Shadowing Practice: Every DUMB Way To DlE In 16 Minutes - Learn English Speaking with Video
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171 sentences
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Hugo Avalos -Chanan It was another beautiful, bright morning when Hugo Avalos -Chanan clocked into his job as a cleaner in a meat processing plant.
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And, as the business world was about to start, Mr. Hugo, being the cleaner, was required to go and clean the meat grinder before it could be used for a new batch.
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Now, you'd think the first rule of cleaning a giant machine with sharp rotating blades
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that literally turn huge chunks of meat into tiny ground -up pieces would be to make sure it's turned off, right?
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Well, Hugo missed that memo.
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Because immediately he climbed in to get to work, the meat grinder basically pulled him in and, true to its name, did its job.
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Well, let's just say he became part of the product line in the worst way possible.
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Talk about becoming one with your work.
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Another worker noticed what was happening and quickly turned off the machine, but it was already too late.
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The merciless blades had cut through Hugo down to his bones, which were now stuck in the grinder.
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The machine had to be taken apart piece by piece to get out Hugo's remains for his family to bury.
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Ronald Sear So it's Thanksgiving Day in 2019 when Ronald Sear decided he wasn't going to rely on the usual locks,
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alarms, or friendly neighborhood watch to protect his home.
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So he came up with a brilliant idea to set up a device
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that would shoot anyone who tried to break into his house.
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Now, setting aside the fact that this sounds like something out of the Home Alone movies, Ronald actually went through with it.
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For the next two hours, the 65 -year -old went through the stress of rigging a shotgun to his door in such a way
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that it would go off if anyone tried to force their way in.
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What Ronald didn't account for was the possibility of falling victim to his own ill -conceived trap.
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It's like setting up a tripwire in your living room and forgetting you're the one who put it there.
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On that fateful day, Ronald returned home and in a tragic lapse of memory opened his own front door, which triggered the booby trap he had so carefully crafted.
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The shotgun went off just as he designed it to, only it wasn't an intruder on the receiving end, it was Ronald himself.
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He managed to call 911, but the wound was fatal and he died a few minutes later from the very security system he had created.
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This is probably one of the worst do -it -yourself projects ever.
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Lottie Belk So, you're at a picnic just enjoying a sunny day with friends
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and family when you suddenly spot a flying beach umbrella from your side eye headed directly toward your head.
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Well, this was exactly what happened to Lottie Belk during her 55th birthday celebration.
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It was July 2016 and Lottie Belk was celebrating her birthday with family and friends on the beautiful shores of Virginia Beach.
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While she was standing by the shore, probably taking in the ocean breeze, a strong gust of wind decided to make things interesting.
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Out of nowhere, a large beach umbrella, one of those big pointy ones designed to give you shade but apparently also great for impalement,
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took flight like it was auditioning for a scene in a horror movie.
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This umbrella wasn't just tumbling along the sand, it was airborne and headed straight for Lottie like it had a personal vendetta, and before she could even react,
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the umbrella impaled her right in the chest.
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And just like that, a beach umbrella went from being the perfect sunshade to a deadly weapon
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that killed a poor woman on her birthday, Irma Buli.
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If, in the unfortunate event, you come across a venomous snake and it bit you, the next thing you'd most likely do is seek medical attention before the venom kills you immediately.
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Well, not according to Irma Buli.
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So basically, the 29 -year -old Indonesian singer loved performing on stage with dangerous animals
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because she was a daredevil and singing alone wasn't enough entertainment.
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On this particular day, on April 3rd, 2016, she brought a breathing, venomous king cobra on stage with her, and guess what?
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She stepped on the freaking cobra tail while performing, so of course, the snake bit her.
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Now, this is where it gets absolutely stupid, because Irma just kept on singing like nothing happened.
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To make matters worse, she even rejected the antidote that the snake's handler tried to give her,
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and kept singing as if being bitten by a venomous snake is the same as a mosquito bite.
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The poison obviously coursed through her body, and 45 minutes later, while she was still performing, she started vomiting and having seizures, and you guessed it, she died.
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Well, at least she gave a once -in -a -lifetime performance to her audience.
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It's not every day you go to a concert to watch someone get bit by a snake and die.
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Gary Hoy On July 9, 1993, Gary Hoy, a 38 -year -old corporate lawyer from Toronto,
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worked in a high -rise building called the Toronto Dominion Centre.
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The building was known for its unbreakable glass, and Hoy was known for being a bit of a showman, especially when it came to proving a point.
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So, in a spectacular display of poor judgment, Hoy decided to demonstrate the strength of these windows to a group of visiting law students.
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As he had done many times before, he ran at the window full force, throwing his body against the glass.
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After all, what's the best way to show off the unbreakable glass?
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Well, by trying to break it, of course.
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He had clearly missed the memo about not using yourself as a crash test dummy.
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Well, things took a tragic turn fast, because while the glass itself didn't actually break, it popped out of its frame entirely.
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So instead of just bouncing off like he usually did, Gary and the entire window were sent plummeting 24 floors down.
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If there was anything that shattered, it was his own judgment about the windows, and of course, all 206 bones in his body as he crashed.
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Sadly, this window of opportunity turned into a 100 % fatal mistake, but at least he still proved his point.
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The glass was indeed unbreakable.
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Jennifer Strange In 2004, Jennifer Strange, a 28 -year -old mother from California, entered a radio contest called Hold Your Wee for a Wee.
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The contest, hosted by a local Sacramento radio station, had a simple and now infamously dangerous premise.
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Participants had to drink large amounts of water without going to the bathroom.
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The last person standing, or rather sitting, without breaking the seal, would win a Nintendo Wii, which at the time was one of the hottest gaming consoles on the market.
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Jennifer, like many parents at the time, was eager to win the Wii for her kids, so she took part in the contest.
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As the contest went on, Jennifer consumed more and more water.
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Unfortunately, the radio hosts and contestants didn't realize
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that drinking excessive amounts of water in a short period can be incredibly dangerous
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and lead to a condition known as water intoxication or hyponatremia.
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In simple terms, when you drink too much water too quickly, it dilutes the sodium in your blood.
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Sodium is crucial for maintaining the balance of fluids in and out of your cells.
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When there's not enough sodium, your cells start to swell with water.
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In the brain, this swelling can be fatal as the skull prevents the brain from expanding.
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After the contest, Jennifer started to experience severe headaches, nausea, and disorientation, classic signs of hyponatremia.
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Tragically, just hours after returning home, she passed away, a classic case of too much of everything being bad.
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The craziest part about all this is that she didn't even win the challenge.
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Basil Brown So every healthy eating, healthy living advocate is always trying out new healthy smoothies or meal plans to improve their general well -being.
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Eating fruits, vegetables, and drinking a ton of water is, after all, the secret to a healthy life.
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Well, unfortunately for Basil Brown, this wasn't the case.
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You see, this man was obsessed with being healthy and was determined to boost his wellness by any means necessary.
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And so, of course, he started eating fruits.
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Not just any fruit, though.
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He was mainly eating carrots.
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He would eat them, turn them into smoothies, and drink them.
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This guy drank at least one full gallon of carrot juice daily.
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Now, even though drinking carrot juice gives your body nutrients and vitamin A, which is great for your eyes,
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immune system, and skin, taking four liters of carrot juice daily was definitely not a good idea.
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It was a very fatal idea.
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The excessive consumption of carrot juice basically overloaded his body with vitamin A, which became toxic.
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It's like getting alcohol poisoning, but this time it's vitamin A poisoning.
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Soon his skin started turning yellow and he developed severe liver damage within 10 days of his carrot juice obsession.
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He died soon after, which goes to prove the fact that, again, too much of everything is actually really bad.
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Unfortunately, Basil learned this the hard way.
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If you want to find out more stories like this, then you should join our Discord server today.
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Michael Anderson Godwin.
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Can you imagine escaping execution by electrocution only to end up still dying in the most stupid way possible?
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Well, this is precisely what happened to Michael Anderson Godwin, a convicted criminal who had been sentenced to death for murder in South Carolina.
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Initially, he was supposed to be executed in the electric chair.
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However, after some legal wrangling, his sentence was reduced to life in prison.
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So, in a sense, he managed to avoid the electric chair, something which most people would consider incredibly fortunate.
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Well, unfortunately for Michael, fate had other plans.
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One day in 1989, while serving his life sentence, Godwin was in his prison cell, likely going about his day like any other.
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He was sitting on a metal toilet while trying to fix his TV set.
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Godwin bit into a wire connected to his television set
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while still seated on the metal toilet for reasons that can only be described as tragically unlucky.
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Now, if you know anything about electricity, you'll know that metal conducts it quite well.
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The combination of the metal toilet and the exposed wire created a perfect circuit, and Godwin was electrocuted on the spot.
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The irony?
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He died from electrocution on a chair, the very fate he had managed to escape in the courtroom.
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Gary Anderson If you visit any construction site, you will know that the number one rule is always to wear a safety helmet.
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It is a rule that everyone is supposed to follow, most especially the construction workers.
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However, this rule was just a mere suggestion for Gary Anderson, because he never wore his safety helmet.
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Well, in November 2014, the 58 -year -old construction worker was delivering drywall to a construction site in Jersey City,
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and, as usual, he didn't have his safety helmet on.
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So, while he was deeply engrossed in his work, another worker on the 50th floor mistakenly dropped their one -pound measuring tape,
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which fell nearly 500 feet at 140 meters per hour before striking Gary Anderson's head.
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Talk about hitting the mark.
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He immediately collapsed to the ground and was rushed to the Jersey City Medical Center, where he suffered from cardiac arrest and died two hours later.
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Who would have thought that a measuring tape could become a deadly weapon?
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Well, definitely not Anderson.
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Carl Barry Picture this.
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It's a sunny day in April 2013, and Carl Barry, a hockey player, is practicing with other teammates on the field when he sees a snake slithering nearby.
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Now, the normal response to seeing a snake is to slowly back away
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and try to contact Animal Services or an expert, right?
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Well, not according to Carl, who walked directly to the snake and picked it up without fear.
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He planned to actually throw the snake out of the field so it wouldn't bother their practice.
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But, unfortunately for him, he had just picked up a king brown, which is literally one of the most venomous reptiles in the world.
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Needless to say, the snake bit him, and Carl flung it away.
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At least he still achieved what he initially wanted to do.
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Now, you'd expect that Carl would alert others that he's been bitten by a snake or try to seek medical attention, right?
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Well, that's wrong, because the guy just continued with practice like nothing happened.
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Sadly, after he'd run for about two kilometers, he started feeling very dizzy, tired, and nauseous, and before you knew it, he collapsed.
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When first responders arrived, Carl was pronounced dead on the scene.
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Sulawesi Farmers The year is 2017, and five hardworking farmers in Sulawesi,
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Indonesia are going about their day tending to their crops and doing the usual farm work.
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Now, on the farms, they have this massive wooden barn for storing their corn, and the barn is also built with a huge empty space underneath where they can eat and rest occasionally.
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One day while working, it started to rain heavily, so these guys ran to take cover underneath the barn, but in a twist of events that could only be called a tragedy,
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the wooden barn started to sway violently.
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This caused a mountain of corn to come crashing down on these guys.
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We're talking about the weight of three tons of corn.
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It's like getting buried under a runaway semi -truck made entirely of corn kernels.
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They remained there for several hours, and the weight eventually started to cut off their oxygen supply.
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Sadly, before the other farmers around noticed the disaster, the lack of oxygen, and heavy weight on top of them had already killed them.
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Imagine going to do such hard work morning
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and night only to end up getting killed by what should have been their reward.
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Edward Archbold If you were to buy a burger from a food truck
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and discover a cockroach in it as you were about to eat it, you'd be furious and throw the whole thing away.
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But for someone like Edward Archbold, that was a very delicious appetizer.
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You see, this guy has a thing for eating bugs
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and he literally entered a roach eating contest to see who could eat the most live roaches.
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Now, just like in every contest, there's always a prize for the winner and you wouldn't believe
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that the prize for this already fucked up contest was a python.
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Yeah, eat live cockroaches and win a snake.
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So as the contest started, Edward went all in.
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He wasn't just nibbling on the roaches, he was shoveling them into his mouth like he was at an all -you -can -eat buffet, and he was winning.
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Edward didn't know that cockroaches aren't exactly smooth going down, so in his bug -eating frenzy,
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he didn't seem to consider that his throat might not be as thrilled about the menu as he was.
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Well, the cockroach diet clogged his airway, and he started choking.
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Sadly, what was supposed to be a glorious moment of triumph quickly turned into a fight for air, and sadly, the bugs won.
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Edward's prize -winning strategy backfired in the worst possible way, and he suffocated from what can only be described as the world's most bizarre snack.
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Well, at least he didn't get bitten by a python.
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Lee Sims As a child, when you and your mom or dad go to the park and you want to ride the swing, they'd swing you for only a few minutes before getting tired and asking you to,
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you know, play on something else.
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And as fun as riding a swing is, it was unfortunately the worst day of three -year -old Lee Sims' life, and quite literally the end of it.
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In 2015, Ramesha Sims took her son Lee Sims for a spin in a park in Maryland.
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The boy wanted to ride the swing, so she started swinging him gently for a few minutes, and then it turned into hours.
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And those hours turned into days.
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This lady kept pushing her child on the swing for a total of 40 hours, never taking a break.
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It was almost like she was hypnotized and stuck somewhere else.
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When someone finally noticed what was actually happening and called the police, the poor boy was already unconscious because of dehydration and hypothermia.
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Lee Sims was dead before he even got to the hospital, and his mother, well, it turns out she was mentally unwell and didn't even know where she was or what she'd done.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 171 sentences and 2806 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:25. The speaker talks fast, about 182 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| snake noun | /sneɪk/ | Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues. |
| swing verb | /ˈswɪŋ/ | To rotate about an off-centre fixed point. |
| carrot noun | /ˈkæɹət/ | A vegetable with a nutritious, juicy, sweet root that is often orange in colour, Daucus carota, family Apiaceae, especially the subspecies sativus. |
| juice noun | /d͡ʒuːs/ | A liquid made from plant, especially fruit. |
| sadly adverb | /ˈsædli/ | In a sad manner; sorrowfully. |
| umbrella noun | /ʌmˈbɹɛl.ə/ | A cloth-covered frame used for protection against rain or sun. |
| corn noun | /ˈkɔːn/ | Any cereal plant (or its grain) that is the main crop or staple of a country or region. |
| fatal adjective | /ˈfeɪ.təl/ | Causing death or destruction. |
| barn noun | [ˈbɑɹn] | A building, often found on a farm, used for storage or keeping animals such as cattle. |
| worker noun | /ˈwɝ.kɚ/ | One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor. |
| toilet verb | /ˈtɔɪ.lət/ | To assist another (a child, etc.) in using a toilet. |
| farmer noun | /ˈfɑɹ.mɚ/ | A person who works the land and/or who keeps livestock; anyone engaged in agriculture on a farm. |
| poison noun | /ˈpɔɪ.zən/ | A substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism when ingested. |
| helmet noun | /ˈhɛlmɪt/ | A hard, protective head covering, typically part of armour. |
| vitamin noun | /ˈvɪt.ə.mɪn/ | Any of a specific group of organic compounds essential in small quantities for healthy human growth, metabolism, development, and body function. They are found… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| go off verb | To explode. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
| turn off verb | To power down, to switch off, to put out of operation, to deactivate (an appliance, light, mechanism, functionality etc.). | |
| back away verb | To move in a direction opposite to that which one is facing, keeping one's attention on the thing in front being avoided. | |
| bounce off verb | To test (ideas) on someone. | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. | |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 29 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, wasn't, you'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, smooth /smuːð/, bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, throat /ˈθɹoʊt/, breathe /bɹiːð/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shore /ʃɔɹ/, shotgun /ˈʃɑtɡʌn/, rush /ɹʌʃ/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/, occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/, celebration /ˌsɛl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like snake, swing, carrot.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you know anything about electricity, you'll know |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was required · be taken · being bitten |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | bones, which were · anyone who tried · one who put |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | was happening · was celebrating · was standing |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.