Today, I'm going to share two totally weird medical mysteries. But before we get into those stories, 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 week. If that's of interest to you, the next time the like button is out of town, sneak into their house and prop open their refrigerator door, and then just leave. 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 stories. On the evening of July 25th, 2008, a 59-year-old man named Brian Thomas walked hand in hand with his wife, Christine, out of the restaurant where they had just had dinner. The couple was in this little village right on the Coast of Wales, and where they were now walking outside of this restaurant was right along the water. As they did that, Brian found himself looking out over the sea, and he saw the reflection of the moon on the waves, and it was so beautiful. And then he turned to his wife, and she was so stunning.

And so Brian finally just stopped and just took in all this incredible beauty right in front of him, and he began smiling ear to ear, which was a big departure from how Brian had been feeling over the past few months because Christine had recently had a big scare. She had been told she might have cancer, and so she went in for all this testing, and then she and Brian had to wait for it to come back, and the wait was absolute torture. I mean, basically, Brian and Christine were prepping themselves to find out Christine really did have cancer. But when the results did come back, it would turn out Christine did not have cancer, and so Christine was obviously hugely relieved, but it was actually Brian who was more relieved. It was like he suddenly saw he could lose his wife, his wife of 40 years who he had raised a family with. I mean, this was like the most important person in Brian's life, but it was like he didn't fully appreciate that until he realized he could lose this really important person. And so now that Christine had a clean bill of health, Brian was committed to showering her with love and affection and taking her to restaurants and on vacations.

And in fact, the reason they were actually in this village in Wales is because they were on one of Brian's many vacations for Christine. He had gone out and bought this little camper van, and they had driven it up to this part of Wales. And then after this vacation ended, Brian's plan was to use this camper to travel with his wife all over Great Britain. And so the couple had a really busy schedule coming up. But for right now, Brian was focused on just staying in the moment and enjoying this newfound happiness he was feeling. And so he and his wife would continue to just walk along the water for a bit. And then finally, when they felt tired, they headed back to their camper. They went inside, they got in their bed, and they fell asleep. A little before 4:00 AM, Brian suddenly woke up inside of this camper. And so he sits upright and he looks around. It's totally inside of there. He can't see anything. He doesn't really know why he just woke up, and he's trying to get his bearings. Then as his eyes begin to focus, he realizes there is a person standing inside of their camper right near the door.

Basically, 10, 15 feet away from he and his wife is a person. Brian just froze, and he's staring at this person, hoping this is just a dream or something. But then this person, who appeared to be dressed in all black, head to toe, began to move. They began to move first to the left and then towards the bed. Brian is still just frozen thinking, Is this real? Is this really happening? And then this person began climbing on the bed on the side where Christine was. Brian, without even thinking, just yelled out, You bastard, and he jumped off the bed at this guy and began choking them out. And the whole time, Brian is screaming at this person like, What are you doing? Why are you here? And this person is fighting back so hard, and Brian is just not letting go. It's like instinct is completely taken over. And then this person goes totally still and just dies. Brian knows he killed them, but they came into his camper. What do you expect? Brian would ultimately be the one who called the police. Just several minutes later, they would show up. And when they got there, they would find Brian standing outside the camper hyperventilating.

Then when they tried to get more information about what exactly had happened inside the camper, Brian basically couldn't explain it. It was like he was totally in shock. Eventually, one of the officers just went inside the camper, and there on the ground, they would find a body. But it was not some attacker. It was Brian's wife. It would turn out Brian had a medical condition called somnambulism, which we know as sleepwalking. At home, he would sleep in a different bed than his wife because he sleepwalked so much. But since they were on vacation in their camper, they had to sleep together because there was only one bed on board the camper. And so not long after Brian and Christine had fallen asleep together, However, Brian began having this really intense nightmare where he believed his wife was being attacked. Brian, in this nightmare, had to stop this person from hurting Christine. Except because of his sleepwalking, he acted this out in real life. The attacker that he ultimately killed was, ironically, his wife. He basically tackled his wife and strangled her to death because he thought he was actually saving her. Brian was absolutely destroyed with grief and with guilt And the second he realized what he had done, he confessed.

He didn't in any way try to protect himself. He said, I did this. Take me in. And Brian would be arrested. However, in November of 2009, the judge who actually heard Brian's official confession, he felt bad for Brian and said, You know what? I'm dropping all charges against you because it's obvious to me you are a good and decent person. This was a mistake, and you're going to live with grief and guilt for the rest of your life. And that's punishment enough. If you don't know this, late last year, we launched a brand new, strange, dark, and mysterious show called Mr. Balin'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 this 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. 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. 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 watch batches of eight episodes of Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries on Amazon Music. Also on Amazon Music, there are no ads. If all this was not enough to sell you on maybe giving the show a try, well, then stick around at the end of this video, and I'll play you a sneak peek from our newest episode of Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries. One morning in January of 2016, a 45-year-old woman named Lauren, walked into an office building in West Virginia where she worked as an office manager, and she dropped her purse, her phone, and her cigarettes on her desk. It was a Friday, and so Lauren was in a really good mood because she was pumped about the weekend. The next day, Saturday, she and her husband, Dan, planned to go on this big hike together. They loved hiking, so that was going to be awesome. Then on Sunday, Lauren planned to stay home all day and cook one big meal because it had become a tradition in their family that on Sundays, Lauren and Dan's kids, they had three kids who were all grown up, they would come back home to their parents house, and they would have a big family meal together.

These dinners were definitely the highlight of the week for Lauren and for Dan because both of them were very family-centric. Lauren switched on her computer and then looked at her schedule and saw she had a whole bunch of meetings back to back to back that day, and so immediately she was worried that she would not be able to slip out that day and go for a quick walk, something she had recently been doing a lot of because her doctor had recently told her that she had a blood circulation disorder that was called peripheral vascular disease. And what that meant was the arteries that carried the blood from her heart down to her legs and her feet were becoming blocked, and so her legs and feet were not getting enough oxygen. So far, her only symptoms were the occasional leg cramp, but if the disease got worse, it could lead to pain and mobility issues and also heart attack and stroke. Luckily, Lauren's doctor told her that she didn't need medication. She just needed to quit smoking, change her diet, and become more physically active. Lauren had totally leaned into this and was being much more active and had changed her diet, she hadn't quit smoking yet, but she planned to.

Lauren really felt like she was on the right track. As Lauren began her day going through emails and thinking about when she's going to do this walk, her cell phone rang. When Lauren looked at the phone, she didn't recognize the number, so she decided to let it go to voicemail. Lauren forgot about her phone and just figured whoever this was, they'd call back or whatever, and she's doing her thing. But then she got another phone call, and when she looked, it was the same number calling her back. This time, Lauren did pick up the phone, and when she said hello, on the other end of the line, she heard a police officer say in a very serious voice, Am I speaking to Dan's wife? And so right away, Lauren's heart began to race, and she would tell the officer, yes, what's going on? And all the officer would tell her is that Dan, unfortunately, was in a very serious car accident, and so you need to come to the scene right away. In an absolute panic, Lauren hung up the phone. She grabbed her thing, she ran out to the car, and floored her way to the address the police officer gave her.

But when she got there, she saw there were so many police cars and ambulances and all these people that she couldn't even see what was going on, let alone park anywhere near where this accident happened. So she wound up parking her car around the corner, and then she got out and just sprinted towards all the police. Then when she got up to them, she basically began pushing people out of the way, and no one tried to stop her. They could tell, this woman must know the people involved in this crash. She pushed all these people. Finally, she can see through the crowd and she can see her husband's car, and it's absolutely mangled. There's all these first responders that are in a circle on the pavement, and she can tell there is somebody on the ground they're working on, and it's got to be Dan. Lauren just began running towards that group of people. As she did, they all stood up as if there was nothing they could do. On the ground, Lauren saw her husband. There was Dan lying in this huge pool of blood had just motionless on the ground. And so before she even got over to her husband, Lauren already knew what had happened.

Dan was dead. And so Lauren let out this primal shriek and just rushed over to her husband and fell to the ground next to him, holding his body and crying hysterically. And all the EMTs and first responders, they knew this woman has just lost her husband. And even though she shouldn't be here right now, they just felt like they have to give this moment to her. And so the police and the EMTs and the rest of the first responders, instead of even talking to Lauren or trying to get her to go somewhere else, they just formed a big circle shoulder to shoulder around Lauren and Dan and just allowed Lauren to grieve in private. About 2 hours later, Lauren returned to her home in the days. Dan's body had already been transported to the morgue, and a police officer had driven Lauren back to her home, where her three kids, her son and her two daughters, were now waiting for her. And so when Lauren went inside the house and went into the living room where her kids were, her kids who already knew what had happened, they just immediately swarmed her and hugged her, and they all just cried together.

I mean, this was so horrible and so unexpected that nobody knew what to do. Finally, Lauren tried to speak through her sobs, but when she did, she just couldn't get words out. It was like her chest was so tight, she couldn't even speak. Then suddenly, Lauren realized this pressure on her chest was very real, and it was getting worse and worse to the point where it was genuinely hard to take a breath in. Lauren Lauren actually said to her kids, I think I'm having a panic attack. And so her daughter ran to the kitchen to get some water. And as she did, Lauren took a seat on the couch to try to calm down. But by the time her daughter came back with the glass of water, Lauren straight up just could not breathe. I mean, she was trying to pull air in, but it wasn't going in, and she was totally panicking. And so she looked at her kids and just mouthed the words, I can't breathe. At which point the kids understood, this is way beyond just grief and sadness. She's having a physical emergency right now. One of Lauren's daughters picked up the phone and called 911.

A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived, and they would take Lauren to a local hospital. But as soon as they got there, the doctors and nurses determined that very likely Lauren had had a heart attack. And even though she was basically stable right now, their fear is she was going to have another one, and this particular local hospital just lacked the resources and staff to actually treat Lauren. And so they pretty much immediately transferred Lauren to another hospital called the J. W. Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, because that hospital had a specialized cardiac care unit for people with very serious heart problems. Dr. Konard Falinger was the cardiologist on duty at J. W. Memorial Hospital when Lauren was brought into the Intensive Care Unit, followed closely behind by her three adult children. Now, Dr. Falinger was used to seeing worried families in the hospital, but Lauren's kids looked far more distressed than he was used to seeing. When he spoke to Lauren's kids about what's going on with Lauren, he would see why. The doctor would learn that this family has lost their father, their husband, just a few hours earlier. The mother, Lauren, who's this patient, she laid with her dead husband out on the road in a pool of blood.

Now these poor kids who've just lost their father, they're seeing their mother go to the ICU for what looks like a heart attack. I mean, this was a total worst-case scenario where basically everything was going wrong for this family. Dr. Falinger did his best to push his emotions to the side. He didn't want to get wrapped up emotionally in this case. But at the same time, the doctor felt a very deep need to save Lauren. Let this family have one good thing happen to them. But Lauren's condition was pretty dire. Just like the doctors at that local hospital where Lauren went first, Dr. Falinger also suspected Lauren had a heart attack, very likely because of blood circulation disorder that she had that basically clogged her arteries. When an artery in the heart gets blocked, the blood can't circulate in the heart, and so the heart dies. Preliminary testing on Lauren showed there was already signs of damage to her heart. In the same way that a heart attack would damage a heart. Her heartbeat was also irregular, and it was too fast, and her blood pressure was dangerously low. Then also, when Dr. Falinger looked at some imaging of Lauren's heart, he could see that the majority of her heart muscle wasn't even moving.

Basically, Lauren's heart was working way harder and way faster than it should be to accomplish nothing. And so very quickly, Dr. Falinger realized that unless he was able to find the blocked artery in Lauren's heart and clear it, that Lauren would die. And so Dr. Falinger looked up at Lauren's three kids who were just standing there in silence waiting for more bad news. And Dr. Falinger said to them, your mom needs to go into surgery right now. Nurses wheeled Lauren Lauren out of the ICU and into surgery, where she was immediately put under anesthesia. Once Lauren was ready, Dr. Falinger watched on a monitor as another surgeon fed a thin, flexible tube called a catheter into an artery in Lauren's leg and then fed it up towards her heart. This surgery was called cardiac angioplasty. Basically, that surgeon was going to use that catheter, that tube, and put it into Lauren's heart and then shoot dye through that catheter tube into the blood in Lauren's heart. Then Dr. Falinger and the other doctors could watch to see where this dye went. If the dye was pumped out of the heart like it should be, they'd see it go in all different directions.

But if at some point on the monitor, the dye just stopped inside the heart and didn't go anywhere, then that would mean they found a blockage. When the surgeon had the catheter in Lauren's heart, he injected the dye, and they all watched on the monitor, and her heart functioned completely fine. There was no blockage in her heart. Now, the doctors weren't entirely convinced yet that there was no blockage. They pulled that catheter out, and they got a different one, and they went through the exact procedure all over again to see if maybe that catheter was malfunctioning. But again, that's the second time the dye didn't stop anywhere. Her heart seemed to be functioning totally normally. Dr. Falinger and the rest of the doctors and surgeons, they were all totally baffled because what this meant was whatever was happening to Lauren or whatever did happen to Lauren was not a heart attack. But make no mistake, Lauren's heart was still absolutely dying. It was just some other thing killing it. Dr. Falinger went back to the drawing board, but realistically, there just weren't that many other things to consider with regards to what was happening to Lauren.

Heavy alcohol use could, in theory, cause what was happening to Lauren, but Lauren didn't drink. Infection was another option, but Lauren showed no signs of having an infection. Certain chemotherapy drugs have been known to damage the heart, but Lauren wasn't on chemo and certainly would not have accidentally been exposed to chemo drugs without knowing about it. Basically, Dr. Falinger had no clue what was wrong with Lauren, and he didn't even know where to start. Dr. Falinger just sat in his office feeling so bad about the fact that these kids are almost certainly going to lose their other parent. I mean, it was his duty to save Lauren, and he couldn't do it, and he just felt so bad. He couldn't even imagine how he was going to deliver the news to the kids that your mom's going to die, and we don't know why. I mean, this was the worst for Dr. Falinger. He felt like he had failed as a doctor. But just then, Dr. Falinger has this epiphany. He remembers this weird medical article he had read somewhat recently, and he realized what was going on with Lauren and her family was like the same thing that happened in that article.

Because Dr. Falinger did not have any other ideas of how to handle what was going on with Lauren, he decided he would just try to do what they did in that article because if he was wrong, he had nothing to lose. So Dr. Falinger got up and he ran to Lauren's hospital room. When he got in there, he saw Lauren's kids, and he called them over to him. He would tell them that he's going to give their mom some medication that's going to spike her blood pressure and keep it high. But then he needs them to gather around her and just talk to her like she's your mom. Talk lovingly, soothingly, remind her that you're still here and that everything is okay. The kids, they all agreed to do this. Then Dr. Falinger, he gave the medicine to Lauren, and then he watched as her three kids circled up around the head of the bed, and they're all crying and holding their mom and telling her how much they love her, and please come back to us, come back. As they're doing this, Dr. Falinger just quietly walked out of the room hoping this would work.

Sure enough, just a week later, Lauren was all better. It would turn out the way in which Lauren lost her husband, both the suddenness of getting that phone call combined with just the unthinkable horror of seeing your loved one on the road in a pool of blood dead. I mean, that situation was so stressful for Lauren that her brain released a ton of stress hormones into her body, so much so that these stress hormones literally paralyzed her heart. You can understand why all the doctors thought this was a heart attack because this looked like one. But this condition does have its own name. It's called Stress Cardiomyopathy. However, it's known by its more casual name, which is broken heart syndrome. Basically, Lauren loved her husband so much that to witness what happened to him and to learn about it so suddenly and abruptly, it nearly killed her. It just so happens that a few months before Lauren was checked into the hospital, Dr. Falinger happened to read a medical article about broken heart syndrome. The only way you can treat broken heart syndrome is just to try to keep the patient alive long enough that the stress hormones leave their body naturally, at which point their heart goes back to normal.

So Dr. Falinger was able to buy Lauren a little bit of time right at the end there by giving her that medicine that boosted her blood pressure. But Dr. Falinger told her three kids that really it was up to them to keep their mother alive. They needed to crowd around their mom and just talk to her and tell her that you love her. Show her that you're here with her. Give her a reason to fight and hold on. Even though she's not saying or doing anything, she's still alive and she can hear you. So talk to her. Lauren's kids just sat around their mother and just showered her with love and affection. Sure enough, a few days later, when Lauren did come out of it and recover, she would say that she felt herself drifting off towards death. I mean, she really knew she was dying. But then she remembers hearing her kids calling to her and saying how much they loved her and to, Please come back. We need you. We already lost dad. We got to keep you. And Lauren would say, That's the reason she's still here today is because she held on for her kids.

She felt like it was her duty to be here for her family. And so that's That's what saved her life. Okay, here is the clip from our newest episode of Mr. Ballon's Medical mysteries. Enjoy.

One summer afternoon in 2016, A young woman squeezed into the tiny bathroom on board a fishing vessel. She locked the door behind her and leaned in close to the mirror to get a good look at her face, in particular her left eye, which was disturbingly red. She used both hands to stretch the skin back around her eye, and the tissue along the edge of her eyelid looked totally strange. So she just ran a finger along it, and then suddenly, something dislodged from her eye. It was the small sliver of fuzz about the size and thickness of a carpet fiber. The woman leaned in closer to the mirror and delicately pinched this weird strand and pulled it away from her eye. She held it up to the bathroom light, trying to figure out what it was, and to her surprise, it was almost half an inch long. As she stood there wondering how on Earth this weird piece of fiber had gotten wedged in her eye, something strange happened. The little strand began to move.

The sneak peek you just listened to was from an episode called It Moves, and you can listen to that episode and many more simply by looking up Mr. Ballon's Medical mysteries on any podcast platform. Give the show a follow, and then start your binge. So that's going to do it. If you enjoyed today's medically themed stories, be sure to check out our medically themed podcast. It's called Mr. Ballen's Medical mysteries, and it's a whole bunch of stories about crazy medical mysteries. You can listen to it on Amazon Music or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts. Wait, don't go anywhere. If you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious videos, click here.