On the morning of April 19, 1995, a former US Army soldier parked a rented Ryder truck in front of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, located in downtown Oklahoma City.
Inside the truck was everything he needed to carry out his plan of terrorism and mass murder. He had a large bomb, which he created using agricultural fertilizer and some chemicals, including diesel fuel. After parking the car, he got out and walked toward his getaway car, a yellow Mercury Marquis.
He ignited a timed fuse, and a second fuse as backup.
Inside the building, in one of the office conference rooms, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board had just begun a 9 am meeting.
The blast effect was equivalent to over 5000 pounds of TNT, and could be heard and felt 55 miles away. The blast either destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 4-block radius. 86 cars were either burned or destroyed, and a large section of the Federal building had been reduced to rubble. News crews were shocked when they first viewed the damage from their helicopter.
Inside the building, 163 people were killed. Additional casualties were one person in the nearby Athenian building, one woman in a parking lot across the street, two people in the Oklahoma Water Resources building, and a rescue worker who was struck on the head by falling debris. In total, 168 people died that day. 19 of those were children. Almost 700 other people were injured.
My guest today, Amy, was in the Federal Building that morning. She worked on the third floor, at the Federal Employees Credit Union.
You’re about to hear her talk about what happened to her that day. But just as amazing is what has happened to her SINCE that day.
And on top of that – this is a Flashback episode. Amy told this story on the podcast about 5 years ago. So at the end you’ll hear a conversation I had with her just recently about what she’s up to recently. I’ll just say this – she’s retired now, but she’s definitely not relaxing.
If you’d like to contact Amy, you can do that through her website: AmyDowns.org
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/215
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF)
On the morning of April 19, 1995, a former US Army soldier parked a rented Ryder truck in front of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, located in downtown Oklahoma City.
Inside the truck was everything he needed to carry out his plan of terrorism and mass murder. He had a large bomb, which he created using agricultural fertilizer and some chemicals, including diesel fuel. After parking the car, he got out and walked toward his getaway car, a yellow Mercury Marquis.
He ignited a timed fuse, and a second fuse as backup.
Inside the building, in one of the office conference rooms, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board had just begun a 9 am meeting.
Woman
Before the Oklahoma Water Resources Board meets, they actually sit in this room and discuss the application and vote whether to approve or deny the application. So they’re the decision makers. You’ll receive a copy of my proposed recommendation and can attend that board meeting and present your arguments directly to the 9 member board. They generally meet the second Tuesday of every month. So you’ll be advised of that. With regard to this proceeding, basically there are 4 elements that I have to receive information regarding–
Interrupted by very loud explosion
(Indistinct chatter and yelling can be heard)
Woman
Everybody, let’s get out of here now! (confusion and chatter) …press the alarm!
Scott
The blast effect was equivalent to over 5000 pounds of TNT, and could be heard and felt 55 miles away. The blast either destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 4-block radius. 86 cars were either burned or destroyed, and a large section of the Federal building had been reduced to rubble. News crews were shocked when they first viewed the damage from their helicopter.
Male reporter
It looks like part of the building has been blown away. We’ll have to bank around to the other side so I can get a better view of it. The explosion went off around 9 a.m. and we could feel the explosion in the newsroom at least 5 miles from downtown.
Female reporter
As a chopper goes around the side of the federal building– look at that shot it is absolutely incredible
Male reporter
Wow! Holy cow!
Female reporter
The side of the federal building has been blown off–
Male reporter
About a third– about a third of the building has been blown away. This is just devastating.
Scott
Inside the building, 163 people were killed. Additional casualties were one person in the nearby Athenian building, one woman in a parking lot across the street, two people in the Oklahoma Water Resources building, and a rescue worker who was struck on the head by falling debris. In total, 168 people died that day. 19 of those were children. Almost 700 other people were injured.
My guest today, Amy, was in the Federal Building that morning. She worked on the third floor, at the Federal Employees Credit Union.
You’re about to hear her talk about what happened to her that day. But just as amazing is what has happened to her SINCE that day.
And on top of that – this is a Flashback episode. Amy told this story on the podcast about 5 years ago. So at the end you’ll hear a conversation I had with her just recently about what she’s up to recently. I’ll just say this – she’s retired now, but she’s definitely not relaxing.
Scott
What was your job on that day, and where was your office?
Amy
I worked downtown in the federal building on the 3rd floor. My actual desk was just a few feet away from the glass windows of the federal building. So, basically front and center on the 3rd floor. At that time I worked- I had a desk job -and I worked in the credit card department. I had started out as a teller and had worked for several years as a teller when I finally got my opportunity for a desk job and was really excited about that.
Scott
This may seem like an unrelated question, but it kind of fits in with the rest of the story. Did you like your job?
Amy
Ya know…I was a bit on the lazy side. I liked the people that I worked with. The woman that I worked for, Vicky, I really admired and liked her. So, I was starting to reach a place where I did actually like what I did because I really liked the approval I would get from Vicky. So it really was about my supervisor not my actual work. Of course we all know now that when people quit their jobs they’re usually quitting a supervisor. The supervisor has so much to do with the quality of work life. So I think I was finally at a place where I was starting to like work, but I always liked the people that I worked with.
Scott
Yeah. That makes a big difference when you go in. You mentioned the name of the credit union was Federal Employees Credit Union, and this building had lots of government offices and government workers. Did it ever occur to you ahead of time, that the building might be a terrorist target?
Amy
Absolutely not! I went to work for the credit union in 1988. We never heard stories of anything happening to federal buildings or anything like that. In fact, I remember thinking that I was at the safest place because usually the issue of working for a financial institution is you’re concerned about robbery. That’s always in the back of your mind. Well I never worried about robbery. We had secret service, ATF, and all the law enforcement agents all around us. They watched out for us. We never worried about somebody robbing us. So that never entered my mind.
Scott
Yeah a bank robber is going to look for an easier target than something like that for sure.
Amy
Oh yeah. So in never dawned on me that we would be a terrorist target. Ever.
Scott
On that day you were in your office. Some co-workers came in, tell us what happened then?
Amy
The morning of the bombing, it was really just a typical spring morning in Oklahoma City. I had spent the first hour of my workday running around chatting with all my friends. Basically goofing off; just talking with everybody. I was getting ready to close on my first house so I was really excited about it. I was talking to everybody about the house. When it got close to 9 o’clock I had this feeling of, “Oh my gosh I have literally goofed off like almost the first hour of my day. I better get to work.” So I headed to my office to sit down at my desk and start to work. One of my coworkers, who was 7 months pregnant, came in and sat down right beside me. I was finishing up signing on the computer. I sort of had this feeling of, “Ugh what does she want?” because you know here I had goofed off the first part of my day I really needed to get to work. I didn’t have time for whatever it was she needed. So I kind of took my sweet time addressing her; signing on the computer, doing some other stuff. When I finally turned to say, “Hey what do you need?” I don’t know if the words ever made it out of my mouth or not because that’s when the bomb went off.
The only way I know how to describe it is if you’ve ever been to a hard rock or heavy metal concert, and you happen to be right in front of the speaker. It’s almost like that feedback static– like it’s so loud you can’t actually comprehend what you’re hearing. Like a roar. That was my attempt at trying to describe it, cause I just can’t describe it.
Scott
I know what you’re talking about. It’s more like you feel it than hear it.
Amy
Definitely. Then on top of that I was hearing screaming. I could hear screaming all around. I remember hearing a woman scream right in my ear, then realizing that was my own voice. I didn’t even recognize the sound of my own voice. I was just so terrified. The whole time this was happening I felt this rushing sensation like I was falling. I’m thinking, “I’m falling to the floor.” I didn’t know this but I was actually falling 3 floors. I found out later that I was still in my chair, had fallen 3 floors, was upside down in my chair, with about 10 feet of rubble packed on top of me.
Scott
That part just seems so incredible. Somebody listening to this right now, picture if you laid on the floor wherever you’re at right now, and look up. The ceiling is probably 8 feet, maybe. So you had another 2 feet on top of that, and this is all concrete and all the building construction and everything; yet you’re still alive at the bottom of that.
Amy
The way they described it, the concrete slabs of the 3rd and the 4th floors had cracked and formed some shield of some sort, which is why I wasn’t crushed to death. There was some amount of concrete protecting where I was to some degree. There were little bits of rubble encased all around me, but the heavy parts were a little protected because of the slabs of concrete above me that had fallen.
In that split second, I hear this noise, I feel this rushing sensation, I can hear people screaming. My first thought was that somebody had come in and shot me in the back of the head, because that thought of robbery is always back there. Even though I didn’t really worry about it, being in the federal building, my first thought was, “Oh my gosh, somebody’s come in and I’ve been shot.” That was how powerful it was. It was the only thing I could think as my mind was trying to connect the dots of what had happened. Then very quickly, everything was quiet. I tried to move. I couldn’t move. I tried to close my eyes to see, but it didn’t matter whether I opened my eyes or closed my eyes, it was just pitch black. I remember my mouth– I thought that maybe my teeth had broken off in my mouth because my mouth was full of what felt like teeth. It was concrete bits. I remember just screaming, “Help me! Help me!” and nothing. I wondered about Robin, my friend who was sitting next to me and I called out to her several times. There was nothing. Occasionally I would hear someone moaning off in the distance, but nobody ever replied. It was hot and I remember there was this smell that– if I ever smelled it again I would know what it was. It was just this awful burning smell that I’m assuming was fertilizer burning, I don’t know. I remember wondering when it first happened, “Am I dead? Did I die?” I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see, it was just so…unbelievable. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Then I could hear a siren going off in the distance. I decided, “Ok. There’s a siren going off in the distance. I’m alive. I’m hearing this.” Then I thought, because nobody would answer, I thought, “I don’t know what just happened but what if everybody else is dead and I’m the only person left alive and I’m just here until I die.” I really could not understand what happened.
That whole thing was about 45 minutes. Then I heard men’s voices. I heard them say, “Let’s split up. Let’s look for the daycare babies.” I heard this and so I thought, “Oh ok.” I was a little confused because I worked on the 3rd floor; the daycare was on the 2nd floor. I did not understand that I was at the bottom of what was once this 9 story building. I started screaming. I heard this man say, “I hear you! I hear you child! How old are you?” I remember wanting to say, “2! I’m 2!” Because I was thinking, “If I say I’m 28 he’s not going to come get me.” I paused and said, “I’m sorry. I’m 28.” He said, “That’s ok.” Then he started yelling, “We have a live one! We have a live one! We need backup! We need help!” He said, “We can’t see you, we have to follow the sound of your voice so keep talking to us.” I said, “What happened?” He said that it had been a bomb. In 1995, for listeners who weren’t around then, this is not a thing that happened, terrorist attacks. I did not even know what a car bomb was. In the United States we just didn’t deal with that kind of thing. I thought when he said it was a bomb, I’m picturing like, we’re at war and some airplane just dropped a bomb on our city. It took me a while to understand that this bomb had only happened to my building.
They started working their way closer to me and my right hand was sticking out of the side of that rubble pile. So they were able to come across my hand. When they got to my hand– I’m not understanding that I’m buried in all this rubble, I’m still thinking I’ve just fallen down and I don’t really know. When I feel them grab my hand I’m thinking, “This is going to be 1, 2, 3 and they’re going to pull me out.” I’m thinking, “This is it! It’s over, I’m saved.” About the time they find my hand I heard all of this screaming in the background and these men yelling, “There’s another bomb! There’s another bomb! We need to go. Let’s go. Let’s go.” I realized at that point that they couldn’t pull me out. They started saying to me, “Amy we’re going to be right back, we just need some more hydraulic equipment. We’re going to be right back.” But I could hear what was going on so I just started saying my name over and over again and saying, “Tell my family I love them.” I knew this was it, I now understood what had happened and now there’s another one so I’m not getting out. I was getting ready to die.
Scott
So they were saying they just needed more equipment but that was just to placate you so you wouldn’t worry as much, but you knew that any minute another bomb could go off and then you’d really–
Amy
Yeah I mean, they were yelling, “There is another bomb!” I remember hearing another one of them say, “There’s another bomb it’s going to be worse than the first. We’ve got to go!” They did need equipment; but I could hear what was happening. If you have ever watched footage that they play sometimes at the anniversary; you will see the footage of people running from the scene. That footage is during that second bomb scare, it’s not during the first one. When the first bomb when off there was nobody in the streets, they were all in the building. When the second bomb supposedly was going to happen, that’s when you saw people running everywhere, blood streaming down their faces, just panicked and running. That was when they thought there was another bomb.
Scott
But in reality there was no second bomb.
Amy
There was no second bomb. There was about 45 minutes where my reality was, “There is another bomb. I’m getting ready to die.” When they left that’s when I experienced what a lot of people refer to as your life flashing before your eyes. Just those moments where you realize, “This is it. This is really, really it.” You’re thinking about your life and all of the sudden realizing what really is important. That you lived a life that you didn’t really live. The deep crushing regret that I felt was just terrible. It’s something I would not want anyone to ever go through. Which is why I speak so much about my experience, because I want people to really think about their lives and not take it for granted and to live with intention; because you don’t realize until it’s over.
There’s a book I read called, “Regrets of the Dying” by a woman named Bonnie Ware who was a hospice nurse. She interviewed all these patients she had that were dying and asked them what their regrets were. The number one regret was not living a life true to themselves. We get so caught up in our day-to-day stuff, taking care of kids, groceries, errands, work; we don’t stop to really think about how we are actually living our lives. Are we really living a life true to ourselves? We don’t think about these things until we are about to die. Then all of the sudden it’s like, “Whoa. I didn’t live my life the way I should have.”
Scott
Right. What was I thinking?
Amy
That’s what I experienced during that 45 minutes, just all of that realization. I’m getting ready to die and I never even lived. I just kept begging God for a second chance, a do-over. I was thinking, “I’ll live differently. I’ll do anything. I just want a second chance.”
Scott
Now how does that fit in– there was a point when you were still trapped where you assumed you were going to die and you decided, “I’ll just kill myself.”
Amy
I did, I really did. My first thought was it was really hard to get air. I sort of had to lift my head up in this crevice to really breathe in some air. I remember thinking, “I’m going to quit breathing. I’m going to quit trying to breathe and die.” Yes that sounds ridiculous and it is; but it was just an attempt to try and control my own destiny I guess. That didn’t work. Your body will fight to live and breathe. So then I thought, “Ok I’m going to try to fall asleep. I’m going to make myself fall asleep because if you die in your sleep that’s not going to hurt.” (laughs) You know? So I tried to fall asleep, and that didn’t work. You can’t make yourself fall asleep either. So I had all these thoughts racing through my head, trying to figure out what to do.
Scott
People hearing this might think, “Well that’s so silly, why would she think those things?”
Amy
It’s so stupid, right!
Scott
But nobody has been through what you’ve been through.
Amy
Right. In those moments you’re just freaked out, panicked and trying to do anything. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. So all I have is my mind to think and that’s it.
Scott
I’m just picturing the claustrophobia of that. Of course that had to be the least of your concerns though, right?
Amy
I mean, I’m terribly claustrophobic. (laughs) I really am. I always have been, but that just didn’t even enter my mind.
Scott
That’s amazing.
Amy
It was such terror and such panic you couldn’t even dissect– and it all happened so fast you couldn’t really process or dissect every moment because it was all just so much so fast. Just that desperate, “I want to live.” It’s amazing the strength you have when you must have it, suddenly it’s there. So I laid there and did this bargaining and pleading for a second chance saying, “Please God just get me out of here.” I remember another thing I did was I thought– so I grew up in a Christian faith-based home. I went to a children’s church as a kid and you’d always have to memorize scripture and they gave you candy. That probably wasn’t the right thing to do. So here I am– I have to say too, I was 355 pounds so I–
Scott
That’s a critical part of the story.
Amy
Yeah. So I was 355 pounds and I’m trapped under the rubble. Some of the regret that I had was that I had let relationships back home drift away. This was before cell phones, social media and email. I didn’t want to go back home to have people see me because I had gained so much weight. I had gained 200 pounds. I didn’t want anybody to know. Therefore, I let relationships slide. Those were some of the regrets I had while I was trapped, not maintaining those relationships.
I remember thinking, “Ok, I’m going to remember one of these scriptures. I’m going to quote a scripture.” I guess I was thinking it would be like a meditation. So the scripture that popped into my head was this one that I’m sure a lot of people have heard, whether they’re of Christian faith or not. It’s, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” That was the only part I remembered. I was laying there thinking, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…well, crap. I’m in the freakin’ shadow of death. I don’t even know what comes next in the scripture or what happens next. How appropriate.” It was just the irony of it, you know? I sort of went through this whole– I flunked out of college, not that I think college is the right answer for anything. I was just thinking of all of the opportunities that I had in my life that I squandered and wasted. Then, of all the really weird things to do- as if all these other things aren’t weird – this song popped into my head that we used to sing in church when I was growing up. I began to sing. As I sang, I felt this incredible peace come over me, and I knew I was going to be ok. I did not know that meant I was going to make it out alive. I really thought I was going to die, but I was at peace with what was getting ready to happen.
Of course, there was not a second bomb, and they came back and started working to get me out. It wasn’t as easy as 1,2,3 to pull me out. It took over 6 hours for these men to finally be able to pull me out.
Scott
They were in danger themselves.
Amy
They were in danger. The wind had begun to pick up, and what was left of the building was extremely unstable. There was a very large industrial size refrigerator that was dangling, just by conduit, over some of the broken concrete that was swinging above the pit where I was located. So the danger for these men was that at any point something could fall and crush them. Because of that, there was an emergency physician on standby to amputate my leg if needed. My leg was what was preventing them- it was so pinned -it was preventing them from pulling my whole body out of this hole. Every so often I would hear them talking about, “her leg” and I figured out what was going on. So I said to them, “If you need to chop something off to get me out, chop it off.” I know that sounds really crude, but that’s where I was. That was the situation.
There was a girl I met later on, and she’s just the most wonderful woman, Dana Bradley. She was the last person rescued, and they did have to amputate her on site to get her out. My rescuers just kept saying, “Give us 20 more minutes. Give us 20 more minutes.” They did this for a long time and because of that I still have my legs. They risked their lives to get me out in one piece. It would have been easier for them to just go ahead and amputate so they could get me out quickly and get everybody to safety.
Scott
Did you feel pain in that leg at that time?
Amy
I felt no pain until they pulled me out and then everything came alive. They said, “We’re going to count to 3 and pull. This is probably going to hurt.” Of course I’ve been saying, “Chop it off.” Acting all brave (laughs) so I’m like, “I don’t care, pull me out!” Then they pulled me out and wow, everything did come alive. As I looked around it was like a movie scene, the only way I can describe it, like it wasn’t real. My brain was telling me, “What you’re seeing is not real.” That’s how crazy it was seeing the remains of the building. I remember seeing the staircase that would have gone up to the 2nd floor was still intact. There was a piece of Native American artwork hanging there that was still hanging there perfectly as if nothing had ever happened. Then everywhere around it looked like a bomb had destroyed it.
They put me on this gurney and took me out of the back of what was once the federal building. The sky was dark and gray. It had been a beautiful spring morning but now it looked like the middle of winter. It was cold, gray and starting to rain. Looking up at that sky and taking that first breath of fresh air, I remember promising, “I will never live my life the same.” They took me to the ambulance. It’s kind of funny (laughing) in the ambulance the nurse asked me, “When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?” That was when I lost my shit, right then (laughing). That’s when I lost it. Here I am in the building saying, “Chop it off if you need to chop it off” I get in the ambulance and they start talking to me about a shot and I freak out. I hate needles. I’m bawling, crying, “I don’t want a shot!” That nurse -I’ll never forget it was a male nurse- he’s looking at me with his eyes like, so big. He said, “You mean to tell me, you have been trapped in that building and you’re scared of a shot?” and I’m like, (imitating crying) “Yes!!” He said, “Well I’m not giving it to you. I’m getting my supervisor. (laughter) I did get the shot. Then they took me to the hospital and I ended up in the ICU. That’s when I started piecing together -the nurses had the news on in ICU and we were watching it- so that’s when I started piecing together bits and pieces of how bad it was and what had really happened.
Media descended upon Oklahoma City immediately. The hospital PR guy had come into my room and said, “Hey Bryant Gumbel is out in the hallway. He wants to interview you.” To set the stage, back in the day the Today Show had 2 anchors Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric, and there was always this rumor in the tabloids that they didn’t get along or something. I don’t know, I think it was the drugs they gave me, I have no idea but I can not believe I did this. This is what I said, “Well I don’t like Bryant Gumbel. I like Katie Couric.” (laughter) So the guy comes back in and says, “Ok. Katie Couric does want to interview you via satellite” because they didn’t send Katie there, they sent Bryant. So I go via satellite and do this interview with Katie Couric. She asked me about the wound on my leg. Well, they had told me that all I had was a cut on my leg; I’m picturing a Band-Aid situation. So I said, “I just have a cut on my leg.” I hadn’t seen anything because I was so beat up and sore I literally couldn’t move. I was like a mummy, I couldn’t move and I was bandaged all up so I couldn’t see anything. So we end that interview, and they take me immediately to this whirlpool and they start taking the bandaging off my leg.
Scott
While you were on TV?
Amy
No no, as soon as we finished the interview. So, here I am telling people on national TV, “I have a little cut on my leg, I’m good.” Then they take me to this whirlpool, they drop me down in there, they start taking the bandages off. That ‘little cut,’ no, my leg was blown open. I saw the bone in my leg, and I thought I was going to pass out. It was gray–I remember so vividly I saw my flesh, my bone, my everything. It freaked me out. I thought, “You can’t stand up. Stuff is going to fall out of your leg” (laughs). I didn’t know a person could live with a hole that big in their leg.
Scott
Yeah nobody wants to see their own bones. That’s for sure.
Amy
No! No, but I have thought since then– nowadays we all have our cell phones and our cameras and the gross part of me is like, “Man! I wish I had a picture of that.” (laughs) But, ugh yeah it was terrible.
Scott
When did you find out about the outcome as far as your coworkers?
Amy
Well, right away in the hospital I was just convinced that, if I made it out alive there are other people. I was wanting to encourage everybody like, “Don’t give up hope. They’re in there, they just have to get to them.” I really held on to this thought that, “They’re in there, and they are going to get them out.” Then, as the days ticked on there were no other survivors coming out. There was me and Dana Bradley and nobody else. It became evident that they weren’t going to come out. The phone would ring constantly in my hospital room with my coworkers’ family members calling asking if I remember what they wore that day. You know like, “Do you remember what Christy had on?” It was terrible because I talked to Christy, I spent that first hour of my day running around talking to everybody. I kept thinking, “how can I not remember what they were wearing?” I could only remember what my best friend Sonya had on that day and that was it. I couldn’t remember what anybody else had.
Scott
The family wanted to know that because of the search?
Amy
They were trying to identify bodies. They were having to identify bodies based on clothing and things like that. It was awful. This was before cell phones, so news traveled slower. We had to wait for the newspaper to come out, or some of the news was running 24/7, but the newspaper would print everyday whose bodies they found. Who was deceased and who was in hospitals, so we could keep track of who’d made it and who hadn’t through the newspaper.
Scott
So that’s how you– you read your friends names in the newspaper?
Amy
Yeah. I remember Billy Graham and president Bill Clinton came to town to do a prayer service. I don’t know what day it was. I was in the hospital for 8 days, so somewhere during that 8 days they had this big prayer service. This big multi-faith thing, and it was on television because they were filming it live. I remember sitting in the bed like, “Oh my gosh there’s Bobby!” That was one of the first moments I could see people that I knew walking in, so I knew they were alive. 168 people being killed, you can’t keep track of that many names. I found out that 18 of my 33 coworkers were killed. 100 out of those 168 I knew because they had accounts at my credit union and they came in to get money everyday. We didn’t even have ATM’s back then, so they came to us to get their $5 for lunch or whatever. So even now sometimes, somebody will say a name and they’ll be like, “Oh they were killed in the bombing” and it’s like, “Oh yeah.” It’s just hard to remember that many people that died. We lost 18 of 33 coworkers; I mean think about that. If you worked in an office with 33 people, over half are killed. It was terrible.
Scott
One of your customers came to visit you in the hospital. Can you talk about that?
Amy
Oh gosh yeah. The day before the bombing, I think it was, I had had a call from a man who was going through a divorce and wanted to take his wife off the account. Well it doesn’t actually work that way, you can’t just call up and remove your spouse. The spouse has to actually agree to be taken off. I tried to explain by saying, “Ok well I’m going to need both of you to sign a card to remove her from the account.” He did not like that and was talking down to me the whole time saing, “Honey, get your boss on the line. He’ll understand. Let me talk to him.” Well my boss was a woman, the CEO was a woman, in fact it was mostly women where I worked. So I remember finally just being equally ugly back to him, saying, “Well SHE is at lunch I will have HER call you back.” I remember he called me an ugly word. So that’s how that went. Then one day I was laying in the hospital and it was one of those moments where nobody was around, which was unusual because the room had been flooded with people and family. This big ol’ man walks in, I mean he looks like he needs to be a bouncer at a bar somewhere, he was tattooed up and down and looked like he was getting ready to beat somebody up. I was a little nervous like, “Who is this guy walking in?” He walks in carrying a rose. He gets closer to my bed and I look at his face and I can see that he is emotional. He’s got tears running down his face, he’s choked up, he can’t talk; then he says his name. Then he says, “Do you remember me?” It was that guy, it was the jerk. I just nod, and he just says, “I’m so sorry.” Then he just lays that rose down and he can’t talk, he just starts crying and leaves. I was crying too. It was just one of those things where you realize– maybe in his shoes but, also in mine too since I was ugly back to him. You think, “You know, we don’t have to be ugly to each other. We’re both humans.” I guess that probably drove home to him that the person on the other line was not a robot but a person.
It changed a lot of Oklahoma. You saw the good come out in so many people. We just put our differences aside and came together to help each other get through this time.
Scott
The person who bombed the building was executed by lethal injection 6 years after the bombing. Did you ever try to contact him or communicate with him at all?
Amy
No, not at all. I had the opportunity, I could’ve gone and seen the execution and I did not. Instead, Katie Couric actually came back to town to do coverage during that time frame. So, I opted to go do an interview with Katie Couric.
Scott
You’re a real Katie Couric fan aren’t you? (laughter)
Amy
I’m a Katie Couric fan (laughter) so I went to hang out with her. I didn’t want any part of it. I will say this, there were 2 people that were involved. The accomplice is actually still alive and serving time in prison right now. I’ve never made any move to contact him at all. I don’t usually talk about this because-I don’t know it just doesn’t come up- but I did go through a time where I was thinking a lot about forgiveness and what forgiveness means and I usually will pray in the morning. So, I did go through a season, I don’t know maybe a week or two not very long, where I actually prayed for that person. I thought, “Maybe this is a place of healing where you can actually pray for that person’s soul, or pray that they come to some sort of reckoning of themselves.” I didn’t want to contact him or anything like that though. I’m not saying I’m all perfect about it, because later a news story came out that he was complaining about the food he was being served in prison. He didn’t like the food. I was like, “Are you freaking kidding me? I’ll give him some food. Let’s put poison in it.” (laughter) So it’s not like this perfect Christian who forgave.
Scott
(laughter) Oh, so you’re human too?
Amy
Oh yeah I went straight back to, “I’ll give you some food with some rat poison in it.”
Scott
Right, right. So at this point, your credit union, your employer, that was the only location you had that was completely destroyed.
Amy
That was it.
Scott
Half your staff is gone too. What do you do?
Amy
What do you do? In an instant our entire business model was destroyed. We existed to serve the people in that building and that was our only location. That’s gone, the business model is gone, more than half the employees are gone; what do you do? Well, the credit union industry as a whole is very collaborative. All credit unions’ missions are: “People helping people.” What happened was credit unions coming together from all over to help us. There was a large credit union in Oklahoma City, they were so large they actually had a mock teller line to train new tellers in this fake line. They let us open 48 hours later using that fake teller line. We opened up inside a competitor’s office, so we were able to open 48 hours later. There was just a handful of us left, but we were clear that we wanted to survive. It was very important to us, we did not want to merge, we wanted to make it. So we began getting very intentional about what needed to happen next. You know, “What do we need to do?” The next step, the next step, the next step; to survive. We did and we’re 6 times larger today then we were then. I look back now and I think, “We shouldn’t have survived, we shouldn’t have made it. I don’t know how that happened.” That’s just an amazing story right there to me, that our credit union made it.
Scott
Well, it says something about the nature of credit unions too. Can you imagine Bank of America saying to Wells Fargo, “Hey come and use one of our buildings?”
Amy
It’s funny, I have said that so many times. Not to slam any other bank or anything, but you typically don’t hear that with other banks; but you will see that with credit unions. They will come together to help each other.
Scott
So your credit union, it’s a different name now, but it’s much larger. You yourself are much smaller.
Amy
(laughter) Yeah.
Scott
How did you do that?
Amy
Well, I’d like to tell you, that when I left the hospital, you know, queue the “Rocky” music and I go running down the steps to change my life. It didn’t exactly work that way. I first had to work through a lot of grief. A lot of grief. A lot of emotional trauma. As well as rebuilding the credit union, I was totally focused on that. Through the process of rebuilding this credit union, we got really good at setting goals and accomplishing those goals. I realized, “Why is it that I can do amazing things at work -I’m a rockstar at work- but my personal life sucks? Why can I not get it together?” I had never lost that moment of, “I want to live my life differently.” I meant that, I really did. There were things I did change right away; but there were bigger things I wanted to change. I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to lose weight, I didn’t want to weigh 355 pounds. I wanted all those things different but felt paralyzed to get there.
I remember we had a new CEO come in -our old CEO retired- and I remember she said to me one day, “Amy I want to ask you a question, what do you think we need to change here? What needs to be different?” I’m like, “This is the CEO; is this a trick question? I’m not sure how to answer this.” I kind of had a ‘deer in the headlights’ look. She said to me, “No imagine you have a magic wand. What would you do differently?” That sounds so silly, but that little twist of, “you have a magic wand, what do you do” made it safe for me to dream and give my suggestions. I thought about it and said that we needed a great culture, I described it as, “We’re going to sing Kumbaya in staff meetings.” (laughter) Then she said, “Ok. Given your current situation and limitations; what are the smallest steps you can take today to help get us there? Write that down, that’s your action plan.” I left her office thinking, “What just happened? I’m not even in management yet and suddenly I’m responsible for our culture?” But it was exciting. I later looked back and realized it was exciting because what she gave me was hope. The definition of hope, by the authors of Hope Rising: The Science of Hope, they say, “Hope is the idea that your future can be better and brighter than your past and that you actually play a role in making that happen.” So hope is action. Hope is something you do. Hope is a verb. So I thought, “Ok I can do that.” I pulled out an index card and thought, “What are the things I want to change in my life, if I had a magic wand?” I took it further; I looked at financial, relational, I looked at every aspect and wrote it down. I even wrote it down as if it had already happened. Later I found this Word document, I did it in Word doc. It gave me chills because everything had come true. One thing that had come true was slightly different, because I had written about what my marriage would look like and I wrote this beautiful love story of this marriage. It happened; but it didn’t happen with the person I had been married to. I actually went through a divorce and remarried. I look back now and all those things I wrote down actually did come true.
What happened was, writing it down gave me clarity on what I really wanted, then I chose one thing. I chose what I thought would be the easiest thing, cause I thought all of them including weight were pretty tough, but I thought, “Maybe I can go back to school.” So I started with that one and the first step with that was to just get my transcripts. I had flunked out of college, I had a 0.50 grade point average, so I had to find a college that was even going to take me. That was step one, I went back to college and got my degree. Then I had so much confidence I went ahead and got my masters. Then I thought, “I have all these research skills now from going back to school and all this confidence. Let’s tackle the weight.” I started researching different ways people lose weight, treating it like a research project taking my emotion out of it with the mindset of, “Let’s just tackle this thing.” I ended up having a bariatric surgery called a gastric sleeve and lost 200 pounds. I didn’t just want to lose weight, I wanted to be fit. I wanted to be able to ride a bicycle and walk up a flight of stairs. That led to finding a bicycle. I was still heavy and in the process of losing the weight; but I found a bicycle that would hold me and started riding around in my neighborhood.
I kept going through this thought of “magic wand,” thinking, “Given my current situation, what are the next steps?” I do it to this day. I do it almost every morning. I’ll do it about a problem and think, “If I had a magic wand, how would I fix it and what would I do?” Then I go back to, “Given my circumstances, what can I do?” What that does is it takes you out of being the victim. When you’re a victim you’re helpless you can’t do anything. I could think, “I got blown up. I got divorced. It’s out of my control. I can’t help it.” Instead you have to own what happened to you even if you didn’t do it, cause it, or it’s unfair. You actually have to take responsibility for what has happened to you; and that sucks, but you do. Otherwise you will not move forward and overcome. I finally had to say, “Ok given my current situation, I just went through the bombing, I just had all this stuff happen. What can I do to move forward?” That takes you out of being the victim. So I just kept doing that over and over again. I look back now and I went from a teller who couldn’t balance a cash drawer, who flunked college because I couldn’t pass a math class–
Scott
You even failed remedial math.
Amy
Remedial! Not even the legitimate one, the fake one you take before you can take the new one. Now, I am CEO of a financial institution, I have a masters degree, I went from 355 pounds to completing an Ironman. An Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride finished by a 26.2 marathon; all within 17 hours. I look back and I’m amazed. If you would’ve told me I would’ve done all of that 25 years ago; I would’ve looked at you and said, “Uh huh. Why don’t you also put on that list, get a rocket and fly to Mars.” It would have felt that ridiculous. That’s the power of constantly evaluating your life and taking steps to move forward.
Scott
I just heard somebody recently talking about how it’s always a mistake to measure yourself where you are today, to your ideal self; because that’s always going to be a disappointment and you’re never there. If you measure where you are today with where you were in the past you can see what progress you’ve made. You and I could talk for hours about human endurance sports and ultra marathons and ironmans and all that; but I’ve got to ask you this. When you cross that line in the ironman, the announcer always announces your name and says, “You are an Ironman,” what’s going through your head at that point?
Amy
Ugh you’re going to make me cry just saying it (laughter). I could talk about that Ironman journey. It was tough. I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I will tell you I came in last. It was hit or miss whether I was actually going to make it in time. So when I rounded that corner and I saw the lights and that big chute on that finish line and I looked up and saw myself on that jumbotron; it was like slow motion. I remember every moment. The hands giving me high fives over the railing. It’s midnight and there were still people there cheering me on. I saw my husband at the finish line; my coach was standing there and they had the medal. Then the voice of Ironman, Mike Reilly says, “You are an Ironman.” I was so overcome with emotion. Then they put the medal around my neck. I mentioned I grew up in a faith based home, and after the whole bombing and everything I really embraced my faith again. One of the things I thought of was that in the Bible they talk about life being like a race, an endurance race. I thought about whatever heaven is like, if it’s anything like finishing– you know this is what we dream up on earth. To cross this finish line and be given a medal and how that feels. Then what will it feel like when we cross over to eternity, after running this race of life. So I had spiritual thoughts like that also. Honestly I felt badass, and I was so proud of myself. That is probably one of the things I am most proud of in my entire life, because it didn’t have anything to do with the bombing. There’s been a lot of promotions I’ve received and now I’m CEO, but there’s a little voice in the back of my mind that says, “Well..you survived. If your coworkers might have lived they would have gotten that promotion.” But this was something I did. I got up at 4 a.m. to run. I ran in the rain. I swam in the crazy wind. I did this. My body, even though I’ve done this, I’m still an unlikely athlete. I’m still on the heavy side. I’m still not quite what you think of when you think of an Ironman; but I did it. It proved to me that I can do hard things and I can do what I put my mind to.
Scott
People listening to this might think that when you cross a finish line, in some huge event like that, your thoughts might be, “Wow I’m sure glad it’s over, I don’t have to run anymore.” That’s not what it is. I’ve seen it happen to me and I’ve seen it happen to so many people when they cross a finish line. It’s just an overwhelming emotion, that you did it.
Amy
Yeah. I mean just you even describing– when you said, “You are an Ironman.” You saw my eyes fill up with tears because it’s still emotional to this day thinking back on it. I think when you do these events it represents the hardships you have in life. It’s very symbolic when you cross that finish line that you can overcome. It’s really not about overcoming that particular race, it’s you overcoming the hard things in life that you deal with.
Scott
Exactly. You think, “I just did this. What else am I capable of?”
Amy
Yeah, right.
Scott
Ok I’m going to ask you this and I’m sure –I think probably people are wondering this. You failed remedial math yet you went to college and got your masters in business. You weighed 355 pounds, you lost that weight. You were a couch potato, you completed an Ironman. You were a teller who, by your own admission, was a lazy worker, and now you’re the CEO of that credit union.
Amy
Right.
Scott
You know we hear stories of people changing their lives after some kind of traumatic event; but is it possible for people who are just in a rut? They haven’t had any big tragedy happen to them, how does that person get in that mindset to change things?
Amy
I absolutely believe that it can happen. I know people who have changed their lives without any traumatic event. You have to be intentional. I really do believe it is as simple as sitting down with yourself and asking yourself, “If I had a magic wand. Who would I become? What would my life look like? Who would I be?” Ask yourself those questions. Start there. Asking yourself, “Who is it I’m wanting to become? What am I wanting to do? What is my life– what am I really doing here and where do I want to go?” When you start asking yourself those questions and answering those things– I believe our brains are so smart; they’re like an app running in the background trying to figure out how to get there. You will start figuring it out. Then when you take that and you say, “Ok what are the smallest steps I can take?” Start every single day taking the tiniest step. Then you look back and those small consistent steps over time will transform your life; but you have to just take those small, tiny, tiny steps. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a process. It starts with allowing yourself to dream. I think particularly as we reach middle age. A lot of people have been knocked down so many times they just don’t want to get back up anymore; we’ve had life beat out of us. You have to really allow yourself to dream again. Life isn’t over. Middle age is just the beginning, are you kidding me? I’m living into my 90s. My dad lived into his 90s. I’m not ready to sit on a couch and wait to die. Heck no!
Scott
Would you say today– would you call yourself a different person? Or maybe I should rephrase that. People who knew you before the bombing and who still know you now, what would they say about your transformation?
Amy
I had a friend tell me -now she knew me after the bombing not before- but she knew me before the transformation. Like I said this transformation wasn’t me running out of the hospital and suddenly I was transformed. It was quite a while after that I could get traction. She says I’m the same person. She says she sees me as the same person just outwardly changed and with these accomplishments and achievements; but she says I’m the same. I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m the same person from before the bombing, I definitely don’t. Now, here’s a question though, would those changes have happened overtime? That’s a good question because I know a lot of people, as we reach middle age, we look back and we realize we’ve grown. Hopefully we all have, right? We’re not the same immature, silly, whatever we were when we were younger; we’ve grown. So maybe that growth would’ve occurred whether the bombing happened or not, I don’t know.
Scott
You have to think most people aren’t going to sit down and have the intentionality to say, “I’m going to physically write this down, what do I want to change? What do I want to be?” Yet you did that.
Amy
We’ll do it every now and then, like at New Year’s, but just do it all the time. Like I do it with coffee, have my coffee, sit down– and it may not be every single day, it might be 5 days a week; but I do it often. When you do it often it doesn’t take very long, maybe 10 minutes I’m sitting there thinking about it, revisiting what I wrote the last time, asking, “Am I on track?” you know that kind of thing.
Scott
Even if it’s just something you want to do that day. Like saying, “If I got these 3 things done today, that’s going to be a good day” so then you focus on those things. So you’ve written a book?
Amy
Yes!
Scott
You’ve actually already mentioned the name of the book, but your book is called, “Hope is a Verb.” Can you just elaborate on that a little bit and what that book is about? I’ve read it, I already know, but go ahead.
Amy
(laughter) My intention for the book was to encourage others by sharing my journey in a way that the reader would maybe see themselves in my journey and be encouraged on their own journey. It does talk about my experience through the bombing, but it’s not just about that, it’s about the transformation and aftermath. Also the idea that hope is a verb, which is the idea that your future can be better and brighter than your past, but you play a role in making that happen, you have to take responsibility for your life. I’m sharing it from the first person experience of how I’ve done it but my wish is that it would impact the reader and inspire them a little bit for their own life.
Scott
We’ll have a link to your book in the show notes of this episode so if anybody wants to get that they can. I should say, it goes into a lot more detail about what happened than what we talked about here and it’s really good. If people want to contact you how can they do that?
Amy
Go to my website, amydowns.org and I’ve got links to my social media pages on there.
Scott
Great. You do public speaking as well right?
Amy
I do.
Scott
I know we’re kind of coming out of Covid, are you back to speaking in person now
Amy
Yes! I am! Just this month I’ve had 2 keynotes that I’ve been able to deliver in person to a live physical audience and it’s been wonderful. A lot of conferences have been getting scheduled and back in place so it’s nice.
Scott
So anyone hearing this that has a company or a group they should contact you and that would be an amazing thing to experience.
Amy
Yes! I have to give a plug to Oklahoma City. We have a brand new convention center. It is amazing, it is a great place to bring a conference. So, I have to give that little shameless plug.
Scott
Well, Amy thanks for sharing your story. It’s pretty amazing.
Amy
Thank you! Thank you for having me
Scott
Amy, welcome back to the show!
Amy
Thanks for having me.
Scott
It’s amazing seeing you back here again because it seems like we just spoke.
Amy
I know, and it’s been a while.
Scott
Yeah. But you’ve had a lot of stuff happening. You sent me a few notes here. You said that now you’re still in Oklahoma, right?
Amy
Yes.
Scott
But you said you’ve moved to a very small town next to a protected wildlife refuge in the mountains.
Amy
Yes.
Scott
What prompted that move?
Amy
Well, it’s a whole thing – I don’t know if you have time enough for that one. During Covid, I got really depressed, and my husband one morning said, “Honey, you need to get out your magic wand” because I’m always telling people, “If you had a magic wand, what would you do? Given your current situation, your current limitations, what are the smallest steps you can take?” Well, at that point in my life, I had already become CEO. I had already done an Ironman triathlon. There were a lot of things I’d already checked off, and I kind of thought– I don’t know, I can’t answer that question.
So, I did something really weird. He was at work, I was working remotely. I texted him and I said, “Honey, will you get a lottery ticket on your way home?” And I’m not advocating gambling. We never even buy lottery tickets. He didn’t know how to do it, and didn’t know where to go. By the time he came home, he was like, “That was an ordeal. I got you two tickets.” But I thought maybe like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, like the little kid who’s wondering if he has a golden ticket. I knew I wasn’t going to win, but I thought it would stimulate my brain to just dream. So I did. I wrote down all the things I would do. How would my life change if it was a year later and money’s not an object? What is this really about? What would I do? So I wrote this whole thing about how I would live in Colorado on the side of a hill or a mountain on a bike trail, so that I would have time for family to come visit and reconnect with people that I haven’t been able to spend time with because I was devoted to my career.
So the next night, he says, “How’d that work for you?” And I said, “Well, I think I broke my framework because, given our current situation and our current limitations, we did not win the lottery. We will not be moving to Colorado.” And he goes, “Yeah, but you know what you say every time we ride our bikes out in the wildlife refuge in Oklahoma.” And I laughed because I always say, “Squint really hard and it looks like you’re in Colorado.” There was a bike ride we were going to the next day and – I had just written the book, “Hope is a Verb” – and we found a street we never saw before in this little bitty town called New Hope. There was a lot for sale on New Hope and, for the first time, I had this spark of what if? I texted my sister about it and, of all the things she came back with, “I think my son has a lot there,” and I thought, “No he doesn’t. I would know if my nephew owned a lot in this little bitty town.” So I texted my nephew and I said, “Your mom thinks you own a lot in Medicine Park. Haha.” He came back immediately with “I do. I will sell it to you for what I bought it for. It’s on New Hope. It’s lot number two.” So of all the crazy things, we ended up out in Medicine Park, Oklahoma.
Scott
When this happened, were you thinking, wow, this is the universe telling me this is the answer.
Amy
When we were sitting on the back patio and David replied, “My nephew said, ‘I’ve got a lot, I’ll sell it to you.’”, it’s one of those moments where I think I’ll always remember it. It’s like the world stopped because it felt so much like a God thing or whatever you want to call it. My husband and I both just froze. We just froze.
Scott
That is incredible. And it seems obviously like it’s the right decision on what to do.
Amy
And then when they cut the street’s name – I’m always telling people that hope is the medicine for your 911, essentially – well, my street address was 911 on New Hope.
Scott
Oh man.
Amy
I know. You just couldn’t deny. It just felt like all the signs, like this is what it was supposed to be.
Scott
If this were a movie script, it would be turned down because it’s not realistic, it’s not real life, right?
Amy
Right. Crazy.
Scott
Now you also quit your job and now you’re a full-time speaker. Was that at the same time as you made this move?
Amy
Yeah, it was kind of all part of it. It’s not like I saw the path clearly all the way out. I just saw the next steps, and then it just sort of kept evolving, but it all started with that dream of what is my future and what is my purpose now. We have to constantly revisit that. It’s not a one and done. So it was revisiting it again and going, “What is my next chapter? How does this look?” And that kept evolving and that led me to take an early retirement and focus on a new chapter.
Scott
Have you ever thought about doing a podcast?
Amy
I have had people mention that to me before. So it has crossed my mind.
Scott
I mean, it could complement your speaking,
Amy
Yeah.
Scott
And it puts you out there as an authority. I mean, there are a lot of advantages to it.
Amy
Yeah. And a lot of people, a lot of speakers do have podcasts. I don’t think I’m as dedicated, to be honest. I think I would struggle. Wow, that’s a lot of commitment. I mean, that’s a lot of what you do. People don’t understand the behind-the-scenes of what you do. It’s not just sitting down having a conversation with me. It’s all the planning, all the scheduling, all the things that have to take place to lead you to that conversation.
Scott
That’s very true. It’s a lot of work. But I’m thinking, in your case, you don’t just show up and get on the stage. There’s a lot of thinking, a lot of planning and scheduling and promoting, and all of that stuff as well. Now maybe it would be too much for you to do all of that and do all of that with a podcast as well – I don’t know. But yeah, that’s interesting. Now, you’ve got a big event coming up later this year in the fall. What are you going to be doing?
Amy
I am going to be walking 161 miles of the Camino de Santiago. My sister is the one who wanted to do it this year, but she’s had a few health issues, so we’re waiting for confirmation. Things are starting to look good though. We’re waiting for confirmation that we’re both going to be able to do this thing this fall. She’s done a portion of it before and I’ve been so inspired by that. I’ve had it on my bucket list too.
Scott
And you’ve done an Ironman triathlon. You can do tough physical things. And I know this thing, the Camino de Santiago, is in Spain and the overall route is, like, 500 miles, right?
Amy
Yes. Yeah, it’s a big deal.
Scott
Yes, it is. It’s huge. I know some people do the whole thing, but you’re doing 161. How do you choose what part to do?
Amy
So I looked to her because this is my older sister, a dream of hers. She feels like this is sort of her last chance to do it. So I just said, “Which way do you want to go?” No pun intended. It’s called “The Way.”
Scott
Right. That’s the other name for it, right?
Amy
Yeah, right. Okay. We’re going to do the Portugal or the Portuguese Way. That’s what she wanted to do, so I just am leaning to her and I’m just showing up with her. We’re just going to do it.
Scott
And you must be thinking about training for this, right?
Amy
Yes, but I live in the perfect spot for it. I have a mountain about a mile and a half from my house that I can walk up. It’s close to traffic on the weekends, so pedestrians can come and walk up the mountain. So I do that.
Scott
Perfect. Are there a lot of hills on that 161-mile stretch?
Amy
I think the way that we’re going – and I could be wrong – is not as steep as maybe some of the other ways.
Scott
Well, we will love to hear about that when you complete it. I’m excited.
Amy
Yeah.
Scott
I have to ask you this. We’re doing this interview and we’re seeing each other even though it’s audio only. I’m seeing your background, your perfectly put-together house, you are yourself put together and ready. You show up on time and it seems like everything is perfect with you.
Amy
No.
Scott
And I know that’s not the case, but do you ever have imposter syndrome?
Amy
Oh, a hundred percent. If it makes you feel any better – okay, your audience can’t see this – but here’s my jeans and this is a T-shirt with a jacket just because I was having a crazy, hectic morning. I was trying to appear somewhat put together for you but, no, I’m a hot mess this morning actually.
Scott
Well, fortunately, for my guests, we don’t record videos or anything like that. But yeah, it’s funny because, sometimes, the people that seem to have everything going perfectly for them, if you look behind the scenes, they’re not always quite so sure of themselves.
Amy
Oh, absolutely not. Especially taking a leap from working at an organization I’ve been at for 36 years with this very magical thing that happens every two weeks called direct deposit, walking away from that to be self-employed is the scare. It’s probably the scariest thing that I actually have ever done. So, yeah, there’s been a lot of mental self-talk going on and then having to talk myself down off the ledge because it’s scary, and you think, “Oh my gosh, what, who do I think I am? Why do I think I can do this?”
Scott
Right. I’ve done that. I went from a W2 to being self-employed, but I did it gradually though. I went four days a week, then three days a week, and then finally made the jump. But you just did a cold Turkey,
Amy
Well, sort of. I have been speaking on the side for several years.
Scott
Oh, that’s right. You were already speaking.
Amy
So, there was a little bit of building up, ramping it up over last year to get ready to make the leap.
Scott
Good. You did it strategically.
Amy
Yeah.
Scott
That’s how I would expect you to do that. Alright. If someone, if an organization or someone hears this and they want to book you as a speaker, how can they do that?
Amy
My website, amydowns.org. There’s a little form on there and I had a team that works on those.
Scott
I would love to hear you speak if you ever come to Florida.
Amy
Hey, I am actually. I am going to Florida twice this year.
Scott
Really?
Amy
Yeah.
Scott
What part of Florida?
Amy
One of them is Orlando and I’m blanking on the other one. I’d have to look at my calendar, but they may both be Orlando actually.
Scott
Okay. Yeah. Orlando’s just a couple of hours from here. It would be great to meet you in person.
Amy
I’ll let you know. Yeah.
Scott
Alright. Well, Amy, thanks for coming on. We look forward to seeing what happens in the future for you.
Amy
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Scott
I just love talking to Amy! And I do hope to actually meet her in person at some point. You can see pictures of her in the show notes at WhatWasThatLike.com/215.
If you like hearing actual 911 audio? That’s what we do with the extra bonus episodes called Raw Audio. And there are currently 49 of those episodes to binge! All you have to do is sign up to support the show. You can do that on an iPhone just by going to the What Was That Like podcast and clicking on Try Free. For Android, go to WhatWasThatLike.com/support and you can try it out free there too.
The newest Raw Audio episode includes a story out of North Carolina about a missing baby –
Female 1
We have a baby missing out of her crib.
911 Operator
Okay. Do you know who might have taken her?
Female 1
No ma’am.
Scott
A woman in New Jersey was on the phone with her boyfriend and suddenly the call ended unexpectedly –
911 Operator
911, what’s your emergency?
Female 2
Hi, I’m just speaking to my boyfriend as he was entering his home, and I heard loud screaming, and now there’s dead air on the other end.
Scott
And in Michigan, a man in a wheelchair is crossing a busy street and gets hit by a truck, and goes for a pretty crazy ride –
911 Operator
Female 3
I’m sitting here at the corner of Michigan and Haven Street in Paw Paw. A semi truck just came by and he does not know it, but he has a gentleman on the front of his truck who is in a wheelchair.
Scott
When you sign up to support the show you get all 49 Raw Audio episodes to binge, AND you get the regular What Was That Like episodes without any ads. So go check it out for free.
Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
And now we’re about to hear this week’s Listener Story. This is just a 5-10 minute story, sent in by a listener. And it’s how we end every episode. And we’re still waiting to hear YOUR story. Just record it on your phone and email it to Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com
In this week’s story, we hear from a listener who was in a motorcycle crash.
Stay safe, and we see you next time.
(Listener story)
On February 2nd, 2019, I was on my way home from work when I was hit by a driver attempting to overtake at around 11:30 PM. He came into the oncoming lane in front of me, and we both braked hard before impact. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing what I thought I was. I remember thinking, “Are they really in my lane?” I remember everything except the sound of the impact. When the car hit me, I could feel myself flying through the air and I’m pretty sure I was flipping. Being nighttime, I couldn’t see anything and had no idea where I was or where I was going to land. I remember worrying about landing on my neck and breaking it because a friend of mine broke her neck several years back in an incident not related to motorcycles. I also briefly wondered if it was the last thing I would ever see.
I was thrown clear of the car and landed on the grass on the side of the road. I landed mostly on my back, but I think I must have landed slightly left because my left elbow and knee had some minor issues afterward. My crutch felt a little on the numb side. Not even thinking, I got up immediately and saw the car slowly driving away. I thought it was a hit-and-run. I turned around and saw the license plate on the road, and thought that it would be helpful if this really was a hit and run. I took my helmet and gloves and put them down next to my bike. I realized my helmet camera was missing. I looked around on the road, but I couldn’t see it amongst the debris and thought maybe it was under my bike, which was laying in the gutter on its side, pointing in the opposite direction to where I’d been traveling. The engine had cut out, but the headlight was still on because the ignition was on.
A number of people stopped and came over to me. A woman asked if I wanted some water and went to hand me a drink bottle, but I said I probably shouldn’t have any. My thoughts were that if I didn’t know how injured I was, I shouldn’t have any food or water in case I needed surgery. It was a strange feeling. I could think about some things but, at the same time, I felt confused and a bit cloudy and I wasn’t really sure what to do.
A man got on his phone and called an ambulance, and another man talked to me. I don’t really remember what he said, but I got confused and thought he was the one who hit me and asked what he was doing on the wrong side of the road. His response made me think that he wasn’t actually the driver. I was walking around near my bike and people kept telling me that I should sit down. After a while, I began to feel very lightheaded – I didn’t know why and it worried me a bit.
I yelled next to my bike and decided to call my mother. I figured it would be better for her to hear about this from me rather than a paramedic or a policeman because she was already going to panic, but if I spoke to her, then she could at least have some kind of relief. For some reason, the call cut off on the first try. So, I rang back and I said that I was okay, but I just had a head-on with a car. I told her what road I was on, but it’s a long road, so I began looking around trying to find something that would make it easier for me to explain where I was and one of the people in the area gave me the name of an intersecting street. I wasn’t very far from home when this happened, approximately five kilometers. I’ve been looking forward to getting home and having a nice bowl of cookies and cream, ice cream after work, which I didn’t get.
I explained to my mother that I thought the driver had taken off. I heard someone behind me say, “No, I didn’t.” I turned to see a tall man who looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties, and I asked him what he was doing on the wrong side of the road. He said, “I don’t know. I thought there was another lane.” At some point, I thought I’d better turn the ignition off, but it was on the right-hand side of the bike, which was where it was laying. It was down on the right hand side, so that meant that I had to get down onto the ground. Because everything was mangled, I had a hard time finding it, but probably also because I was still in a confused state, but I managed to find it and turn the bike off, and then I would just put the keys back in my pocket as I usually would when I’d finished a ride. It was just as well because the key to my other motorcycle was also on that set.
A police car was on scene very quickly, and two male officers whose names I don’t recall came over to me. Both myself and the driver of the car were given breath tests, but neither of us had been drinking. He appeared to be pretty shaken up too. Although he did something he shouldn’t have, I figured that he was probably feeling pretty ordinary about it. So I actually gave him a hug because, despite what he did, I did feel a little bit sorry for him as well. When the ambulance got there, two paramedics, a man and a woman came to me. We talked for a bit. Before heading over to the ambulance, I thought I could feel blood around my crutch, so I checked, but there was nothing there. The male paramedic checked the area in the ambulance and there didn’t seem to be anything major going on.
I found out later that I had been thrown crutch-first into the bike’s fuel tank, which I had left a rather large dent in, and that’s what the issue had been. The paramedic mentioned that he was happy that I was wearing proper gear. I had an armored Kevlar hoodie, Kevlar jeans, knee pads, gloves, helmet, and my work shoes on. The shoes have carbon fiber in the toes and weren’t damaged in the accident, which is just as well because, sometimes, they can actually cut off your toes if they get crushed. Most of the time, I wear proper motorcycle boots. There was also the added bonus of them saying, “Staying on my feet.” Sometimes, in crashes, you will get shoes flying off people’s feet. I’m glad that didn’t happen to me.
My helmet had a few insignificant scrapes, and the visor had popped off. I replaced the helmet because, even if you can’t see any damage on the outside, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any internally. So your best bet is to just replace the helmet. I told the paramedic about the lightheadedness I had, and he explained that adrenaline can do that. When my blood pressure was checked, I was told that it was good, so they weren’t too worried about internal bleeding. I had pain, but it was never horrendous, so I didn’t take any painkillers at all. My reasoning was that they were better left there for someone who really needed them, and I didn’t feel as though I did. I was sitting in the back on a seat in the ambulance.
When my mother and brother arrived at the scene and my mother came into the ambulance through the side door, she was very teary and wide-eyed. I waved at her and I said, “How are you going?” She told me later that she wanted to strangle me. I was taken to a hospital that was further from the closest, because the closest was Werribee Hospital and they don’t really do trauma. So I was taken away to Footscray and it was still only about a 20-minute trip, so it wasn’t bad.
The police and the paramedics said that I’ve been extremely lucky. Normally, head-on collisions between bikes and cars don’t end very well. This happened in a 60 kilometer zone – 37 miles an hour for the Americans – so the impact speed is doubled in a head-on. There’s only a couple of seconds worth of time to brake. I’m not exactly sure how fast either of us were going when we hit, but it was likely at least an 80-kilometer-an-hour impact.
Once I was at the hospital and that collar was put on me – and wow, those things are uncomfortable – it made me feel extra sorry for a friend of mine who’d had to wear one for six weeks when she broke her neck. It was just precautionary though because, even though I hadn’t had pain in my neck and I could still move, sometimes, you can do damage to yourself without knowing about it. My crutch, hip, and knee were sore. The latter two felt very stiff after a while because you’re not allowed to move much once they get you into the hospital. I was admitted pretty quickly, and this was the first time in my life that I’d actually been in hospital for myself, and I was 29. Most uncomfortable thing besides the neck collar was having to use a bedpan.
The nurses were really nice, and one in particular had a great sense of humor. At one point, when she came to check on me and asked me how I was going, I said, “Yep, good.” And I asked her how she was, and she said, “Yeah, better than you. I’m up here and you are down there.” And I said, “Well, that happens to me anyway because I’m 5’ 1”. Eventually, I had scans and X-rays and was lucky enough to be put in a room with only one other person. I didn’t sleep much there. Too much going on, and being in a strange place makes it hard to sleep anyway. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink in case I needed surgery, but I did hear nurses talking to one another, and they said that the chances of that were nil even. So I had to wait for clearance
My mother and brother stayed until the early hours of the morning, but I was happy for them to go home. It wasn’t serious and there wasn’t any need for them to sit around for hours. The next day, I had visits from four of my biker friends, which I really appreciated. Late in the afternoon, I was told that I didn’t have any organ damage and I didn’t break any bones. I was also told that if I could walk, I could go home. I was pretty happy about that, but getting off of the bed for the first time was more of a struggle than I was anticipating it to be. The muscles surrounding my hips got very stiff and sore, so when I went to stand up, I almost fell back down. I could walk, but it was slow going. It was a lot of bruising around my crotch from hitting the tank. Walking and moving in general was not the most fun thing in the world for the next few weeks. My hospital stay was only about 17 to 18 hours, and getting into and out of the car was not very much fun.
We got home and I remembered that my bedroom was upstairs. I figured out how to navigate the stairs without it being too terrible. I just didn’t feel like sleeping downstairs on the couch. I wanted my own bed, especially after being in a hospital bed. I was interested to check the camera footage. While I hadn’t been able to find the camera, a policeman had found it on the bonnet of the car that hit me. It was basically undamaged and still works to this day. I was worried about the quality of the footage because it’s not a camera that is designed for night use, but it shows well enough what happened.
Two days after the accident, we went to see my bike. It was at a towing yard and had been laying on its right side in the back of a wrecked ute. It was pretty confronting to see that, but more confronting was when they brought the car that hit me into the building. The car and the bike had been taken to the same tow yard, and they brought the car in, and the front of it was all completely caved in, and that gave me one hell of a surprise.
I posted about the incident on a Facebook page for my area, my local town. Not too long after that, two different news stations were calling me asking for interviews. So, not long after that, I did those interviews and they were on Channel Seven and Channel Nine news. I started riding again just 17 days after the crash because I’d had two bikes at the time. It would’ve been sooner but I was waiting for a new battery for the other bike and it was an older bike, so it took a bit longer to come in.
The first time I rode was to go to a doctor’s appointment, which was about an hour away from me. As I pulled out onto the road and started riding down the road, I just had a big smile creep up on my face because I love riding, always have. So I was glad that it was able to end that way for me. I replaced the other bike with one that was in a different state to me, and it took two days to ride it back. It was a fair way away. The first day, I rode over 300Ks, and then the second day it was over 730, and both those days were somewhere around 37 degrees Celsius – way too hot.
I continue to ride to this day and I actually ride more now than I did before. I saw it as I didn’t want something that I loved to be taken away from me because of fear. I didn’t let that happen. I’ve had so many fun experiences and great memories. So, I’m very happy with my decision to continue riding. Thank you all for listening.