267: Kevin was crushed by a boulder

0:00A lot of people have a serious fear. They can't stand the feeling of being trapped in some way. And really, there are a variety of ways this can present itself. It could be a really crowded, small room where the exits are not easy to access. Or it could be when you're on your back and going into an MRI machine and the top surface is like an inch from your face. Some people fear being in a stuck elevator. I remember having that feeling once in high school PE class. We had a few classes where the boys were taught wrestling. So one by one, we get paired up with an opponent who was hopefully somewhat similar in size on a large mat in the gym. And whenever I happened to be underneath the other guy, feeling his weight holding me

1:03down, unable to move, I'd briefly get a real panicky feeling until I was able to get up. Did not like that at all, and I was only there for a few seconds. My guest today, Kevin, knows that feeling. But in his case, he was stuck there for a lot longer than a few seconds. And what had trapped him weighed about 8,000 pounds. Real people in unreal situations. The eerie silence when I walked in and he's just staring at me. I was like, hello, are you okay? And then I had to tell him it was me. There was just blood everywhere. They're shouting, they're screaming, they're being hit by bullets, they're hitting the ground. And in that moment, I literally thought this is how I die.

2:06Everything changed then. And I just thought to myself, this isn't happening. Every single story deserves to be heard. I'm Scott Johnson, and this is what was that like. Hey, do you have trouble sleeping? Then maybe you should check out the Sleepy Podcast. It's a show where I read old books in the public domain to help you get to sleep. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. Like stories like a tale of two cities, pride and prejudice, winny the poo, stories that are great for kids and adults alike. So whether you have a tough time snoozing or just like a good bedtime story, fluff up the cool side of your pillow and tune in to Sleepy. Unless you're driving, then please don't listen to Sleepy. Find Sleepy wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Sunday. Sweet dreams. If you ever wondered why we call French fries, French fries, or why something is the greatest

3:16thing since sliced bread, there are answers to those questions. Everything everywhere daily is a podcast for curious people who want to learn more about the world around them. Every day you'll learn something new about things you never knew you didn't know. Subjects include history, science, geography, mathematics and culture. If you're a curious person and want to learn more about the world you live in, just subscribe to everything everywhere daily wherever you cast your pod. This happened in the Inyo Mountains. Where is that? The Inyo Mountains are located in the Eastern Sierra. Basically the most eastern part of California and it almost acts as kind of like a border between California and Nevada. That's where you live out in Eastern California. Yes. Yeah, currently living in mammoth lakes, but I spend a lot of time down in Bishop as well. You are the stereotypical adventure seeker. It seems like. Is that a title you would give yourself?

4:18I like that title because people always try to put me in a box. Is he a rock climber? Is he a mountaineer? I'm just an adventurer. And you were with your friend Josh that day. How did you guys meet originally? Originally we met kind of in a bouldering area called the Happy and Sad Boulders just outside of Bishop and I kind of saw him bouldering with someone else and I said something to him like, Hey, you guys having the best day ever or something. And I didn't really think much of it till I was in a coffee shop called the Loonbeen about like a week or two later. And I was kind of just walking right past him and he pulled me aside. He's like, Hey, you're the guy from the boulders and he's like, Hey, what are you doing after this? And like nothing man. He's like, you're climbing with me. So he kind of recruited me to be his climbing partner because his other buddy bailed on him. So he went and climbed in the garage right after that. And I'm kind of, I was kind of new to rock climbing outside with a rope.

5:18And so he kind of acted as my mentor and kind of showed me the rope sort of say, how much older is he than you? I think Josh is 40 now and I'm 29. So like 10, 10 year difference. Okay. So he's got a little more experience in these kind of things and right, right. Not to expose his age on here. Anything. Yeah. Yeah. He's been doing it for a while. At the time you were living in your van. Do you ever get jokes living in the van down by the river? Oh, yeah. Yeah. What's funny about that is it used to be, Hey, if you, if you keep your crap up, you're going to end up in a van down by the river. And now it's, Hey, if you get your shit together, maybe you could end up in a van down by the river. So it's funny how that kind of flipped. It's a goal. Yeah. It's a goal. Yeah. You were just doing odd jobs and you also had like a remote work position as well, right? Right. I was working for a company called the math company. It's based out of Chicago with roots in India.

6:19And so I was fully remote at the time. And I was basically doing data analytics and coding and stuff like that. So yeah, you got to make some money to support your outdoor activities, right? Absolutely. Yeah. By any means necessary. The Inu Mountains is where you were at that day. How far is this from any kind of large city? It's very remote in that aspect. The closest towns would probably be big pine or independence, which are pretty small. So in the grand scheme of things, I'd say the closest big city is probably Reno. And then the closest medium city is probably Ridgecrest. And these are both more than two hours away from there. So it's pretty far out there. Were you concerned at all with being so far away from any kind of help, you know, if something should happen, did it ever cross your mind? You know what's funny is I tend to do a lot of remote stuff and a lot of the times I'm

7:20alone. And it never really occurred to me, the dangers that could happen out there while you're alone or how you how really remote you are out there. You're more likely to run into a mountain lion than a human out there, which is pretty wild. And so it never really occurred to me. Wow. You must have thought about that since then though. Yeah. If you had been alone when this happened. Yeah. So it's funny not to jump into the future, but being in the hospital bed. That was one of the things that really struck me. And I started thinking about all these crazy remote places that I'd spent time in alone. And it blew my mind. It actually kind of like almost scared me in a way because you don't realize until you're like not out there, how wild some of this stuff can get. Yeah. All right. Well, let's talk about what happened on that day you and Josh, you were out digging. What were you looking for? We like to go up into the mountains and we search for various minerals, whether it be hematite,

8:25epidote, quartz crystals, stuff of that nature. I mean, there's it's really endless the sort of stuff out there. There's a ton of old minds all over the place. And people have been mining for different types of minerals for probably like over a hundred years up there. And there are old mining claims everywhere. And so it's kind of shone the dark with it. Like when you're walking around out there, you can come across many different cool minerals. And we're big rock hounds. So anything is interesting to us. And sometimes one mineral leads to another because they mineralize together. So there's stuff called chrysticola, feral, all sorts of things. And are these when you find something really cool, is it something valuable like you're going to sell it or is it just for your own collection? Um, to be honest, a lot of times it's just for our own collection. I'm sure you could sell some of this stuff, but when you get your hands on it, it's so appealing that you kind of just put it in a collection and keep it for yourself most

9:27of the time. So on that day, you brought Josh to this particular spot that and you had been there before, right? Right, right. What was this place like? Well, can you just describe what the conditions were there? Yeah, it's basically like a very rugged terrain for people that are familiar with Joshua Tree. I guess I could paint a picture. It's basically full of these giant jumbo boulders scattered all over the place. There's a ton of sagebrush on the ground. And it's these very steep, rugged sandy slopes. It's like basically a barren wasteland in the mountains. And you said boulders, so it's very rocky then. Yes, it's extremely rocky. And like I said, there's just these big granite boulders up there that have just been sitting for thousands of years on these very steep hillsides. Have you ever seen one roll down before? Before the incident, I have never seen a boulder roll down the hill like that.

10:29I've pictured it. I could imagine that it could happen, but I've, and I've kicked rocks down like climbing peaks and stuff like that, but never a boulder that big have I ever seen shift like that. I guess you could look at these big, huge boulders and assume it's been there for hundreds of years, probably, maybe thousands of years. Why would it move now? Exactly. Sitting for thousands of years and just being like kind of weathered into the sand as well. Like these things haven't moved. Yeah, and it feels like since the dawn of time really take us through what happened that day. I'll start off the day. I'll just give you sort of the background. I had been going up there for a few days prior. So before the day, basically I had spent the entire summer up in Alaska and I had just gotten back to the area and I was kind of figuring out the next stage in my life. I didn't have a job at the time.

11:29I was kind of just screwing around and adventuring around and just having fun before the winter hit. I had climb out Tom a few days prior. And so I decided, you know, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to look for cool rocks and just pass the time. I think I had like 200 bucks to my name at the time. And so I went up there as a means to kind of kill time and I started to find some pretty cool stuff and Josh had originally showed me the spot and he kind of showed me all about the rock counting and whatnot. And so I came across this like very cool location and I told him and he's like, Hey, we got to get up there. At the time he was like, I don't remember what he was sick from. He had like strep throat or something, something nasty, but we decided he was all fired up and we're like, we're going to go do this. We're going up there tomorrow. So I went and stopped back into town. I grabbed myself. I remember this very vividly.

12:29I grabbed myself a tuna sandwich and a couple of Snickers bars. And so we met early in the morning and we loaded up our packs with a ton of gear. Like I don't know how much weight. Probably like like 30 to 40 pounds at least of, you know, all these random pickaxes, chisels, rock counting tools, shovels. And we kind of split the load because he was in pretty bad shape as far as being sick goes. Like I said, these hills are extremely rugged. So you want to start kind of early in the morning, even in the winter when it is cooler because you're kind of just humping up these like sandy slopes. It's not enjoyable by any means. So this is a place you have to hike to. Exactly. Right. You're not going to drive here or did you drive partway and then get out and walk? Yeah. You kind of drive to the base of the foothills and then it's up to you to get up into the hills essentially. And so you use geographic features to get up there.

13:31But there's no trail or anything. It's just completely off-grid really. Is there any chance you could get lost? You could get lost real easily. It's kind of like a big room full of mirrors up there. Everything looks the same. And so I had been up there so many times and you still kind of look around and lose your orientation up there. It's kind of funny how it works up there. Everything kind of looks the same. How do you keep from that happening from getting lost? Do you carry a compass or a little? Yeah. Did you, were you have phones with you? Yes. Luckily we had phones and the phone is honestly what ended up saving my life. And most of the time you won't have service up there, which is another great point to add. And so yeah, I just, I use like apps on my phone and just from going up there enough times I'm pretty familiar with the geographic features as far as like which way we came up and which way we were going to go back down. So how long did you hike up the rocks to get to where you were going? I'd say probably a little over an hour, maybe, maybe close to an hour and a half, something

14:34like that. We're going up this hill. You know, Josh is kind of suffering because he's got the whole sickness going on. We got a huge bag full of tools. Each of us. We finally got to the spot. And when you get there, you kind of set up camp. Throw all your stuff on the ground and just take a quick breather and admire the beauty. Because you can kind of see a huge chunk of the serenade of Adam mountains from up there. It's like this big panorama of the mountain range. So you're rewarded with these awesome views up there. How long were you planning to be there? Sometimes we go all day. It kind of depends on what we're finding. If we're getting really excited, we're like, hey, we're going to camp up here, you know, not actually, but you get pretty fired up and you kind of lose track of time. And in the winter, the days are a lot shorter to you. And mind you, the sun sets in the west. So it sets down over the Sierra and it probably happens around like five. Oh, wow.

15:34So it gets dark. It gets dark quick. Yeah. And then you kind of want to get out of there because once the sun goes down, it gets pretty cold too. Cold? Yeah. And you can't really see as well to navigate all the rocky terrain. Exact that too. Is a big part of it. All right. So you guys found your spot and took the sights in for a little bit and then started digging. Then we started digging. At first, we were kind of just digging into the ground and not really finding much. It's kind of funny how this works. A lot of the time, a lot of the cool minerals are kind of right underneath of these huge boulders. I don't know entirely why, but eventually the digging led to underneath this boulder. We didn't really think much of it is kind of this oblong shaped kind of circular boulder on this very, very steep hill that we were basically right underneath. How big is this boulder? Like if you were standing next to it, where would it come to you?

16:38It's bigger than a washing machine, but probably a little bit smaller than a grand size piano. So something like that probably at least up to your hip, I'd say a rock that's bigger than a washing machine. It's a, that's a big rock. It was a big rock. Yeah. So you were digging kind of under it? Yeah. Basically, like we were looking uphill and as the boulder kind of comes down, we were like at the point of it. So like in a perfect position for it to roll right on top of you, in other words, which we didn't really think of at the time. I can imagine people hearing this right now thinking, are these guys idiots? Why didn't they? Yeah. Why didn't they think of this? Yeah. And I've definitely been called an idiot before because of this for sure. But you got to understand folks at home viewing, when you're doing this, you are like completely zoned out. You're just kind of focused on digging and what you're doing, especially when you're

17:39finding cool stuff. You kind of lose track of your whole surroundings. You lose track at time. You lose track of homeostasis almost. You're kind of just in the zone doing your thing. You dug for a while. How long were you there digging? I'd say probably like a little over a half an hour to an hour. Something like that. And you know, we started finding some really cool stuff. And we were getting really excited. Josh was digging, you know, with this little scraper tool. He was kind of the one that started finding a lot of the cool stuff up there. Then it was my turn and I got in there and I started using the scraper tool. Mind you, like we've dug under a ton of rocks. Never once have any of them really shifted. And so he felt pretty safe. You know, we weren't really thinking, oh, this could roll at any point. I mean, there is a degree of logic to that. You know, I mean, this rock has been sitting here for so long. It's going to take a lot to move it. We're just a couple of guys digging with our little tools.

18:41Why would that have any effect? But gravity is a pretty big thing. Absolutely. And it just so happened to be the last straw that broke the camel's back is kind of like the last grain. It's sand almost. I don't remember entirely how much we actually dug under it. Like I said, we were pulling specimens out of underneath of the boulder, which probably didn't help. We were kind of sitting back and admiring what we were finding. And it gets to a certain point, you know, where Josh is finding so much cool stuff. He's like, hey, if you hop in there and get some now. And so I was kind of doing my thing. Josh was kind of off to the side recovering because you have to get in these like crazy positions also to dig under these boulders. It helps to almost bring some sort of gardening pad or something to lay on or like a foam pad or something. And you are like so zoned in that when you get out, sometimes you like pull up muscle a little bit because you're in these weird positions trying to reach up in there.

19:43And so he was kind of resting on the side. I was finding some cool stuff and I decided to rest for a second too. And I think he was on the right side of it. I was on the left facing uphill. I don't remember whether I was admiring one of the fines or what was happening, but I was kind of looking at the ground. And I remember him saying, hey, Kevaux, look out. And before I could even get off my feet, I was on my knees. So before I could even get off the ground, this boulder knocks me back, hits me in both of my legs and lands directly on top of both of my legs and is kind of teetering on my chest, threatening to keep rolling down and crush my entire body, my skull and everything. You were on your back with your head facing downhill, is that right? My orientation was still facing uphill.

20:43It's almost like I was laying down faced uphill. And to paint more of a picture, we were kind of digging this big pit in front of the boulder. And so I basically got knocked into the pit with the boulder on top of me. Okay. So if it's going downhill, how did it hit your legs first? Since I was on my knees and my torso was kind of positioned in a way, basically the underside of the boulder flipped and knocked me back. Kind of like how a football player would hit another football player. And I kind of went flying back from the impact and I ended up on my back. And when the boulder hit my legs, my legs kind of had enough time to land underneath the boulder if that makes any sense. And obviously, and that's where the boulder stayed, right? It didn't keep rolling. Exactly. And I think the reason why it didn't keep rolling was because we were in that pit.

21:44However, when it did land on me, it was almost kind of teetering in a way where I felt the weight like it almost felt like I had a decision in that moment. And I'll tell you some other stuff too that went along with this, but it almost felt like I had a decision in that moment, whether I was going to let it kill me or whether I could fight back and try to survive. Welcome to Midlife, ladies and gents. It's me, Meredith. This season of life comes with an irritatingly long list of to-dos. And it makes adulting a bit of a bummer. That's why when something's working for one of us, we have to share it. And I'm sharing with you right now. Neutral is working for me. Because hair health isn't one size fits all, Neutral offers different formulas for both men and women at any age or stage of life. I use the women's balance formula and have noticed less shedding and more hair growth

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23:48No holding back. It comes up behind me and waste person's hardware. Nobody knows where you are. In no way you can hear your scream. Some of these stories will make you laugh till you're crying. And then I realize I'm unconscious. Some will stick with you for life. They catch my mom poisoning my sister. My brother, he died at the hands of my mother. I said, Mike don't make me shoot your place, but he did. People say risk makes them feel less alone and more alive. During my time in prison, I discovered a podcast called Risk. A podcast saved my life so many times. Live your authentic truth. Because you never know who may come to your funeral and turn that bitch out. Risk. The show where people tell true stories, they never thought they dare to share. Wherever you get your podcasts. Here on the podcast, some of the most popular episodes of the ones that include the actual

24:49911 audio that took place while the incident was happening. You know when you hear that, it's real life. And sometimes it's an actual life or death situation. Well, there's actually a podcast that features the 911 audio in almost every episode. The show is called Music City 911. Music City because it's hosted by my friend Brandon Hall who's in Nashville, but the calls you here are from all over the US. And Brandon is not just a podcast host. He's an actual 911 dispatcher and he's been doing that for more than 25 years. So he doesn't just play the calls. He pulls back the curtain to tell you what's really going on in each story. And what a range of calls you'll hear. Crimes in progress. Citizens calling because they're seeing something happening. People in trouble. But for anything that can happen, there's someone calling 911 about it.

25:50Lots of true crime shows talk about something that happened. But with Music City 911, you're going to actually hear it. This is real life and you have a front row seat. Search for Music City 911 wherever you get your podcasts and start with any episode that catches your attention. Don't blame me when you end up binging it. I distinctly remember having this feeling when it hit me and I was on my back. I looked up at Josh and he kind of just yelled like no. And he had the most deranged look on his face. You know, we had done like a decent amount of stuff together in the mountains, but never have I ever seen him look so concerned. And so as I look up at the sky, I'm kind of thinking in my head, I'm like, is this really happening right now? Is this real life? And it almost felt dream like just having a surreal, undescribable force of nature hit

26:55you and then land on top of you like that. It was nothing that I've ever experienced before in my life. In a split second, you know, a couple of minutes, all these things are flashing through my head. You know, I started thinking about my family, like my mom, my grandma and I'm like, is this going to be it? Is this going to be the last few breaths that I'm ever going to take? Am I never going to see these people ever again? And amongst all the madness, I'm kind of yelling to Josh. I'm like, you got to get it off of me. You got to do something. And he's a big guy. You know, he was using all of his force. The thing would not even budge. And to add to this, through the last couple of years, you know, people get crushed by boulders in the mountains. It's more common than most people would think. Someone just got crushed by a boulder on Mount Hood earlier this year. And there were 30 people trying to move it off of the person and it would not budge. So just to get an insight on how heavy and unmovable these forces in HR, it's the real

28:02deal. Well, it was estimated that this boulder weighed 6,000 to 8,000 pounds. And yeah, and there's Josh trying to move it. Yeah. In my head, I'm like, maybe he can prop it up a little bit and I can like start pulling my legs out, but it wasn't moving at all. The whole time the boulder was kind of teetering on my chest and I'm just like using all my force to try to survive. But my legs are being completely crushed. I just can't even believe this is happening right now. Quick thinking led Josh to grab one of the pickaxe he had and shove it underneath the boulder. And that kind of stopped the teetering from happening and it kind of allowed me to free my arms out of the boulder. And so I was basically scrambling to do anything to get out of there. You know, humans aren't really used to being trapped like that. Are you claustrophobic at all? Luckily I'm not. My mom's very claustrophobic, but and my dad's afraid of heights.

29:04So with those two things, I love going in mines and caving and I also love rock climbing. So it's funny how that works out. Oh, you didn't inherit either one of those fears. That's good. Were you having trouble breathing at all? I remember it knocked the wind out of me for sure. Like it did it did definitely knock the wind out of me. It kind of I don't know if it hit me in the chest, but my chest was really bruised after the fact when I was in the hospital the next following days. And I was like, whoa, I guess this thing really did kind of almost like crush my whole chest. But at least it didn't come and sit on your chest then. That exactly fatal. It sounds like absolutely, absolutely. It was more the legs. And so when Josh shoved the pickaxe underneath the boulder, like I said, I was kind of able to free my hands. And so I started thinking about how I could get my legs out from under the boulder, which I didn't really have like much feeling in the legs, but I wasn't really thinking just because I had so much adrenaline going on at the time. Does that mean you won't feeling pain?

30:06It was very, very painful trying to think of like what you know, if you've ever been a kid and like one of your older cousins like accidentally falls on your arm and is like crushing it, you're like, get off, get off. It was kind of like that sort of pain, more more panicking based. But I mean your legs, both legs just being crushed under thousands of pounds of rock. But sometimes a adrenaline kind of puts the pain out for temporarily anyway. Right, right. It was intense pain, but it was more so like the pain went to my brain and I was like, you have to do something, you have to react. Like I acknowledged the pain, but I let it pass because it was more important to try to escape at the time. When I had my hands free, I kind of like realized both my legs were still crushed. And so I don't remember if he grabbed it for me or if I grabbed it, but I grabbed that little scraper tool and I was, I noticed that my left leg was not like fully pinned under

31:10there. It was kind of just like a big part of the skin was under there. And so what I did was I actually took that scraper tool and I cut my pants off. And I was really the only way to free my leg and we're talking a matter of a couple of minutes. You know, this all went down so fast. I cut the pants off of my left leg and I was kind of able to pull the leg out and maneuver around the boulder. And so if I was facing east, I would now be facing north on the north side of the boulder. And so I got out of the way. So if it kept tumbling downhill to go west, I would have been out of the impact zone. But what I noticed was my right leg was fully pinned and what even crazier what I noticed is I could see inside of my left leg and I could see the one you got free. Yeah, the one that I got free. I was looking inside of my left leg and I'm pretty sure I actually did see my artery

32:13but saw all these muscles and tissues and stuff that you really shouldn't ever see. How did you react to seeing that? Well, I looked down and I was like, holy shit. And as soon as Josh saw me looking down at it, he's like, don't look at that. And he grabbed his shirt immediately and put it on my leg and applied pressure. One thing we noticed was that even though the whole inside of my leg was showing, I wasn't bleeding out by any means. Normally when you have that big of a gash, there's like blood spewing out and like all this crazy stuff, but we could kind of just see inside of my leg. I wasn't necessarily bleeding. So you must not have severed an artery? They say that I severed the artery but it almost got crimped in a way where it didn't actually slice the artery open. And bear with me, this whole situation was a complete miracle. When I tried to describe this, I had a CPR course last week and I was trying to describe

33:15it to the guy and he couldn't get his head around like how lucky I got is just one of those crazy miracles. At that time did either you or Josh have any training in emergency situations like this? No, but Josh has been involved in some accidents where he was kind of like a bystander or something. I believe there was a climbing accident where some girl hit her head really bad and her whole head was open and he just happened to be there at the time and so he kind of helped her through that. I don't know the specific details of that, but he's definitely seen some crazy shit for sure. Me, I really had never been and I've been in survival situations but never to this extent. So Josh, really it sounds like the responsibility of this getting out of this situation is on him. Yes. What did he do? I was really hoping to help this. This was all up to him at this point and so what's funny is he had just gotten a brand new phone.

34:16I believe it's a Samsung Galaxy S20, but he just got this brand new phone a couple days prior. That was the only thing we could do is just really like hop on the phone and call 911. Once I realized the leg was still trapped and I had a huge gash in my leg and so he hopped on his phone immediately called 911 and what was awesome was we were in such a rugged territory where there usually is no service, but he had a bar of service and so he was able to get through and he was able to contact the Inno County Sheriff's office, spoke to a gentleman named Derek and I also want to add Scott that when this boulder came tumbling down, I mentioned that all of our belongings were kind of sprawled out everywhere. It literally knocked over all the water we had for the day, but you call 911. They're going to be there in 10 minutes, right? So I thought like I said, it was this guy named Derek. I was freaking out because my leg was trapped, but I also like legitimately thought I was

35:16going to die. I wasn't sure if this was one of those situations where I could just like sit through it and live. You know, I was started wondering how much time I had left to live really. And so I told the guy on the phone, I asked him like 10 times and like, Hey, Derek, am I dying right now? If I'm dying, man, let me know right now so I could call my mom and tell her I love her and just tell her like my final words. I didn't want to just like go out like that. And he wouldn't give me a straight answer. He's like, nah, Kev, you need to just hang in there. And this is this is also Josh's famous line. He told me he's like, nah, he's like, Kev, I'm not letting you call your mom. He's like, you're not dying on my watch, buddy. And he just kind of kept pressure on the leg, taking things extremely seriously. Well, that's probably good. There's no reason to worry your mom at this point, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. So Josh is on the phone with Derek. I'm underneath the boulder. And so during the time of being underneath the boulder, I kind of went through these crazy

36:20periods of being totally zen to absolutely screaming my head off. And so sometimes I'd kind of close my eyes and breathe deeply and just listen to the wind blow, try to just zone out and forget where I was. But then I'd open my eyes and remember where I am and what's going on. And I would just stream my head off. And the pain was so bad that Josh a few of the times he gave me his hand to squeeze. And I was so delusional at a certain point that I remember actually grabbing his hand and biting it. And I was in so much pain and I was just freaking out so badly. Just kind of like one of those crazy, like human nature moments where just hard to describe really, honestly. Yeah, you'd never been in a situation like this before. Exactly. What was the status was 911? Were they sending rescuers or what was going on? Derek asked him to walk away from me for a few minutes so that he could talk to Josh.

37:23And basically what he told him on the phone was, hey, you got to do everything in your power to keep him calm right now. Basically keep him as calm as you can. And we are going to send a CHP, California highway patrol chopper just to check out the surrounding and get a glimpse of where you guys are at and get some more information on the story. So when Josh left, you know, there's only a couple of minutes, but I was absolutely freaking out. I didn't want him to leave because I just felt completely helpless there and he came back and he kind of helps in me out more. A couple of hours in, we started hearing a helicopter off in the distance and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I'm going to be rescued. I thought they were just going to come out there and do their thing and send someone down and help me out. So this helicopter flew above us and just as quick as it came by, I saw it leave and

38:25just disappeared off into the mountains. And I'm in my head. You know, Josh didn't really tell me what was going on. It was probably for the best that they were just going to come and survey the area and leave. It was a dark at this time. It was almost dark. It was starting to get dark because you know, we had watched the whole sunset up there. We had gone from like a 50, 60 degree day to night and it gets cold up there. So it's just before night with the helicopter, were they, you think they were able to see you like you do have a fire going or anything? We did end up eventually making a fire and we got clearance, you know, from Derek that it was okay and everything. But I think they're able to locate us and they kind of decided that the landing was way too sketchy and that it wasn't really a good situation for them. So they left and now you're back just the two of you. Yeah. In the quiet.

39:25Yeah, exactly. And it is quiet up there. I'll tell you the only thing that you can hear really is the wind. Nothing really up there. And so it did start to get really cold, you know, and we watched the sunset. And as it got colder, the coldness of the rock pushed up again, my against my leg became really unbearable like it was freezing. And so that's when we got clearance, Josh made a little fire out of the sage brush to try to keep me warm. And it was funny. It wasn't his fault or anything, but some of the embers of the fire kind of like went under the boulder and I couldn't feel my leg anyway, but I was wondering if they were getting down there and like burning me. Did the pain let up at all? It was very, very uncomfortable. I forgot to mention that I was also in such a weird position where like my legs were basically in a butterfly crunch and I was kind of doing a split. My left leg, it was like bent and sometimes I'd put it up on the boulder to try to get

40:29some relief. But I was like basically doing a split the entire time. And my knees were bent in these weird positions. It was so bad. Scott that I actually was like clawing at the boulder, just scraping the granite, just trying to do anything to get relief. Earlier, you know, while we were waiting, Josh tried to like dig underneath the boulder as a way to like maybe try to free the leg. Like get it to keep rolling, you mean? To dig like under it. So if it was propped up and my leg was under it, he was almost trying to create like a little tunnel for me to pull my leg out through. But every time he did that, I felt the boulder crushed me even worse. And so it just kept getting worse and worse. That's when Derek was like, yeah, just stop. We need to just wait for help. How cold did it get? I'd say below 40 for sure. I don't know if it was quite freezing, but maybe when it started getting like really into the nights, it started probably dipping into the 30s and getting there.

41:32And you guys weren't planning to be there overnight. Did you bring any kind of warm like jackets or a blanket or anything? Luckily, I had my puffy jacket just because around that time of year, it's good to have in your pack anyways. And so I had the puffy just in case like we had a hike out or at night. So I had a puffy just Josh had a puffy, but other than that, I think Josh might have had some extra gear, which was helpful. And he kind of bundled me up and put blankets on me and tried to keep me warm. So fire definitely helped for sure to keep me warm, but it became as the clock ticked the survival situation became more and more unbearable. You knew that there is a finite amount of time that you can survive being there. Absolutely. You just didn't know how much time you had. Right. But what was funny was in the first couple of hours, you know, I kept asking Derek to tell me if I'm going to die like I need to know.

42:34But as the hours passed by four or five hours, you sort of developed this mentality. Like if I can survive for this long, maybe I can keep going longer and the amount of time you spend up on there in my head, I'm all you need to just hold out on this. Like you will get help if you can just survive through this. And it was the one of the worst, most challenging days of my entire life. I had never gone anything through anything that wildly intense before. I'm like, all you need to do your job right now in your life is just to survive. It was pitch black. It had to have been like eight or nine. Josh basically has a few friends that were in search and rescue. And I think he got some sort of text or something like that where he was like, all right, Kiv, someone's on the way. Like someone's going to be on foot and they're going to come out here and be able to be

43:40with us. And that was a really comforting feeling because all day we were basically sitting there completely alone. And so to hear that especially after seeing the helicopter fly off, this was our next wave of help. And so I'm like, all right, I just, I got to hang in there. So who was it that showed up? Is this the sheriff's people or somebody else? This was Inyo County search and rescue two guys at first. One of them was this really badass Australian guy named Tim. And Josh had told me about this guy before he's on the search and rescue team. He goes out and basically he rescues people that have like flipped their jeeps and whatnot. And he does like a lot of that off road sort of search and rescue stuff where you could really find yourself in a huge pickle because you know, you're bringing your dirt bike or your Jeep like like 30, 50 miles way out there and then something bad happens. You are like really majorly stranded.

44:40I had heard about Tim before and I heard about him being a badass and I didn't know it's going to be him that showed up. So when these two guys came down the mountain and I saw their headlamps, I was kind of thinking to my head, I'm like, this is these guys are like the most badass mofos I've ever seen in my life. I'm in good hands right now. I'm in I'm finally in good hands. Yeah. And I felt so safe with them or I've been at the scene like that. So they got there and immediately kind of like light in the mood and like cracked a few jokes and stuff like that. And I was suffering really badly, but I appreciated the sense of humor. And so they start kind of like scoping everything out, like looking at the situation. I didn't really know entirely what was going on, but at some point I remember whether it was them or the next group of rescuers, which is only kind of like a couple people, it's probably like four or five people max. They started getting straight down to business and one of them pulled out a roto hammer and

45:45started drilling holes in the rock. And they're putting rock climbing bolts like hangers into the rock and they're talking with each other and using these technical terms. And they're also drilling bolts on this really big like immovable like whale size boulder behind it. And they kind of told me that they were going to do this. I think it was a three to one pulley system where they basically run the rope through the rock and they run it down to the bigger boulder through those bolts. And Tim had this thing called a high lift jack, which is basically used to flip over jeeps and vehicles that have fallen on their side or just to prop it up, change tires and stuff. And so Tim shoved that thing onto the boulder and cranked it up and I felt a little bit of relief for the first time in so many hours. Oh, that must have been amazing. It was amazing. Well, it's funny also is when the initial impact happened and I was under it, I thought

46:50I was going to be able to pull my legs free. I thought I was hiking out and getting out of there. Little did I know I had a broken pelvis in two spots, a bunch of dead tissue in my leg and you know, the list goes on with that with the injuries, but at that point when he profit up with the high lift jack, I was like, yeah, no, I am totally on the ground. Like, yeah, not doing much. You're not walking anywhere. Before they got the boulder off of me, more people kept coming. There's an EMT named Isaac. And when Isaac got there, I felt extremely safe and comfortable. You know, he was able to call me down and you know, kind of took my vitals. I'm like, oh, thank God. Like finally, like I'm like someone medical who knows if I'm going to die or not, more or less. And this was maybe even one of the more painful things they put a tourniquet on my leg before they lifted the boulder up.

47:52And this was to prevent something called compartmental syndrome. And you can look it up. I'm still not fully familiar, but basically when your blood gets cut off, it's not circulating fully. And so a lot of people who get crush injuries die from rabdo. And so he basically put a tourniquet on my leg to prevent that. So when he put this tourniquet on my leg, he told me he was going to hurt. But when he started cranking it down, my leg became probably half of the size that it actually is. And I'm like, holy shit, that really did really badly hurt. Tourniquets on my leg, more team members are showing up. They're able to use that pulley system to kind of lift the boulder up off of me. And so while they did this, a couple people were behind me. They had their arms under my armpits. And I could slowly feel them pull me out. And my leg became free finally. The moment you've been waiting for. Yes, for hours and hours.

48:54And it was just good to get that cold thing off of me too, it's freezing. There I lay on the ground. My head is in sagebrush. I'm all dirty and sweaty and just absolutely just drain from the amount of adrenaline that was flowing through my body. And so I was just like basically laying there while all the other team members came. And they had originally told me that I was going to have to spend the night up there. And I was happy. But also not fully relieved just because I was so messed up from the whole thing. They had a drink and water. Everyone was drinking tea and that was good. And they told me they're like, yeah, you should really try to eat something. Something small and gave me some tea which helped to warm me up. But everyone was kind of in a good mood. And it was a really successful story. I'm really glad to everyone there. But I was laying on the ground and I was still in a ton of pain. And just a lot of uncertainty as well.

49:56And you were there for how long overall? I'd say probably around like five or six hours, like actually underneath of the thing. And so when I got pulled out, they told me I was going to have to sit there all night. Like I said, the human mind's really, really powerful. You can do way more than you actually think and your mind is way stronger than your body. And so I'm like, you know what? I have no other choice. I'm just going to have to lay here. One of them said there was actually going to be some hope and that they're going to be able to come and someone was going to come and fly through the night and airlift me out of there, which is amazing. And at this point, I just wanted it to all be over. I wasn't sure how, but I just, I was like, this is a bad fucking dream. And I just want to wake up from this. And they told me that basically the Navy members of the Navy were flying out there to come and airlift me out of there.

51:00So before they even got there, they told they gave me this pair of sunglasses, but they were more like what you would use in a weld shop to protect all corners of your eyes. So they're like, hey, man, you're going to need to throw these on because there's this crazy thing that happens when the helicopters flying over you. It's called Roto Wash. It basically kicks up all the debris around you. I laid there for a while. It was dark, you know, everyone was there. I was out from under the boulder. We were kind of waiting for the helicopter right through on the shades. And so here comes this helicopter in the night. And it's got this gnarly spotlight and it's like, holy shit, this is insane. They put me in a litter, which is basically like this big orange stretcher. And so they got me into the litter. They tied me down just like broken body basically in the litter, just lay in there, hoping to be rescued. And so the litter is that's that's a thing you can be held in and that the helicopter can hook on to.

52:06Right. Exactly. Yeah, but they can also, I believe they can also carry you out in the litter too. So it's a multifunctional. Yeah, but man, I'm just imagining it took you guys to able-bodied people an hour to hike to where you were. And that was in the daytime. Having to carry you out, I would be scared the whole time that they would trip and you'd be tumbling down the mountain again, you know. It would be absolutely brutal. Sometimes they have wheels on these things and they wheel people out. They do some amazing work, these people like other otherworldly sort of situations where you would never even believe this was possible. The Navy helicopter showed up. You're in the litter. How did they, what happened there? They fly overhead with their big spotlight, all the road awash is happening. It feels like I'm in another world looking up at this light in the sky. I couldn't even believe that I got crushed by the boulder for so long, let alone. A freaking helicopter was coming to pick me up.

53:07And so out of the helicopter, repels this guy. And I just see kind of this rope coming out of the sky and this guy lands next to me. And he's yelling in my ear telling me he's like, Hey, I'm going to clip you to me. And he's like, we're going up. And I'm like, holy shit, this is crazy. It kind of sounds like an episode of fear factor. Basically, basically, I try to think of what to compare it to. Yeah, basically like fear factor, but you didn't have an option to decline the stunt. No option. You were going. Yep, we're doing this. And so he clips me to him. And so up we go in the sky. And the litter was kind of tipped in a way where I'm like, I could essentially slide out of this thing and fall 50 feet to the ground. But in my head, I'm like, I don't really think anything could be worse than I'd already gone through. And so this is the way to get help.

54:08So I had no choice. And at some point, you got to think, okay, these guys are professionals. They know what they're doing. I might feel unsafe swinging around in this thing, but it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Yeah. And the guy was right next to me. What's funny about the whole helicopter situation is they get you up to the helicopter and then they kind of have to shovel you into the helicopter. A lot of things could go wrong. And so basically when they were shoveling me into the helicopter, I accidentally like hit my head on the side of the helicopter. No big deal compared to the whole situation, you know, but she happens. I'm up there with these guys. It felt like a military style operation being in there. All you could see was like two guys in there and this red light up on the ceiling. And it was loud, man. It was loud. It was bumpy and it was cold. I wasn't under the boulder anymore and that's all that mattered. How long was the helicopter run?

55:09And where was it bringing you? They brought me to Fresno Regional Hospital, I believe it was cold. Something like that. It's a really great trauma hospital on the other side of the west side of the Sierra in Fresno. At first when I was on the ground, one of the guys asked me if I wanted to go to Fresno or Reno. And someone else jumped in and they were like, hey man, you definitely want to go to Fresno for sure. Reno logistically might be closer by drive, but I think by helicopter Fresno is actually closer. You know, everyone does great work and shout out to all the doctors, nurses, surgeons, and everything. But I think that the one in Fresno is better equipped to deal with the injury that I had. And why would they give that decision to you? You don't know which one's better, right? They don't, they know it. I don't know how I ended up being the guy that got asked. Whoever jumped in for me, I appreciate you if you're listening to this right now. I also ought to mention that the Navy is the only ones that can fly at night.

56:13So that was really, really important. If it wasn't for them, then I would have spent the night. But in the helicopter itself, I was so exhausted from everything that I went down. I was kind of just trying to close my eyes and not fall asleep. I knew I had to stay awake to stay alive in a way, but I was just kind of like, I'm in their hands now. I don't have to fight for my life anymore. And so they kept tapping me on the shoulder. They're like, hey, man, don't fall asleep. And that was pretty rough. It was real, like I said, bumpy, dark, cold ride over the Sierra. You know, it would have been cooler in the daytime when you could see all the peaks. You don't really get to pick or choose when you're in that situation. We get to the hospital, you know, the guys, they get me in there. I had been in the dark for so long. And as opposed to other people's headlamps, those bright hospital lights hit you, you know, when you're coming through the door. And before I could even thank the guys or get their names or anything like that,

57:15I was being thrown onto an emergency room table. And there's probably like 10 to 12 people, you know, pulling at different body parts. They actually, I don't know if you want to put this in there, but they actually flip me over and someone like more or less like put their thumb in my butt. I guess they have to do that for the crush injuries, but that was pretty uncomfortable. And they're like, all right, now roll them back over. And everyone's like tugging at my body parts. I didn't know what was going on or how bad I was injured, you know? I'd never heard of that procedure. But I guess it would make kind of make sense. I mean, you said your pelvis was broken. Right. Two places. Maybe that's how they confirmed that or something. Right. Right. This is another big part of the story. They like took my pulse several times, but I think before that, they put me through what I think was a cat scan or something. They put you through the big tube and they had me in this weird position where I had my arms up

58:16in sort of a weird way and they made me stay there for a while. And it got to the point where it was so painful. I kind of told them I was like, hey, I can't do this anymore. This is really rough on me. So they put me in a room. Then the doctors came in and they were trying to take my pulse on my left foot. So while they were doing this, they kind of tried to take the pulse and then they'd look at each other and look kind of concerned. And so then the next big wig would come into the room. And same thing, they tried to take my pulse and they'd look at each other all concerned. And so I'm all, hey, you guys, is everything alright down there? And no one's saying anything. It got to the point where the final doctor came in and took the pulse. And it was determined that I had to call my mom and tell her that I had to have emergency surgery immediately. I don't remember if they told me about cracking my pelvis in two spots or whether I severed my femoral artery in my left leg.

59:18But more or less, I told my mom, I called her. It was super late at night. It's probably like three or four in the morning on the east coast where she lives in New York. And I was, oh, hey, mom, it's Kevin. I'm at the hospital right now in Fresno and I need to have emergency surgery immediately. And she knew something was wrong because I was calling her so late at night. So she kind of already knew something was up. Why did you have to call her? Are you on her health insurance or something? They kind of just told me for like to be courteous in a way. Just like, hey, tell your mom what's going on because like this is pretty, this is pretty serious right now. And that was the first time she even learned of the accident or anything. Exactly. They might have even just been like, hey, call anyone, like close to you and tell them that this is, this is really serious and you're going to go in for emergency surgery. Almost to say like if I didn't make it at least someone would have known.

1:00:19And so yeah, I called my mom. I told her the deal and I was like, but I'm going to be okay and going to go off the phone with her not knowing the severity of what was going on. The nurses that help you after surgery. They were just so nice and so sweet. I remember taking a selfie at that point. I can send this to you. And I remember looking at myself and I looked so battered and just destroyed and I looked like I had gone through hell and back bruises. Well, you kind of had bruises all over my body. Cuts on my arms that I didn't know about. You know, I had a bunch of dirt on my face. My hair was all matted. Just like, absolutely destroyed and on my last leg. And so eventually they said I could see my mom and they wheeled me out. And my mom and my aunt had actually run a food together. My aunt lives in Boise, Idaho. But they had both met up and gone to the hospital and everything and they wheeled me out. And I was like, hey guys, you know, just happy to be alive and finally seeing some family.

1:01:26And they couldn't believe it. I think my aunt started crying and both of them got pretty teary eyed. What's amazing to me is that you didn't actually have any broken bones in your legs. No broken bones in the legs, no femur, tibia, fibula, nothing like that. But I did crack my pelvis in two spots. And I think that was from the initial impact. But the main injury was all of the dead tissue that the boulder had killed from like crushing it in the initial impact and the severed femoral artery, which they actually had to do a bypass on. They went into the other leg and kind of grabbed a vein and grafted the vein around the artery to save the leg. One of the doctors came in and shook my hand and he introduced himself. I don't remember his name exactly, but he said, hi, Kevin, I'm the doctor that saved your leg.

1:02:26And when he said that, you know, a flood of emotions, I think I got all teary eyed. I just couldn't even believe it. I was so thankful. And just mind absolutely blown. And yeah, I'm at a real loss for words over that. That was one of the craziest situations of the whole story, I think. I saved your leg. To me, the guy that did that was absolutely amazing. And everyone who helped in the whole process was so amazing. I really pushed myself a lot. I started with small wins, you know, just sitting up in bed. And that progressed to being able to stand up. And that progressed to, you know, maybe taking a few steps at night. I get up and I push myself to like slowly walk down the hallway and get further each time. They're able to get me out of the hospital by Christmas. And incident happened on December 5th, so that was remarkable timing. My mom, luckily she works remotely. And so she was

1:03:28kind of able to get some time to help me. And so she was able to take care of me for a couple months after that. And we ended up finding this horse farm. I believe it was used for hospice or something. But that's not where you want to go. No, absolutely not. But it was helpful to my situation in the sense that it's accommodating to someone who is like disabled in a way. So they had their own building on the horse farm. It's called Rancho Del Sueño, which translates, I believe, to Ranch of Dreams in Spanish. The lady Robyn who owns the horse farm, she has all these horses. And I believe there are use for healing for the people that were staying there. We were watching these awesome sunsets every night. My brother was able to come visit for Christmas. So me, my mom and my brother all got to hang out. It was really, really nice.

1:04:29How long ago did this happen? This was December 5th of 2023, probably like a little over two and a half, almost three years ago now. Are you back to 100% now? I'm back to 111%. You know, by the 111, 111% by the grace of God, by all the people that put so much effort and help into rescuing me, rehabilitating me, saving my body. I somehow literally better than ever, healthier than ever. And have a way better mentality than I once did because you know when that happened, it didn't just crush my legs. It crushed my ego as well. It basically took everything that I had from me. And I'm a huge adventurer. You know, I need my legs to get around. I wouldn't be able to do any of this stuff without them. But yeah, I'd say that this is probably the healthiest and happiest I've ever been in my life. I wondered about that if you could go back and change it so that you never

1:05:37got crushed by the boulder. Would you do that? You know, Scott, that's a really interesting question. In a weird sort of way, I think that I needed that wake up call in my life. And the fact that that happened enabled me to have so much appreciation just to be alive and breathing. It gave me such a greater appreciation for life. And ultimately it helped me to take things way more seriously. And I wouldn't say that I think everyone should go through a near death experience like that. But when you do, it gets you to the point where you're sort of like that there's no more messing around. This is it. This is your one life right now and you're living it. I don't really sit around or like hang out. I'm always sort of doing something because life is so short and so precious that we need to use all this time in our life to live it. You can buy everything in life. You know, you could pay for your health, but you can't buy life itself. It's just one of those precious things.

1:06:41Have you been back to a rock climbing again? Absolutely. A lot of rock climbing and a lot of climbing peaks. Luckily, I never even thought I'd walk again, let alone be able to like get up there in the mountains. Do you still dig for minerals and crystals under boulders? Not under boulders, but we do in a safe way now. Good. Yeah, we do in a safe way. Yeah, absolutely. The boulder crushed my legs, not my future. If there's any sort of message that you could take from this, it's to not let your worst day define your life. Your circumstances don't determine your future. Your decision to move forward does. So I spent three years rebuilding my body. Evidently, I rebuilt my mind. And the strongest thing you can really do is refuse to quit on yourself. I believe that resilience is a skill I used to think strength was a skill. And I realized from this whole situation that probably 70% of your life is mental and we're capable of far more than we

1:07:44think. My goal is to help others believe that they can get through their rock bottom moments and chase the life that they want and their dreams. And you can use me and my story as an example because it's totally true. I just wanted to thank everyone involved, you know, my buddy Josh, the Inno search and rescue team, all of the nurses, doctors, surgeons, the Lamore Naval Station for coming to the rescue, getting me out of there. God, anyone else involved with this situation, my mom, my family, I'm so thankful to everyone and I would not be here without any of you individually helping me. So I'm extremely grateful. If you want to see pictures of Kevin, I have those in the episode notes. And also you may not be aware, but every main episode is also transcribed. So for some reason you'd like to read the

1:08:45whole episode, you can do that. For this one, you can get all of that at whatwasthatlike.com slash 267. And if you like this episode, you're going to love hearing Amy's story if you haven't already. Amy's office was on the third floor of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building when the terrorist bomb exploded and she was trapped in the rubble. And then just very quickly everything was quiet. I tried to move, I couldn't move and I tried to open my eyes to see, but it didn't matter whether I opened my eyes or closed my eyes, it was just pitch black. I remember my mouth, I thought that maybe my teeth had broken off in my mouth because my mouth was full of like, what felt like teeth and it was concrete bits, you know. And I remember just screaming, help me, help me, and just screaming and nothing. That's episode 95 titled Amy's office was bombed.

1:09:53In the Facebook group recently I asked what restaurant went out of business, but you really wish it would come back and Liz decided to answer with a voicemail. Hi Scott, this is Liz, a long time listener, first time caller. I am responding to the question that you asked on the episode I was just listening to about a restaurant that you used to love that is no longer open. And I have to say it was so timely because I have been dreaming about this restaurant that I used to go to all the time in Sacramento, California. And it was called Cafe Maraco. And it was a little hole in the wall, but it was my favorite. It was Middle East during Moroccan food and they had the most incredible food. I mean, there was a dish called Chicken sumac that I got every time, but what I dream about and I need dream about is this desert

1:10:53that they had called ice aseraya. I'm probably saying that wrong or rich man's bread. And it was this kind of white bread that was soaked in rose water, sweetened rose water with this thick, creamy custard on top of it and pistachio and it was served cold. And it is something that I cannot find anywhere. I cannot recreate it. I mean, I remember going to this restaurant and offering to pay them to give me the recipe. And this is when it was like a teenager that speaks to how passionately I felt about this with my hard-earned babysitting money. And they said, you know, we've been offered $20,000 for this recipe and we're not giving it up. They went out of business or they shut down and I still yearn for this desert so much so that I thought about writing into our local news magazine to see if they would hunt down the people that made this desert

1:12:03because it is just a moment in time. I've never in my life had anything so delicious and most of the people in my life know that that's my death row meal. If it was my last meal on earth, I'm having chicken, sumac and rich man's bread from Cafe Morocco in Sacramento. Thanks for taking this. And you know, we have questions like that every single Tuesday in the Facebook group. The question this past Tuesday was, what made you impulsively quit a job and walk out? I know a lot of people think about doing that but if you've ever done it, we want to hear that story. Come on over and join us at whatwasthatlike.com slash Facebook. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Brett's. Full episode transcription was created by James Sligh. And here we are once again at the end of an episode and we're about to hear a listener story.

1:13:07Do you have a story? You don't have to answer that. I know you do. Everyone does. Just record it on your phone like five to ten minutes and email it to me, Scott at whatwasthatlike.com. This week's story is from Alan Fedders and his voice might sound a bit familiar. Back in episode 251, he told a listener story about losing his watch. Then discovering that someone he was working with was actually wearing his lost watch. Pretty cool story. Well today Alan is back with another one that's just as crazy. Maybe crazier. And if you want to get more of Alan's stories, he's actually written a book full of them. It's called WTF just happened. Bizarre real-life stories that will have you shaking your head. You can get it at his website, WTFJustHapond.us.

1:14:09But now you can enjoy Alan's story of the night he went to the hospital. Stay safe and we'll see you next time. When I was 24, I moved to a brand new city. Started a new job and a new career. It was also the first time I let myself explore my sexuality. I'd known since I was in high school that I was gay, but I'd never really explored that. So I figured now is the time. I started going to the gay bar a week after a week. I say the gay bar because it was only one in town. I wound up always talking to this one guy for whatever reason. Even if the bar was packed, we kept bumping into each other at some point during those nights. We hit it off, wound up spending a lot of time together at the bar and outside of the bar. This was before iPhones and social media and all that, so instead of late night texting, it was late night phone calls with each other until we would nearly fall asleep. I caught feelings for him. He did not catch feelings for me.

1:15:15I noticed all the guys he would hook up with from the bar were skinny. I wasn't. I thought he might not like me in that way because of my weight. I had a little extra 20 pounds or so. Lose the weight I thought I'll be as thin as a rail and he'll date me. Delusional, I know, but that's how my brain worked. So I started myself to lose the extra pounds and got gallstones in the process. My gallstone attacks would come and go. Never lasted very long. They always hurt, but the pain was not unbearable. Until late one Sunday night, it was about 11 pm. I was lying on the couch watching TV. That's when the pain hit. It was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. It was like someone was stabbing me repeatedly with a white hot poker in the side while simultaneously kicking me in the balls. Imagine the worst cramp you've ever had. Not only is it painful,

1:16:17but it literally folds your body in half in the process. I couldn't even stand up street. I knew this attack was different. I needed to get to the hospital and fast, but how? I began running through the scenarios in my head. I could call 911. That felt a little dramatic, though. I mean, what if the pain suddenly goes away? Which it often did before the ambulance got there? I'd feel like an idiot. I can just see the EMTs rolling their eyes at me. Calling a friend felt like a burden. I mean, it was late on a Sunday. Everybody I knew had to work early the next morning. Nobody lived near me. Who knows how long I visited the emergency room with last? I know any of them would have jumped at the chance to help me if I just called, but I didn't want to bother anybody. So driving myself seemed at the time to be the best option. If the pain goes away, while I'm on the way, I just turn around and go home. No harm, no foul.

1:17:17So, hunched over, I put on some clothes, got into my Honda pray, I could barely see over the dashboard. You know, like those little, little ladies you see driving in Florida, all you see is the top of their heads and their hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel. Yeah, that was me. Driving was one thing, remembering to breathe through the pain so I wouldn't pass out was another. I just constantly kept telling myself, breathe, breathe. I knew exactly how I was going to go the back way. It was late on a Sunday night. There would be no traffic. It would be perfect. And it almost was. As I turned onto the last stretch that was probably two or three miles long, all I could see was nothing but green lights ahead of me. No cars. The road was empty. So I started hauling ass to get there as quickly as I could. I knew if I got pulled over, my excuse would be pretty obvious. All of the sudden,

1:18:18as I was approaching an intersection, I saw him out of the corner of my left eye, a black guy on a bike with a bunch of groceries in a basket that sat on the handlebars, starting across the street. You know when bad things are about to happen in the movies and they slow everything down? Yeah, this was like that. I knew I was going to hit him and that's when everything slowed down. My foot slammed on the brakes. I could hear the screeching of the tires on the pavement. I could see him growing in size to the windshield as I got closer. I saw the horrified expression on his face as he slowly turned towards me knowing he was going to get hit. The cars get it into him. He rolled up under the hood, slid up under the windshield. His bike was thrown down the road. As the car snapped to a stop, he rolled off the hood onto the pavement and just like that,

1:19:22everything was in real time again. I sat there in silence, thinking to myself, holy shit, I just killed him in. Through the windshield, I could see his motionless body in the street. A crumpled bike lay just beyond him and groceries everywhere, like the bag on the front of the bike had exploded. I know it was only a few seconds, but I sat there for what felt like an eternity. Looking for some kind, any kind of movement, the signal that he was still alive, and trying to figure out what I should do next if he wasn't. Suddenly, he moved. He slowly picked himself up off the pavement, wiping the gravel off his clothes and skin. Still hunched over, agonizing in pain, I managed to get out of the car. I asked him, are you okay? He slowly nodded yes.

1:20:27Now, I probably shouldn't have said this at this moment, but it just kind of slipped out. I looked at him and said, you know, I had the green light. No, you didn't, he said, yes, I did. Pointing at me and walking toward me angrily with his finger leading the way, he said, listen here, you motherfucking white cracker. My light was green. From my hunched over position due to the incredible pain that I was in, I looked up to see him towering over me. He was at least six four, probably pushing 320 pounds, built like an NFL linebacker, realizing the size difference and that I was in no position to pick a fight in the middle of a dark road with a guy twice my size while having a gallbladder attack, I said, okay, my pain was paralyzing and all I could think about was getting to the hospital. I knew he was pissed off and somehow I needed to defuse the whole situation so I didn't get the shit beat out of me.

1:21:32I said to him, I'm going to the hospital. Do you want to come with me and get checked out? He wanted nothing to do with that and asked me to take him home. So still doubled over an agony. I helped him pick up the groceries that were in the middle of the road and his mangled bike, put it all in the trunk of my car. The ride to his house was silent, aside from him saying, turn here a few times and this is my house when we arrived. A couple of times along the way I glanced over and saw this giant of a man crammed into my little Honda Prelude looking forward at the road silent. Minutes earlier, he'd been sliding off the hood of my car. He literally was the size of the hood of my car. The absurdity of this moment was unreal. Once we arrived at his house, we both got out of the car with my gallbladder attack still in full intensity mode. I lifted his twisted bike out of the trunk and handed him the bag of groceries. He said, thanks. Drug his bike off, went into the house. I slumped back into the

1:22:38driver's seat and continued on to the hospital, but at a much slower speed. I got to the emergency room. They triaged me, sent me for X-rays. It just so happened that a guy that I knew was working in the X-ray department that night. Next thing I know, I'm standing there in a loosely tight hospital gown telling him this unreal story of what had just happened to me on the way to the hospital as he snapped pictures of my gallbladder. I wound up having surgery the next day and they took out my gallbladder. That required a second night in the hospital. On that second night, my friend came into the room and said, you're never going to believe this. A black guy came into the hospital last night complaining of pain said he'd been hit by a car. Yep, it was the same guy. When my friend said that, my heart dropped and my mind fired at the speed of light. First, hoping that the guy was okay. And second, that he wasn't going to get police involved. I mean, technically, I'd left the scene of an accident. Would I have been liable for his medical bills?

1:23:40Could he sue me? That was all going on in my mind. But what came out of my mouth was, is he okay? My friend told me he was fine. Nothing broken. They just gave him pain meds and sent him home. I thought, safe for now. I was discharged the next day to go home and recover, which I did with no issues. And apparently he did too. I never heard anything more about him. I hope I never feel pain like that again. But if I do, I promise myself that someone else is going to drive me to the hospital.