Podcast
What I survived
Hosted by Jack Laurence · EN
What I Survived explores the extraordinary true stories of people who survived the unthinkable. Each story takes you back to who these people were before everything changed, then inside the moment their lives were pushed to the edge, shipwrecked at sea for weeks, held captive by terrorists, falling 15,000 feet from a plane after a parachute failure, and other extreme, life-or-death situations.
Through first-hand accounts, we follow the ordeal as it happened, the decisions made under unimaginable pressure, and the will it took to survive.
Then what came after, the physical and psychological recovery, and the process of rebuilding a life forever altered.
From the creator of award winning shows One Minute Remaining, Wanted and more.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
44episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Hollys Hell P2
4d ago00:46:11Summary readyHolly Deane-Johns grew up in a comfortable suburb of Perth, Western Australia. But beneath the surface of a privileged childhood lay a darkness that would shape the entire course of her life. When her mother became addicted to heroin, the drug found its way into their home — and into Holly's life — before she was old enough to fully understand what it would cost her.By her mid-twenties, Holly found herself in Bangkok facing a sentence that would take her breath away. Caught attempting to traffic heroin out of Thailand, she was sentenced to thirty one years in Lard Yao Women's Prison — one of the most notorious and brutal correctional facilities in the world. A place so far removed from anything she had ever known that she struggled to find the words to describe it.This is the story of how a girl from Perth ended up behind bars in a foreign country, what surviving seven years inside a Thai prison actually looks like, and how Holly Deane-Johns found a way not just to endure — but to come back.What I Survived is available on all major podcast platforms.get Hollys book here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Hollys Hell P1
4d ago00:32:16Summary readyHolly Deane-Johns grew up in a comfortable suburb of Perth, Western Australia. But beneath the surface of a privileged childhood lay a darkness that would shape the entire course of her life. When her mother became addicted to heroin, the drug found its way into their home — and into Holly's life — before she was old enough to fully understand what it would cost her.By her mid-twenties, Holly found herself in Bangkok facing a sentence that would take her breath away. Caught attempting to traffic heroin out of Thailand, she was sentenced to thirty one years in Lard Yao Women's Prison — one of the most notorious and brutal correctional facilities in the world. A place so far removed from anything she had ever known that she struggled to find the words to describe it.This is the story of how a girl from Perth ended up behind bars in a foreign country, what surviving seven years inside a Thai prison actually looks like, and how Holly Deane-Johns found a way not just to endure — but to come back.What I Survived is available on all major podcast platforms.get Hollys book here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Night Mumbai Burned - Will Pike p3
2w ago00:36:28Summary readyOn the evening of November 26, 2008, British freelance filmmaker Will Pike and his girlfriend checked into the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai for a one-night stopover on their way to Goa. It was meant to be a treat. A single night in one of the world's most famous hotels.By midnight, terrorists were moving through the corridors executing guests.Will and his girlfriend barricaded themselves in their room as the siege unfolded around them. They could hear the gunfire, they heard people being executed in the hallway outside their door.When smoke began filling the room they had no choice but to act. They broke the window, knotted together bedsheets and curtains, and tried to climb down the outside of the building, Will fell fifty feet.He broke his back, his pelvis, both wrists and his elbow. He was confined to a wheelchair.167 people died that night at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.Will Pike survived and then came the part nobody tells you about, rebuilding a life, a body and a sense of self when the world that existed before November 26, 2008 is simply gone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Night Mumbai Burned - Will Pike p2
3w ago00:30:08Summary readyOn the evening of November 26, 2008, British freelance filmmaker Will Pike and his girlfriend checked into the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai for a one-night stopover on their way to Goa. It was meant to be a treat. A single night in one of the world's most famous hotels.By midnight, terrorists were moving through the corridors executing guests.Will and his girlfriend barricaded themselves in their room as the siege unfolded around them. They could hear the gunfire, they heard people being executed in the hallway outside their door.When smoke began filling the room they had no choice but to act. They broke the window, knotted together bedsheets and curtains, and tried to climb down the outside of the building, Will fell fifty feet.He broke his back, his pelvis, both wrists and his elbow. He was confined to a wheelchair.167 people died that night at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.Will Pike survived and then came the part nobody tells you about, rebuilding a life, a body and a sense of self when the world that existed before November 26, 2008 is simply gone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Night Mumbai Burned - Will Pike p1
3w ago00:29:46Summary readyOn the evening of November 26, 2008, British freelance filmmaker Will Pike and his girlfriend checked into the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai for a one-night stopover on their way to Goa. It was meant to be a treat. A single night in one of the world's most famous hotels.By midnight, terrorists were moving through the corridors executing guests.Will and his girlfriend barricaded themselves in their room as the siege unfolded around them. They could hear the gunfire, they heard people being executed in the hallway outside their door.When smoke began filling the room they had no choice but to act. They broke the window, knotted together bedsheets and curtains, and tried to climb down the outside of the building, Will fell fifty feet.He broke his back, his pelvis, both wrists and his elbow. He was confined to a wheelchair. 167 people died that night at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.Will Pike survived and then came the part nobody tells you about, rebuilding a life, a body and a sense of self when the world that existed before November 26, 2008 is simply gone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Becoming Mr James: Undercover Inside North Korea P2
4w ago00:39:20Summary readyJim Latrache grew up poor in Denmark, joined the French Foreign Legion as a young man, and spent years as a high-end cocaine dealer to Copenhagen's wealthy elite before a prison sentence gave him five and a half years to reconsider his life choices.What came next nobody could have predicted.When Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger needed someone to pose as a shady arms dealer willing to negotiate illegal weapons and drug deals with North Korean regime officials, he needed someone who could be utterly convincing in the role. Someone with the background, the nerve, and the complete absence of fear that the job required.He called Jim.Under the alias Mr James, Jim travelled to Uganda, Spain, Norway and deep into North Korea itself, meeting with regime officials, sitting across tables from people willing to discuss Scud missiles and methamphetamine factories, all while wearing hidden cameras and knowing that if his cover was blown, people have been killed for considerably less.The result was The Mole, one of the most extraordinary undercover documentaries ever made. But behind the footage is the story of the man who lived it — what it actually felt like to walk into the world's most dangerous dictatorship wearing a wire, and what it takes to come back out the other side. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Summary
Becoming Mr James: Undercover Inside North Korea
4w ago00:32:32Summary readyJim Latrache grew up poor in Denmark, joined the French Foreign Legion as a young man, and spent years as a high-end cocaine dealer to Copenhagen's wealthy elite before a prison sentence gave him five and a half years to reconsider his life choices.What came next nobody could have predicted.When Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger needed someone to pose as a shady arms dealer willing to negotiate illegal weapons and drug deals with North Korean regime officials, he needed someone who could be utterly convincing in the role. Someone with the background, the nerve, and the complete absence of fear that the job required, he called Jim.Under the alias Mr James, Jim travelled to Uganda, Spain, Norway and deep into North Korea itself, meeting with regime officials, sitting across tables from people willing to discuss Scud missiles and methamphetamine factories, all while wearing hidden cameras and knowing that if his cover was blown, people have been killed for considerably less.The result was The Mole, one of the most extraordinary undercover documentaries ever made. But behind the footage is the story of the man who lived it what it actually felt like to walk into the world's most dangerous dictatorship wearing a wire, and what it takes to come out alive.Jims books can be found here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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On Fire: The Jamie Hull Story p2
May 500:31:09Summary readyOn the 19th of August 2007, British Army reservist and SAS trooper Jamie Hull was days away from completing his private pilot's licence when his aircraft engine caught fire during a solo training flight over Florida.He had 45 seconds to decide how to survive.With the cockpit engulfed in flames and the plane descending rapidly, Jamie did something that should have been impossible. He climbed out of the burning cockpit, stood on the wing of a plummeting aircraft, and jumped.The plane exploded sixty feet behind him.What followed was six months in intensive care, six months in a coma, third degree burns to 60% of his body, over 60 operations, and a 5% chance of survival. And then the longer, quieter battle, rebuilding a life, a body and an identity from the wreckage.This is not just a story about surviving a plane crash. It is a story about what happens in the years that follow when the world moves on and the hardest fight is still ahead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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On Fire: The Jamie Hull Story p1
May 500:31:14Summary readyOn the 19th of August 2007, British Army reservist and SAS trooper Jamie Hull was days away from completing his private pilot's licence when his aircraft engine caught fire during a solo training flight over Florida, he had 45 seconds to decide how to save his life.With the cockpit engulfed in flames and the plane descending rapidly, Jamie did something that should have been impossible. He climbed out of the burning cockpit, stood on the wing of a plummeting aircraft, and jumped.The plane exploded sixty feet behind him.What followed was six months in intensive care, six months in a coma, third degree burns to 60% of his body, over 60 operations, and a 5% chance of survival. And then the longer, quieter battle rebuilding a life, a body and an identity from the wreckage.This is not just a story about surviving a plane crash. It is a story about what happens in the years that follow when the world moves on and the hardest fight is still ahead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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462 Days: Kidnapped in Somalia P6
Apr 2800:25:47Summary readyIn August 2008, Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan travelled to Somalia on assignment. It would be the last decision he made as a free man for nearly a year and a half.Within days of arriving, Nigel and Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout were ambushed on the outskirts of Mogadishu and taken captive by members of a militant group. What followed was 462 days of unimaginable physical and psychological torment, starvation, isolation, beatings, and a desperate will to survive in conditions that would break most people within weeks.But this is not just a story about captivity. It is a story about what happens to a human being when everything is stripped away. The fear, the negotiation, the impossible decisions made by families on the other side of the world trying to bring their loved ones home. The moments of dark humour and unexpected humanity in the most inhuman of circumstances. And the daring escape attempt that changed everything.Then there is the question that haunts every survivor, who do you become on the other side? How do you rebuild a life, a sense of self, a relationship with the world, after 462 days in hell?In this series Jack Laurence sits down with Nigel Brennan for an extraordinarily candid conversation spanning the months before the kidnapping, the ordeal itself, and the long and difficult road to recovery. It is one of the most remarkable survival stories ever told. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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