Law on Agency & Negligence

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Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash five for details. Back in 2011, my wife and I got married, and we put off our honeymoon for a while. But eventually, we took a trip through Southeast Asia, and it was, honeymoon is probably not the right way to describe it. It was a kind of hectic, kind of bare-bones, fast, sometimes pretty stressful trip. That's just the way we travel sometimes. And while we were traveling, we were in Laos. It's a beautiful, pretty rural, kind of agricultural country. And at one point, my wife and I were walking around, and we crossed this bridge over a river, and we were trying to get to the other side of this huge field. I said, we can just walk through the field. It's not going to be any problem. She said, Dylan, this is a terrible idea. And I said, no, no, no, no, it's fine. And so we started walking through this field. I don't know what they were growing, but it was tall. It was well above our heads. So you couldn't really see that well where you were headed or what was in front of you. And as we're getting pretty deep, pretty far into this field, trying to sort of cut a diagonal through it, we start to hear this growling. And five, maybe six dogs come out of this vegetation. Just sort of appearing out of nowhere and effectively surrounding us. And they are snarling and inching closer and closer to Michelle and I. And it was one of those moments where you just, your heart starts pounding. Your adrenaline bursts into your system, and you just think, oh, no, if this goes really poorly, this, that. This could be it. What a way to go. Pretty unpleasant. And so Michelle and I grabbed each other's hands, and we just, we sort of whispered to each other, like, don't move. Just start backing up. And we were kind of shouting back at the dogs, like, go away, get away. And I started picking some stuff up off the ground. I wanted to find like a rock or something, but I just found like old foliage. And sort of throwing it at the dogs. And we're just very slowly backing out of this field with these wild-looking, mangy dogs snarling and drooling and following us all the way out of this field until we got to the edge, at which point they lost interest. And I, in retrospect, I assume they are, they were guard dogs, you know, so that people didn't come and steal what was being grown there. But it was just one of those moments where you realize, had this gone a little bit differently, I would be on my way. Both Michelle and I would be on our way to the final travel destination in the sky. So that is what this episode is all about. Times when you were, or you thought you were, close to the final exit. We're going to hear from Nikki Rivera, who works in our trips department, and from Warren Webster, our CEO, about times when they thought, uh-oh, this is it. Little stories coming up. We'll be right back. Shop now online or at Retailers Nation. Wide Gatorade. With the Discover Cash Back card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. It pays to discover. Terms apply. I'm Nikki Padilla-Rivera, and I design trips for Atlas Obscura. Back in my tour guiding days, when I was a New York City tour guide, I used to do student trips a lot. So I would get in a bus full of students from Ohio or Atlanta, and they would be in the city for three days celebrating their senior year or the. chorus trip or special academic awards. And they would come and all do the same things. We would go see a Broadway show. They would do a music workshop. They would take an NBC studio tour. We would go to Bubblegum Shrimp in Times Square. And if they didn't have tickets to see the Statue of Liberty in Ellis Island to actually visit the museums, we would instead take the Staten Island Ferry. It's a very well-known secret, I guess. That if you want a great view of the Statue of Liberty, you just take the Staten Island Ferry for free, and it passes right by. So I had this one group. They were little. I want to say they were like seven, eight years old. And we were going to take the Staten Island Ferry. And how the Staten Island Ferry works is it's a really, really big boat. And you sort of get on with a horde of people. It's a little chaotic. And as a tour guide, you typically want to tell your group, okay, if you go to this side, that's where you're going to get the view, and then make sure to meet me back here when you hear the announcement when we get to the other side, because then you have to get off the boat and go down and around through the station and come back onto the new boat to come back to the Manhattan side. That's just how the ferry works. So I gave my group their little spiel. I sent them off, and then I went to hang out. Now, when we get to the other side, as I said, you have to go off the boat and into the boat. You have to go into the station, and it's a ton of people. Everyone's lined up. You're sort of crowded in there, and you kind of move like cattle, right, all together, and you kind of shuffle along. And you go into the station, and then you go physically around the waiting room and back in again. And it's all glass. You can see into the waiting room where all the passengers are waiting to get back on the Manhattan-bound boat. So we are. We're shuffling off, right, all together. I'm kind of keeping an eye already on my kids and making sure they're staying together and that they can see me. I have my little water bottle that I'm waving above my head. And as I turn to lead them forward, all I see are two people in black hoodies, hoods up, with huge machine guns and people running, like running. And I can't hear anything, and I don't think of that at the time. I think, oh, they're stuck. There's a wall. I can't hear through the wall. So there is no doubt in my mind that there is a mass shooting happened. This is a while ago, but this is post-9-11, New York City. So I immediately turn to my group, and I'm very aware that no one has seemed to notice what's going on, because I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, there's going to be a stampede. People are going to panic. People are going to run. But they're tourists, so they're not paying attention. So I think, okay, I just need to get my group away before everyone panics. So I look at my group. I put a big. I put a big smile on my face, and I'm like, oh, my group, my group, this way, this way. And walking backwards, I very. very quickly lead them down a side, there's sort of these like side hallways. So I lead them down a side hallway away from the group. And I'm just like, I need to get them away from this group so that when people panic and run, they won't get trampled. Cause again, they're little. So I'm like this way, this way, this way, big smile on my face. And then I turn. And as I'm walking towards this little hallway offshoot, there's a security guard there. There's lots of security. It's a, it's a major transportation hub. And as I'm coming closer to the security guard, I'm sort of like my hands around my mouth as if that's like helping project my whisper. And I'm just repeating over and over. There's a shooter inside. And finally I get close enough that the guard realizes what I'm saying. I'm kind of a little bit ahead of my group. So they can't see. And he goes, Oh, Oh, that the film in a movie they're filming. They're doing a training, the cops, they're doing a little video for the training. And I realized it's a movie set. And I turn around and I look again and I see very clearly lights and cameras and realize those are actors. That's why I didn't hear any sound of guns. They are filming in the public ferry station, a training video on what to do if there is a mass shooter. So my heart is still racing. My group comes up to me. They're kind of looking at me like, why are we over here? And I just turned to them. I say, Hey, I just want to call attention. They're shooting a movie inside. Did anyone see anything? And they're like, Oh yeah, I kind of noticed there were a lot of people and lights. Okay, great. So they're shooting a training video. It's for the NYPD. Um, you're going to see guns. They're fake guns. Just so you know, and we'll go back through them. We'll, we'll see the movie shoot. So now they're all excited. Cause they're like, Oh, they're, they're filming a movie. They're so excited. These little kids. So we go back in, we join the group. We come back around. We walk through, everyone sees the set. They're very excited. Back onto the ferry to head back towards Manhattan. I give them the spiel again. You know, okay. If you go to this side of the boat, that's where you'll get the view of the statue of liberty again. And make sure you meet me back here before we get to the other side. So we'll leave together. Um, and my group goes off and I go down into the bathroom and I just sob for like an entire ride. Um, I just completely, completely break down and sob. Um, and at the end of the day, I think it actually was a good experience because now I know if there ever were an emergency, I'm definitely going to keep my cool. I'm Warren Webster, CEO of Atlas Obscura. A few years ago, my sister was living in Costa Rica. She was working for the Rainforest Alliance down there. And my friends and I thought it'd be really fun to go, go visit her. And she was like, Oh, I'm going to go visit her. And I was like, Oh, I'm going to go visit her. And we wanted to go to the most off the grid, wild place that we could. And we read about the Osa Peninsula, which is the most biodiverse place in the hemisphere. Uh, tons of wildlife and birds and animals and, uh, and mainly, uh, off the grid. We took a plane to a smaller plane, to a boat, to a smaller boat, got out there, rented a Jeep. And it was fantastic. We had an amazing week, uh, living by the beach, checking out the jungle, the rainforest, uh, and it couldn't have been better. Everyone got to sleep in on the last day, except I had to leave a bit early. So I woke up early. It was still dark out. And it was the first day it had really been pouring rain, uh, all night. And I put on my go back to work clothes and I got in the Jeep that we had rented and driven out there. Uh, and I headed off. When we had driven in down the several mile dirt road, you cross a bunch of, uh, small streams, uh, not even a few inches of water. And we didn't really think anything of it. It had rained all night. So as I was driving through, I went through one stream and it was fine. I got to the next and it was fine. I got to the next and it was huge. It was like the Hudson river all of a sudden. And I sat there for a few minutes. There's no way to check or call anyone. Uh, so I thought, you know what, I'm just going to have to be stuck here. I'll miss my flight. I'll be late for work, but that's okay. It's a beautiful place. So I turned around and started heading back. And one of the streams I had just crossed as I was crossing it again, the rain really started coming down. It was essentially a flash flood. I felt the Jeep sort of pick up off the road. All of a sudden I'm spun around and shot down this ravine in essentially a raging river. So I whipped down the, uh, the window and, uh, essentially jump out the window. I couldn't get the door open, but then I'm in the water flying down this ravine, hitting rocks, holding onto the Jeep. The Jeep starts to hit rocks. It's going to roll over. So I let go of the Jeep. I swim to the side of the river, grab a branch, climb up. I'm still in my, you know, jeans and getting on the plane clothes. All of my belongings go down the river with the Jeep. You see it tumbling, uh, over rocks and then disappears from view. And I'm sitting there all of a sudden in the rainy jungle by myself, uh, looking at this raging river and trying to figure out how I'm going to get back. Interestingly, the first thought that came to my mind wasn't, oh my gosh, I just died or almost died. It was, I think I just bought a Costa Rican Jeep and I'm going to have to pay for that. Uh, the second thought was, okay, I can't really swim across this river. It's too wild. So how am I going to get back? So I ended up hiking along the river, went down to the beach, crossed, uh, on the, you know, out at the beach where it was a little bit shallower. And eventually several miles later, got back to where my sister and all of our friends were staying and it was fine. I went back later that day. And, um, some of the local guides that were standing around looking at my Jeep and, and down in the ravine and, and they ran up to me and started hugging me. They thought I was gone or, uh, they thought I had disappeared for good. And, uh, and luckily I hadn't. But, um, a few days later after we had finally gotten back to San Jose and I went to the embassy to get a new passport, my passport had been washed down into the, into the Pacific somewhere. Uh, the guy who is working at the passport just said, I'm so sorry that this happened to you in Costa Rica. I hope you'll come back and have a better experience. And I said, no, this was great. I wouldn't trade this adventure for anything. We want to hear your near death near miss travel stories as well. If you have one, give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and your near death travel experience. What happened? How did you survive? What lessons were learned? Don't cut across random fields and house, whatever it is. We want to hear about it. You can also record a voice memo and email it to us at hello at Atlas of scared.com. I can't wait to hear your story. And I'm so pleased you're still with us. And I'm Dylan Thuras wishing you all the wonder in the world. I'll see you next time. Okay. Let's say you've always wanted to take that bucket list safari trip where you hop in a Jeep at sunrise and cruise the Serengeti. Here's the thing. If you invest well, you could do things like that with empower. 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