Real-life 'Breaking Bad' in Boston

Real-life 'Breaking Bad' in Boston

Real-life 'Breaking Bad' in Boston, Life imitated art recently when a mathematics professor at Boston University and one other school was charged with running an operation with her son that echoes the plot on the popular AMC series 'Breaking Bad.' Irina Kristy, 74, will be arraigned on multiple charges Dec. 21.Usually when you hear about a “life imitating TV” incident, it usually involves some not-too-bright kid getting hurt trying to do a stunt from a show like “Jackass.” But in two recently-reported cases, an adult did something extremely stupid and a kid did something really great.

First the bad: A 74-year old Boston University math professor, Irina Kristy, was arrested for operating a meth lab in her home, according to the Boston Globe. The teacher, who has been at BU for twenty years, was arrested after her 29-year old son, Grigory Genkin, was brought into custody on charges that he manufactured the drug. The bomb squad had to be called in to dismantle the meth lab.

Of course, newspapers and websites all over the country are calling this incident a “real-life ‘Breaking Bad’,” because it so closely resembles the fictional story of high school chemistry teacher Walter White becoming a meth cook after learning he has cancer. But there’s no word yet on whether the show had any influence on Kristy and Genkin; the resemblance, though, is uncanny.

But the good story has a direct TV influence: According to WISN, a 10-year old Sheboygan, Wis. girl, Madisyn Kestell, saved her mother’s life after she and a friend performed CPR on her after the mother collapsed during an asthma attack. How did she learn how to do CPR? Hours and hours of watching “Grey’s Anatomy.”


“Me and my mom watch the show every Thursday and I learned it from there,” Madisyn told The Sheboygan Press. She called 911, and paramedics were soon there to take her mother, Kandace Seyferth, to the hospital.

So TV can actually help save lives. But it might also help you decide to cook meth for a living. The range of influence it can have kinda blows your mind, doesn’t it?