My name is Cade Cortley, and this is Can You Survive this podcast.

The show is designed to teach you techniques that will increase your chances of survival if you happen to find yourself or your family in any life-threatening disaster scenario imaginable.

Each episode will put you smack in the middle of a new disaster scenario

as I challenge my guest to see if they have what it takes to get out alive.

Knowledge is power, people.

Can you survive this podcast?

Yeah. survive this podcast. Greetings, my fellow survivors, and welcome to another episode of can you survive this podcast.

I'm your host, Kate Cortley, and if you can hear my voice, it means you're still alive,

and it is my mission to keep it that way.

Folks, very excited about today's guest.

Many of you have heard the story.

You've seen of interviewed.

You've probably seen the movie.

Today we have Captain Rich Phillips, the famous captain of the Merrick, Alabama, born in Winchester,

Massachusetts, attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, but decided to transfer to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Captain Rich Phillips, welcome to the show, sir. How are you?

I'm doing just fine. Just to give some important to it, I didn't transfer from UMass. I went to

UMass, had a great time. We'd love to go back, but I wasn't too focused. I didn't transfer from UMass. I went to UMass. Had a great time. We'd love to go back.

But I wasn't too focused. I had a focus problem. And so I took two years off. I did a few

different jobs. I was a bank driver. I was a taxi driver. I taught schizophrenic kids. And that's how I

actually found myself, serendipitous, into the into the merchant marine but no I had a good year off from UMass

I got serious and I found something I was interested in that that's what brought me to mass maritime

...