FAN FAVORITE: Chowchilla School Bus Kidnapping | Buried Alive | 2
Against The Odds
Audible
4.7 • 7.9K Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The kidnapped children and their bus driver are trapped underground in the back of a moving truck, and they’re running out of food and water. They decide the only way out is to dig their way to the surface. Meanwhile, the amateur criminals who hijacked the school bus are trying to deliver a five million dollar ransom demand to the California government. Soon, the tables are turned, and the kidnappers are the ones trying to escape an international manhunt.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. |
| 0:05.6 | Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.5 | This series originally aired in 2022. |
| 0:12.6 | A note to our listeners. |
| 0:14.2 | This episode contains adult language. |
| 0:25.3 | I want my mom. |
| 0:31.6 | Ed Ray shines a flashlight on the ceiling of his prison. |
| 0:35.9 | He's trapped inside the trailer of a moving truck that's buried underground. |
| 0:39.2 | And he's desperate to find a way out. |
| 0:45.6 | As he scans the surface above, he can hear soft wimpers emanating from the darkness around him. |
| 0:51.7 | There are 26 children imprisoned with him, and all of them are terrified. |
| 0:57.4 | Ed's a school bus driver by trade. Yesterday afternoon, he drove a busload of kids home from summer school in the small farming town of Chowchilla, California. The dusty roads |
| 1:04.1 | that run between the massive farms were empty and quiet, just like any other day. But then, |
| 1:10.4 | out of nowhere, three armed men hijacked the bus. |
| 1:14.4 | They packed Ed and the students into two vans and drove them around for hours. |
| 1:19.8 | When the kidnappers finally pulled Ed out of the van, it was the middle of the night. |
| 1:24.3 | He could see that he was in a desolate industrial area surrounded by piles |
| 1:29.5 | of dirt and gravel one by one the hostages were forced to climb down a ladder through a hole in the |
| 1:37.2 | ceiling of the underground truck then the kidnappers removed the ladder and sealed the exit shut. |
| 1:46.0 | Ed reaches above his head. |
| 1:47.0 | He can barely touch the steel plate that's been laid over the hole in the ceiling. |
| 1:52.0 | Ed strains the push against the plate with his fingertips. |
... |
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