Pod Insights Real Survival Stories Tragedy in Greece: Honeymoon in Flames About this episode In July 2018, Zoe Holohan and her husband Brian travel to Greece to enjoy a relaxing honeymoon, having tied the knot just days before. But it soon morphs into a horror story when the couple wake from a siesta to find themselves trapped in one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s recent history. Racing against time, Zoe and Brian face a desperate scramble to escape before it’s too late…
For more on Zoe’s story read her book As the Smoke Clears.
A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins.
Written by Heléna Lewis | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Jacob Booth | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 John Hopkins? It's Monday, July 23rd, 2018. In the coastal town of Matti, located some 30 kilometers east of Athens on the Greek mainland, the temperature has been rising steadily throughout the morning.
0:17 John Hopkins? By noon, it's pushing 40 degrees centigrade, over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The streets are quiet, the atmosphere soporific, as people take refuge from the heat inside their shuttered houses, or sip coffee in the shade of local tavernas.
0:35 John Hopkins? Nestled against a picture-perfect backdrop of rolling scrub hills, a beautiful villa gleams in the glaring sunshine, the fierce light casting dappled patterns through the smooth, clear waters of the property's private pool.
0:51 John Hopkins? The air echoes with a gentle hum of cicadas, and a warm, pine-scented wind blows through the open door from the terrace into the house.
1:02 John Hopkins? Inside is a haven of cool, calm darkness, the only sound coming from the rhythmic, ceaseless whir of the air conditioning.
1:12 John Hopkins? Upstairs, in the master bedroom, a newly-married couple in their 40s lie sleeping beneath a thin cotton sheet, having been driven inside by the ferocious midday sun.
1:24 John Hopkins? This is Zoe Holohan and her husband of just four days, Brian O'Callaghan Westrop. It's the beginning of their honeymoon, and they're making the most of the chance to relax and unwind in their stunning surroundings.
1:40 John Hopkins? After an hour or two, Brian stirs and wakes, then rolls out of bed and walks down the stairs, not waking his sleeping wife.
1:50 John Hopkins? Zoe remains, lost in peaceful slumber.
1:55 John Hopkins? Until, seconds later, she hears Brian screaming her name.
2:00 Speaker 01 His voice had such a tone of urgency that, obviously, I woke up with a shock.
2:08 John Hopkins? Dazed, Zoe scrambles out of bed and heads towards Brian. Whatever is happening, it's clearly an emergency. She runs to the top of the stairs.
2:18 Speaker 01 The weirdest things go through your mind in these scenarios because I remember being at the top of the stairs and it was a steep wooden staircase and I remember thinking, "Jesus Christ, Zoe, don't fall down the stairs." Because if you fall down the stairs, that'd be the worst thing, if you broke a limb on your honeymoon. Little did I know it was gonna get a hell of a lot worse than that.
2:38 John Hopkins? Clinging gingerly to the handrail, her bare feet braced against the wooden treads, Zoe makes her way down the precarious staircase as fast as possible, unsure of what awaits her.
2:50 John Hopkins? When she reaches the bottom, she finds Brian almost in a trance, staring in horror at the view out of the open terrace door. Zoe follows his gaze. And what she sees is the stuff of nightmares.
3:05 Speaker 01 In that moment, it was like Jeff Brown snapped out of it and ran to shut the door and told me to do the same with the back door. I ran to the back door and closed that too. So we realized we had minutes, if not seconds, to get the hell out of there.
3:27 John Hopkins? Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives.
3:48 John Hopkins? In this episode, we meet Zoe Holohan. In July 2018, she and her husband Brian travelled to Greece to enjoy a relaxing honeymoon, having tied the knot just days before. But what should be one of the happiest times of their lives soon morphs into a horror story right before their eyes, when Zoe and Brian wake from a seizure and find themselves trapped in one of the worst natural disasters in the country's recent history.
4:13 Speaker 01 You know, we were on honeymoon, we were happy, we could finally get to unwind. And then, of course, we woke up the following day on July 23rd and it all went terribly, terribly wrong from there.
4:28 John Hopkins? Racing against time, the couple face a desperate scramble to escape before it's too late. But despite their best efforts, it seems that fate is set against them as they encounter hurdle after hurdle and safety continues to elude them. How much bad luck can two people endure before tragedy finally strikes?
4:49 Speaker 01 It's, in my opinion, a miracle, actually, anybody got out of there alive. What happened next was absolutely catastrophic.
4:58 John Hopkins? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.
5:33 John Hopkins? It's Sunday, July 22, 2018. The sun hangs like a blazing disk of gold over the eastern coast of Attica, a peninsula in the heartland of Greece. Here, dusty hills dotted with tall pines and gnarled olive trees give way to the tranquil waters of the Aegean. This is an area steeped in history and culture and has become a prime destination for holidaymakers. Its proximity to Athens making it ideal for international tourists. In the bustling seaside town of Matti, just up the coast from the port of Rafina, a hire car trundles along narrow, labyrinthine streets.
6:15 John Hopkins? Inside, newly married couple Zoe Holohan and Brian O'Callaghan Westrop scan their surroundings, squinting into the dazzling sunlight as they search for the villa they've booked for their honeymoon.
6:27 John Hopkins? Eventually, the building comes into sight. Brian and Zoe drive through the tall electric gate that guards its driveway, then park up outside the property. Here, they are greeted by the villa's owner, who gives them a tour and supplies helpful information for their stay. In addition to providing restaurant recommendations and directions to local attractions, she also warns them that the area can be prone to power cuts and gives instructions on how to manually open the gate if the electricity fails.
7:00 John Hopkins? The villa is everything Zoe and Brian could have hoped for and tops off the magical wedding they enjoyed three days earlier back home in Ireland.
7:08 Speaker 01 So we had our family and we had our closest friends there. We went to a beautiful place, a place called Clanabrini House. It was an outdoor wedding in a rose garden. And it was extraordinarily special. But it's hard to talk about. Because that happened on July the 19th, 2018, and four days later, our lives were obliterated.
7:34 John Hopkins? Now, in their 40s and having both been married before, Zoe and Brian are open about how lucky they are to have found each other. They met via a dating website four years earlier, when Zoe was on the verge of giving up after a string of disappointing matches.
7:50 John Hopkins? But with Brian, things were different.
7:53 Speaker 01 So Brian had a very interesting buyer. And he seemed like an intelligent guy. He lived quite close to where I lived, so... We agreed to meet one afternoon for coffee. I guess you could say what began as a coffee date turned into lunch, turned into sitting there until the cafe closed, it was around 6:00 or 7:00 in the afternoon-evening. And we were getting on so well that we just extended the date. We toddled off to a local bar and decided to have a bite to eat and a few drinks there. And immediately, we just hit it off. I kind of thought to myself, right, finally, that that doozy date run has ended.
8:32 John Hopkins? The instant spark between Zoe and Brian soon blossomed into a much deeper connection.
8:38 Speaker 01 Beyond the physical attraction, there were aspects to his personality that immediately I found attractive. He was world-wise, he was deeply respectful, gentlemanly, he had a bit of a spirit of adventure about him, he liked to travel. But if I were going to describe him now, as I got to know him, I think the essence of Brian was he was a truly kind man. He spent an awful lot of his spare time working in charities. There's a service in Ireland called Blood Bikes, Brian loved his motorbikes. And Blood Bikes basically is a free of charge service where certain bikers travel all across the country with emergency medical supplies. Sometimes it could be a heart transplant, a lung, it could be bloods.
9:24 Speaker 01 And he would do this just because he wanted to help people.
9:35 John Hopkins? A couple of months after their first date, Brian and Zoe moved in together. Just over two years later, they were engaged. For Zoe, who was working in a high-powered media job, this new and happy chapter came after a period when things weren't always easy.
9:54 Speaker 01 I worked in advertising and sales in newspapers, really media was my world when I was younger. I worked in a very high-pressured industry where you had to be an Oscar-winning actress or actor and never show weakness and never show pressure or burnout and continually put that smiling face forward. I'm sure not the only person that felt like they had to do that in the corporate world, but in the quiet times, I was seeking out therapy and I really badly needed help to cope with some of those high-pressure times. Back then, I told nobody, not even my closest friends, that I was struggling. When I was with Brian, certainly, we could talk about those things, but that was a later
10:36 Speaker 01 stage when I pretty much got, if you want to put it this way, my mental health act together.
10:45 John Hopkins? Zoe's struggles have been hard. However, they've also created a steely core of resilience and determination within her.
10:54 Speaker 01 In my twenties, thirties and forties, I would have had spells of depression, anxiety, and I definitely suffered from panic attacks in my forties. So I guess you might say that working through those, either in the guise of therapy or just sheer peddling through them, probably helped create some inner strength in me. I would also say, much to the irritation of a lot of my friends, I'm extraordinarily stubborn by nature, but I actually, I deem that an advantage because I don't give up very easily.
11:38 John Hopkins? This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four.
12:21 John Hopkins? Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
12:29 John Hopkins? After the villa owner leaves, Brian and Zoe settle into their accommodation and spend some time exploring their surroundings and stocking up on supplies.
12:38 John Hopkins? As the sun dips below the horizon and the soft shadows of evening set in, the beauty of the area washes over them.
12:46 John Hopkins? The following morning marks the first real day of their honeymoon. They enjoy a long line, then eat brunch in the garden before relaxing by the pool as the temperature slowly starts to rise.
12:58 Speaker 01 It was extraordinarily hot. We were looking at our phones, we were checking the temperature, and I believe it had got up to forty by noon, forty degrees. It was exceptionally hot, we'd jump in the pools, cool off, and then no sooner that you're out again, you'd be exhausted by the heat.
13:14 John Hopkins? Between refreshing dips in the clear blue water, the couple discuss their recent wedding and make plans for the rest of their two-week honeymoon.
13:23 John Hopkins? They also take time to phone Brian's mother. It's her birthday today. She's in the middle of a celebratory lunch, so the conversation is short but affectionate.
13:33 Speaker 01 After that, we did the nerdy thing of changing our Facebook status to married. We were like a pair of teenagers on the countdown, three, two, one. We giggled about it, and then the heat just got too much. This would have been just around lunchtime, the heat got too much.
13:54 John Hopkins? Forced inside by the fierce midday sun, Zoe and Brian head into the refreshing, air-conditioned darkness of the villa for a siesta, leaving the terrace doors open to try and get some airflow through the house.
14:08 John Hopkins? They stretch out lazily on their bed. The soft, cool sheets are a welcome relief to their sun-warmed skin.
14:16 John Hopkins? It isn't long before both are fast asleep.
14:20 John Hopkins? An hour or two passes, and outside, the temperature continues to climb.
14:27 John Hopkins? Sometime in the early afternoon, Brian stares and blinks his eyes open. Beside him, Zoe is still asleep. Brian pads downstairs, not disturbing her.
14:38 John Hopkins? But just a few seconds later, his voice jolts her from her dreams.
14:43 Speaker 01 I woke up in the bed with my bikini bottoms still on and Brian screaming from downstairs, telling me to get up. And his voice had such a tone of urgency that obviously I woke up with a shock.
15:03 John Hopkins? Zoe lurches out of bed and down the steep wooden staircase, taking care not to fall. At the bottom of the stairs, a wave of heat engulfs her, far more savage than anything one would expect from the afternoon sun.
15:17 John Hopkins? Still fuzzy, she blinks, and her eyes lock on Brian, who is standing, transfixed, staring out of the open terrace door. Confused, Zoe follows his gaze. And then her heart drops.
15:32 Speaker 01 Brian was just standing there, like he was in a trance, and the whole side of the garden, the whole area that we'd just come in from, the pool, was just filled with flames.
15:48 John Hopkins? Zoe and Brian stare in disbelief at the fire raging outside the villa, in the very place where just hours before, they were relaxing, reveling in the glorious Greek sunshine on the first real day of their honeymoon. Now the greenery of the garden is gone, subsumed by an orange inferno. The sight is surreal.
16:12 John Hopkins? Waves of heat roll into the air-conditioned villa through the open terrace door, and already, a miasma of smoke is starting to fill the house.
16:21 John Hopkins? Suddenly, Brian snaps out of his trance-like state, and lunges to close one set of doors, telling Zoe to do the same at the back of the house. She runs, bare feet slapping against the tiles, pulse drumming in her ears. When she reaches the back door, the true severity of their situation is immediately clear.
16:42 Speaker 01 The whole back garden, and the hills behind, of which we could have a view from the back of the house, were totally on fire. So we realized now we had minutes, if not seconds, to get the hell out of there.
16:57 John Hopkins? Still, wearing nothing but her bikini, Zoe bolts upstairs to throw on some clothes and grab her handbag. There is no telling where they might end up, and having a few key essentials could make all the difference.
17:08 Speaker 01 I made sure I had the wallets, the passports, our keys, our wedding rings, and that was it. And I just threw on a dress, this long white dress that I'd chosen specifically for the honeymoon. And I threw on this pair of webbed wedge sandals, all new, all beautiful. But I thought the long dress might be a good idea. I don't know what I was thinking. I thought the long dress might be a good idea if we encountered fire.
17:34 John Hopkins? Seconds later, Zoe is back downstairs, then she and Brian are running out of the villa towards the car. Exiting the building is like stepping into a furnace. Instantly, they are engulfed in a powerful rush of raw, brutal heat, and enveloped in thick clouds of smoke and ash. Coughing and spluttering, they race across the drive to their hire car, yank open the doors, and throw themselves inside. They're just in time.
18:01 Speaker 01 Outside the car were like these little whirling tornadoes of burning debris. We'd actually stepped into hell. The heat was unbelievable, but we were inside the car. And, you know, there was this small moment, this split second, where I thought, yeah, we're gonna get out of here, we're gonna be okay, we're in the car, we're gonna zoom out of this. And the car will protect us from the flames.
18:29 John Hopkins? There's no time to lose. Brian grabs the key fob for the electric gate at the bottom of the drive and jams his thumb down on the buzzer. The gate doesn't move. Alarmed, he presses the button again, but nothing happens.
18:46 Speaker 01 We tried to open the buzzer on the gate, and the gate wouldn't budge. And then we realized, Jesus Christ, the electricity has been cut off.
18:55 John Hopkins? They're trapped.
18:58 John Hopkins? When Zoe and Brian arrived the day before, the villa's owner warned them about the potential for power cuts in this area, and left them an Allen key to manually unlock the gate if needed.
19:10 John Hopkins? But the key is back inside.
19:12 Speaker 01 Brian ran back into the house, told me to stay in the car to get the Allen key. I mean, this is all so time sensitive because every second counts. Ran in, eventually he found it. It could have been seconds, it felt like hours. And he came back out. Now, at this stage, the flames were pretty much surrounding the car. Brian got to the gate and wasted crucial, crucial minutes trying everything to winch open this bloody gate. I got out of the car, I had to get out his side because the passenger side was now surrounded by flames and tried to help him open and we just couldn't, we couldn't open the gate.
19:54 John Hopkins? Zoe and Brian fumble with the Allen key hauling at the gate as the heat builds mercilessly at their backs, but it's no use. They whirl around, searching for any other exit. As they do so, they see that their car has been swallowed by the fire.
20:12 John Hopkins? Even if they could open the gate now, there's no way they can get back in their vehicle.
20:17 John Hopkins? Their only choice is to scale the three metre high gate and make a run for it on foot.
20:24 John Hopkins? Losing no time, Zoe bunches up her long white dress and Brian pushes her up. She clambers over the top of the barrier, then tumbles down the other side. She lands hard on the ground, her new wedged sandals colliding with the concrete as her left leg twists at an unnatural angle.
20:43 John Hopkins? Searing pain stabs through her knee.
20:46 Speaker 01 I landed badly because of the wedged shoes and I dislocated my knee and cut my patella, slipped out of place and that hurts, but when you're in a state of panic like that, your, your body handles pain in a different way. I registered it, but I ignored it.
21:05 John Hopkins? Seconds later, Brian lands beside Zoe and they scramble awkwardly to their feet.
21:11 John Hopkins? The couple stare at each other. They've overcome the first hurdle, but their survival is far from assured.
21:18 Speaker 01 I remember looking at him and holding his hands and begging him and saying, are we gonna survive? And, you know, Brian was the sort of man who'd never lie. I don't think he was capable of telling a lie, so he just looked me in the eyes and he said, we're gonna be okay, we're gonna be okay. And now we have to run.
21:38 John Hopkins? Hand in hand, Zoe and Brian race up the main road, throats dry, the taste of ash on their tongues.
21:46 John Hopkins? But after just a few hundred metres, they run into a huge, impenetrable wall of fire. Having only arrived the day before, the couple haven't got their bearings yet.
21:58 John Hopkins? With their path now blocked, they turn and head back downhill in what they assume is the direction of the sea.
22:05 John Hopkins? If they can reach the water, they may stand a chance.
22:09 John Hopkins? But with the fire intensifying every minute, that is no guarantee.
22:14 Speaker 01 We'd literally just jumped from the frying pan into the fire, quite literally. It was like Dante's Inferno, everywhere, everywhere around us were just walls of fire. It's hard to describe the level of heat. Every breath we took, it was like swallowing acid. It literally burned every single breath, so we were almost trying not to breathe. Our eyes were streaming the darkness. We might as well have been stepping out into the middle of the night, it was that dark. And the smoke was that thick, and the only flashes of light were from red raw flames all around us. It was so painful to breathe, but we had to keep moving.
22:56 John Hopkins? Stumbling, Zoe and Brian press on through the smoky, red-tinged hellscape, focusing only on reaching the sanctuary of the sea and the safety of its deep blue waters. The roar of the fire is so deafening, they can barely hear each other speak. With streaming eyes, they scan their surroundings as they run, trying not to get disorientated in the ashy gloom.
23:21 John Hopkins? And then, something materializes out of the darkness ahead of them, a figure.
23:27 Speaker 01 We bumped into this woman who just kind of was like a spectre who came out of the smoke from nowhere. She spoke English and she basically told us, "You can't go down there. There's no way to pass, the trees are down and the trees are on fire."
23:41 John Hopkins? Seconds later, the woman vanishes again into the smoke. With their planned escape route now cut off, Zoe and Brian have no choice but to turn back up the hill once more, and hope they can veer off onto a side road.
23:56 John Hopkins? Before they have a chance to go far, Zoe suddenly feels heat rising up her legs.
24:02 Speaker 01 I looked down and I realised my dress was on fire. The fabric was just easing into my legs. It was like my flesh was being eaten by flames and it was absolute agony.
24:15 John Hopkins? Brian immediately lunges for Zoe's dress, beating at the heavy embroidered fabric with his bare hands. By the time the fire is extinguished, his palms are scorched and badly blistered and Zoe's legs are throbbing with pain.
24:30 John Hopkins? In any normal circumstances, they'd take a moment to stop and assess the damage. But there is no time. Chest teething, they stumble onwards, gasping down the dry, smoke-choked air. Around them, the fire devours everything in its path.
24:48 John Hopkins? As they run, Zoe and Brian squint into the darkness, trying to find any way out of the blaze.
24:55 John Hopkins? And then, their eyes are light on a huddle of figures emerging from the gloom. The figures are small, alarmingly so.
25:05 Speaker 01 There was like a clearing in the smoke and in front of us were five tiny children. One was even in a nappy. And at the time, if you'd asked me, I wouldn't have been able to tell you whether there were three, four or five children. All we saw was this little bundle of little people, standing there with no one around them. And your instincts immediately as adults take over, so we ran to them and we just scooped them up in our arms, not knowing what the hell we were going to do with these kids or where we were going to go. And then again, out of nowhere, out of the smoke, came this car.
25:37 John Hopkins? Perhaps the couple's luck has finally changed. The small, decrepit car clangs to a halt beside them. Inside are three adults, their faces taut with fear and urgency. Zoe and Brian don't hesitate for a moment.
25:54 Speaker 01 We opened the back door and we just threw the kids in the car. And then we realised, there's no room for us. It was a small car. So we begged them to open the boost, which they did, and Brian and I climbed in. And then the car took off at a serious speed.
26:13 John Hopkins? Wedged into the boot, Zoe and Brian do their best to hold the cover shut as they jolt along the bumpy roads. But there isn't enough room for it to close completely. All they can do is cling on to the car and to each other, trying to avoid being thrown out of the vehicle as it tears through the darkness. But the fire is close behind them.
26:36 Speaker 01 And I used my left hand to hold on to the boot to try and pull the boot over us, but because we couldn't close it shut fully, but as we were doing so, the flames were just stilling the boot, they were coming in. My hair, I had long hair extensions from the wedding and my hair had totally gone on fire at this stage and was just eating my face. I can remember feeling that my eye, my left eye, was just beginning to close. And my dress was on fire again. So that's how quickly these flames were ripping in on top of us. And my hand was welded to the boot, to the lid of the boot.
27:16 John Hopkins? Despite the speed of the car, the blaze is faster.
27:21 John Hopkins? Over the thundering roar of the inferno and the screech of the engine, Zoe can vaguely make out Brian's voice.
27:28 Speaker 01 And Brian was talking to me, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I don't know whether he was praying or something, I don't know, because the roar of the flames was so loud. And next thing, the car crashed.
27:40 John Hopkins? Brakes squeal as the car swerves just a second too late, the driver wrestling with the steering wheel in zero visibility. Then comes the sickening crunch of metal. Shockwaves rip through the vehicle, sending a jarring jolt through its passengers as its framework crumples.
27:58 John Hopkins? A heartbeat later, a burning tree comes crashing down, its flaming branches landing with a thud on the boot, smothering Zoe and Brian in a shower of sparks and flaming debris. And then, the unthinkable happens.
28:18 Speaker 01 The shunt of the crash caused blind fallout. He just flew out of the boot and I couldn't hold on to him, tried to. And then he just screamed "Why?" was his last word, and fell onto the road and then just disappeared into the flames and died right in front of my eyes. And I tried to call out to him. I knew what I was seeing, but I just wanted him to hear my voice as his last voice. I told him I loved him. At that, I just reckoned I'd be joining him soon anyway because I was in my coffin. The boot of the burning car was my coffin.
29:03 Speaker 01 And I closed my eyes and he was gone.
29:16 John Hopkins? This October on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four.
29:59 John Hopkins? Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. In a matter of seconds, Zoe's entire world has shifted on its axis. Her life shattered in a single devastating moment.
30:16 John Hopkins? And now, trapped inside the wreckage of the flame-filled car, crushed by collapsed, burning tree, it seems impossible that she can survive for much longer. But then, something unexpected happens.
30:32 John Hopkins? Zoe's one working eye twitches and blinks open, and there, emerging from the barrage of flames, is the shape of a person heading straight towards her. This is Manos Saliaios, a volunteer firefighter.
30:48 Speaker 01 An issue when he saw me, he thought I was dead, because I was under these embers, these burning embers. And I thought it was because he heard my voice calling to Brian, but no, he said my right eye flickered, and he said it was just the tiniest flicker, because the left side of my face now had been sealed closed.
31:06 Speaker 01 But he saw the right eye flicker, so he carried me out of the boot of the car. And I remember, I remember, I could see him. I remember him lifting me up, peeled me out of the boot, and carried me through, literally, wall after wall of flames.
31:23 John Hopkins? Shielding Zoe's face with his arm, Manos carries her through the blaze, gently trying to comfort her in Greek. On the other side of the flames, he places her in a waiting fire engine.
31:41 John Hopkins? Soon, the truck takes off, heading away from the worst of the danger. As the burning hellscape skids past the window, Zoe's one working eye fixes on her hand.
31:54 Speaker 01 My left hand, the one that had been welded to the boot, hardly looked like a hand anymore. It was a thing of a horror movie. It was like shriveled up, curled bones. There was no skin left on it anymore, just screeds of flesh hanging on it. And I remember thinking, that's what my hand looks like? What does my face look like? Which might sound like a very stupid thing to say, considering what had just happened to Brian, but these are the things that go through your mind.
32:21 John Hopkins? The fire engine eventually pulls up outside a small building on the edge of town. Manos carries Zoe inside and lays her on a bench, where a young woman takes over her care.
32:33 John Hopkins? The language barrier makes communication near impossible. But with her dress still smoldering and searing her flesh, Zoe manages to mime a pair of scissors. Finally, understanding, her carer cuts off her clothes and shoes, then covers her in a tin foil blanket.
32:53 John Hopkins? The relief is only temporary. Zoe's burns are so bad that the embroidered pattern of her dress has been imprinted into her skin.
33:02 John Hopkins? With no pain relief to hand, she is in agony.
33:06 John Hopkins? As she waits for an ambulance, she pleads for help, but not for herself.
33:11 Speaker 01 So I lay there for a long time, begging them, begging them to find Brian. I already had gone into the moment of denial. And somebody, eventually a translator, came in. And I said, "You have to find Brian." And I started to describe him. I started to describe his tattoos. I said, "Where, you know, that man who saved me, he's there. Tell him to go back." And he said, "No, no one's going back there. No one's going back there today."
33:37 John Hopkins? When an ambulance does finally arrive to take Zoe to hospital, things somehow get even worse.
33:44 Speaker 01 It was a horrific journey. The ambulance drivers were not kind people. They were laughing. They told me to shut up when I started to cry about my husband. So then I shut up and I just thought to myself, "Well, it doesn't really matter anyway. Brian's dead and I'm gonna be dead soon."
33:59 John Hopkins? After a brutal journey, Zoe is stretchered into hospital and left on a trolley, inside an emergency department in Pandemonium.
34:10 John Hopkins? The air reeks of blood, smoke, and burnt flesh, and there are people everywhere. The wildfire has clearly been devastating, and in the chaos, not everyone is seen to. After several hours, Zoe is eventually moved out of the emergency department to a room on another floor. And here, she is once again left without medical attention.
34:33 Speaker 01 No pain relief. I can't describe to you what severe burns feel like. My eye was cooked shut at this stage, and I actually did catch a glimpse of my face in a window. My face had totally melted, cooked. I could hardly move my limbs at this stage. The burns on my legs and my hands were so severe, they went right down to the bones. So the bones were actually burned. But they left me there. I called to a nurse who was walking up and down, who told me she couldn't give me any pain medication, imperfect English, she couldn't give me any pain medication, until I'd been seen by a doctor. I was just begging for anything, something. And I just lay there thinking, I'm surely gonna die in this hellhole.
35:21 John Hopkins? Zoe endures a long, dreadful night. It's only when representatives of the Irish Embassy get involved the following morning that things change. She is assessed by a doctor and finally given pain relief, many hours after first arriving.
35:39 John Hopkins? Bizarrely, throughout her ordeal, she has managed to hold on to her handbag containing the essentials she picked up before evacuating the villa. Inside it is her health insurance card, a small plastic rectangle, that at this moment in time makes all the difference. Zoe's cover affords her private healthcare, and that very day, the embassy representatives managed to get her transferred to a private hospital.
36:05 Speaker 01 That hospital was the very opposite of the first hospital. I could not describe how immensely kind and gentle and loving the surgeon and all the nurses and doctors were. I mean, they cared for me astonishingly beautifully well. They were just gorgeous people.
36:25 John Hopkins? Almost immediately, work begins to treat the worst of her injuries. She has sustained severe burns across her body, with those on her legs and hands being the most serious. Initially, medics aren't even sure her left hand can be saved, or if she'll regain sight in her damaged eye. It is also not clear whether she'll ever walk again. But it's here that Zoe's inner strength and stubbornness begin to kick in.
36:55 Speaker 01 They don't know who they're dealing with. I will walk again, even though like I couldn't even move my entire body. I was bandaged literally from head to toe. But I remember distinctly thinking, no, I will. That's not going to happen to me.
37:10 John Hopkins? Alongside her grueling physical recovery, Zoe is also dealing with intense grief and trauma. Despite having directly witnessed what happened to Brian, it's initially impossible to come to terms with.
37:23 Speaker 01 I started to go into a phase of denial where I thought if I'd been rescued, then surely Brian must be rescued too. And my prime worry was that he wouldn't recognize me because I was that badly disfigured. That's what I kept telling anybody who'd be there. Listen, would you let them know my name is Zoe, just in case somebody's wandering around the hospital looking for me?
37:43 John Hopkins? It's only when one of Zoe's brothers flies out and confirms Brian's death that she begins to accept what she saw.
37:54 John Hopkins? Somehow, through the anguish, she finds the strength to carry on fighting. Slowly, day by day, week by week, she inches closer towards physical recovery.
38:05 John Hopkins? Eventually, she hits the huge milestone of being able to take a few tentative, supported steps.
38:13 John Hopkins? And then, as if the universe had not quite finished torturing Zoe, she gets some devastating news.
38:19 Speaker 01 Lives can be astonishingly cruel sometimes. It was the day I managed to take my first steps. And it was a big day. It was a moment where I kind of felt that maybe, yes, maybe I will walk again. But that evening turned into something even more tragic because my father suddenly passed away. So three weeks after Brian died, my dad died of a heart attack. And I think he died of a broken heart, to be honest with you, because he had been ill and, you know, so he couldn't travel over. But they'd been told on numerous occasions, they didn't know if I'd make it through. So I don't know what he was thinking in his final moments, but he passed and dad was my, you know, my biggest ally, my cheerleader. So he, he was also
39:03 Speaker 01 taken from me and I couldn't even attend his funeral because I was still in intensive care.
39:13 John Hopkins? Despite the complex web of grief she is caught in, Zoe perseveres.
39:19 John Hopkins? One month to the day after the fire that changed everything, she is considered stable enough to be transferred to a hospital in Dublin so that she can be closer to her family.
39:31 John Hopkins? During the plane journey home, she starts showing symptoms of a rare and serious condition called toxic epidermal necrolysis, or TEN, which causes her skin to blister and peel off in large areas. It can result in numerous complications, including sepsis, pneumonia, and multiple organ failure, and it frequently proves fatal.
39:54 John Hopkins? By the time Zoe lands in Dublin and is transported to the burns unit at St. James's Hospital, she is drifting in and out of consciousness.
40:03 John Hopkins? Soon, her condition has deteriorated so severely that she is placed in an induced coma.
40:08 Speaker 01 My poor family, who expected, you know, to see me, if not well, at least conscious and able to speak when I returned home, had to, once again, visit me in intensive care and this time the prognosis really wasn't looking good, so they basically told them to say their goodbyes.
40:26 John Hopkins? For the next few weeks, Zoe's medical team fight to save her life, giving her a tracheostomy to help her breathe and a cocktail of different drugs and antibiotics.
40:38 John Hopkins? Despite the odds, she does eventually pull through. She awakes into a new, profoundly challenging reality.
40:47 Speaker 01 When I eventually awoke utterly confused, no idea where I was, connected to all these beeping machines, it was a very confusing awakening that I realized that actually I was in a worse-off place than I'd started when I left Greece and the next few months I would spend in hospital learning how to walk, talk, eat, breathe, and use my hands again.
41:13 John Hopkins? This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.
41:44 John Hopkins? In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews and in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
42:04 John Hopkins? A couple of months after waking from her coma, Zoe is finally discharged from hospital and returns home to the apartment she shared with Brian for many happy years.
42:14 Speaker 01 Everything, how would I put it, everything psychological, everything emotional was put on freeze frame because all of my energy for so long in the hospital was put into physical survival. I literally was fighting with every fibre of my being to physically survive. So when I got home, it was like this grief bomb just exploded.
42:38 Speaker 01 And I suddenly realised I didn't want to be here anymore. My two favourite people were gone. Brian, my soulmate, dad, who really was my best pal. Even my cat had passed away from sadness while I was in hospital for so long and I was disfigured. You know, I was looking towards life in a dramatically altered physique. I had complex grief and horrific PTSD. The flashbacks were absolutely terrifying and they could be set off by the weirdest things. Somebody had light a cigarette, I'd smell the smoke and bam, I'd be back there.
43:19 John Hopkins? It's only with years of work and therapy that Zoe is slowly able to disentangle herself from the shackles of grief and trauma.
43:28 John Hopkins? She begins to piece together a new chapter in her life. In time, she writes a book about her experiences, partly as a way of trying to process what she's been through.
43:39 Speaker 01 First of all, it was without a doubt a love letter to Brian. I felt it was part of his legacy. I wanted to explain to the world what a good man we'd lost. It was without a doubt also a love letter to my father, Colin. He was an artist. He was the most beautiful soul. He taught me how to see beauty everywhere. And yeah, missing Anne Brian to this day. But it was also my way of, I don't know, thanking all the people,
44:09 Speaker 01 the phenomenal medical community. And then what happened halfway along as I was writing, I was, I kind of realized there was this story unfolding that I believe is quite extraordinary. It's extraordinary because I'm still here. You know, I sometimes think, well, really, I shouldn't be. I should have died in the fire. I should have died from sepsis. You know, I should have died from multiple organ failure, but I didn't. And there was something that kept me here. And I started to think, well, then what do I do with that? If I've been given this gift of a second chance at life, well, then I better bloody well do something good with it.
44:49 John Hopkins? And that's exactly what Zoe does. Her book is a bestseller, and in time, she becomes an inspirational speaker, sharing her story of fortitude with others.
45:00 Speaker 01 Things developed and I realized that the message I wanted to give out was genuinely one of resilience and proving that as human beings, we are much stronger than we often give ourselves credit for. We're phenomenal. Humans are phenomenal. And I wanted, particularly at the moment, you know, the world is a very frightening place at the moment. There's a lot of anger and hatred out there. And I wanted to share, and I continue to want to share, the message that there's absolutely beautiful, pure goodness out there too.
45:37 John Hopkins? The 2018 Attica wildfires were at the time the deadliest scene in Europe in the 21st century. They devastated thousands of homes and resulted in over 100 deaths, including that of Brian.
45:52 John Hopkins? Incredibly, everyone else in the car carrying Brian and Zoe survived after the crash, including the five children they instinctively saved from the flames.
46:04 John Hopkins? Zoe's life changed forever after the fire, and her journey remains ongoing to this day. Despite the horrors she endured, she has refused to let them define her or prevent her from living a good life. It is a phoenix-like story of recovery.
46:21 Speaker 01 You can't turn back the clock. You can't bring back people who were killed. And you can't, you know, wind back the clock and get me back the body or the mind that I used to have. But I will say that I don't want to carry anger and bitterness with me in my soul as I move forward either, you know, and I strive really to live a happy life. This is going to sound so nerdy, but I write down three things I'm grateful for every single day to root myself in the moment and realize how lucky I am, how lucky I am to still be here. I'll never ultimately get over what happened, but I have allowed myself to move on. I'm allowing myself to embrace the second chance of life properly.
47:06 Speaker 01 The healing journey goes on. Like, I'm still getting surgeries. I'm still doing all that other stuff, therapies in hospital. But I'm also embracing a real life again. This is the next stage. But I just want to reassure people that you can survive the worst and come through the other side.
47:37 John Hopkins? Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet 41-year-old schoolteacher Glenn Anderson. In May 2021, the keen yachtsman is sailing up the coast of Western Australia with his 11-year-old daughter Ruby. But as they near the halfway point of their adventure, things are not going to plan. Conditions are brutally rough, and Ruby, though she puts on a brave face, is struggling.
48:02 John Hopkins? Then things go from bad to worse.
48:05 John Hopkins? When a freak wave slams into the yacht, Glenn and Ruby are thrown into the seething waters of the Indian Ocean. And falling overboard will be just the beginning.
48:16 John Hopkins? As their vessel disappears into the storm, Glenn will find himself in a terrible position as a captain, and an even worse one as a father.
48:25 John Hopkins? That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without waiting and without ads by joining Noiser Plus. This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews, and in Sherlock Holmes'
49:07 John Hopkins? short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
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