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Transcript of Perhaps the 2 MOST DENSE killers of all time

MrBallen Podcast
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Transcription of Perhaps the 2 MOST DENSE killers of all time from MrBallen Podcast Podcast
00:00:00

Today's video is about a young man who develops a mysterious sickness, which doctors eventually realize is this disease that is so rare that in the last 100 years, it's only ever been documented three times. However, how he got this illness is far more horrifying than any of his symptoms. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once a So if that's of interest to you, please ask the like button to walk your pet for you while you're on vacation. But don't tell them that your pet is actually an angry saltwater crocodile. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the afternoon of July 29th, 2016, a 23-year-old college student named Felix, stood in the break room of the industrial manufacturing company where he worked in Northwestern Germany. He poured some cereal into a bowl, and then he took his carton of milk out of the communal fridge, and then with the cereal and his milk, he sat down at a table with two of his coworkers.

00:01:22

Felix was studying to become an engineer, and that was his primary focus. On his breaks from school, he would work here as a machine mechanic. But as a result of that, basically just being a college kid looking for a side gig, it made him one of the youngest people at this company. Oftentimes, Felix had a hard time relating to his coworkers, who were all basically a lot older than him. In fact, now, as he sat down to eat his cereal, the two coworkers that were sitting there already, these two men named Otto and Klaus, who were in their 50s, it's like they didn't even look up and acknowledge him. They just continued silently eating their sandwiches as if Felix wasn't even there. At first, Felix put up with the fact that this lunch break so far was pretty awkward. There was no conversation happening here. He definitely felt like he did not belong here. But eventually, the silence was deafening at this table, and Felix just couldn't stand it. He said to his coworkers, Klaus and Otto, Hey, guys, how's the day going? Klaus looked up and stared at Felix, and he just shrugged, said nothing, and went back to eating his food.

00:02:24

Now, Klaus, admittedly, was known as a loner employee who kept to himself. So this behavior was somewhat normal, although somewhat off-putting to Felix, who's trying to obviously start a conversation here. But then Otto, he looked up and he looked at Felix, and he was about to say something, but then paused, and this grimace came over his face, and he just said to Felix, You know what? I'm not having a good day. My head hurts, my stomach hurts, I feel tired. I feel awful. And so now Felix is like, Okay, sorry, Otto. I don't know what to tell you. That's tough. And then the three men just went back to eating and back to silence. Now, Felix didn't know how to make this any less awkward, and so he just went back to eating his cereal in silence. Then when he was done, he got up and left the awkward break room. But Felix had only been back to his job for a couple of minutes when suddenly he felt this intense stomach cramp that made him double over in pain. Now, Felix actually was somewhat accustomed to getting cramps like this one because he was lactose-intolerant.

00:03:23

Typically, if he consumed dairy shortly thereafter, he would get these stabbing pains in his stomach. That's actually why he kept a carton of his own milk in the communal fridge that was lactose-free. Suddenly, Felix wondered if maybe he had accidentally grabbed the wrong milk when he had poured his cereal just now. Had he grabbed regular milk, causing this pain? As a wave of nausea When the door came over him, Felix sprinted back into the break room, opened up the communal fridge to see if he had grabbed the wrong milk, but he saw there was actually only one container of milk in the fridge, and it was his, the lactose-free kind. He had no idea what actually causing these cramps because it couldn't have been dairy. But at this point, Felix was just so nauseous that all he could think about now was the fact that he could no longer work today. He had to go home. And so Felix told his supervisor he had to go, and then he rushed out to his car, he sped home and barely made it into his bathroom in time in order to vomit into the toilet. After he vomited, he felt a little bit better.

00:04:21

And so he wiped his mouth and he stood up straight, took a deep breath. Then he went to the sink and he splashed some water on his face, and he grabbed the towel and he went dry his face, and as he did, he noticed something. He noticed the tips of his fingers were now tingling, like his hands were going numb. And so reflexively, he put down the hand towel and began flexing and opening and closing his hands over and over again to increase the circulation to his fingers to maybe get the feeling back, but nothing he did seemed to help. At this point, Felix couldn't help but feel a little bit scared. Now, stomach crampss and nausea were somewhat normal symptoms for him, considering, again, he was lactose-intolerant. That Those were normal symptoms of illness. But losing circulation in your hands was not something he was used to. This was something else. Even though Felix was an adult, he was 23 years old, his first thought was, I got to call my mom. That's what he did.

00:05:15

If you don't know this, late last year, we launched a brand new, strange, dark, and mysterious show called Mr. Ballen's Medical mysteries. And so far, people love it. It is a free weekly show where each week we explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. Topics discussed on the show range from obscure diseases and freak occurrences to totally weird medical mishaps that sometimes result in big, amazing discoveries and other times result in just unimaginable suffering and death. To start listening, go look up and follow Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries on any podcast platform, and boom, you're in. You got yourself a new weekly show. But if you're super impatient like I am, and you can't wait a whole week to get a new episode, well, with your Prime membership, you can listen to an entire batch of eight episodes at once because we release them eight at a time on Amazon Music So if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious, then you really ought to give Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries a try.

00:06:23

Two weeks later, Felix was still sick. On his mother's advice, he had gone to see his doctor, and his doctor had told him that he was very likely just overworked, and he prescribed Felix some vitamins and rest. But those two things had not helped Felix. In fact, really, his symptoms had only gotten worse. He was still nauseous nervous, and that tingling feeling he had felt in his hands had now extended all the way up into his forearms. As a result of this mystery illness afficting Felix, he had not been able to go back to work, and he had spent the better part of the last two weeks just lying miserably in bed. But this morning, he was determined to get out of bed, take a shower, have a real meal, and basically just have a normal day. It started relatively well. He managed to prop himself up and get out of bed. But as he staggered his way towards the bathroom, he lost his balance and had to grab onto the door to keep from falling to the ground. After steadying himself, Felix did attempt to keep walking towards the bathroom, but it was like the commands from his brain were not reaching his legs, and so he kept slipping and staggering and almost falling.

00:07:31

Eventually, he just turned around to go back to bed, but immediately, he collapsed to the ground and had to literally crawl painstakingly back to the bed. Then when he had finally pulled himself back on there, he pulled out his phone and called his mom again. But this time, he was not calling for advice. He was calling for help. He needed her to drive him to the hospital. Later that afternoon, Felix laid in a hospital bed with his mother to his left and an emergency room neurologist to his right. The neurologist had heard about Felix's symptoms, and she was now performing a preliminary examination, which really consisted of lots of questions about Felix's drug use, about a history of neurological problems in their family, had he had any recent head injuries. But basically all the questions she was asking him, he said no to. There weren't any precursors to him having these issues. Next, the neurologist poked Felix's arms to see what he could feel because he was complaining of numbness and tingling. But it was like wherever she poked in arms, he couldn't really feel it. It was like the tingling sensation had totally taken over both arms.

00:08:35

That's all he could feel. After that, she measured his muscle reflexes in his legs and also shined a light in both his eyes. Then after that, she put her tools down and she looked at Felix with a very worried expression on her face. She said that based on Felix's symptoms, she thought that some part of his nervous system, like his brain or his spinal cord, might be inflamed. This type of inflammation can lead to things like nausea, numbness, and loss of coordination, all things that Felix had been experiencing. This inflammation could be caused by a number of different infections or an autoimmune reaction. But to know for sure, she would have to run some more tests, and so she advised Felix to be admitted to the hospital. Six days later, the neurologist went to check in on Felix, who was still at the hospital. As soon as she walked into his room and saw Felix, she saw he looked terrible. His body was limp, his face was swollen, and his eyes were glazed over like he was staring off into the distance. By this point, doctors had run imaging scans on Felix and had discovered that his brain and brainstem were inflamed, like the neurologist had suspected.

00:09:37

But the neurologist could not figure out why this was happening. Typically, inflammation like this was caused by an infection. But the neurologist had tested Felix for every infection she could think of that could have caused this, and all those tests had come back negative. So her new working theory was Felix must be having an extreme autoimmune reaction, which is basically when your immune system malfunctions and starts attacking your own body. Autoimmune reactions can cause things like brain swelling. But this theory didn't really help Felix very much because first of all, it was nearly impossible to test to see if this theory was even true, that it was an autoimmune reaction. Second of all, even if you knew that's what it was, unfortunately, autoimmune reactions are notoriously difficult to treat. Basically, it was a shaky diagnosis that did not come with an easy cure. The neurologist had given Felix some anti-inflammatory medication, hoping that maybe that would help, based on her research around autoimmune diseases, but it basically did nothing. She knew that if she didn't find a way to lower the swelling in his brain and brainstem, that Felix could potentially suffer permanent brain damage or even death.

00:10:46

Now in Felix's hospital room, the neurologist walked over to him and tapped his shoulder, and she asked him how he was feeling. Felix, when he looked up at her, his eyes were rolled back in his skull, and it took a minute for him to focus on her. Then it was clear to the neurologist that it took all of his energy to croke out an answer. But the words he said didn't make any sense. He said, metal, mouth. The neurologist said, What? What are you trying to say? Then he said, taste, water. At that point, the neurologist realized what Felix was trying to say is that he had a metallic taste in his mouth, and he wanted a cup of water to clear his mouth. The neurologist felt like this had to be a clue about what was going on with Felix. It was not some random symptom like this has to be connected to the totality of what was wrong with him, but she didn't know what a metallic taste in his mouth had to do with his other symptoms, and so she was baffled. She just grabbed a cup of water off the nearby table and handed it to Felix.

00:11:44

Felix He immediately put it to his lips and tried to drink it, but it was like he couldn't, and the water just dribbled down his chin onto his chest. As the neurologist staring at her patient, she couldn't help but feel like she was just totally failing here. I mean, obviously, there was something horribly wrong with Felix, but she had not come up with a proper diagnosis yet, and all the medications and treatments she had suggested so far had done nothing for his symptoms, and she knew if she couldn't get the swelling to go down, it was just a matter of time before he suffered permanent brain damage or death. At this point, the neurologist realized a big change would have to be made in Felix's care. Clearly, what she was doing was not working, and so she decided to transfer him from her hospital to a local university hospital where she knew there were some specialists there who they might be able to figure out what was going on here. But the next day at that university hospital, that team of specialists that had been assigned to Felix's case were just as baffled as the neurologist had been.

00:12:41

Because now, Felix didn't just have swelling in his brain and a metallic taste in his mouth. He also was experiencing kidney and liver failure. This collection of symptoms meant Felix very likely did not have an autoimmune condition. They tested him again for more infections that maybe could still leave the possibility open that it was an autoimmune condition. But again, those still all came back negative. And so effectively, these specialists who were here to solve this puzzle were back at square one. They had made no further progress. At this point, all Felix's doctors could do was just hope that whatever illness was plaguing Felix would resolve itself on its own, and they would just do their best to manage his symptoms and try to keep him comfortable until it did. However, by September of 2016, so two months after that first day that went home sick from work, he had not improved. He spent most of his time laying in bed unconscious, barely clinging to life. At this point, most of these specialists were just monitoring Felix. However, one of them still felt like a diagnosis here was still possible. We just need to keep looking.

00:13:48

This doctor actually decided that instead of monitoring Felix, he was going to start looking into some medical research papers because he figured whatever Felix had had to be really, really rare. If it wasn't, they would have figured it out by now, and they clearly had not. So he must have something rare. If there's one place you can go to learn about very rare conditions and diseases, it's medical research papers. He began combing through all these papers and sure enough, he would actually find a case about another patient who had the exact same symptoms as Felix, and they even appeared in the exact same order. First, the stomach cramps and nausea, followed by the tingling in the arms, then the loss coordination in the legs, then the swelling of the brain, followed by the metallic taste in the mouth, and then ultimately kidney and liver failure. Just like Felix, this patient's diagnosis in this medical journal was not an infection, nor was it an autoimmune disease. Instead, it was a condition that was so rare, it had only been recorded three times anywhere in the world over the last century. But this doctor understood that even though Felix's symptoms did appear to match, it still was It's really unlikely he actually had this diagnosis because it's so unbelievably rare.

00:15:05

However, the doctor thought, Well, I'll just rule this condition out. All I need to do is a simple blood test. He did this blood test on Felix, literally believing it would just rule this out, except when the results came back, it was positive. This doctor had just solved the case, the one that nobody else seemed able to do. But the doctor was not happy. Instead, as he stared at the test results, he was horrified. Because this diagnosis was a death sentence for Felix. There was no cure for this. And worse, this diagnosis meant other people potentially could be in danger here. And so the doctor knew his next step, of course, would be to contact Felix's family and tell them what he had discovered. But he also knew this was no longer just a medical problem. The doctor called local law enforcement, and they began their investigation immediately. They interviewed basically everyone Felix ever interacted with on a regular basis, and they also sent forensic technicians to all the places that Felix spent any time. These technicians ran tests on all the surfaces that Felix might have touched at one point or another. They also ran tests on the food and the water that he might have consumed.

00:16:13

They even at one point tried to test the air that Felix had potentially breathed. They did all this because they were trying to find one very specific substance. But despite basically looking everywhere in Felix's life for weeks and weeks, they didn't find it. Meanwhile, Felix's condition only got worse. By the end of September, he had slipped into a vegetative state. But at least so far, the doctor's worst fears had not been realized. They actually expected other people to begin to turn up to hospitals with similar symptoms as Felix, but they hadn't. With no answers, but with no other victims either, the police investigation began to wind down. Felix remained in a vegetative state for months and then years, and officials still just had no idea how this actually happened to him. They just concluded that, well, this was a horrible tragedy that very likely will never actually be explained, but at least hopefully, it will never happen to anyone else. But then, two years after Felix fell into his coma, some very strange things began to happen at his old manufacturing job. At this manufacturing company where Felix used to work, it actually was pretty commonplace for employees there to get sick fairly regularly, like more than normal.

00:17:28

However, their illnesses were basic, things like headaches and stomach aches and feeling tired, things that didn't really raise big red flags. But now, Otto, the middle-aged man who had complained to Felix over their lunch break about his stomach and his head hurting, was going into kidney failure earlier. In fact, he was so sick he couldn't come to work anymore and had to get dialysis three times a week just to live. Also, another much younger employee whose name was Elias, he was 26 years old, he had begun having stomach aches. Now, again, that was fairly common at this company. But for Elias, these were not normal stomach aches. These were crippling, severe, like you can't focus on anything else type of stomach aches, similar to the ones Felix was having. Now, Otto and Elias had not spoken to each other about their respective illnesses. This was a place where people just got sick periodically and kept it to themselves. It was just not really that big of a deal. They hadn't talked to each other, and they certainly had not connected what was happening to them to Felix and his illness, which was now over two years before.

00:18:31

But that would all change one day in May of 2018. So again, we're still talking about two years since Felix went into his coma, when Elias was having his lunch in the company break room, and he would discover something that would connect everything and blow this case wide open. Elias's shocking discovery led police to do a search of a local home. At first, this home seemed totally ordinary until they went down into the basement because down there, it looked like a mad scientists' laboratory. There was this metal table with all these beakers and scales on it. Then behind it were all these shelves that were stacked high with old jam jars and paint cans and even old mayonnaise bottles. It would turn out inside of these mismatched containers was a collection of deadly chemicals that a judge would later say were more toxic and more deadly than the literal chemical weapons that were used during World War I. This basement laboratory belonged to Klaus. He was one of the two employees that Felix sat with during that very awkward lunch break. The one was Otto, who told Felix he didn't feel very good, and the other was Klaus, the man who, when asked how his day was going, just looked up at Felix, shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

00:19:44

It would turn out for years, Klaus had been buying deadly chemicals online, mixing them together, and then testing these concoctions on his coworkers. He would just poison their lunches and see what happened. Felix's very rare disease that only three people had experienced in the past century in the whole world was effectively extremely acute mercury poisoning. Basically, an ungodly high level of mercury poisoning because Klaus was literally just putting mercury into Felix's cereal, and he was just eating it up. In addition to poisoning Felix's cereal, Klaus also put lead, literally right on top of Elias' sandwiches, and then he also put a combination of lead and cadmium into Otto's food. Klaus was only caught because Elias made that big discovery. While he was eating his lunch, he noticed there was a strange powder sitting on top of his sandwich, and so he called the police. Klaus never explained his motives for the poisonings. In March of 2019, he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Unfortunately, 10 months after that, Felix, who had been in a vegetative state for three years to that point, passed away. As for Elias and Otto, they still suffer from long-term effects of chemical poisoning.

00:21:10

Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments. And remember, we have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation from me of that one video that's worth your time, well, it's this one right here. So give it a watch. All right, until next time. See you..

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Episode description

Check out my second show called “MrBallen's Medical Mysteries” Binge episodes early on Amazon Music! One new episode ...