatch. And so, sure enough, he put all 19 into the hatch, and he got them out of the submarine. And then he, on his own, had to get in the hatch, Seal it himself, and control the panel in total darkness, Flood the space, open it up, and shoot to the surface. He would live, and he would be awarded the British Empire medal for bravery. One junior officer named Edward Jones. Was One of the 14 men that did not get to the engine room before they sealed it off. And when he got there and realized the situation, he turned around and looked down the hall, and there were only three other men that were standing there. And he didn't know how many had made it in the engine room. He figured this was the only four that had not made the engine cut. But, in fact, there was actually 10 other people. That were just stuck in various places inside of the submarine. But Jones decided he only had these guys in front of him. And so he said, hey, come with me. I have an idea. As Jones led them down this hallway, the water levels had risen up to their necks, and all these circuits on the walls Were starting to spark all around them. And so Jones led them to the middle of the submarine. And then he turned and went up into the control room. And then from the control room, he went even farther up into what's called, Called the conning tower. The conning tower is a submarine's main attack center. It's where you have those periscopes they look around in. And it also has the firing buttons for their torpedoes. It is not designed to be an escape hatch, because once you flood the conning tower, there's no control panel like there is on an escape hatch to drain the water that was used to equalize in order to open the hatch. So once the water's in, it's either you get to the surface or you drown. Also, in order to exit out of the conning tower, you need to go through this very narrow tube that goes straight up, and it's got a ladder through it that can barely fit one person climbing up, Meaning the people at

[Mr. Ballin]

the bottom of the ladder will have

[Narrator]

to hold their breath a lot longer than the people at the top. So Jones and the other three sailors, they get to the conning tower and they seal the hatch at their feet, so blocking the hallway flood from coming into where they are. And they realize that even though they have to do this, there are no other alternatives here. That realistically, one or two or more are going to die in the process of just trying to get out of the submarine. But it was all they could do. So they made peace with their decision. They climbed up and they opened the hatch just enough to let water come in, but quite a bit started coming in. The men wedged themselves as high up in the tunnel as they possibly could. But obviously not everybody could get all the way up to the hatch. And so two were down low, and Edward Jones and one other were up towards the top. And Jones would say that at first they were talking and praying. And then when they started feeling the water get closer and closer to their heads, they would went silent. Then Jones remembers keeping his hand on the one man that was below him. And when his hand was wet, he knew the two men below him were completely submerged. And then the water came up to his face, covered his head. At that point, he opened it up and they swam. Out of the four men in the conning tower, only Edward Jones and the other guy who was high up in the tunnel with him, made it to the surface. All told, only 14 of the 38 total crew survived the accident.

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[Mr. Ballin]

The next and final story of today's episode is called Wrong Button. At 8:30pm on Aug 20, 2010, a 76 year old man named Zhang walked through the streets of New Taipei City, which is a major city in Northern Taiwan. Zhang was on the end of an evening walk and he was making his way back towards his daughter's apartment where he was also staying. And as Zhang neared the apartment, he happened to notice there was a street lamp right outside with this big poster attached to it that he hadn't seen before. And as he got closer, he saw there was also this picture of this middle aged woman whose name was Chen Yanqui. And apparently she was missing. And not only that, she also lived in the same building that his daughter lived in, except Chen was actually a dementia patient and she was staying on the fifth floor of this apartment building complex where there was this memory care facility and that's where she was being taken care of. And about a week earlier she had gone out for an evening walk, this is what it said on the poster, and just not returned. And so since the week before, police had been out looking for her and her family and friends, they were putting these posters up and it was clear, you know, nobody had found her yet. Now, Jeung had never met this woman, but he sort of felt bad for her. And so he found himself staring at this picture and trying to memorize her face. You know, in the off chance that he just saw her somewhere he could report her to the authorities and hopefully get her rescued. And so after staring at the picture for a little bit longer and sort of feeling bad for this woman, Zhang turned and just continued inside the apartment building. And once he was in the apartment building, he made his way over to the elevator. He hit the up button and he waited. And then a moment later there was a ding and the doors opened up. He stepped Onto the elevator.

[Narrator]

He pressed the button.

[Mr. Ballin]

The doors closed. And then Jeung waited as he headed up to his daughter's apartment on the seventh floor. But as he was going up, he noticed he had accidentally hit the sixth floor, not the seventh floor. And right at that moment, he saw that he was reaching the sixth floor. And so the elevator car was slowing down. And so he just was like, oh, whoops. And he hit floor seven. But by the time he hit floor seven, the car had come to a stop on floor six, and the doors were opening like it would need to reset. Doors open on six, they close, and then he'd go to seven, like, this is no big deal. And so Zhang is just waiting for these doors to open shut and go up one more floor. However, when the doors opened on floor six, Zhang is looking straight out, and he could not believe what he saw, and he just began to scream. Around the same time this was happening, Zhang's daughter was finishing up her shift at work when she got a phone call, and she saw it was coming from her dad, and he rarely called her when she was at work. So this was sort of confusing and surprising. And so right away, she picked it up, and she answered. And immediately she hears her dad screaming incoherently. He's obviously terrified. And all Zhang's daughter can hear is that her dad is saying he's trapped. He's trapped in an elevator, and he doesn't know what to do. And so, you know, Zhang's daughter is getting scared just based on what her dad sounds like. She doesn't really know what's going on, but she told her dad, like, okay, okay, I'll call the building. We'll get you some help. Like, stay calm. You're gonna be okay. But her dad just continued rambling, and he was totally incoherent. And eventually, you know, Zhang's daughter just said, okay, dad, like, just hang tight. I'm gonna get you some help. And then she hung up. And then she immediately called her apartment building's administration and emergency services line and told them, hey, I think my dad is stuck on one of your elevator cars. He's really upset. Can you please help him? And after getting the emergency services to, you know, get spun up into action to go save her dad, Zhang's daughter left work, hopped in her car, and began rushing home. It would take zhang's daughter about 40 minutes to get back to her apartment. And by the time she got there, she fully expected her dad would be safely out of the elevator. I mean, he was obviously very upset. But she had called the building. They were on it. They were going to get him out. But when she went inside the lobby of the apartment building, she saw a crowd of police officers just standing there. She didn't see her dad anywhere. And before she could even ask any questions, she noticed one of the officers was on the phone. And clearly, just based on what was being said by this officer, he was talking to her father. Like, he was talking to somebody who was hysterical. And this officer was doing his best to try to calm him down and sort of talk him through what was happening. And so Zhang's daughter, like, immediately walks up to this officer and says, hey, you know, I'm his daughter. The guy who's stuck in the elevator, I'm his daughter. What's going on? I would have figured he'd be out by now. Like, what's happened? At this point, one of the officers confirms that this really is this man's daughter. And he pulls her aside and he explains to her that, yes, your dad is still in the elevator because we can't get him out. The reality is this is not a normal situation here. He's trapped in there. And really, the only way for him to get out is for him to do something really specific. Like, us and the building staff, like, we can't do anything. He has to do this one really specific thing. And right now, he's refusing to do it. He's too panicked. He's too scared. We're trying to calm him down, but it's not working. And so Zhang's daughter asked this officer, can you please explain to me what you're talking about? Like, what is this specific thing you want him to do? I don't get it.

[Narrator]

And at that point, the officer kind

[Mr. Ballin]

of composed himself and explained to the daughter what was really going on inside

[Narrator]

of that elevator car.

[Mr. Ballin]

And after Zhang's daughter heard it, I mean, she was horrified. And she immediately understood why her dad was so upset and unwilling to do this one particular thing that would save him, but would be pretty awful. She got it. But she knew she would have to hop on the phone and convince her dad that he had to do it like there was no other way. And so she walked over to the officer who was on the phone with her dad. She took the phone and she began talking her dad through, you know, what he really needed to do here. She basically gave him a pep talk and said, dad, for me, you gotta find the strength and do this thing and get out of there. And sure enough, just a couple of minutes later, the Elevator doors in the lobby chimed and opened up, and Zhang came stumbling out. He looked horrible, disheveled, but he was okay. And right away, police officers rushed towards him, but they bypassed him and went into the elevator and immediately surrounded something in the elevator car. It would turn out that missing woman, Chun Yanqui, the woman who was on that poster that Zhang saw before he walked into the apartment building, well, she really had gone missing a week earlier on her evening walk. But everybody thought she got lost while she was on that walk because she was a dementia patient. And so, you know, she had memory issues. But the reality was she actually did come back to her apartment. However, when she got on the elevator, she actually made the same mistake that that Zhang did. Now, she was not trying to get to the seventh floor. She was trying to get to the fifth floor, but she accidentally pressed the sixth floor. So up she goes, she gets to the sixth floor, the doors open up, she steps off the elevator car, and she's immediately completely confused. And for what it's worth, it didn't matter that she had dementia. Anybody who got off on the sixth floor would likely be confused if you had never been to this building before, because the sixth floor was actually a private residence. And the person who lived on that floor was so worried about people breaking into their private residence that they had installed a metal gate in front of the elevator doors. And so unless you had the key to get through this gate, when you got off on the sixth floor, you basically would step onto a little platform that basically is the hallway leading into the sixth floor, and then you'd be hit with the gate. And so that's exactly what happened to Chun. She got off on the sixth floor, maybe thinking this is the fifth floor, she stepped onto that little narrow strip that you could actually stand on on the sixth floor before you reach the gate. And then as she was trying to figure out, like, where am I? This isn't the fifth floor. This doesn't make any sense. There's a gate in front of me. The doors to the elevator closed, and she had no way to open them up again because the buttons to access the elevator were beyond the gate. And so suddenly, Chen is standing in this narrow space. The doors have closed behind her, and she can't do anything. She's trapped between the gate and the elevator doors. And even though people are using this elevator right behind her, the only person who would come to the sixth floor is the owner of that residence, and they were on vacation. And so for days and days, Chun is just trapped basically in between the gate and and the elevator with no one having any idea she was there. She's calling out, she's doing everything she can to get somebody's attention, but nobody can hear her. And after five days of this, when the owner of this residence didn't come home cause they were on vacation, she eventually died. Cause she didn't have food or water or anything. She was just standing there for five days. And then a couple of days later, Zhang accidentally rides to the sixth floor. He's like, oh shoot, I need to go to seven. He hits seven, but the doors open on six. And when they do, Chun's body, which had been basically frozen in the standing position, fell backwards onto him, pinned him to the ground. He starts screaming and freaking out. He gets out from underneath her, but her body, which was in rigor mortis at this point, is stiff. And she was lying like a board on the ground with her feet jutting out onto the sixth floor and her upper half inside of the elevator. And so she was blocking the doors from closing. And so Zhang is freaking out, he's calling his daughter. He can't believe this. There's this dead person in here. And eventually police get involved and they tell Zhang, you just gotta move the body so the doors will close. But again, her body is heavy and it's stiff and she's obviously deceased. She's starting to decompose. And Zhang basically couldn't handle it. And he was unwilling to move her body until his daughter hopped on the phone and said, you gotta do it. At which point he managed to lift her up, get her out of the

[Narrator]

way, and kind of push her off to the side of the elevator car.

[Mr. Ballin]

He rode down to the bottom, at which point the police came in and handled the situation. Now, the owner of the sixth floor residence was not held criminally responsible despite putting that gate up that created this trap that killed Chun. However, despite that, he would end up paying chun's family about US$97,000 equivalent just to compensate for her. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved. And some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Jeremy Bone Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan Research and Fact checking Supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locasio Jordan Stidham and Cole Locasio Production coordination by Samantha Collins production support by Antonio Minotta and Delaina Corley artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.compodcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya.

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