Deepwater Horizon | No One Was Listening | 1

American Scandal

Wondery

True Crime, Exhibit C, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, History Daily, American History Tellers, Lindsay Graham

4.6 • 18.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1990s, BP executive John Browne bets the oil company’s future on high-risk, high-reward drilling projects. But BP’s thirst for profit comes at a price. As safety violations and fatalities mount, Jeanne Pascal, a lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency, fights to hold BP accountable.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to get more from American Scandal?
0:02.8	Subscribe to Wondry Plus for early access to new episodes,
0:06.4	add free listening, and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else.
0:10.1	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:13.8	American Scandal uses dramatizations that are based on true events.
0:18.1	Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented,
0:22.5	but everything is based on historical events. Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented, but everything is based on historical research.
0:48.0	It's just before 9.45 p.m. on April 20th, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
0:55.0	Aboard the fishing boat, rambling wreck, Bradley Shivers, crumples an empty can of beer and then calls out for another.
0:59.7	Shivers and two of his buddies are on an overnight fishing trip, hunting for tuna in the deep waters of the Gulf. They've already had a great day's catch and plan to wake up early
1:04.3	tomorrow to start again at first light. So while his friends go into the cabin for more beers,
1:10.0	Bradley takes in their rods.
1:15.2	It's a balmy spring evening, and the sea is so still that shivers can make out the stars
1:20.2	reflected in the water. He smiles and thinks there's nothing like fishing on the Gulf like this.
1:25.6	But then suddenly, a bright flash lights up the sky.
1:29.9	Shiver squints at the horizon trying to make sense of what he's seeing.
1:33.9	Then he hears a boom.
1:35.7	The force of the sound hits Shiver's chest and rocks the entire boat.
1:40.0	He grabs the railing as his rod clatters to the deck.
1:43.5	One of his friends ducks his head out of the cabin. What the heck was that? Did we hit something? No, it was, I don't know, some kind of explosion. An explosion? Yeah, I saw this flash out there and then, hey, pass me those binoculars. Shibber's friend hands him a set of binoculars, and he scans the horizon.
2:03.4	Oh, something big is just burning up.
2:04.2	Here, take a look.
	...

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