Diagnosis
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
Humans love to solve problems. In this hour of Radiolab, diagnosis--our attempt to find out what's wrong, and give it a label.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
you're listening to Radio Lab from public radio WNY and NPR what we have over the criminal is the criminal actually thinks he's destroyed all the evidence it's never old ever ever ever never this is Lou Garcia I recently retired from the New York City fire department as the chief fire marshal so I've spent 25 years of my life looking at fires investigating the causes of fire how many fires you think you've seen oh tens of thousands of fires you've seen tens of that absolutely you you you yourself yeah when he tells me a story there was this is a true story I'm not gonna get too many details about it but there was a fire in an area of New York City who was in an apartment building in the south Bronx as I pulled up to this building the fire was already over when Lou got to it there were people in the street and we're questioning people people are saying well in the apartment where the fire was there was this brave guy somehow he'd gotten in there and he was pouring water I'm trying to get the fire out this guy was really something you know and he's and he's he's a hero right now everybody's telling what a hero he is everything they were saying in the street about this man was wrong so he walks into the apartment he looks around and he knows right away where the fire started now how well you just look at the fire and you could tell that the fire started first of all in the bedroom with a mattress mattress the mattress now matches go up if you put a match to really I mean don't you have to put a gasoline on the mattress no you just put a match onto a match mattress and it will catch fire yes if you leave the hole there one of you and he also knew that the mattress had been placed upright against the wall you can tell by the fire pattern that was standing on it wow he can even know what position the mattress was in yes absolutely believe me so he meets the woman whose apartment this is she shows up and he says there's so do you know this fellow who was putting out the fire she's yes as a matter of fact I do it just so happens that he used to live with me but I kicked him out and he still had a key by the way and she now says I have a new boyfriend so Garcia naturally goes and finds the hero right so now I'm questioning this fellow I said by the way did you buy that mattress and he says yes I did and you weren't sleeping anymore with someone else sleeping in the mattress in your place and he says yeah we share the boyfriend I said boy I'd be pissed how much they caught you like four or five hundred hours he said no more than that was like eight hundred I said so now she is screwing somebody else on the mattress you bought I would be pissed I said you know if it was me if I were in your place I would want this mattress to burn I would probably stand it on end I would take matches matches and I would put it to the mattress that's what I would do and in fact I'm an expert on fires and I know that's what you did you really did do that you can talk about it I don't blame you I mean at least you try to put it out without working your favor in court and he looks at me he says well you're not so smart I said one he goes I use the lighter okay so that was an easy one we're gonna have some harder ones coming up yeah point is the whole hour we're going to be addressing the same problem we'll walk into one situation after another and discover that something is not right here that's right something's not right with my son what do I do something's not right with my pancreas what do I do something's not right with the very phrase something is not right because it presumes that I know what's right maybe I don't have we confused you enough well there's a whole lot of abnormal things coming your way this is radio I'm Jada Boomerad and I'm Robert Cole stay with us okay so this first story is about delivering a
Transcription truncated.
Humans love to solve problems. In this hour of Radiolab, diagnosis--our attempt to find out what's wrong, and give it a label.