Aaron Mahnke

It was once the most dangerous place on Earth.

Granted, we wouldn't necessarily consider Antarctica a utopia today, but it isn't nearly as deadly as it used to be.

Your chances of dying as you cruise through the Drake Passage in the 21st century are significantly lower than they were 100 years before.

Back in the day, just about anything could have taken you out.

Hypothermia, starvation, scurvy.

Heck, there are even reports of explorers dying of cardiac arrest simply because they exerted themselves too much in sub-zero temperatures.

So, in a place where you could just as easily fall off a glacier as freeze to death, it might be surprising to hear that one of the foremost explorers of the 1900s was nearly taken out by a stove.

In 1934, Admiral Richard E. Byrd was manning a weather station in Antarctica completely solo.

It was a seven-month assignment, and unbeknownst to him, ice had been slowly building up inside his stovepipes, blocking the ventilation.

As a result, five months into his deployment, he collapsed from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Suddenly, he was in a fight for his life.

For the next two months, breathing was a struggle.

In the process, his body became so weak that he could barely crawl across the floor.

Convinced he was dying, he wrote in his journal, I'm afraid it's the end.

And then he left instructions for whoever discovered his body to mail the farewell letters he had written for his family.

Thankfully, though, he made a full recovery, even going on to lead two more Antarctic expeditions.

But there's nothing more suffocating than knowing that you're in danger, but unable to breathe, unable to move, because when you're paralyzed, you're helpless.

And that, my friends, is when the real nightmare takes over.

I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore Legends.

It was a situation that any of us would dread, waking in the middle of the night surrounded by darkness only to feel the sensation of something sitting on top of your chest.