Armchair Anonymous: Near Death
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Miss Padman. There's no reason for us to even do this intro. No one can listen to this episode. Absolutely not. Yeah, we got squirting blood at one point. Oh, yeah. We got a collapsing, you know, we got a lot of stuff. There's so, every story you cannot listen to.

There is a story in here that's the first one I've heard that rivaled the bear attack story we heard. Remember the bear attack? I think I told you I replayed it for the kids. Yeah. For me, this is more intense than the bear attack. Right. For you, it's more intense. I do urge you to re-listen to bear attack. You might have forgotten how gruesome it is. It is...

Whoa, the bear jacket. But yeah, this one's gnarly. Absolutely don't listen to this one. It's not for you or anyone you love or care about. So we'll be back next Friday with something that maybe will appeal to you. This, of course, the prompt was near death. What do you expect? I'm sorry, near death. I know, I know. We asked for it. Yeah, near death. Please don't enjoy. Near death and we'll speak to you next week. ♪ Hard times come and go ♪

All right, Brett. I'm scared already. Oh, this is great for six feet under. You'll probably have heard a lot of these.

Hello, hello. Hi. Who's helping you, Brett? This is my brother-in-law, Travis. I know Travis. Wait. Wait. Rob says he knows Travis. Rob knows Travis. Yeah, I know Rob since he was like 15. Oh, wow. Are you guys in Chicago? Yes, sir. Yep. What? Oh, he's coming over. Rob, come say hi. Hey.

How fun. You're going to be a very valuable person very early on. So congratulations on getting a great team member, my man. Oh, believe me, we know it. Wow. Wow. How fun.

fun is this? I'm going to get out of here so you guys can have some fun. All right. Cheers. Thank you. Wow. What a lucky brother-in-law to have. And it's funny, I contacted him. I was trying to get tips for how to record. I was like, well, I was going to go in my daughter's tent and put a bunch of blankets on top of it, use my AirPods. He's like, no, no, no. Why don't you just come over to my house and we'll make you sound good. Oh, wonderful. So you're out of your own environment right now. Yes. This is my brother-in-law's setup. Everything you see here is

his artwork, his equipment. So we can't make a lot of deductions based on your environment because you have nothing to do with that. That's right. But you seem to be wearing maybe a death metal shirt or something. Is that a band? Yeah, if you want to be specific, black metal. Black metal. Oh, wow. Right. And he knows Rob, so I can do some math there. So there's some alternative music scene going on in common. Are you black metal, Rob? Not black metal, but Travis was in a band.

Travis was in a band. Was it black metal? Not black metal. Okay. White metal. This is brown metal. There's that out there, too. Okay, so, Brent, you have a near-death experience. Please walk us through your tragedy and trauma. Sure. The year that this happened was also just a terrible year for me. So, I have a...

Robert Durst has one. Oh, really? Yep. On his trial, you could see his shunt very clearly. Wow.

The event in question was kind of just the cherry on top. Also, I had walking pneumonia that year. Oh, my God. Your poor parents. Yeah, they must have been stressed to the max for a year. At this point, they've seen enough. They're pretty used to it. Oh, okay. Okay, good for them. Because it started when I was four months old with the surgery, so they have thick skin. So we're going back to...

April 1994. So I'm in junior high. We're still in Naperville, western suburbs of Chicago. So I'm trying to make friends, trying to bridge that gap between having a friend that I only see at school and say, hey, why don't you come out and hang out with me? We'll do whatever. And so

We were riding our bikes around. We found ourselves over by the grade school and there was some tennis courts over there because it becomes relevant later. These are like two tennis courts. They have a chain link fence around them divided in the middle with some brick with some benches in the middle. No one's over there. We're riding around popping wheelies being radical. Yeah, I'm riding around doing my thing. My friend will call him Frank because he doesn't come off.

Too great in this story, so I don't want to drag his name through the mud. He kind of goes into the other court. At some point, he gets off his bike. I'm trying to figure out what he's doing. So I start riding over, and he's off his bike, and he's standing by the chain link fence door to the other court.

And I'm thinking, okay, I'll just ride my bike through here really fast, zoom into the other court. Super cool. I'm gaining speed. I see him standing by the door, and he's kind of laughing. And I'm like, okay, whatever. And before I know it, he kind of gives the door a little push. And I think he's trying to spook me, but I'm going too fast. So I hit the side of the door. Oh, God.

You hit, I'm imagining, the blunt thin end. Yes. And then on that door is kind of a U-latch that keeps the door closed. I get up. I'm hurt. I'm furious. Cursing a blue streak at him. Then he's like, Brett, your neck is bleeding. Oh, my God. I'm like, what? I hear this gurgle and then blood projectiles out of my neck.

like Monty Python and the Knights of Me. Shooting three-fourth in the air. This is April. It's a little cool outside, so I'm wearing a jacket. We take my jacket off. We're wrapping around my neck. We're like, what do we do? So there was a woman nearby. She was walking her dogs. She

was kind of the palm one in this situation. So she had me lay down on the bench. She told my friend, go get his mom. And so this is 1993. Nobody has cell phones. It was probably two, three minute bike ride. Gets to the door. He tells my mom, Brett cut his neck, which of course can mean a thousand things. Sure. She grabs a change of clothes for me, is out the door.

And I think he just kind of took off, went home. He wants to be out of this whole situation. He's contemplating whether he's an accomplice to murder at this point. In trouble or who knows. So I'm waiting with this woman who had her dogs and she was very nice. I don't remember too much about what we talked about, but she had brought her purse out. She'd taken some tissues out. She's blotting my bloody neck hole with her. Dabbing.

I kind of felt like maybe the bleeding had stopped. I mean, there was an initial like explosion of blood. Yeah. My jacket's covered in blood. I'm covered in blood, but I'm still conscious. And so to me, I kind of take this as a good sign. Right. You're on the mend. Yeah.

My trachea is kind of like hanging out of my neck a little bit. Oh, my God. And so it didn't look great. Ambulance had gotten there. They were getting me ready. My mom showed up. They get me loaded in the stretcher into the ambulance onto the way to the hospital. My mom met me there. Once they realized I was kind of stable, they want to do x-rays to see what's the damage. Something I noticed while I was waiting for this x-ray, every time I breathe, I could hear like noise coming out of my neck. Oh, my God.

So not many people know, but your lungs kind of go all the way up almost to your collarbone. So that U-latch had actually punctured my left lung. Oh my God. That was air coming out of my neck hole while I'm waiting to get this x-ray. You've got like a stoma now or a tracheotomy. Yeah, I got a little T-shaped scar. And really quick, isn't it crazy that when those things happen, you don't feel them?

Like when he told you your neck was bleeding, that's an update for you. You're not feeling any of that, right? The only thing that hurt was my back, probably because of the whiplash. Oh my God, the shock. I did have a few cracked ribs, but...

Other than that, I was just annoyed because obviously the impact hurt. That was my only concern. But then, yeah, you hear that sound, which is embedded in my brain. And then blood shootout, you realize back is fine. I got bigger fish to fry here. So I spent maybe two or three days in the hospital. They had to put a chest tube in me.

to pump my lung back up. Do they sew your lung closed? Oh yeah, so they sewed it closed, but it had some like air that was trapped in there. So they had to stick a tube in my side, which also helped rehabilitate it. That was quite difficult because anytime I sneezed or coughed or something, there's that air blowing back into the chest tube. So it was quite uncomfortable, probably missed a week of school. So that gave

Frank some time to get his story. Poor Frank. I feel bad. Everyone in school had already been used to me missing a week or two at a time because of my other surgeries. He told everyone Brett was...

clumsy he got into this biking accident he had nothing to do with it so some kids came up to me and were like you idiot what's the matter with you you're not rad how dare you he did this to me and they're like wait what so yeah it was a rough year my star was definitely falling whereas frank's star continued to rise after this so shortly after this

His family had submitted a unrelated video to America's Funniest Home Videos. Oh, my God. And one. No. He flew out to California. He was on TV. Wow. Whoa. Okay. This explains a little bit. He likes jokes and pranks and tricks and falls. It's his stock and trade. That's what happened here. It didn't go great. I'm shocked he wasn't recording it. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. He's on a path already. Yeah.

I tried to make sure I say it's unrelated because sometimes if I tell that part, people think like, what, he recorded the accident and then put on America's Funniest Home Video? No, no, no. Was he involved in the prank that made it to air? Had nothing to do with them. It was his parents that submitted it. It was some kids fighting during their winter program where they were singing and then they were getting each other's way. So they started pushing each other. Do you remember what they won? At the time, I thought the prize was like 10 grand. Okay. Wow. So they were flush. Oh my God.

This was 1993 dollars, so it's probably worth a little bit more. Yeah, six, seven million dollars now. Something like that. We weren't great friends after that, but we're stuck in the same classes. So we made the peace. But then I think a year later he moved away. Chasing stardom. Did he ever apologize? He apologized twice.

Initially, when it happened, he was crying. He was like, Fred, I'm so sorry, but not any separate. And maybe he just kind of felt awkward about it. Or maybe he felt like, I already apologized for this. I think he did feel bad. Well, I guess your imagination at 13 runs wild with you. Like you're going to jail. You're getting sued to be responsible for this. He probably convinced himself for real that you did do it. Yeah.

He was in denial. Yeah, he could have thought he had plenty of time to get out of the way when I didn't even move. What if at this point you went and made an amends to him? It must have been so stressful for you. In preparation for this, I did try to see if I could find him, but he has too common of a name. Did they move to California? He could have. I have no idea where he went. What if it was Ryan Gosling? That'd be really exciting. I could see it. Yeah.

And then he's always living in fear that this story will come out. Wow. Well, that is near death for sure. Brett, can I ask really quick? When you were the kid leaving nonstop for the surgeries, were you embarrassed by that or were kids compassionate? What was that experience? I was embarrassed at first, but then I would get to science class and then

we would have a whole discussion about it. And I kind of did feel a little special. That's the best outcome. I didn't mind it. And there was another time where two other kids were talking and it was a boy and a girl. And I think they were talking about who the girl should date. And someone's like, oh, how about Brett? And she was like, isn't he dead? Oh, oh boy. I kind of just like overheard that. I was like, ooh, that's awkward. No, I'm alive. I'm still here. There might've been a slight...

legend about what's going on with me because even after the brain surgeries, I'd come back, half my head is shaved. So maybe some kids might've thought I had cancer or something like that. So there was a lot of rumors about what was going on. I did feel a little like, you know, everyone's kind of paying attention to me. So it did have its positives for sure. Yeah, good. That's a good way of looking at it. Funny enough, I don't think many people have had that experience, but I too, I was at Costco one time and the cashier was like, oh, I recognize you. What's your name? And I said, Dax.

And she goes, yeah, I heard you were dead. And I go, oh, how did I die? And she goes, oh, I didn't ask. And I found that to be the most offensive part of this whole exchange because I don't care if you hate someone, so-and-so died, your first question is how? But not this gal. She was like, oh, he's dead? Mm-hmm.

Next thing. Well, Brett, I'm glad you made it. I was told at the time the laceration was maybe a few millimeters from my carotid artery, which it would have bled out pretty quickly had it nicked that.

So I'm very thankful I am where I am today. Isn't it funny? We find a way that things are lucky when they're really unlucky. But it is lucky. I mean, it is. But it's just really funny that it comes in the wrapping of a lot of this unluck. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for listening. My family's sick of this story. So I like having a new audience. All right. Thank you, Brett. All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

kind of jeff daniels looking yeah i can see that oh good i love when we agree remember on a flightless bird we thought shaggy died we thought he was dead you did no david oh david did and then you looked it up not to be critical but you think a lot of people are dead it's kind of a common it comes up kind of i think you've done it a few times that's why i thought you'd done that but i do remember it was david that said shaggy i think recently i did it yeah i

I think it's been a few, but that's okay. I guess if you want to comment about when I said people were dead, go ahead. Remind us. Someone was just asking me what my favorite episode we've done was. And I said, dog, the bounty hunter. And then he said, didn't he pass? I was like, oh, no. But then he didn't. No. Yeah. You never know. Life is very fragile. We're finding that out. All right. Here's hope.

Hi, Hope. Hi, guys. How are you? Are you in the medical field? I am. I'm a physical therapist assistant. Oh, nice. That's Monica's favorite thing, PTs. I have a lot of PTs in my life. You should join us. Maybe one day, another life. You're going to have to get more adventurous to need a PT. I don't want a PT. Knock on wood. Okay, we're knocking on wood. Knock on wood. I wondered if y'all were knocking on wood a lot today with this prompt. Yeah, we need to keep some close by.

We've only listened to one, and I really don't know if we'll be able to carry on and do all four. I feel nervous. Yeah, it was pretty gory, and I had just eaten. But we will push on. Okay, mine is not gory, but I think it'll stick with you. Oh, God. Okay, wonderful. Where are you, Hope? Currently in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock, Texas. And are you from there? Originally from Midland, which is where my story takes place. Okay. And also where Woody Harrelson's from.

And Matthew McConaughey's brother, I think, was there too for a bit. Rooster. Oh, wow. We really know all the shit about Midland. You do. Now you're going to learn some more. Okay, wonderful. What year was this? Okay, it was 21 years ago when I was 11. 2003. Okay, so my dad had this really nice work car, a Crown Victoria. And we would take that car every weekend to go get it washed.

in preparation for my dad's week. Was he a salesman? He was an engineer and he was a salesman in the oil and gas field. So it had to be nice. And it was also now looking back time for my mom to be alone at the house. So my dad would load up my brother and I, who was six at the time.

and we would head to the car wash. The car wash that we would go to was the standalone car wash. I probably shouldn't say the name of the grocery store chain, but it's still very popular. So these standalone car washes were the kind where you would pull up to a little machine, put your cash in, and then your vehicle would then drive in and park. You wouldn't roll on a conveyor belt like you do with the ones now. You stay static.

while the car wash then moves around you and washes your vehicle. These are very popular too at gas stations if they have a car wash. Yes, exactly. And this super center chain no longer has these car washes. And I don't know if it has to do with this story. Oh boy, okay. Every week we did this very routine. We pull into the car wash. My dad parks. He's in the front seat driving, obviously. I'm right behind him in the back seat. And then my brother is to the right of me.

And the car wash starts, the water starts to flow, spraying onto the hood, then onto the front windshield, and then onto the top of the car. When all of a sudden, we hear this loud creak, and then the roof of the vehicle caves in right in front of me. Oh my God. Whoa.

Oh, like in the snap of a fingers or were you watching it buckle for a while? No, in a snap of a finger. It was like I was looking straight forward and then all of a sudden I just saw tan, which was the interior of the headliner. What the fuck had happened? Oh.

Exactly. So we didn't know. All of a sudden, bubbles and water just start spraying in because now all the glass from the car doors are broken and the back windshield has shattered. Oh. So power wash spray. So keep in mind, it is this power wash water coming in through the sides now. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This is a nightmare. It's so loud because now all the windows are broken. Yeah.

Oh my God.

You're in a tuna fish can now. Yeah, looking back on this now, I think this might be where my claustrophobia began. It would be a good origin story for claustrophobia. Then I look forward again, and the first thought I have is my dad is dead. Sure, of course. I have no concept of time. My dad said all in all, this was about five to 10 minutes. Yeah, that's an eternity. Yes. Then I start to hear these loud pops.

and see flashes of light outside the doors and outside of the windows and sparks. So there are live wires now hanging and landing on the water on the ground and popping. Oh, fuck.

- Fuck me. - Oh my God. I was old enough to know, oh my God, we're gonna get electrocuted. - Your dad must be trying to decide if he should drive out of there, even though there's probably machinery stuck on the roof, and is that gonna tear the whole roof off? Is that gonna hurt my kids? Do I move or do we stick this out? - Right. I'm thinking, oh my gosh,

I don't even know if I can move or even open this door, but we can't because then we'll be electrocuted. So it is at this point I remember hearing my dad's voice. And that's when I'm, okay, he's okay. And he's yelling, do not get out of the car. Do not get out of the car. Then suddenly I can hear the car wash powered down. We're no longer being sprayed in the face with bubbles and water. Oh my God.

God. Then my dad somehow breaks open my car door and he says, grab your brother. I grab my brother. I don't remember any of us crying. I think we were all just in shock and him saying, move, move, move. And we basically ice skated on the soap and water out of the car wash and

And that's when I look back and see that these car washes had these massive pieces of machinery that would be on a track that would move forward and backward and it's spraying water and soap down. That had slipped off the track. Oh.

midway landing directly on top of our vehicle in between the front and the backseat. Oh my God. Wow. Again, like we just said in the other story, it's so unlucky, but so lucky that the placement of the fall... A little bit forward for dad, a little bit backward for daughter. Yeah. Had it been a moment sooner or a moment later...

or if it had fallen at an angle could have killed multiple of us minimally some major concussions and some skull fractures i remember thinking because i was very obsessed with being on the news at the time that was very cool in midland texas yeah yeah and i thought oh my god i'm finally gonna be on the news yeah silver lining the news never came oh well we're kind of

the news. Yeah, we're a bit of the news. 100% I was telling my husband that I said, at least I get to tell this to Dax and Monica. That feels really special. Yeah, you had to wait 21 years, but the news is finally here. Yeah, I'm not usually very patient, but this was worth the wait. That happens and I'm not even sure who you call. Do you call the police over that? Are you calling the tow truck? Like what the fuck does one do after this when you escape? My dad said

that he tried to call 911 while we were in the car. He said that he couldn't hear, so he couldn't tell him where we were. So he hangs up. Somehow someone got in contact with the little gas station. Yeah, because those things are fully automated, right? There's no one working there. Yeah, there's no humans waiting outside. No one's drying off your vehicle at the end. It just blows air on you.

I almost wish that the air cycle had happened just because that too would have been quite thrilling to be in a car with no windows and those big bags. Just hot air. Blowing broken glass all over the place. That's probably the biggest blessing of the whole occurrence is that they didn't whip up all that glass. Really? And we had no scratches, no injuries. It was while my dad said from his perspective when it happened, he

He immediately turned around to check on us.

And all he could see was our feet, but that they were moving. And so he thought, okay, they must be okay. And was trying to yell to us. And he said that finally we responded. Again, hard to remember how long that took. And what happens next? Do they buy you a new car? Do they give you money? What happens? I hope you're a billionaire. I wish I was. And I am angry that I'm not. News didn't come and no cash payout. None. My dad said that...

They didn't call 911. So EMS didn't come. Firefighters didn't come. He said that it was very simple. Like, hey, sorry this happened. Can you give us your insurance? Through his work, he said that by the next week, he had a brand new Crown Victoria through his work. Nothing really happened. That's insane. I mean, I guess probably their insurance reimbursed their insurance somehow. Whatever, though.

I feel like you should get at least like a thousand dollar gift card to the large chain. You should be a billionaire, especially knowing what the large chain is. I agree with you. Can you sue now for something that happened so long ago? No way. 21 years. Well, and there's no proof. Okay. Now this is a weird question, but it would cross my mind if I were your dad. Those are the cheaper option.

The more expensive you go where they rub the car down, there's people there working. It's a much bigger thing. Was he a little bit like, that's what you get when you try to save $2? I think I would have felt that way. I think he had some self-blame for sure. Sure, sure. Victim blaming.

After that, it was only hand car washes. So then it became we would wash the car with dad every Sunday. Oh, God. So you lost double. Also, your mom, if you guys had all died because you guys went to a car wash. I'm a mom now. I can't imagine my husband taking my daughter so I can have just a few moments alone and then get a phone call. Hey, can you pick us up? The car wash fell on top of our car. Yeah, all hell broke loose on this errand. Wow. I hate to.

leverage this story to confirm my worldview but of course irresistible it proves my points like you worry about this thing oh you shouldn't ride motorcycles you shouldn't do this fucking god knows where your untimely demise is coming from what don't go to the car wash that's not advice anyone's gonna give and i really don't go to the car wash anymore i don't blame you probably no one's i think we just ended car wash in america that story it's over you're welcome wow

Well, Hope, I'm glad you made it unscathed. What an eventful experience. How frequently will you guys bring that story up? Not enough, in my opinion. It wasn't until my adulthood that I think I remembered it. The aftermath was so tame that I kind of forgot. Right. And then probably was in the middle of a car wash when I remembered, oh my God, I almost died in one of these. Yeah, PTSD. Well, that's quite a story. Yeah. How about one like that? Thank you, Hope. You're welcome. I do want to say before we go that

that I appreciate y'all show so much. I've been listening since basically the very beginning. This month, specifically in June, it's a tricky month for me because it's the anniversary of my mom's passing. But each year, something really beautiful and joyous happens. And this is it. This is so lovely. I don't know, Monica, if my mom's persuading your dad in the simulation or not.

I'm happy with the Sim. I just hope she's willing to chat with my dad. I'm sure she is. Well, nice meeting you, Hope. And thank you so much. Yeah, nice to meet you guys. All right, take care. Bye.

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Rob, our burritos are ready. All right. I'll let Steve in and I'll go grab them.

Hello. Hi, Steve. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. You can hear me, eh? Yes. Oh, you're Canadian. No, but good guess. Oh, okay. You threw an A in there, didn't you? Did I hear an A? You did. Can't tell you why. Are you married to a Canadian? I'm not. Sometimes people just say it. Okay. Where are you from? St. Louis, Missouri. Yeah, that's pretty far from Canada. Now, of course, I live in Monterey, California. Oh, you do? That's an enviable location. Yes, it is. Garden spot of the world. Spectacular.

Okay, Steve, you have a near-death experience. And you've made it because we're talking to you. Yeah, that's the good news about these stories. We do know everyone's made it. Unless we talk to a medium. We talked to someone beyond the grave. Oh, my gosh.

Set the scene for us. What year is this? Where is it at? This was end of June in 2022. Oh, recent. It was at the southern end of the Monterey Bay. It was a sunny, clear, beautiful day. No wind, no waves, no chop. So I thought I'll go for an ocean swim. I swim in the ocean for a dozen years and I had retired a year and a half earlier. And that year and a half of retirement, I had organized my life around outdoor group activities.

activities. I was running with the Wednesday night laundry runners and I was riding with the velo club and I was swimming with the kelp crawlers. Well, this incredibly gorgeous day, I had to swim. I went to the beach and unfortunately nobody else was there. You'd usually get half a dozen people on a Wednesday morning, but this time I was the only one there. So I got on my wetsuit and my hat and booties. It's very cold. The water's 55 degrees. Got in the water and the beach is about 100 yards wide.

And as I started to swim out from the beach, there's a jetty on the left. It sticks out about 75 yards. And I went out around that jetty, and I went to the left and hugged the coast around Lover's Point. Now, before you get too many ideas about Lover's Point, its full name is Lovers of Jesus Point. Oh, wow. Not everybody knows. Wow. Not as romantic as I thought.

I just don't associate that with seafarers. That's an interesting mashup. I went about three quarters of a mile, hugging the coast the whole way. And then I turned around, came swimming back. No waves, no chop. When it's sunny, you see all the kelp and the fish and all the seagrasses flowing back and forth and the sea stars. It's just gorgeous. Do you see seals out there ever?

You do. Seals sometimes like to swim under you, which can be a little disconcerting. You're swimming along and there's this gray shape that all of a sudden appears under you. Yeah, because don't they hunt within the sea kelp? They absolutely do. And I came back around the point and I'm heading towards the jetty when all of a sudden...

Wham! Just out of nowhere. I just got tossed up in the air and turned and I didn't know what was going on. And then I was plunged back into the water. I look and I am arm's length from the enormous head of a great white shark. No! Oh!

No. No. No. No. The water there is about 20 feet deep, and the shark came from below and grabbed me and fully breached up into the air. You've seen photos of a great white with a seal in its mouth. Yes. But it breaches out of the water. That was me. No. Oh, my God. I didn't know all that at the time. There were people on the beach who saw it, so some of this is reconstructed later. But pull it back down under the water, and then it spit me out.

What? Do you think because of the wetsuit? Turns out great whites will oftentimes bite the prey and then back off and let it bleed to death. Oh my. You can imagine they eat seals and sea lions and elephant seals. These things have teeth and they have claws and they can fight back.

So oftentimes they'll let the thing bleed. All I know for sure, I was underwater, maybe, I don't know, five feet, I'm guessing. I could see light. So I knew which way it was up. Fortunately, I had air in my lungs, probably because it lifted me into the air and I got a good breath. I don't know. And then it was right there, arm's length away from me, the left side of its head. And I can't tell you how enormous this thing is. I'm looking at that black eye and you can see this white and gray body and its teeth from its lower jaw sticking up. I

I can see it's bobbing its head back and forth as if it was deciding whether to bite me again or not. And really quick, did you immediately recognize it as a great white or was it taking you a minute? Like, is that a whale? Is that a this? Or do you immediately know what it was? I instantly knew I'm a docent at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I show people hammerheads and seven gill sharks and all these things. I knew immediately.

It was a great life. Your mind goes very quickly at that moment. Do you get to the point where you surrender? You're like, I'm going to die. This is it. No, I was calm. I knew I was very badly hurt. I didn't know exactly where it had bit me yet. But looking at it, I was thinking, hey, I taste of neoprene. I'm wearing a white hat and goggles. I'm not a seal. I am not your food. Please don't bite me again. And at that point, I thought, I'm going to punch it.

Ah, yeah, yeah. My fist didn't quite reach its lower jaw, but when I stuck out my fingers, I jabbed and hit its lower jaw. Tell me this now. You work at the aquarium. I had always heard you want to hit them on the nose. You went lower jaw. That's what I could reach. If you had had your druthers, is the nose the right thing? I don't know. Yeah. But I would have aimed... There's some...

There's some notion that that's the right thing to do. Well, there's these weird videos where they come up on the side of the boat and they rub their nose in a weird way. And have you seen this? It puts them in a suspended state for like 20 seconds. They'll float back down and then they kind of come to something with their nose. There's so much stuff packed.

in the end of that nose. Anyways, you hit it in the jaw with your fingers. - I tried to kick at it, although my injuries were such that probably I couldn't, I don't know. I think I kicked at it. And then it was just gone. I don't remember it swimming away, but I got myself up to the surface.

there was a security camera in the distance that captured this whole thing. No way. It captured the shark breaching. And then 12 seconds later, I come up and start yelling. When I got to the surface, I knew I was badly hurt. I didn't know how bad. And I sort of leaned back to try to get my legs up. I thought, don't let your legs hang down. It'll just bite you again. As I lifted my knees up, I could see my left leg where there should have been wetsuit or skin. It was just nothing but

hamburger red. Oh my God. And the water was red and I knew I was in horrible trouble. I just swam a mile and a half. There was absolutely no way I could swim the remaining 150 yards to the beach. All I could do was yell for help and hope that there are brave, kind, skilled strangers that can hear me and are willing to come out and risk their lives. And that's what happened. I was really unlucky to be bitten by the shark. And then some things happen that are just hard to believe.

I'm yelling, help, help, just as loud as I can. You can actually hear it on that security camera. I could hear the emotion in my voice. I was not in terrible pain, but I knew I'm not going to make it. I was yelling for help and I couldn't see anybody coming. There was so much blood. I thought, I don't want to die like this.

That was awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally, I looked to the right and saw a paddleboarder. And I yelled some more and I looked again and he was coming right at me and closer. I thought, okay, I've got a chance. It turns out that there was a couple on an anniversary trip. They lived three hours away in Sacramento, Amy and Paul. They'd done paddleboarding and they heard me and they started coming my way. They were a couple hundred yards away. He is a police officer, a first responder. No. She...

is a nurse, a healthcare professional. Impossible luck on top of impossible, terrible luck. That's exactly right. And they knew it was a shark. They could tell from the way I was yelling, there was something was way wrong. They were mentally preparing. Paul was thinking, if it is a shark, I'm going to take the paddle and put it down his throat. He's a first responder. He does this for a living. He said, no question I was coming to save. And then is if that wasn't enough,

From the beach, there was a group of school kids from Kansas who were out here for a weekend. It's called Blue Theology. They were here to learn about the ocean and how to take care of it. And there was a guy teaching them ocean appreciation. This guy is a surfer, a former lifeguard, a surf rescue guy. And one of the dads of the Kansas kids saw the shark and yelled to Heath, hey Heath,

There's a guy out there. He needs you. So Heath, the surf rescue guy, he grabbed two surfboards, stacked one on top of the other and paddled out to me. Oh my God. Jeez Louise. Can you imagine? A healthcare professional, a first responder and a surf safety guy were the three people who heard me. And they all came rushing to me.

And did they get you on top of one of these surfboards? That must have been very hard. Paul, the police officer, got to me first and tried to get me on the board. I don't remember this. I was in and out of consciousness. He could not get me on his board. Then Keith...

put the second surfboard in the water for me. They tried to get me on that board. It didn't work. And finally, they said, look, you're going to have to help. And I remember I reached up with my arm and I helped pull myself up onto the board. The injury was the shark's mouth bit me across my thighs and back across my lower abdomen. Of course, it's a U-shaped bite. So it got me from the right side. There's a big gouge just above my right knee and then across my left thigh and

And then there are teeth marks along my left hip and then a big scar across my belly. It looks like a C-section scar now, but at the time it was filleted open. My belly was just wide open. It's like you've got 14 huge punctures is what you have, right? I mean, that's how it does it. The bottom teeth puncture and hold. So across my backside are just a bunch of puncture marks, but the top teeth cut.

So it's just all ripped. Oh, my God. They did get me onto the surfboard and I was lying face down on the surfboard and Heath was yelling, grab my heel. So with my left arm, I grabbed his heel. He was lying face down on his board and he starts paddling and pulling me in. Amy, the nurse, realized...

that I was going to fall off the board. My legs didn't work, my belly didn't work, I was unconscious. And she left the relative safety of her paddleboard and jumped into the water, got half on the back of the board, holding my legs on the board, and the other half of her is in the water, blood pouring off of me. And she held my legs on the board and kicked while Heath was paddling to get me to the shore. Meanwhile, Paul ever prepared the police officer

He had his phone with him. He pulled out his phone and called 911. So is there an ambulance waiting when they get you to shore? From the time I started yelling until the time you can see the ambulance on the street, three minutes. Wow. Whoa, that feels impossible. Wow. The city really prioritizes public health, and so they have an ambulance stationed in the middle of the town. It happens to be six blocks from where I was. Wow.

There's a hospital five miles away, but the taxpayers pay to keep the ambulance close. So I got to thank everybody. But there's another step in between that's equally amazing. They got me to the beach. And of course, I'm bleeding. My left arm is all ripped up, both thighs and my abdomen. I need tourniquets on the beach, vacationing independently with two ICU nurses and a doctor. Oh, my God.

Doctor from Detroit, ICU nurse from Kansas, ICU nurse from North Carolina. What? Well, I do have to put a little bit of a socioeconomic spin on this. Good place to get injured in Monterey where professionals go on their vacation. Yeah, true. This happens at Where's Beach or Daytona. Panama City. You might not have the same staff on hand. Pretty good point. Wow.

So everyone just starts tourniqueting you up. That's exactly right. Noelle, we've chatted with her, one of the ICU nurses. She got halfway in the water and sort of accepted the surfboard. There were six or eight people around me as they rolled me over. And she saw my leg and she thought, well, he's going to lose the leg. She looked at my face and saw that I was in my 60s. And my face, she said, was gray. She thought I would not make it. Yeah.

And she thought, even if you do make it, you're going to be badly brain damaged from lack of blood to the brain. And then she saw my wedding ring and she thought, oh, how terrible for the spouse. Yeah. Then they got me into the ambulance and drove the 28 miles to Natividad Trauma Center. I was on the operating room table with the surgeon's

ready to go, scalpels in hand, 59 minutes after the shark bite. Wow. Wow. It's kind of crazy you lived that long. I mean, you must have lost so much blood. They start pumping blood into you immediately. I'm not sure. I do know the anesthesiologist, the day after the surgery, he stopped pumping

by my room and he said when I heard that the incoming trauma victim was a 62 year old shark bite victim with massive blood loss he said I didn't have a lot of hope for you but your heart and lungs responded like you were in your 20s and that's why you survived I had been doing all this outdoor group exercise yes that really helped of course

If I hadn't been exercising, I wouldn't have been out there. It's six half dozen. How long was the recovery from that? I was in the hospital for three weeks. I was in the ICU for only one day because the wounds, although they were really bad,

they were quite repairable. The surgery took about two hours. They had to just stop the bleeding in my legs. They looked all through my belly and amazingly, it did not break through this sheath called the peritoneum that separates all the muscle and fat and whatnot from the internal organs. So no internal organ damage. There was a chip off of my left femur, but no broken bones. And amazingly, it missed the

the big arteries to the leg. According to the surgeon, the big artery that runs down the front of your body into the leg, the iliac artery, he said it missed the artery by a millimeter. Like a 20th of an inch. It's amazing. The iliac, this artery is literally touching the big nerve that goes down into the leg that you use for your quads. That nerve was completely destroyed. Unusable. My right quads don't work.

But the blood vessel that's touching it, untouched. And the surgeon said, look, if it had been a millimeter over, you would have bled to death before you got to the beach. Right. Yeah. Oh, my God. The surgeon who's been a trauma emergency room surgeon for a dozen years said, I'm the luckiest patient he's ever seen. Wow.

And would you ever swim in the ocean again? No. Yeah, good. I'm so glad to hear you say that. I think a lot of you folks would be like, nope, still love it. I respect the shark. I know. I'm back in. I'm proud of you. I'm glad you're staying away. Yep.

There's other places to swim. Don't tap fade again. Yeah, I swim at the swimming pool at the community college. Yeah, there we go. Whoa, Steve. Wow, what a story. We've only heard one story comparable to that. We talked to a guy attacked by a grizzly bear once, and it's kind of on that level. Let me give you a sense of how big that shark is. They figured this out by looking at the inter-tooth distance, and the expert says that the shark was 15 feet. I Googled that, and it says that's probably 2,000 pounds. No way I'm getting back in that water.

Good. Yeah, good. Let's stay out of there. Oh, boy. What a story. That is going to sit with everyone. Might even show up tonight during our slumber. Exactly. Wow. I was afraid of that. It's part of why I don't go back in the water. Every now and then I close my eyes, I do see a shark. No, Steve, we're born with a fear of monsters, and you actually got bit by a monster. Yeah, you were attacked by a monster. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that. That was really harrowing. You're welcome. I do also want to say thank you to the blood donors. In that two-hour operation, I took 28 units of blood, which in round numbers is twice what a body holds. We're lucky to have you. We're lucky to still have you. Good attitude. It's been two years and I'm mostly better. I still have some nerve damage in my legs. So they're sort of prickly and I'm on medicine. My right quads don't work at this point. I had some surgery. Maybe it can come back. Don't know.

Fingers crossed. In the meantime, I can walk pretty well and I can even ride a bicycle. So I'm doing great. Okay, wonderful. Well, Steve, thanks so much. Yeah, have a great rest of your day. We appreciate it. Stay out of the water. Yeah, will do. Okay, bye-bye. Bye.

I was not expecting that. No, I was waiting for a rip current because he kept saying how calm it was. It was almost like foreshadowing. That's like the craziest story we've heard. Other than that grizzly bear. Because that thing wanted to kick, like it kept coming at him. Yeah. For me though, shark attack. Shark, okay. Never getting in the ocean. Never, never. Well, there are areas they're not at. No, I'm never. You're not going to chance it. Okay. Hello? Oh.

It twisted and now it's back. Oh, it's twisting again. Oh my God. Oh, we got another person here. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Are we coming through your headphones? Yes.

You are coming through my headphones. Okay, then this is going to work out beautifully. And that's my sister back there. She's the savior of today. Okay, hello, sister. What's the age gap between you two, Kate? She's two and a half years older than me. Were you a social butterfly? Oh, no, I was homeschooled. Well, by our standards, I was a social butterfly. Hard to know. In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it.

But I get by. Okay. You guys were both homeschooled? All of us. I have seven siblings. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Where'd you grow up? Houston, Texas. Nice. Well, we saw the Bucky sweatshirt, so we had a Texas clue. Oh, yeah. Are you still in Texas? We're a little bit north of Houston. Well, Kate, what happened? You had a near-death experience? I did have a near-death experience last summer. Oh.

I don't know if you've ever gone through the Woodlands area. There's a Wakeport Cable Park. Oh, no kidding. They've got a man-made lake. And there's like six towers that go in a full circle around this lake. Big industrial cables connect these towers in the big circle. And you start on this dock. And there's a guy next to you. He's controlling everything. He gives you a rope. And it's like, three, two, one, go. And that cable grabs your rope.

And it pulls you off the dock. You go from like zero to 20 miles per hour like that. So I like to think it's harder than regular wakeboarding just because of the jump factor. Yeah. And then you're cruising around. Every time your rope switches towers, it gives you another little jump. Oh, wow. So I was going every single week last summer because they had a deal for girls. Girls got like $10 rentals and everything. Oh, wow. They're trying to make it like a single spot? Yeah, to meet cute.

Ding, ding, ding. I spent the whole summer trying to get up and around this little lake. Because if you catch a toe, you're falling off the dock, you're eating shit, you're eating water. So I spent the whole summer just trying to get up on the board. And

And finally, I did. But as you can imagine, it's intense. You're riding the board. It switches towers. It pulls you again. And you're just going roundy, roundy, roundy. Are you getting dizzy or is the lake big enough? It's big enough. You're like going in straight lines. It's just turning every so often. Let's say you fall off the board. You have to swim back. There's this floating dock that goes around the whole thing. You take your board off your feet. You swim back to the dock. You climb up there and you have to walk around back to where you started.

And so I was doing that. I just started getting fairly good. I was staying up on the board going around and I was like an Ollie or something. I tried to do some trick and I catch my toe edge. I come off the board. It's no big deal. I've done it a million times this summer. So I take the board off and I start to swim back to the dock so I can get back to where I started. The guy behind me, he came off his board too.

And I had no clue. But if you come off your rope, it keeps going all the way around the circle until it goes back to the start. So he came off his board behind me and I go to swim back. His handle comes in front of me. So as I take a stroke to swim...

That handle grabs me by the neck. You're in a noose now. Essentially, I was hung by this cable going at 20 miles per hour up over my head. Oh my god. I'm shocked it didn't immediately break your neck. Snap your neck. I'm shocked too. What saved me probably was it got tangled in my helmet strap. And it's pulling me this way. And it jerks me. But it spins me around.

And I make a 360. Oh, my God. And then the rope lets go of me. And it keeps going. It spit you out. If it hadn't spit me out, there's no way I could have gotten out. No. You'd have been being drugged by the neck at 20 miles an hour. My friends joke about it, too, actually. They're like, imagine just it flying around the circle. And then there's Kate making a wave. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck. It spit me out. And then I was in shock for a second.

I'm like choking. I'm spitting water. I'm freaking out. And I'm in the middle of this lake. I still have to swim to the side. And there's another guy coming up and I'm like, maybe he saw. And then he just flies by me. He didn't see anything. And I look over to like the main tower. They didn't see anything either. Oh, boy. It takes maybe five or so minutes to get to the side. And as I'm swimming, I'm like, maybe I just overthought that.

Maybe that wasn't a big deal. I'm up on that side dock and I'm just sitting there. And I 100% convinced myself that it was an overreaction and everything's okay. And so I grabbed my board and I walked back to the start and my friend had just got there. And I'm very short. I'm like you, Monica. I'm 5'2". And so he can't see my neck.

And I'm asking him, hey, Josh, did you see what just happened out there? And he's like, oh, yeah, your trick. That was really good. And I was like, no, look at my neck and tell me what you see. And I look up for him and his face drops. He's like, oh, my God, what just happened? Because it was raw and it was bleeding and it was disgusting. And so we went up to the people who

who ran this park and we asked them if they had a first aid kit because my neck was all the way open. They were like, well, we've got stuff for bug bites. Okay. All right. Let's start there. So we go to Josh's truck because he's got a first aid kit and then they come find me. I'm like, okay, maybe they found something. And they're like, hey, can you sign this waiver? Can we take a picture? And can you do all this? Sign this paperwork, read through all this? Oh my God. And so I did. You did? No. No, no.

They cannot present you with paperwork right after this happens. While your neck is exposed. Oh, my God. I know. But I found out this summer that park got closed permanently. Other people maybe had a similar... I also hear rumors about a nasty divorce with the owners. I don't know. Okay. We can't go back. So, did they offer you anything? They didn't even offer me a refund for that day. They were like, oh...

Well, the day's almost over. Oh, my God. This makes me think of the amusement park one where the girl's eyelid ripped off and they gave her a shirt with her name airbrushed on it. That could have gone so badly. Did you ever do it again? That same day, my friend Josh, he was like, we should just leave. You're injured. And I told him, if I don't do it again today, I'm never, ever going to do it again. So I did get back out there that day and I watched for flying rope. Oh, my God.

I'm the same brand of stupid, Kate. I rode after my big motorcycle accident and I did more sessions. Mountain biking accident. I'm like, well, I have the whole day passed and just rode with bloody legs the rest of the day. I mean, you paid for it already. When you're mad at yourself, you need to punish yourself somehow. Like you fucked up. I can't believe I let that happen. Yes. What's wrong with us? Do you have any scourge? Not really, but I have a picture of it. Do you want to see a picture? Yes, of course.

Oh my God, guys. It's very serious. It's the size of a banana. It's under your chin and it's fucking purple and red. And then you got a bunch of rope burn. I got pretty beat up. Yeah, you did. And you kept riding. I tip my hat to you. I think I'm glad this shut down. This isn't a great operation. There's one in Waco that I keep telling my friends to...

that we should go to. And they're like, you almost died last time you did that. But in your mind, you're like, well, now I know what to do, though. I crash and I look for ropes. It's a completely different park. I'm sure they run it very different. Oh, I bet it's run like a Navy ship. The couple's probably happily married. Yes. Healthy relationship with the owners. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Thank you, Kate. Yeah. Thank you, guys.

Actually, I heard on the podcast the other week that I share a birthday with your daughter, December 19th. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Terrible birthday. No, I love it. Oh, good. She loves hers too. I guess that's in my own head. Everybody's already together. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it gets mixed together with Christmas, but everybody's included. That's a good point. Her birthday party's got a huge turnout. There you go. You are a very glass half full kind of gal. Yeah. Thank you very much.

It's aspirational. It really is. Well, great meeting you and we're delighted to have you. Thank you. All right. Take care, Kate. Bye. All right. Bye. What a good time Charlie Kate was. Is there an equivalent to good time Charlie for girls? It doesn't have to be gendered. Charlie can be. Well, Charlie does go both ways, doesn't it? Those were intense. Those were hard. Yeah, they took it out of me. It was a lot. I'm scared.

Six feet under. What are you most afraid to do now? Go swimming in the ocean. Well, I'm not. But you're not even going to do that. The thing is, I'm already not doing that. And you're not going to be at a wakeboard park. Exactly. So I guess...

I don't do much bike riding. Car wash? Yeah. Honestly, that is the scariest one because it was so freak. Hated that. But also loved it. Yeah, me too. No one can listen to it, but that's fine. Yeah, no one will hear it, but that's fine. We'll put it out anyways. All right, I love you. Love you. Hope you don't knock on wood. Knock on wood. Okay, bye. All right, good night. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We know a theme song. Oh.

Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, I rhyme-ish. On the fly, I rhyme-ish. Enjoy. Enjoy.