James: Let's see what was I was.

Caitlin Van Mol: How old it was then you were 3330 in 2006 James

McVey was a man with a plan.

James: So 33 years old, I was working at Bennigan's as a

bartender, kind of doing a little bit of management shifts.

That was going to be my long term goal, was to be a manager

with the preference of eventually owning my own

restaurant. So that's kind of where I was just, you know, I

guess living the life

Caitlin Van Mol: on February 20, 2006 James was driving home from

his shift at Bennigan's in Fort Worth Texas,

James: and the weather was bad, but it wasn't terrible. It was

just it was a cold. It doesn't really get icy cold in Texas

often, right? So it was just different. I grew up in Denver,

so I think I have a pretty good idea of driving in the snow and

stuff like that. But when it gets but when it gets bad down

here, it's not snow, it's just ice. And I don't care where you

grew up at or where you're from or stuff like that, but driving

on ice is just almost impossible for no matter who you are. But I

just took what I knew from living in Colorado, just drive

slow. Don't make erratic movements, don't slam on the

brakes. So when I was driving home that night, I didn't feel

any angst or like I was like, if I just go slow on the highway,

I'll be fine, because I lived about 10 miles from my job

Caitlin Van Mol: to get home, James had to take i 20 to i 35

which connect with multi level overpasses that Chris and cross

in this tangled octopus web.

James: So highway connects to a highway, connects to a highway

connects to a highway. But when you have three or four highways

connecting at the same time, you can't run those on and off ramps

at the same level, right? So what they do is they build up

and going from i 20 to i 35 there's a just an off ramp. But

granted, this off ramp is considerably high. So he's

coming around the corner, and as I did, there was headlights

facing me.

Caitlin Van Mol: This was a one way road, as most ramps are, and

this car was facing the wrong way.

James: And I was like, Oh, this isn't good. Somebody probably

spun out, because you see it all the time. Happens often here. So

I slowed down tremendously. Probably went like five miles an

hour past them, rolled down my windows and just kind of looked

to see what the status was and stuff like that. As I drove past

and their windows, one of their Windows was down, and they were

screaming. And I was like, and it was, it was a lady. I can

tell it was at least one lady. And I was like, Oh man,

Caitlin Van Mol: there were actually two sisters and one of

their young sons in the car. James drove a little further

just to get off the ramp.

James: And I was like, All right, what do I do here? What's

the best situation? What's the best way to do this? I was like,

well, there's, there's no cars. It's probably 230 in the

morning, three o'clock in the morning, so there's very little

traffic that time of day. Anyways, I was like, I need to

go check on her just to make sure she's okay. So I got in my

car, kind of held on to the the barrier wall, walking back up to

the car, because it was, it was all icy, and I get up there, and

there was two ladies in the car. They're both pretty, pretty

hysterical. They were scared. I think they're backwards on the

highway that I'm not sure if the airbags had deployed or not, but

the one lady had some blood on her, on her mouth, and I was the

driver, and the passenger was just screaming a bunch. And I

was like, oh dear. I said, Are you guys all right? And they

just really couldn't speak to me clearly, because they were just

really hysterical. And I was like, Do you want me to call 911

and she held up her phone. So I thought that meant she had

called 911, right? But I wasn't really there wasn't good enough

communication to be clear what was what was going on. So I sat

there for a minute, and this diesel started coming around.

The 18 big 18 wheeler started coming around the corner, and it

just started sliding. And I was like, oh, excuse my language,

because I go shit. This isn't good.

Caitlin Van Mol: This is live to tell the podcast where I talk to

some of the bravest people who have been through the most

horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin van

mol. You.

Okay, the diesel truck was a bit of a fake out.

James: So I started walking back towards my car, and the diesel

is just slid past me, and it just went on down the road and

just kept on going. I was like, oh my god, that was crazy. And

so I sat there for a second. I was like, What do I do here? And

I went back up to the car, and I said, Hey, I'm going to call 911

and then I'm going to go back to my car. So I called 911 and then

I started walking back to my car, and the 911 operator. Was

like, just asking me, like, simple questions, where are you

at? What's the situation? I said, Well, his car is backwards

on the on the highway. I'm just out talking to them. What do I

What should I do? Yeah, and they're like, well, you should

go get in safety. How are the ladies doing? And I said, I

don't know exactly. I know one of them was bleeding from her

mouth. And I said, but I think one of them's pregnant, and

they're like, Well, how bad is it for her? And I said, let me

go back up and ask. So I walked back up to the car again, and I

tried to talk to me. I said, Hey, I'm on the phone. I don't

want you guys need help, like, what? What's the situation? It

was just a lot of screaming again. I said, just, just bring

an ambulance, I said, because it's really hard for me to talk

to them. I think they're just scared to death. Cars keep

coming by, they keep sliding. We need to get the highway shut

down at least, or something like that. I'm not remember exactly

what my words were, but it was something to that effect,

Caitlin Van Mol: while James was still up on the overpass by the

stopped car,

James: and then a pickup truck came and started sliding. And I

was like, Oh. I said, oh shit, here we go again. And I started

kind of trying to walk fast past the car, and that time I heard

the truck hit the car, and I was like, Oh crap. It's really close

to me. And then it hit me.

Caitlin Van Mol: Not only did the truck hit James, the impact

threw him off the overpass, 70 feet to the ground,

James: and I remember just going off the side of the highway and

being like, oh, like, I'm dead, because I know how far down it

is, yeah. And I just remember thinking I'm dead, and then I

was on the ground, and I'm like, What's going on here? Like, how

am I on the ground? I don't remember hitting the ground, but

I was, but I was awake. I was kind of a might get a little

emotional here. I'm sorry, just kind of own, okay, I haven't

talked about this all in a while. Um, I was laying on like,

the side of a hill where my face was below the rest of my body,

so I was kind of pointed downhill, and I knew where I

was. And I was like, how did I get down here? And how am I? How

am I okay? Because I didn't hurt,

Caitlin Van Mol: to be clear, James was not okay. He was

definitely severely injured. He just didn't feel the pain yet.

James: But I was really I was really warm, and it was really

cold, and I'm like, This doesn't make any sense. Like I can see

my breath, my mouth felt super, super hot. Like Like, I felt

like my mouth was running, and I couldn't figure out why my mouth

was running, like dripping. I was just kind of, I was very

confused with what was found, what was going on. Because,

like, I said, I thought I was dead, and then I was like, Okay,

I'm in a bad spot.

Caitlin Van Mol: He means bad spot, figuratively and

literally,

James: I'm in an area where there's nothing, there's no

businesses, and I'm in like a little ravine where there's a

creek down there, so there's no, no people are going to be down

there. And I was like, I need to figure out how to get help. So I

tried to get up, and when I pushed, went to push myself up.

I pushed with my with my forearms instead of my hands.

And I was very confused by that. I was like, why? What's going on

here? It's pretty grass.

Caitlin Van Mol: Sorry about this. I'm used to hearing it,

but it's still gross, you know?

James: Well, that's good, that's good. That means you haven't

become numb to it yet. So my wrist broke through the inside

of both of my forearms. So when I was pushing up, I was pushing

up with, like, my mid arm. And I was like, oh, that's that's

definitely not good. And I was like, Okay, I need to figure out

how to, like, wiggle my my lower body. And I could feel my left

leg, but I look back at my right leg, and it was like a slinky

inside my jeans. And I was like, Oh, that isn't good either. And

so I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And so I

started kind of screaming the best I could. I started

screaming like, help me. I think is what I keep saying over and

over again, help me. Help me. But Come to find out, my jaw was

all broken, like my upper teeth broke all out and broke the

whole upper jaw. My bottom jaw came through my bottom of my

chin right here, and that's it was just bleeding so bad, and

that's what all the warmth was that I was feeling. But again,

nothing hurt, which is just, it's the craziest thing in the

world. Yeah, I'd never broken a bone before in my life. And I

was like, this should all hurt tremendously, right? But, but

nothing hurts. I don't know what the ladies got out of the car,

but I heard the ladies talking. And so I don't know how I heard

them talking, but I heard the ladies talking as I was

screaming, help me. But it wasn't very. Loud, whatever I

was screaming. There was not a lot of decibels coming out of

jaw.

Caitlin Van Mol: The way that it was, it was a little, probably a

little hard to,

James: yeah, it's so but I could hear them, but they thought I

was a homeless person. They were like, don't worry about that.

That's a homeless person down, down there, just causing,

causing problems, because they didn't know where I went. I

guess they thought I walked. They thought I walked back down

to my car.

Caitlin Van Mol: So no one knew that James fell from the

overpass, which meant no one would be looking for him or

could get him the help he desperately needed. But then

James heard a voice,

James: but then I hear somebody talking to me. I'm like, This is

crazy. Like, I don't know how somebody's talking to me, yeah,

but, like, maybe two to three feet away from me when I fell

off the bridge, I had my phone on me, and my phone fell next to

me, and it's and it was an old flip phone, and it actually

stayed

Caitlin Van Mol: open again. This is 2006 Wow.

James: So they could hear me screaming, and once I stopped

screaming, I could hear them talking to me. And they're like,

James, is that you? And I'm like, Yes. They're like, where

are you at, James?

Unknown: We have an ambulance on the way to you. Okay? Off the

bridge.

James: I'm like, I got hit by a car, and I'm under the bridge.

Well, I think that that guy who I originally was talking to

didn't understand what I was because I wasn't clear at all

when I'm talking, it's as mumbled as it gets. He kept

saying, You're you're on the bridge. And I said, No, I'm

under the bridge. I kept saying, I'm underneath the bridge. Send

help. I need help. And he had, I don't know if he somebody else

came to help him. And it was a lady that was on then started

talking to me, and she I think she might have know the area a

little bit better.

Unknown: James, did you land on another bridge? Are you in the

grass? James, talk to me, okay. Are you in the grass? Are you in

grass? You're in the grass. Okay, I'm getting help too, you

stay with me. Okay, I'm getting help too, you stay with me.

Caitlin Van Mol: But even with this reassurance, James had no

idea how they would find him under this massive overpass in

the dark.

James: The major hospital in the area is probably six or seven

miles from where we're at. I know which way they got to come

down, but they go the wrong the opposite way of where I'm at.

And then I start freaking out again. I'm like, You're going

the wrong way? Yeah, I had never been down on the road by where I

was right, and I didn't know how to get there. And you can't get

there from the way I would think you would get there. So they

were actually going to get to a road to get to this service road

to get to me. Right they got, I could see them pull up next to

me on the road. They come running out with a stretcher. It

was two guys, and they just kind of looked at me like, Oh, you're

you're in some trouble. And the one guy said, Hey, I need to

straighten your leg out before we put you on the

Caitlin Van Mol: stretcher. Can you describe your leg again?

James: It just, it just looked zigzaggy in my jeans. It's all

Caitlin Van Mol: like, squished, squished, yeah? And I'm like,

That's not bag of rocks, yeah.

James: I don't know how to describe it. It was just very it

was like, if you dropped a pair of pants on the ground, that's

what it looked like, not with something inside of them, right?

Like there's supposed to be something in there that would

fill out that gene, and there's not something in there, right?

Now, they put the baller on my neck, and then they rolled me

over, and he's like, this is gonna hurt more than anything's

ever hurt in your life. I don't know what he put on my leg. He

pulled my leg to straighten it, put an air cast on it. And that

hurt. That hurt like, like I was screaming like us, like, I don't

know how to explain it, but I was screaming pretty bad. Then

they would take me up to the ambulance, and they get me in

the ambulance. I knew I wasn't breathing. Well, I kept choking

a bunch. And so I guess they had to do, they had to do a

tracheotomy in the in the ambulance, which is something

that I guess I've been told that they don't often do. Yeah, and I

remember being flustered going, oh man, because I saw something

about if you get a tracheotomy like, the scar never goes away.

It's always big, and it's right here in your neck. And I was

like, Oh my gosh, now I got this big star. I'm like, I remember

getting to the to the hospital, and they, like a bunch of

doctors, came around me, and how I communicate this with them

also, but I told them they couldn't do anything to me until

they got a hold of my mother. They're like, we need to put you

in right? I was like, You can't do anything until you get a hold

of my mom. And so they, I guess they called and got a hold of

her, and then they came back. They said, We talked to your

mom. We told her not to come up here, which for safety reasons,

because it the ice is so terrible learning. What good

does it do to have more people get hurt and stuff like that?

Yeah, so. And I was like, Okay, let's you did your part. I do

what you got to do now.

Caitlin Van Mol: We'll be right back. James doesn't remember a

lot from the days after the accident, but they

James: weren't sure how my melon was going to I call it my melon.

My melon. My melon was gonna be because I had such a pretty

dramatic head injury, because I definitely hit face first, yeah,

breaking my jaw and my mouth here, and then it like broke my

skull all the way around. Broke my facial bones in here. They

had to reconstruct all that. Don't know if they thought I was

going to die. I don't know they I don't know they thought I was

going to end up good, maybe somewhere in between. You know,

I had just wires and tubes and everything all over my face is

my look my left leg. It wasn't in a cast, but it was in a like

a Velcro brace that kept my leg perfectly straight, and then my

left arm was from the elbow surgery and the wrist surgeries

and stuff like that. It had metal bars that went across the

length of my from my wrist to my elbow that protruded from from

the skin probably six inches,

Caitlin Van Mol: yeah, so it's almost like one of those halos,

James: but from your arm, yeah, right. And then my arm was in a

cast that you'll see, like people who have, like ACL

surgeries or something like that, with the little metal

spinners on the side. And then my right arm was in a cast, I

believe was in a cast. It was in something. And I'm not sure if

it was a cast or just a plaster thing. We had to wire my mouth

shut. So I don't know if I was awake during that time. I might

remember

Caitlin Van Mol: some of it, but yeah, or if it's just like a

drug haze?

James: Yeah, I don't know how it how it equates to being

cognitive of of the situation. I just remember going to like

different testing things, going to a CT scan, going to an MRI,

going to a different room to do this, being in a surgical room,

going to a different surgical room. And then I started to

remember people being there, my parents, my friends, stuff like

that. I just started to remember them being there, and remember

what a bad situation I was in, because I just couldn't,

couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything,

Caitlin Van Mol: and that included talking, because his

jaw was wired shut. Not being able to communicate was really

hard on James, until someone finally came up with a solution.

James: And then I don't remember who came up to me and said that

they have like a board with letters on it, and they would

give me a pencil that I could hold in my cast in my right arm,

and I could point to letters. And they would figure out what I

was kind of saying by me pointing to letters. So that

kind of made it way better, if that makes sense, because at

least being able to talk to people makes it or communicate

what it is you need or what you're feeling, or trying to

figure out even what happened, yeah, still trying to figure

out, still still trying to understand what ended up

happening and stuff like that.

Caitlin Van Mol: So what is the first conversation you remember

having with the doctors about how bad your injuries were? I

mean, it's fairly obvious if you're in, like, the big gas,

but like,

James: All right, so it's hard to describe, because that

everyone has their own specialty. So you don't have,

like, one doctor, you have, you know, I had an EMT. Doctor, I

had my arm. Doctor, I had my leg. Doctor, I had just all the

different people that would come in there. So they were just

focused on my job is to get this part better for you, right? I

remember ever thinking like, Oh, my God, this is the worst

scenario in the world. My parents are pretty positive now,

like they're making me better. You know, we're gonna get

through this. We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna that kind of

stuff. And I've got a tremendously positive attitude,

I think because Because of them, I kind of came to terms with

they said they can fix some stuff. So whatever they can fix,

they fix, and whatever they don't, we just figure out how to

get through. Keep going forward. After that, I knew I was still

pretty messed up, but just I was like, Man, I wish you would have

got pictures. I wanted to see what I looked like, because they

kept saying your head was like the size of a basketball. I was

like, what they're like, your head was like size of a

basketball. It's like, how's that possible? Like, we don't

know.

Caitlin Van Mol: As injured as he was, James was really. Really

not interested in sticking around the hospital.

James: So it was funny. So I lived pretty close to the

hospital. I lived about two miles, and depending on my state

of mind, with how many drugs I guess I had in me, I kept

thinking, I'm just gonna go home like, I'm I feel fine. I just

want to go home like I kept wanting to go to work the next

day. And they're like, you are. You can't do anything. Like you

can't talk. I feel fine. I kept trying to get out of bed, and I

would fall on the ground because I had no support with my leg,

and I kept pulling my pick line out. So they ended up. My mom

allowed them to handcuff me to the bed, which I was pretty bad

at for for a while, because I just the drugs make you feel

fine and and I just, I guess I didn't grasp how bad it was. If

you were sensible, you would know you're not going to work

the next day

Caitlin Van Mol: in the hospital. James lost a ton of

weight. Well, not a ton, exactly,

James: because I ate all my food through a tube for, I don't

know, six weeks or something like that. And I ended up losing

probably 40 pounds, 50 pounds, so I weighed 100 pounds when I

was getting ready to leave the rehab place. And I'm six foot. I

was six foot, somehow I grew almost three inches. So I'm

like, almost six three now nobody really knows. Can explain

how it happens, but if I was six foot my whole entire life,

Caitlin Van Mol: like if that crushing of that one leg, then

it just kind of like got stretched out. But it would only

make sense if one leg was longer than the other, you know, right?

James: Some of the doctors have said it was because I laid down

for so long that it helped my discs start to, like, separate

from not having so much compression on it. Because after

you get to like, when you start to get older, just years of

compression makes you shrink. They said that since you laid

down for so long, it might have eased up a lot, but I still

haven't shrunk any. Still, six, two and a half or something like

that. It's the craziest thing. Well, my friends, all my short

friends, would always joke. So I got to do is fall off the bridge

and I grow three inches. Right? If you want to try it, you can

always try it.

Caitlin Van Mol: We here at live to tell. And by we, I mean me

Caitlin, are officially against jumping off great heights just

to make yourself taller. Getting those extra inches wasn't all

James was curious about.

James: So I stayed in the hospital for for I think, three

weeks in intensive care, and then they sent me to a rehab

facility for, I think, two months or something. But when I

was in there, I asked about the 911, tape, and I was like, Hey,

do they have a tape of it? And mom's like, what? I'm like,

yeah, like, I want to share, because I'm kind of not sure

about my story. Like, what happened? And I know I was on

the phone the whole time, it would be interesting just to

hear the whole scenario. And so she called them to ask about it,

and the lady she talked to was a lady who was on the phone with

me, and she asked, mon asked, is there a way we can get a copy of

the tape? And the lady's like, ma'am, you'll, you'll never, you

don't ever want to hear that. I know

Caitlin Van Mol: I've already played a bit of the call, but

it's 20 minutes long, and to give you an idea of what the

bulk of it sounds like.

So, yeah, hard to listen to. Back to the conversation between

James's mom and the 911, operator.

James: And she's like, No, no, um, it's not for me, it's for my

son. And she said he lived through it. And she said, Yeah.

And he's like, Oh my God. She's like, don't tell him not to

listen to it. She was like, It's horrific. And, you know, but I

was able to listen to it and separate myself from like, it's

almost like it's a movie or something. Yeah, I don't

understand how I listened to it. There was a gentleman named Alex

branch who wrote, wrote an article that was in the paper.

He did a couple of them, and he wanted to listen to the tape.

And we made it, probably, I don't know, five, six minutes

into the tape, and he was crying. He's like, he's like, I

gotta get out of here. I can't listen. He's like, we're good.

I've heard enough. Oh, God, this pretty crazy. You want to help

somebody who's screaming, anyone who's a good natured person,

just being in there bothers your hurts your body, to not be able

to help the person, yeah, especially if you know it's

real.

Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah, do you think maybe because you knew you

obviously lived?

James: Yeah, I would think he would know too, because I'm

like, you're talking to me, but, but I think he didn't understand

that I went through it, and so I kind of knew, I knew it wasn't

in pain when I was there. I knew it was. It's a very strange

thing that your body can do like I try to put myself if it was my

brother or my my mom or or something like that. How would

my insides feel if I heard them in agony like that? So I know

that when I'm screaming like that, I I'm more scared than I

am hurt.

Caitlin Van Mol: Did the driver of the truck stop.

James: I believe he stopped. I don't know that for a fact. I

believe he stopped. I never met him. He was on his way. This is

just a story I remember hearing. He was on his way to work. He

didn't do anything wrong. I mean, it wasn't, I would never

like blame him for, for what happened. It's just, it's just

unlucky. He's getting a situation where, you know if

headlights are facing you, who knows if he may, might have

pushed his brakes too fast or something like that and started

spinning and, I mean, he couldn't hit me if he wanted to

try. You just don't have that much control on the ice and

stuff like that. So I don't, I'll never blame him. Never had

ill will against him or anything like that. Because it just like

I said, it's just an accident.

Caitlin Van Mol: James eventually healed enough to be

released from the hospital, and he was eager to get the rehab

process going.

James: I've always been a real busy bee. I gotta move. I gotta

move. I gotta move. I gotta move. I gotta move. So then I

finally was able to get to the point to where they would let me

get out of the bed and get into my wheelchair by myself. And I

would just, like wheel myself around the rehab center, pushing

myself backwards with my left leg, because it

Caitlin Van Mol: was good. It's kind of say with your hands,

James: I couldn't do it. They would just sit on the side the

wheelchair, and I would just steer with my left leg. And they

had like, nicknames for me and all kinds of stuff like that,

because they just that, because I just thought I was the

craziest person that was like, I'm not going back to that tired

of the bed. Yeah. Then when I got home, it was a little more

difficult at home, just because you're in a smaller, little bit

more confined space. It's not set up for

Caitlin Van Mol: just zooming around in a wheelchair.

James: Yeah, there's certain amount of rehab time you can do

where they'll be like, Hey, you get an hour today. And I was

always like, I need four I need five hours. I need six hours. I

said, Can I just do it by myself? You just tell me what I

need to do, and you can leave, and I'll just, just don't take

me back to my room, because I can get myself back to my room,

just all and so I would go do extra rehab in the rehab

facility, just, and I don't remember what I was trying to

do, stretching. I was probably making stuff up, just so I

didn't have to go back to the room. I wasn't there to I wasn't

there to mess around. They all really appreciated it. They were

always on my side, and trying to, you know, hey, we see you're

doing this. You know, you should try to do this because it's your

next step. There was a lady. Her name was Kim. She almost ended

up being like my surrogate mom or older sister, or whatever you

want to call her, but she was, she was phenomenal. She was she

would talk me through it, and she taught me through the other

parts, the hard parts, the what are you gonna do next in life?

Where's your you know, this is where you're at now. Where do

you want to be? You've how hard you want to work. She was, she

was great for kind of all of that stuff. She wasn't just

there to help me with my fingers and my wrists and my elbows. She

was there to kind of see what my mental state was at the same

time. And it was easy for her, and I think I'm pretty good

communicator, and so I think it was just easy for her to see

that it's good to push me, because when you when you think

you're pushing me, I'm going to push myself harder and get

better results out of it.

Caitlin Van Mol: But it wasn't all work and no play.

James: When I moved to Texas from Colorado in 1995 and I

started going to the Texas Rangers. I've always been a big

baseball fan. I started going to the Rangers games, and opening

day is always a very big thing to go. And so I had been to

everyone since I had been there, and I was like, I'm not breaking

the streak, I'm going. But this was like, two months after the

accident, and the doctor's like, you're not going, I'm like, I'm

going, yeah, if I'm walking myself or something, then my

friends were like, We're gonna come bust him out of here if we

need to. He's go. He wants to go the baseball game. We're taking

him to the baseball game. And so they worked it out with the

rehab center, like, they sent a like, a bus for me, or something

like that, to come get me, and they took me out to the game for

the day, which was either I had no business being there

whatsoever. I was freezing, I was uncomfortable, like, you

know, I was miserable the entire time, but just the fact I

actually got to get out of the facility was amazing, and got to

be part of the day was amazing. And how much my friends even

fought for me. They were like, he wants to go, he's gonna go.

That was cool. So I had a great support system. My friends would

stay. A couple of my friends stayed overnight the whole time.

They just talked to me. Or I was always a night person, because I

was in the restaurant industry. So going to bed at four o'clock

or five o'clock in the morning, wasn't I? It wasn't new to me,

sure. So I'd stay up all night and there was nothing to do. So

the friends, they just hang out with me and stuff like that,

which was pretty nice. I had a really good support system.

Caitlin Van Mol: Even with this support system and

determination, James did struggle mentally with the

aftermath of the accident. I mean, it sounds like you're

super positive, and you did your rehab, and you did extra rehab.

But were there any other any, like dark times, I would

James: probably say that I I started drinking more than I had

drink in the past, and it was probably a bad mix of drinking

and because I was on painkillers, and I think it was

an avoidance. I don't know, try to be normal, but you're not

normal. I don't know how to categorize that. It was probably

wasn't the best thing I should have been doing, but it was a

way kind of to get to get through because the pain is

intense, and it's just something you can't it's crazy that it

doesn't hurt when it happens, but it hurts afterwards and for

a long period of time, and like it still hurts today. It's it's

exhausting. It makes you really tired. So you kind of look for

where you can get to, to where it doesn't hurt, where you don't

feel it all the times, and that might have been going to my own

little mental place, going and seeing my own counselor.

Caitlin Van Mol: We'll be right back with the extent of his

injuries and a long rehab journey. James's dad moved back

to Texas to take care of him.

James: My father moved down to Texas, and he lived with me in

my house for, I believe it was two and a half years. Might have

been three. Wow, helping me through rehab, doing stuff with

his work and stuff like that. He unfortunately had had some he

had had a DUI in in Denver that he didn't fulfill what he was

supposed to fulfill. When he moved down to take care of me,

he thought it was more important to come take care of me.

Caitlin Van Mol: Eventually, James's dad had to go back to

Denver to settle his legal situation. But then years later,

James: unfortunately, he ended up getting cancer.

Caitlin Van Mol: James worked it out with his boss at the time so

that he could take care of his dad.

James: So I spent a lot of time up there with my father. Kind of

it was interesting because he helped me for so much in the

previous 10 years, and then I was kind of returning the favor,

taking care of him and stuff like that. And unfortunately, he

passed away, but we got to spend a lot of time together. And it

was interesting because when my parents got divorced, when we

were young, we grew apart tremendously. And so between my

accent and his accident, that 10 years really brought us back

together, which was kind of a cool yeah, Silver Lining thing,

yeah,

Caitlin Van Mol: James was working hard to get a strength

and mobility back. But there was a problem that wasn't going to

be fixed with rehab.

James: There was a young man who was at JPS hospital who was a

student in the EMT department, and when my jaw broke, I didn't

have my front five teeth, about my jaw ripped out and all that

stuff and but he was like, I'm gonna make it my job to to get

that all fixed for you. I'm gonna get you some teeth. I'm

gonna get you, you know, some implants and repair your jaw and

do that kind of stuff. And who knows how much that cost to get

all this, this stuff done. So he but he started doing it helped

out, like the surge of part, and they removed bone from my hip to

build me a new jaw. And I appreciate that, because who

knows if you start from so far behind, you don't have teeth and

your fingers don't work and your hands don't work, and I just

can't imagine how much harder it would depend to get a job. And

the advantages they gave to my disadvantages was is huge,

Caitlin Van Mol: especially because James was in no position

to work for a long time.

James: I qualified for disability after like, a year,

which is crazy, but then they they paid me, kind of, they kind

of paid me to get better, which I appreciate to know him, but

the money you get is just nothing. There's no I was

getting, like, I think 720 to $5 a month or something like that.

I was like, I can't I just can't live on this I can't do anything

with this money. I couldn't pay my bills. I couldn't do anything

with it. So my friends would have an annual golf tournament

for me to help get a little bit more money, just to help me pay,

you know, whether it was going to rehab, or it's $15 a time, or

something like this, at $700 goes quick when you're paying

10, $15 every time you go anywhere, you still got to eat.

I had to have a seven. Phone. There's just things you just

have to have, and they just cost money. So they would have a golf

tournament for me.

Caitlin Van Mol: The Golf Tournament ran for three years.

James had also made some good connections while working at

Bennigan's, and one of the old executives there was branching

out and starting his own restaurant,

James: and he knew I wasn't working, he asked if I would

come consult for him for like, six months. So it gave me a

chance to make some money. Like, at this point in time, I didn't

have any teeth in the front of my mouth. My I was super skinny,

my hands were really contracted, and I really appreciate the guy

for for bringing me out there and treating me like a really,

it's like a normal person like he, he saw me as the person

before, not the person that I was standing in front of him.

Yeah, and I really respect him for for that. So I worked for

him for six months, and we opened a restaurant together.

And then one of the guys who originally did the one of the

newspaper stories on me did a, like, a, where, what, where is

this person now story,

Caitlin Van Mol: this is the same guy who listened to the 911

call with James

James: and gentleman that was that's in Fort Worth that does a

lot of charity stuff. Saw the story in the paper and got in

touch with the people who were doing the golf tournament. And

he donated, he donated some money to really help. And he

also said, when you're looking for work, come talk to me. It

was maybe eight months later, after that, I went to meet him.

His sister, I don't want to say, took me on as a project or

something like that, but she she, she really wanted to help

me, yeah. And so she was like, Maybe you should go back to

school. Will pay for you to go to school, which I appreciated a

ton, but that didn't help me pay my bills. And I was like, I

just, I can't live on $700 I mean, even if you pay for my

school, I just, I can't do it. And then I also, most school

work is done on a computer, and this all sounds like excuses and

stuff like that, but my fingers don't work.

Caitlin Van Mol: James's hands were in a loose fist most of his

time in the hospital, and sitting in that position for so

long caused contractures, which are the tightening of muscles or

tendons to the point where stretching out his hand fully

wasn't possible, so he doesn't have the dexterity to type for

school or work. There was

James: a great doctor there that tried to fix the contractures.

Where they go in and they take the I guess it's the ligaments

that contract. So they try to stretch the ligaments out. And

they did a couple of surgeries where they stretched them out,

and then they sell them above your knuckles. It's interesting

to see kind of how the ligaments go around your knuckle, over the

top and then come underneath, and that's how you get the kind

of that motion. But every time they did the surgery, the

ligaments kept ripping, and so they would go back to how they

were, and then they tried it again, and then it ripped again.

So they finally, I was like, just forget it. I'm I'm tired of

being surgery boy and

Caitlin Van Mol: so school wasn't going to be a good option

for James.

James: Let's see if we can get you back in that line of work.

So he introduced me to some people.

Caitlin Van Mol: James met a man who happened to be opening a new

restaurant,

James: and I ended up going and running that restaurant for him

for 10 years. Oh, so that was kind of the first step I made

out of that ended up being a 10 Year A 10 year deal, which was

pretty good

Caitlin Van Mol: after being in that job for 10 years. James

wanted to find a job where he could grow and ended up as an

operations manager at FedEx, but that ended up being too labor

intensive for his body,

James: but I kind of got strained with peak season that

goes from the second week of November to the first week of

January, and you don't like you don't get any time off. You work

six days a week. You work 10 to 12 hours a day. It's very

difficult on my body. Like just, I'll have what I call shutdown

days, where, if I'm just too active, Thursday, Friday,

Saturday, Sunday, comes along and I might be out of bed for

two hours. I mean, it's just, it just happens. It's just like my

body just doesn't want to. I can't, I can't open a bottle of

water. I can't, my hands don't work. I'm I'll be brushing my

teeth, and I'll drop my toothbrush out of my hand like,

four times, just because I can't hold on to it makes it makes no

sense to me, but it just every once in all my body is just

like, gives me the middle finger. Says, Nope, I'm not

working today,

Caitlin Van Mol: and James is still getting the middle finger

from his body. He had to have heart valve surgery in early

2025

James: there was complications in the surgery where I ended up

internally bleeding, and then for like, a couple of weeks, I

couldn't breathe. I kept calling the the doctor and being like,

I. I can't breathe. They take me in there, and they put me on,

like, a steroids and some other stuff, because they thought I

had just some kind of little bit of a, I don't know what they

thought I had inflammation or

Unknown: something like that. I was like, Guys, I'm telling you,

I can't breathe.

James: And so they kept giving me steroids, kept giving me

steroids, kept moving me steroids. I guess you're not

supposed to be on steroids for a long time anyways. And like, we

can't give you these anymore. I'm like, Lily, you got to

figure something out. And I said, I'm not lying to you guys.

I cannot breathe

Caitlin Van Mol: after several tests and several doctors.

James: So then they sent me to a lung doctor. And the lung doctor

is like, you have so much coagulated blood along the whole

right side of your chest that your lung can't expand.

Unknown: And I'm like, I've been telling people I can't breathe.

How did they not see that? I don't I don't understand it

James: at home. I don't know. Because he's like, you can see

it. And he's like, showing me. He's like, it's right here. You

can see it clear your day. And I'm like, You got to be kidding

me. I'm like, so what do I have to do? He's like, we have to go

in there and do something. So they go in there and it's it's

actually in the inside of your cavity. So it's not in your

bloodstream or anything like that. It's just in an open spot.

But since it had been there so long and the blood had started

to harden, my lungs rubbing on it started to form scar tissue.

So what they do is they go in and they peel off layers of your

lung to get below the scar tissue so that it can learn to

expand again. I'm like, awesome. So I had the surgery on a

Monday. I went home on a Wednesday or Thursday, and then

Friday, my back started hurting real bad, like my lower back.

And then Saturday, it was way worse. And I'm like, Man, I just

can't really stand up or sit down, or it's like, almost on

top of my butt. And I'm like, I'm not sure what's going on.

Then Sunday, I couldn't stand up anymore, and I started, like,

crawling around on the floor. So I made it to Monday, and I just

couldn't move at all. And I was like, I need to go to the

emergency room. So I went to the emergency room, and they did a

CT scan, and I had a bunch of blood clots in my vena cava

arteries, which are in your like lower abdomen. But during my

original accident, they put something in in my veins called

an IVC filter, which helps keep blood clots from getting to your

body, because you, I guess you form a lot of blood clots when

you have big accidents like that, yeah, well, I guess

they're supposed to take those out. Oh, and they never did.

Like, it looks like an octopus, but it's all made out of metal,

and it just sits in your vein, and the metal hooks to your

skin, like the opposite way, so it's keeps it locked in place.

There was getting to be so many blood clots that it was pulling

it along, like scratch marks and stuff like that. But then the

blood couldn't get through, and so I had such bad swelling

around my spine. That's why I couldn't walk. But it was

because of the I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad

thing. It was in there because I shouldn't have so many blood

clots to start with. Blood clots to start with. And the guy's

like, the guy, I ended going in for emergency surgery, he took

it out, and he's like, I've never seen blood clots. He's

big, this big. He shows me, like, the pictures of I'm like,

it's disgusting. I still can't breathe, like I did before, but

it's better than what it was.

Caitlin Van Mol: James is currently looking for work

again, sort of back to where he started after the accident.

James: Currently, I'm looking for a job, trying to figure out

I got I think I'm in the good enough space where I feel

comfortable getting that out again. And it's been difficult

trying to find a job, because I don't know what I can do now,

because my body is just slowing down as I get older, I can't do

the physical job as much as as I want to do. I really wish I

would have rethought the schooling thing 20 years ago

when they offered me the schooling thing that I just

don't know how it would have worked out, but every job is

kind of a sit behind a desk job, and I just, I just can't sit

behind a desk. Yeah, it's not it's not good for me,

physically, it's not good for me, and I just can't perform

like I want to perform for somebody who employs me.

Caitlin Van Mol: How do you stay so positive, given all this shit

that's been thrown at you?

James: My opinion is I just don't think there's a different

way to get to it and still be saying, when I was at the rehab

center, there was a gentleman who had come in who had been

shot in his back, and he was paralyzed from his waist down,

and he would go into his rehab because they made him go to

rehab, and he would lay on this big, giant bed, and he wouldn't

do anything, and they would try to work with him, like, Hey,

come on. You know, you just got to stay positive. And he's like,

I must. I'm not living in that chair my whole life. And he was

just really negative. And they do their best they could to to,

you know, kind of prop them up and, like, I went over there and

talked to him a couple times, and just kind of like, man,

we'll figure this out. He's like, Look at me. I'm like,

nothing on me works. So we'll figure this out together and and

get. Better and stuff like that, and then, like, three days

later, he's dead. And I was like, what happened? Like, he

seemed fine, and they kind of just and who knows, with the

myth or whatever, but they just said, you know, if you just lose

all will to live, you're just gonna die. I said, some people

just give up. And it's weird. It's like they just give up on

everything, and the body just quits. I mean, that doesn't make

any sense. They said it happens more than you think. If you

don't want to live and you don't want to just keep going, your

body will just quit on you. Yeah, and so that really stuck

with me. And I was like, I'm not gonna I'm just not gonna stop. I

just don't think there's a different way. I just don't

think there's another way to do it. And I you, and I there

probably is, but I'm going to stick with my way, because right

now, it's working.

Caitlin Van Mol: This is live to tell. I'm Caitlin van mol. You

can follow the show on Instagram and Tiktok at live to tell

podcast if you enjoy today's episode, please rate review and

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foreign.