David was a 17-year-old volunteer firefighter who was caught lighting fires along Australia's southern coast. Over a course of two years, David thinks he lit around 50 fires. In this episode, we'll ask what drove him to such reckless behaviour.

The Man Who Woke From a Coma Speaking Chinese

Jun 28th, 2019 29m 14s

Ben McMahon learned Chinese in a Melbourne high school, but, like a lot of people who learn languages at high school, he didn’t really. But years later, when Ben was involved in a car accident, he woke up inexplicably speaking Chinese.Ben didn’

Near Death in the Antarctic

1 Jun 6th, 2019 31m 23s

Peter Bland is a Australian businessman who was almost the first person to cross the Antarctic Peninsula unsupported. But on the home stretch, he was hit by an avalanche and washed down a crevasse. We talk to Peter about ego. The things it can

The $700 Million Bank Fraud

May 30th, 2019 39m 41s

In 2003, John Rusnak became briefly famous for pulling one of the biggest cases of bank fraud in US history. We talk to John about how he got himself into so much trouble, why he turned himself in, and whether it was worth the prison time. Hos

The Man Who Mailed Himself From the UK to Australia

May 24th, 2019 32m 10s

In the 1960s Reg Spiers was a professional javelin thrower. He’d gone all the way from Australia to London to make the Olympics, but when he didn’t make the cut he was left stranded without enough money to get home. Rather than saving for a pla

How it Feels to Survive a Plane Crash That Kills Everyone Else

1 May 16th, 2019 32m 17s

Annette Herfkens was 31 when she and her fiancé boarded a Vietnam Airlines flight in November of 1992. It was supposed to be a romantic trip. A surprise getaway from her fiancé who was working as a banker in Ho Chi Minh City. But instead of rea

Trailer

Introducing Extremes

Mar 12th, 2019 1m 39s

Extremes is a show about people who’ve lived through extraordinary situations. These are big stories with enormous stakes. There’s no pattern to the stories that our guests tell: some are funny, others are sad; some situations were accidents, o