What Was That Like - True Stories. Real People.

Do you know how you would react, in an emergency situation? The first time I remember being put to the test with something like this is when I was 18 years old. I was just driving, by myself, on a sort of rural road here in Florida one morning. And as I drove down this road, I could see something odd up in the distance. It was a car, off the road – and it was upside down. Probably most of us have...

Every Tuesday, we grab a past question from the Facebook group, then Meredith and I answer it and read some of the answers given by other listeners. The question for this episode: If you had one “do-over” what past event would you spend it on? To check out the new Tuesday Question and get in the discussion, join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook. Sponsor deals: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions...

This is a quick episode to let you know that starting Tuesday, March 5, 2024 – we’ll be doing the weekly Tuesday Question episodes. Every week in the Facebook group, we have a new thought-provoking question. These questions always generate a lot of great discussion, and this weekly post has become very popular. Now, every Tuesday Scott Johnson (host of What Was That Like) and Meredith Hackwith Edw...

This episode is a little different from the norm. Usually we talk to someone who has experienced something really unusual. But every once in a while, I like to have a guest on who has an unusual job – a job that I find really interesting and have lots of questions about. So that’s what we’re doing here today. My guest is Julie – she works as a hospice nurse. She’s been doing this for many years, s...

You ever watch a video on YouTube, or TikTok, and it shows someone walking right on the edge at the top of a very tall building? Or maybe they’re right at the edge of a cliff with a steep drop off, and they’re doing flips or some stupid thing, just to get views and show how fearless they are. Every time I see one of those, I get this weird feeling in my gut because I think about the risk that they...

There are some people whose dream is to live on a boat and just spend their life sailing around the world. In fact, there’s a company called Villa Vie that’s hoping a LOT of people want to do that. They have a cruise ship that holds 924 passengers, and they’re offering a never-ending cruise that goes around the world every 3 ½ years. You can actually buy one of the cabins – starting for as little...

James had a childhood that would have indicated future success. He grew up in southern California, and his father is a scientist. His mother is a registered nurse. They lived in an affluent neighborhood in San Diego. But by the time he was in middle school, James began to display some mental health issues. He tried to take his own life at age 11. But he did graduate from high school, and also comp...

What would YOU do in this situation? Imagine you just got off an international flight, and you’re in a Subway restaurant, in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. You feel terribly sick. In fact, you have reason to believe that your condition could be fatal if you don’t get medical help quickly. Do you call 911? That’s the situation Luke was in, on a January day back in 2016. But he was hesitant to call for hel...

The second season of PROOF: Murder at the Warehouse takes Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis to Manteca, CA where they reinvestigate the murder of 18-year-old Renee Ramos. On June 5, 2000, Ramos’ body was found buried under a pile of debris inside the shell of a new Home Depot building. Despite tips hinting at alternate suspects - tips that were ignored until now - Renee’s boyfriend, 18-year-old skat...

It’s amazing how quickly things can change. Michael lives with his wife, Mu, in New York City. He works for HP, and his job is to visit various locations around the city and do equipment repair. So he often finds himself on public transportation. One afternoon he was on the city bus, headed to his next job. He expected it to be a routine trip. But without any warning, he found himself trying despe...

You’re listening to What Was That Like, and this is the last episode for 2023 – which means it’s our year-end Listener Stories episode. For each episode of the show, we have a guest come on and tell their story. It might be someone who survived an alligator attack, or a person who was shot multiple times, or maybe someone who went on The Price is Right and won the showcase – those are just a few e...

Very few people have seen someone get hit by a car. There’s a movie from 1998 called Meet Joe Black. Kind of a weird film that combines romance and fantasy. I don’t remember being particularly impressed by the movie itself, but there’s one scene that’s stuck in my head forever. If you’ve seen it, you probably know the scene I’m talking about. Two young people, played by Brad Pitt and Claire Forlan...

On October 24, 2015, Sue was with her daughter Jessica, who was 14 years old at the time, and her friend Elise. Sue and Elise were skydiving buddies, and they were doing what they often did on a beautiful Saturday morning – they were going to go jump out of a plane. Since she was 14, Jessica wasn’t yet old enough to jump – but she just liked being with her mom and hanging out at the drop zone. The...

One of the things I really try hard to avoid is any flying, stinging insect. When I was a little kid, we lived in a pretty rural area in central Ohio. We had a big yard so my brothers and I were outside playing all summer. And of course there were bees. I was old enough to know not to mess with them, but my next youngest brother, Steve, hadn’t really learned that yet. So sometimes I would show him...

I’m Scott, the host of What Was That Like. And this is a bonus episode. Normally, on this podcast you would hear someone talking about the time they witnessed a murder, or when they escaped a cult, or when they were swimming and they lost their leg to a shark attack. Those are all actual past episodes, and there are currently over 150 of them to binge. But we’re doing something a little different...

Anthony is a husband and a father. He lives in Canada. His kidneys were failing, and he was in desperate need of a donor. He was even on the local news with his wife and daughter, hoping to find someone who was a match, and willing to give up a kidney. Almost anyone can donate a kidney, but to donate to a specific recipient, you have to be tested to find out if you’re a match – to see if your kidn...

“48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty takes you inside true-crime investigations like no one else, in her podcast “My Life of Crime”. In the new season, Erin delves into the labyrinth of crime within families and the secrets that kept them together or tore them apart. Here’s a preview of the “My Life of Crime” season premiere, “Twisted Twins: Who Killed Heather DeWild?” Erin examines the case of...

October 4, 2016. For Jennifer and her husband Chris, and their 4 children, it was just a regular Tuesday. Up until around 8 pm that evening. Jen was driving home and she had their two young daughters in the car. Jen stopped at a stop sign, and then proceeded into the intersection without seeing the motorcycle that was approaching on her left. The motorcycle hit her car, and with that collision, th...

Have you ever heard of Rohypnol? In the US, Rohypnol is classified as a Schedule IV controlled substance. It functions as a depressant to the central nervous system. It’s not manufactured or approved for sale in the US, but it is shipped here from other countries and used illegally. It’s similar to Valium, but ten times more powerful. A common name for it on the street is the “forget-me drug”. A m...

This is a special episode. Most of the time here on What Was That Like, I talk to a regular person who has been through some type of extremely unusual situation. If you’ve just discovered this podcast, you can just scroll through the episode titles and see that we’ve heard a lot of REALLY big and unusual stories – and all of them are told first-hand, by the person who went through it. But a lot of...

Tristan Redman is a journalist who doesn’t believe in ghosts. But weird things happened in his teenage bedroom – weirder than normal. When, years later, he discovers subsequent occupants of his family home say they have been visited by the ghost of a faceless woman, he’s curious. It just so happens that the house Tristan grew up in is right next door to the house where his wife’s great grandmother...

Most of the time, childbirth happens in a hospital. But not always. Consider the pregnant woman in Payson, Utah, who went in to Walmart early on a Sunday morning just to pick up a few things. This was her third pregnancy, so she was familiar with what to expect. But by the time she finished shopping and was at the register, she was on her knees and holding her stomach in serious distress. The baby...

On the night of October 1, 2017, 64 year old Stephen Paddock opened fire from his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. He was able to fire over 1100 rounds in just 10 minutes time, from 10:05 pm to 10:15 pm. His target was the crowd of 22,000 people in the open field below his room. These people were attending the final night of the 3-day Route 91 Harvest Music festival....

If you’re a parent, you know – there is nothing more precious to you than your child. You would do anything for them, to keep them healthy, and happy, and safe. But sometimes, even the best parents with the best of intentions can have a brief lack of focus, and the results can be devastating. The subject we’re talking about today is hot car deaths. Outside of crashes, heatstroke is the leading cau...

Have you ever been in a situation and had the thought, “I actually might die here today”? We recently observed the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and I learned about a woman named Linda Gronlund, from New York. She was an attorney, an accomplished sailor and scuba diver, a certified EMT, and she held a brown belt in karate. On September 11, 2001, Linda was on United flight 93. The plan...