Armchair Anonymous: Near Death

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. Yeah. Remember the bear attack? I know.

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, whoa, the bear attack.

But yeah, this one's gnarly. Do you, 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. So see you next time.

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. ♪. ♪ Good times take them slow. ♪. ♪ My life, I had them both.

All right, Brat.

I'm scared already. Oh, this is great for six feet under.

You'll probably have heard a lot of these.

Yeah.

Hello, hello.

Hi, who's helping you, Brat?

This is my brother-in-law, Travis. I know Travis.

Wait, Rob says he knows Travis.

Yeah, I know Rob, since he was like 15.

Oh, wow. Are you guys in Chicago?

Yes, sir.

What?

Oh, he's coming over.

How fun.

I knew he was gonna be a very valuable person very early on, so congratulations on getting a great team member, my man.

Oh, believe me, we know it. Wowie, wow, how fun is this?

Yeah, this is exciting. I'm gonna 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 gonna 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, 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 it. That's right. But you seem to be wearing maybe a death metal shirt or something. Is that a band?

Yeah, if you wanna 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 condition called hydrocephalus. That's where I have extra fluid around the brain. So they put in kind of a catheter. They call it a shunt.

Robert Durst has one.

Oh, really?

Yep, on his trial, you could see his shunt very clearly.

Sometimes this thing works, sometimes it doesn't. So when I was 13, I kind of outgrew it, and then it started causing problems. So I had about three brain surgeries that year. 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?

Being radical.

Yeah, I'm riding around doing my thing. My friend, we'll 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.

Super cool.

I'm gaining speed. I see him standing by there, 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?

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 had taken some tissues out, and she's blotting my bloody neck hole with the tissues. I kind of felt like maybe the bleeding had stopped. I mean, there was an initial like explosion of blood.

You're on the mend.

My trachea is kind of like hanging out on 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.

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.

So 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 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 shoot out, you realize, back is fine. I got bigger fish to fry here.

Yes, yes.

So spent maybe two, 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.

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, fucking idiot.

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.

Okay, this explains a little bit. He likes jokes and pranks, and tricks and falls. That's what happened here. It didn't go great.

I'm shocked he wasn't recording it. But yeah, you're right. He's on a path already.

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 him. 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, so they were flush.

Oh my God. This was $1993.. So it was probably worth a little bit more.

Yeah, six, $7 million now.

Yeah, something like that. We weren't great friends after that, but we're stuck in the same classes. So we made the piece. But then, I think a year later, he moved away.

Chasing stardom. Did he ever apologize?

He apologized 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.

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. Maybe. He was in denial.

Yeah, he could have thought. He had plenty of time to get out of the way. Why didn't he 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.

And then he's always living in fear that this story will come out.

Wow, well, that is near death, for sure.

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.

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?

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. 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.

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 did. Oh, David did?

Not to be critical, but you think a lot of people are dead. It's kind of a common, it comes up kind of. Who?

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 was dead.

I think recently I did it.

Yeah. 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.

Maybe 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 did. 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, and we're knocking on wood.

Yeah, 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 because-.

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.

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 this 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.

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'd 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.

Oh, my God.

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 car.

The headliner. What the fuck had happened?

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. 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. I look over to my right to look at my brother. We're just in shock. He's okay. I look down at my legs, and they're okay.

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.

So 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 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 carwash powered down.

Oh, my 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.

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. And I thought, oh, my God, I'm finally gonna be on the news.

Yeah, silver lining.

The news never came.

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? 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 wild. My dad said, from his perspective, when it happened, 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.

That's insane.

I mean, I guess probably their insurance reimbursed their insurance somehow.

Whatever those super damages.

I feel like you should get at least like a $1,000 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, oh, that's what you get when you try to save $2?.

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, ugh.

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 point, it's 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.

And I really don't go to the car wash anymore.

I'm too afraid. 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. Haven't heard one like that.

Thank you, Hope.

You're welcome. I do wanna say before we go that I appreciate y'all's 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 for this month.

Oh, that's 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.

Rob,

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. Set the scene for us. What year is this? Where is it at?

This was in 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've swam in the ocean for a dozen years and I had retired a year and a half earlier.

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, 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 its breech is out of the water. That was me.

No.

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 was up.

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 did 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 it was a great white.

Your mind goes very quickly. at that moment. Do you get to the point where you surrender? You're like, I'm gonna 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.

Tell me this now, you work at the aquarium. I had always heard you wanna 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.

Oh, okay. But I would have aimed, 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 kinda 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.

Oh, my God.

And the water was red, and I knew I was in horrible trouble. I'd just swum 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.

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 gone paddleboarding, and they heard me, and they started coming my way.

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 that something was way wrong. They were mentally preparing. Paul was thinking, if it is a shark, I'm gonna take the paddle and put it down his throat. He's a first responder.

Wow.

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 Heath put the second surfboard in the water for me.

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, mama.

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 gonna fall off the board. My legs didn't work, my belly didn't work, I was unconscious.

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. Happens to be six blocks from where I was. There's a hospital five miles away, but the taxpayers pay to keep the ambulance closed. So I gotta thank everybody. But there's another step in between.

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 a Where's Beach or Daytona. You might not have the same staff on hand.

Pretty good point.

Whoa. Wow, 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 gonna lose the leg. She looked at my face and saw that I was in my 60s and my face, she said, was gray.

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 surgeons ready to go, scalpels in hand, 59 minutes after the shark bite.

Wow. Whoa. 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 by my room and he said, when I had 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.

Yeah, it's a six half dozen, yeah, yeah, yeah. 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.

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.

Fuck. 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 and I'm back in.

I'm proud of you, I'm glad you're staying away. Yeah, fuck that. There's other places to swim. Don't catch fate 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 2000 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 gonna 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 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 here.

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.

Yeah, stay out of the water. Yeah, will do. Okay, bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Oh, my gosh.

Holy, 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, 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 gonna chance it, okay.

Hello? Oh, 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?

You are coming through my headphones.

Okay, then this is gonna 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. I don't know if you've ever gone through the Woodlands area. There's a Wakeboard Cable Park.

Oh, no kidding.

They've got a man-made lake, and there's 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.

What, they're trying to make it like a single spot?

Yeah, that'd be cute. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah. 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.

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.

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, and then the rope lets go of me, and it keeps going.

It spit you out. If it hadn't have 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 frying 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.

Maybe that wasn't a big deal. Uh-huh.

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 grab my board, and I walk 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". Uh-huh. And so he can't see my neck, and I'm asking him, hey, Josh, did you see what just happened out there?

Ha!

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.

Okay. Oh, my God, 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? And can we take a picture? And can you do all this, sign this paperwork, read through all this? Oh, my God.

You did? Oh, no.

No, no, no. No, no, no.

They cannot present you with paperwork right after this. 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.

Oh, 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.