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
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foreign.