A lot of people have a serious fear – they can’t stand the feeling of being trapped in some way.
And really, there are a variety of ways this can present itself. It could be a really crowded, small room where the exits are not easy to access. Or it could be when you’re on your back and going into an MRI machine and the top surface is like an inch from your face. Some people fear being in a stuck elevator.
I remember having that feeling in high school PE class. We had a few classes where the boys were taught wrestling. So one by one, we’d get paired up with an opponent who was hopefully somewhat similar in size, on a large mat in the gym. And whenever I happened to be underneath the other guy, feeling his weight holding me down, unable to move, I’d briefly get a real panicky feeling until I was able to get up. Did not like that at all – and I was only there for a few seconds.
My guest today, Kevin, knows that feeling. Except in his case, he was stuck there for a lot longer than a few seconds. And what had him trapped weighed about 8000 pounds.
Kevin on Instagram: @canyonkev
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/267
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
A lot of people have a serious fear – they can’t stand the feeling of being trapped in some way.
And really, there are a variety of ways this can present itself. It could be a really crowded, small room where the exits are not easy to access. Or it could be when you’re on your back and going into an MRI machine and the top surface is like an inch from your face. Some people fear being in a stuck elevator.
I remember having that feeling in high school PE class. We had a few classes where the boys were taught wrestling. So one by one, we’d get paired up with an opponent who was hopefully somewhat similar in size, on a large mat in the gym. And whenever I happened to be underneath the other guy, feeling his weight holding me down, unable to move, I’d briefly get a real panicky feeling until I was able to get up. Did not like that at all – and I was only there for a few seconds.
My guest today, Kevin, knows that feeling. Except in his case, he was stuck there for a lot longer than a few seconds. And what had him trapped weighed about 8000 pounds.
Scott
This happened in the Inyo Mountains. Where is that?
Kevin
The Inyo Mountains are located in the eastern Sierra – basically the most eastern part of California – and it almost acts kind of like a border between California and Nevada.
Scott
That’s where you live out in eastern California?
Kevin
Yes. Currently living in Mammoth Lakes, but I spend a lot of time down in Bishop as well.
Scott
You are the stereotypical adventure seeker, it seems like. Is that a title you would give yourself?
Kevin
I like that title because people always try to put me in a box. Is he a rock climber? Is he a mountaineer? I’m just an adventurist.
Scott
And you were with your friend, Josh that day. How did you guys meet originally?
Kevin
Originally, we met kind of in a bouldering area called the Happy and Sad Boulders, just outside of Bishop. I kind of saw him bouldering with someone else. I said something to him like, “Hey, are you guys having the best day ever or something?” I didn’t really think much of it until I was in a coffee shop called the Looney Bean about a week or two later. I was kind of just walking right past him and he pulled me aside. He’s like, “Hey, you’re the guy from the Boulders. What are you doing after this?” I’m like, “Nothing, man.” He’s like, “You’re coming climbing with me.” So he kind of recruited me to be his climbing partner because it’s his hobby. He’s like, “I’m your climbing partner” because his other buddy bailed on him. So we went and climbed in the gorge right after that. I was kind of new to rock climbing outside with a rope, so he kind of acted as my mentor and kind of showed me the ropes.
Scott
How much older is he than you?
Kevin
I think Josh is 40 now and I’m 29 – so, like, 10 years difference.
Scott
Okay. So he’s got a little more experience in these kinds of things.
Kevin
Right. He’s been doing it for a while.
Scott
At the time, you were living in your van. Do you ever get jokes living in the van down by the river?
Kevin
Oh, yeah. What’s funny about that is it used to be, “Hey, if you keep your crap up, you’re going to end up in a van down by the river.” Now, it’s, “Hey, if you get your shit together, maybe you could end up in a van down by the river.” So it’s funny how that kind of flipped.
Scott
It’s a goal.
Kevin
It’s a goal, yeah.
Scott
You were just doing odd jobs. You also had a remote work position as well, right?
Kevin
Right. I was working for a company called TheMathCompany. It’s based out of Chicago with roots in India. So, I was fully remote at the time. I was basically doing data analytics and coding and stuff like that.
Scott
So, you got to make some money to support your outdoor activities, right?
Kevin
Absolutely, yeah, by any means necessary.
Scott
The Inyo Mountains is where you were at that day. How far is this from any kind of large city?
Kevin
It’s very remote in that aspect. The closest towns would probably be Big Pine or Independence, which are pretty small. So in the grand scheme of things, I’d say that the closest big city is probably Reno and then the closest medium city is probably Ridgecrest. These are both more than two hours away from there, so it’s pretty far out there.
Scott
Were you concerned at all with being so far away from any kind of help if something should happen? Did it ever cross your mind?
Kevin
What’s funny is I tend to do a lot of remote stuff and, a lot of the time, I’m alone and it never really occurred to me the dangers that could happen out there while you’re alone or how really remote you are out there. You’re more likely to run into a mountain lion than a human out there, which is pretty wild. So it never really occurred to me.
Scott
Wow. You must have thought about that since then, though. You had been alone when this happened.
Kevin
Yeah. It’s funny – not to jump into the future – but being in the hospital bed was one of the things that really struck me. I started thinking about all these crazy remote places that I’d spent time in alone and it blew my mind. It actually almost scared me in a way because you don’t realize until you realize how wild some of this stuff can get.
Scott
Yeah, all right. Well, let’s talk about what happened on that day. You and Josh were out digging. What were you looking for?
Kevin
We like to go up into the mountains and we search for various minerals, whether it be hematite, epidote, quartz crystals, stuff of that nature. I mean, there’s really endless sort of stuff out there. There’s a ton of old mines all over the place. People have been mining for different types of minerals for probably over 100 years up there. There are old mining claims everywhere. So, when you’re walking around out there, you can come across many different cool minerals. We’re big rock hounds, so anything is interesting to us. Sometimes, one mineral leads to another because they mineralize together. There’s stuff called Chrysocolla up there, all sorts of things.
Scott
When you find something really cool, is it something valuable you’re going to sell or is it just for your own collection?
Kevin
To be honest, a lot of times, it’s just for our own collection. I’m sure you could sell some of the stuff but, when you get your hands on it, it’s so appealing that you kind of just put it in a collection and keep it for yourself most of the time.
Scott
So on that day, you brought Josh to this particular spot. You had been there before, right?
Kevin
Right.
Scott
What was this place like? Can you just describe what the conditions were there?
Kevin
Yeah, it’s basically very rugged terrain. For people that are familiar with Joshua Tree, I guess I could paint a picture. It’s basically full of these giant jumbo boulders scattered all over the place. There’s a ton of sagebrush on the ground and there are very steep, rugged, sandy slopes. It’s basically a barren wasteland in the mountains.
Scott
You said boulders, so it’s very rocky then.
Kevin
Yes, it’s extremely rocky. Like I said, there’s just these big granite boulders up there that have just been sitting for thousands of years on these very steep hillsides.
Scott
Have you ever seen one roll down before?
Kevin
Before the incident, I had never seen a boulder roll down the hill like that. I’ve pictured it. I could imagine that it could happen. I’ve kicked rocks down while climbing peaks and stuff like that but never a boulder that big have I ever seen shift like that.
Scott
I guess you could look at these big, huge boulders and assume it’s been there for hundreds of years probably, maybe thousands of years. Why would it move now?
Kevin
Exactly. Sitting for thousands of years and just being kind of weathered into the sand. These things haven’t moved since the dawn of time, really.
Scott
Take us through what happened that day.
Kevin
I’ll just give you sort of the background. I had been going up there for a few days prior. So, before the day, basically, I had spent the entire summer up in Alaska and I had just gotten back to the area and I was kind of figuring out the next stage of my life. I didn’t have a job at the time. I was kind of just screwing around and adventuring around and just having fun before the winter hit. I had climbed Mount Tom a few days prior, so I decided I’m going to go out there and I’m going to look for cool rocks and just pass the time. I think I had, like, $200 to my name at the time. So, I went up there as a means to kind of kill time and I started finding some pretty cool stuff.
Josh had originally shown me the spot and he kind of showed me all about the rockhounding and whatnot, so I came across this very cool location and I told him and he’s like, “Hey, we got to get up there.” At the time, I don’t remember what he was sick from. He had, like, strep throat or something nasty, but we decided he was all fired up and we’re like, “We’re going to go do this. We’re going up there tomorrow.” So I went and stopped back into town. I remember this very vividly. I grabbed myself a tuna sandwich and a couple Snickers bars. We met early in the morning and we loaded up our packs with a ton of gear – I don’t know how much weight – probably 30 to 40 pounds at least of all these random pickaxes, chisels, rockhounding tools, shovels. We kind of split the load because he was in pretty bad shape. I was like, “I’m going to go get some food.” He was in pretty bad shape as far as being sick goes. Like I said, these hills are extremely rugged, so you want to start kind of early in the morning, even in the winter when it is cooler, because you’re kind of just humping up these sandy slopes. It’s not enjoyable by any means.
Scott
So this is a place you have to hike to. You’re not going to drive here. Or did you drive partway and then get out and walk?
Kevin
You drive to the base of the foothills and then it’s up to you to get up into the hills, essentially. You use geographic features to get up there, but there’s no trail or anything. It’s just completely off grid really.
Scott
Is there any chance you could get lost?
Kevin
You could get lost real easily. It’s kind of like a big room full of mirrors up there. Everything looks the same. I had been up there so many times and you still kind of look around and lose your orientation up there.
It’s kind of funny how it works up there. Everything kind of looks the same.
Scott
How do you keep that from happening, from getting lost? Do you carry a compass?
Kevin
A little, yeah.
Scott
Did you have phones with you?
Kevin
Yes. Luckily we had phones and the phone is honestly what ended up saving my life. Most of the time, you won’t have service up there, which is another great point to add. I just use apps on my phone. Just from going up there enough times, I’m pretty familiar with the geographic features as far as which way we came up and which way we’re going to go back down.
Scott
How long did you hike up the rocks to get to where you were going?
Kevin
I’d say probably a little over an hour, maybe close to an hour and a half, something like that. We’re going up this hill. Josh is kind of suffering because he’s got the whole sickness going on and each of us got a huge bag full of tools. We finally got to the spot. When you get there, you kind of set up camp, throw all your stuff on the ground and just take a quick breather and admire the beauty because you can kind of see a huge chunk of the Sierra Nevada mountains from up there. It’s like this big panorama of the mountain range. So you’re rewarded with these awesome views up there.
Scott
How long were you planning to be there?
Kevin
Sometimes we go all day. It kind of depends on what we’re finding. If we’re getting really excited, we’re like, “Hey, we’re going to camp up here.” Not actually, but you get pretty excited, you get pretty fired up, and you kind of lose track of time. In the winter, the days are a lot shorter, too. Mind you, the sun sets in the west, so it sets down over the Sierra and it probably happens around five.
Scott
Oh, wow. So it gets dark.
Kevin
It gets dark quick, yeah. Then you kind of want to get out of there because, once the sun goes down, it gets pretty cold too.
Scott
And you can’t really see well to navigate all the rocky terrain.
Kevin
Exactly. That too is a big part of it.
Scott
All right. So you guys found your spot and took the sites in for a little bit and then started digging.
Kevin
Then we started digging. At first, we were kind of just digging into the ground and not really finding much. It’s kind of funny how this works. A lot of the time, a lot of the cool minerals are kind of right underneath these huge boulders – I don’t know entirely why. Eventually, the digging led to underneath this boulder. We didn’t really think much of it. It was kind of this oblong shaped kind of circular boulder on this very, very steep hill that we were basically right underneath.
Scott
How big is this boulder? If you were standing next to it, where would it come to you?
Kevin
It’s bigger than a washing machine, but probably a little bit smaller than a grand sized piano, something like that, probably at least up to your head, probably at least up to your hip, I’d say.
Scott
A rock that’s bigger than a washing machine. That’s a big rock.
Kevin
It was a big rock, yeah.
Scott
So you were digging kind of under it?
Kevin
Yeah, basically like we were looking uphill. As the boulder kind of came down, we were at a perfect position for it to roll right on top of you. In other words, which we didn’t really think of at the time.
Scott
I can imagine people hearing this right now thinking, “Are these guys idiots? Why didn’t they think of this?”
Kevin
I’ve definitely been called an idiot before because of this, for sure, but you got to understand– folks at home viewing, when you’re doing this, you completely zoned out. You’re just kind of focused on digging and what you’re doing, especially when you’re finding cool stuff. You kind of lose track of your whole surroundings. You lose track of time. You lose track of homeostasis almost. You’re kind of just in the zone doing your thing.
Scott
You dug for a while. How long were you there digging?
Kevin
I’d say probably like a little over a half an hour to an hour, something like that. We started finding some really cool stuff and we were getting really excited. Josh was digging with this little scraper tool. He was kind of the one that started finding a lot of the cool stuff up there. Then, it was my turn and I got in there and I started using the scraper tool. Mind you, we’ve dug under a ton of rocks. Never once have any of them really shifted, so we felt pretty safe. We weren’t really thinking, “Oh, this could roll at any point.”
Scott
I mean, there is a degree of logic to that. I mean, this rock has been sitting here for so long. It’s going to take a lot to move it. We’re just a couple of guys digging with our little tools. Why would that have any effect? But gravity is a pretty big thing.
Kevin
Absolutely. It just so happened to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s kind of like the last grain of sand, almost. I don’t remember entirely how much we actually dug under it but, like I said, we were pulling specimens out from underneath the boulder, which probably didn’t help. We were kind of sitting back and admiring what we were finding. It gets to a certain point where Josh is finding so much cool stuff. He’s like, “Hey, Kev, you hop in there and get some now.” So I was kind of doing my thing. Josh was kind of off to the side recovering because you have to get in these crazy positions also to dig under these boulders. It helps to almost bring some sort of gardening pad or something to lay on or like a foam pad or something. You are so zoned in that, when you get out, sometimes you pull a muscle a little bit because you’re in the middle of the ground. You’re like, “Oh, I’m going to get out of here.” It’s a little bit because you’re in these weird positions trying to reach up in there.
So he was kind of resting on the side. I was finding some cool stuff and I decided to rest for a second, too. I think he was on the right side of it. I was on the left facing uphill. I don’t remember whether I was admiring one of the finds or what was happening but I was kind of looking at the ground and I remember him saying, “Hey, Kev, look out!” I was on my knees. So, before I could even get off the ground, this boulder knocks me back, hits me in both of my legs, and lands directly on top of both of my legs, and is kind of teetering on my chest, threatening to keep rolling down and crush my entire body, my skull, and everything.
Scott
You were on your back with your head facing downhill, is that right?
Kevin
My orientation was still facing uphill – it’s almost like I was laying down faced uphill. To paint more of a picture, we were kind of digging this big pit in front of the boulder. I basically got knocked into the pit with the boulder on top of me.
Scott
Okay. If it’s going downhill, how did it hit your legs first?
Kevin
Since I was on my knees, my torso was kind of positioned in a way, basically the underside of the boulder flipped and knocked me back, kind of like how a football player would hit another football player. I kind of went flying back from the impact and I ended up on my back. When the boulder hit my legs, my legs kind of had enough time to land underneath the boulder, if that makes any sense.
Scott
Wow. Obviously, that’s where the boulder stayed, right? It didn’t keep rolling.
Kevin
Exactly, and I think the reason why it didn’t keep rolling was because we were in that pit. However, when it did land on me, it was almost kind of teetering in a way where I felt the weight. It almost felt like I had a decision in that moment– I’ll tell you some other stuff too that went along with this, but it almost felt like I had a decision in that moment, whether I was going to let it kill me, whether I could fight back and try to survive – I distinctly remember having this feeling when it hit me and I was on my back. I looked up at Josh and he kind of just yelled, like, “Noooooo!” and he had the most deranged look on his face. We had done, like, a decent amount of stuff together in the mountains, but never have I ever seen him look so concerned. So, as I look up at the sky, I’m kind of thinking in my head, like, “Is this really happening right now? Is this real life?” It almost felt dreamlike, just having a surreal, indescribable force of nature hit you and then land on top of you like that. It was nothing that I’ve ever experienced before in my life. In a split second, a couple of minutes, all these things were flashing through my head. I started thinking about my family, my mom, my grandma, and I’m like, “Is this going to be it? Is this going to be the last few breaths that I’m ever going to take? Am I never going to see these people ever again?”
Amongst all the madness, I’m kind of yelling to Josh, “You got to get it off of me! You got to do something!” He’s a big guy. He was using all of his force. The thing would not even budge. To add to this, through the last couple of years, people get crushed by boulders in the mountains. It’s more common than most people would think. Someone just got crushed by a boulder on Mount Hood earlier this year, and there were 30 people trying to move it off of the person, and it would not budge. So just to get an insight on how heavy and unmovable these forces in nature are, it’s the real deal.
Scott
Well, it was estimated this boulder weighed 6,000 to 8,000 pounds, and there’s Josh trying to move it.
Kevin
Yeah. In my head, I’m like, “Maybe he can prop it up a little bit, and I can like start pulling my legs out,” but it wasn’t moving at all. The whole time, the boulder was kind of teetering on my chest, and I’m just like using all my force to try to survive, but my legs are being completely crushed. I just can’t even believe this is happening right now. Quick thinking led Josh to grab one of the pickaxes he had and shove it underneath the boulder, and that kind of stopped the teetering from happening, and it kind of allowed me to free my arms out of the boulder. I was basically scrambling to do anything to get out of there. Humans aren’t really used to being trapped like that.
Scott
Are you claustrophobic at all?
Kevin
Luckily, I’m not. My mom’s very claustrophobic, and my dad’s afraid of heights. I love going in mines and caving, and I also love rock climbing, so it’s funny how that works out.
Scott
Oh, you didn’t inherit either one of those. That’s good. Were you having trouble breathing at all?
Kevin
I remember it knocked the wind out of me for sure like it did. It definitely knocked the wind out of me. I don’t know if it hit me in the chest but my chest was really bruised after the fact when I was in the hospital the next following days and I was like, “Whoa. I guess this thing really did kind of almost crush my whole chest.”
Scott
But at least it didn’t come and sit on your chest. That would be fatal, it sounds like.
Kevin
Absolutely. It was more the legs. When Josh shoved the pickaxe underneath the boulder, like I said, I was kind of able to free my hands. So I started thinking about how I could get my legs out from under the boulder – I didn’t really have much feeling in the legs but I wasn’t really thinking just because I had so much adrenaline going on at the time.
Scott
Does that mean you weren’t feeling pain?
Kevin
It was very very painful. If you’ve ever been a kid and one of your older cousins accidentally falls on your arm and is, like, crushing it, you’re like, “Get off! Get off!” That sort of pain – more panicking based.
Scott
Both your legs were just being crushed under thousands of pounds of rock but sometimes adrenaline kind of puts the pain out temporarily anyway.
Kevin
Right. It was intense pain but the pain went to my brain and I was like, “You have to do something. You have to react.” I acknowledge the pain but I let it pass because it was more important to try to escape at the time. When I had my hands free, I kind of realized both my legs were still crushed. So, I don’t remember if he grabbed it for me or if I grabbed it but I grabbed that little scraper tool and I noticed that my left leg was not, like, fully pinned under there. It was kind of just like a big part of the skin was under there. So, what I did was I actually took that scraper tool and I cut my pants off and that was really the only way to free my leg. We’re talking a matter of a couple of minutes. This all went down so fast.
I cut the pants off of my left leg and I was kind of able to pull the leg out and maneuver around the boulder. If I was facing east, I would now be facing on the north side of the boulder. So, I got out of the way. If it kept tumbling downhill to go west, I would have been out of the impact zone, but what I noticed was my right leg was fully pinned. Even crazier, what I noticed is I could see the inside of my left leg and–
Scott
Oh, the one you got free?
Kevin
Yeah, the one that I got free. I was looking inside of my left leg and I’m pretty sure I actually did see my artery. I saw all these muscles and tissues and stuff that you really shouldn’t ever see.
Scott
How did you react to seeing that?
Kevin
Well, I looked down and I was like, “Holy shit.” As soon as Josh saw me looking down on it, he’s like, “Don’t look at that” and he grabbed a shirt immediately and put it on my leg and applied pressure. One thing we noticed was that, even though the whole inside of my leg was showing, I wasn’t bleeding out by any means. Normally, when you have that big of a gash, there’s blood spewing out and all this crazy stuff, but we could kind of just see inside of my leg. I wasn’t necessarily bleeding.
Scott
So you must not have severed an artery.
Kevin
They say that I severed the artery but it almost got crimped in a way where it didn’t actually slice the artery open. Bear with me, this whole situation was a complete miracle. I had a CPR course last week and I was trying to describe it to the guy and he couldn’t get his head around how lucky I was. It’s just one of those crazy miracles at that time.
Scott
Did either you or Josh have any training in emergency situations like this?
Kevin
No, but Josh has been involved in some accidents where he was kind of a bystander or something. I believe there was a climbing accident where some girl hit her head really bad and her whole head was open. He just happened to be there at the time and he kind of helped her through that. I don’t know the specific details of that but he’s definitely seen some crazy shit, for sure. I’ve been in survival situations but never to this extent.
Scott
So Josh– really, it sounds like the responsibility of getting out of the situation is on him.
Kevin
Yeah.
Scott
What did he do?
Kevin
So I was basically helpless. This was all up to him at this point. What’s funny is he had just gotten a brand new phone – I believe it’s a Samsung Galaxy S20. He just got this brand new phone a couple days prior. That was the only thing we could do – just really hop on the phone and call 9-1-1 – once I realized the leg was still trapped and I had a huge gash in my leg. So, he hopped on his phone and immediately called 9-1-1. What was awesome was we were in such a rugged territory where there usually is no service, but he had a bar of service, so he was able to get through and he was able to contact the Inyo County sheriff’s office and spoke to a gentleman named Derek.
I also want to add, Scott, that when this boulder came tumbling down, I mentioned that all of our belongings were kind of sprawled out everywhere. It literally knocked over all the water we had for the day.
Scott
But you call 9-1-1. They’re going to be there in 10 minutes, right?
Kevin
So I thought. Like I said, it was this guy named Derek. I was freaking out because my leg was trapped. I also legitimately thought I was going to die. I wasn’t sure if this was one of those situations where I could just sit through it and live. I started wondering how much time I had left to live, really. So, I told the guy on the phone, I asked him, like, 10 times. I’m like, “Hey Derek, am I dying right now? If I’m dying, man, let me know right now so I could call my mom and tell her I love her and just tell her my final words. I didn’t want to just go out like that” and he wouldn’t give me a straight answer. He’s like, “Nah, Kev, you need to just hang in there.” This is also Josh’s famous line. He told me, like, “Nah. I’m not letting you call your mom. You’re not dying on my watch, buddy.” And he just kind of kept pressure on the leg, taking things extremely seriously.
Scott
Well, that’s probably good. There’s no reason to worry your mom at this point, right?
Kevin
Yeah exactly. Josh was on the phone with Derek. I’m underneath the boulder. During the time of being underneath the boulder, I kind of went through these crazy periods of being totally zen to absolutely screaming my head off. Sometimes, I’d kind of close my eyes and breathe deeply and just listen to the wind blow, try to just zone out and forget where I was but, then, I’d open my eyes and remember where I am and what’s going on and I’d just scream my head off. The pain was so bad that Josh– a few of the times, he gave me his hand to squeeze. I was so delusional at a certain point that I remember actually grabbing his hand and biting it because I was in so much pain and I was just freaking out so badly – just kind of one of those crazy human nature moments where it’s just hard to describe, really, honestly.
Scott
Yeah. You’d never been in a situation like this before.
Kevin
Exactly.
Scott
What was the status with 9-1-1? Were they sending rescuers or what was going on?
Kevin
Derek asked him to walk away from me for a few minutes so that he could talk to Josh. Basically, what he told him on the phone was, “Hey, you got to do everything in your power to keep him calm right now. Basically, keep him as calm as you can and we are going to send a CHP (California Highway Patrol) chopper just to check out the surrounding and get a glimpse of where you guys are at and get some more information on the story. When Josh left, it was only a couple of minutes but I was absolutely freaking out. I didn’t want him to leave because I just felt completely helpless there. He came back and he kind of helped to zen me out more.
A couple hours in, we started hearing a helicopter off in the distance and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I’m going to be rescued.” I thought they were just going to come out there and do their thing and send someone down and help me out. This helicopter flew above us and, just as quick as it came by, I saw it leave and just disappeared off into the mountains. Josh didn’t really tell me what’s going on – it was probably for the best – that they were just going to come and survey the area and leave.
Scott
Was it dark at this time?
Kevin
It was almost dark. It was starting to get dark because we had watched the whole sunset up there. We had gone from, like, a 50, 60 degree day to night and it gets cold up there. So it’s just before night.
Scott
With the helicopter, you think they were able to see you? Did you have a fire going or anything?
Kevin
We did end up eventually making a fire and we got clearance from Derek that it was okay and everything. I think they were able to locate us and they kind of decided that the landing was way too sketchy and that it wasn’t really a good situation for them.
Scott
So they left and now you’re back – just the two of you – in the quiet.
Kevin
Yeah, exactly. It is quiet up there. I’ll tell you, the only thing that you can hear really is the wind – nothing really up there. It did start to get really cold. We watched the sun set and as it got colder, the coldness of the rock pushed up against my leg became really unbearable like it was freezing. That’s when we got clearance. Josh made a little fire out of the sagebrush to try to keep me warm. It wasn’t his fault or anything but some of the embers of the fire kind of went under the boulder. I couldn’t feel my leg anyway, but I was wondering if they were getting down there and, like, burning me.
Scott
Did the pain let up at all?
Kevin
It was very, very uncomfortable. I forgot to mention that I was also in such a weird position where my legs were basically in a butterfly crunch and I was kind of doing a split. My left leg was, like, bent. Sometimes, I’d put it up on the boulder to try to get some relief, but I was basically doing a split the entire time and my knees were bent in these weird positions. It was so bad, Scott, that I actually was, like, clawing at the boulder, just scraping the granite, just trying to do anything to get relief. Earlier, while we were waiting, Josh tried to dig underneath the boulder as a way to maybe try to free the leg.
Scott
Like get it to keep rolling, you mean?
Kevin
To dig under it. If it was propped up and my leg was under it, he was almost trying to create a little tunnel for me to pull my leg out through but, every time he did that, I felt the boulder crush me even worse. So, it just kept getting worse and worse. That’s when Derek was like, “Yeah, just stop. We need to just wait for help.”
Scott
How cold did it get?
Kevin
I’d say below 40, for sure. I don’t know if it was quite freezing, but maybe when it started getting really into the night, it started probably dipping into the thirties and getting there.
Scott
And you guys weren’t planning to be there overnight, did you bring any kind of warm jackets or a blanket or anything?
Kevin
Luckily, I had my puffy jacket just because, around that time of year, it’s good to have in your pack anyways. So, I had the puffy just in case we had to hike out at night. So I had a puffy, Josh had a puffy, but other than that– I think Josh might’ve had some extra gear, which was helpful. He kind of bundled me up and put blankets on me and tried to keep me warm. Fire definitely helped, for sure, to keep me warm. As the clock ticked, the survival situation became more and more unbearable.
Scott
You knew that there is a finite amount of time that you can survive being there.
Kevin
Absolutely.
Scott
You just didn’t know how much time you had.
Kevin
Right. But what was funny was in the first couple of hours, I kept asking Derek, “Tell me if I’m going to die. I need to know.” But as the hours passed by – four or five hours – you sort of developed this mentality, like, “If I can survive for this long, maybe I can keep going longer.” The amount of time that you spend up there– in my head, I’m all, “You need to just hold out on this. You will get help if you can just survive through this.” It was one of the worst, most challenging days of my entire life. I had never gone through anything that wildly intense before. I’m like, “All you need to do – your job right now in your life – is just to survive.”
It was pitch black. It had been, like, eight or nine. Josh basically has a few friends that were in search and rescue and I think he got some sort of text or something like that where he was like, “All right, Kev, someone’s on the way. Someone’s going to be on foot and they’re going to come out here and be able to be with us.” That was a really comforting feeling because, all day, we were basically sitting there completely alone especially after seeing the helicopter fly off. This was our next wave of help, so I’m like, “All right. I just got to hang in there.”
Scott
Who was it that showed up? Is this the sheriff’s people or somebody else?
Kevin
This was Inyo County Search & Rescue – two guys at first. One of them was this really badass Australian guy named Tim and Josh had told me about this guy before. “He’s on the search and rescue team. He goes out and, basically, he rescues people that have flipped their jeeps and whatnot and he does a lot of that off-road sort of search and rescue stuff.” You could really find yourself in a huge pickle because you’re bringing your dirt bike or your jeep, like, 30-50 miles way out there and then something bad happens, you are really majorly stranded. I had heard about Tim before and I heard about him being a badass, and I didn’t know it was going to be him that showed up. When these two guys came down the mountain and I saw their headlamps, I was kind of thinking in my head, “These guys are the most badass mofos I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Scott
“I’m in good hands right now.”
Kevin
I’m finally in good hands, yeah, and I felt so safe with them arriving at the scene like that. So they got there and immediately kind of lightened the mood and cracked a few jokes and stuff like that. I was suffering really badly, but I appreciated the sense of humor. So they start kind of scoping everything out, looking at the situation. I didn’t really know entirely what was going on but, at some point, I remember whether it was them or the next group of rescuers, which was only probably four or five people max– they started getting straight down to business. One of them pulled out a roto hammer and started drilling holes in the rock and they’re putting rock climbing bolts like hangers into the rock. They’re talking with each other and using these technical terms.
They’re also drilling bolts on this really big immovable whale-sized boulder behind it. They kind of told me that they were going to do this– I think it was a three to one pulley system where they basically run the rope through the rock and they run it down to the bigger boulder through those bolts. Tim had this thing called a high lift jack which is basically used to flip over jeeps and vehicles that have fallen on their side or just to prop it up, change tires, and stuff. So, Tim shoved that thing under the boulder and cranked it up and I felt a little bit of relief for the first time in so many hours.
Scott
Oh, that must have been amazing.
Kevin
It was amazing. But what’s funny also is when the initial impact happened and I was under it, I thought I was going to be able to pull my legs free. I thought I was hiking out and getting out of there. Little did I know, I had a broken pelvis in two spots, a bunch of dead tissue in my leg, and the list goes on with that with the injuries. At that point when he propped it up with the high lift jack, I was like, “I am totally on the ground not doing much.”
Scott
You’re not walking anywhere.
Kevin
Before they got the boulder off of me, more people kept coming. There’s an EMT named Isaac. When Isaac got there, I felt extremely safe and comfortable. He was able to calm me down and kind of took my vitals. I’m like, “Oh, thank god. Finally, someone medical who knows if I’m going to die or not, more or less.”
One of the more painful things – they put a tourniquet on my leg before they lifted the boulder up. This was to prevent something called compartmental syndrome and you can look it up. I’m still not fully familiar but, basically, when your blood gets cut off – it’s not circulating fully. A lot of people who get crush injuries die from rhabdo. So, he basically put a tourniquet on my leg to prevent that. When he put this tourniquet on my leg, he told me it was going to hurt. When he started cranking it down, my leg became probably half of the size that it actually is and I’m like, “Holy shit. That really did really badly hurt.”
Tourniquet’s on my leg. More team members are showing up. They’re able to use that pulley system to kind of lift the boulder up off of me. While they did this, a couple people were behind me, they had their arms under my armpits and I could slowly feel them pull me out and my leg became free, finally.
Scott
The moment you’ve been waiting for.
Kevin
Yes, for hours and hours. It was just good to get that cold thing off of me too – it’s freezing. There, I lay on the ground. My head is in a sagebrush. I’m all dirty and sweaty and just absolutely just drained from the amount of adrenaline that was flowing through my body. I was just basically laying there while all the other team members came. They had originally told me that I was going to have to spend the night up there. I was happy but also not fully relieved just because I was so messed up from the whole thing. They had us drinking water. Everyone was drinking tea and that was good. They told me, “You should really try to eat something small” and gave me some tea which helped to warm me up. But everyone was kind of in a good mood and it was a really successful story. I’m really glad to everyone there but I was laying on the ground and I was still in a ton of pain and just a lot of uncertainty as well.
Scott
And you were there for how long overall?
Kevin
I’d say probably around, like, five or six hours actually underneath the thing. When I got pulled out, they told me I was going to have to sit there all night. Like I said, the human mind’s really powerful. You can do way more than you actually think and your mind is way stronger than your body. So, I’m like, “You know what? I have no other choice. I’m just going to have to lay here.” But one of them said there was actually going to be some hope and that someone was going to come and fly through the night and airlift me out of there which was amazing. At this point, I just wanted it to all be over – I wasn’t sure how. I was like, “This is a bad fucking dream. Man, I just want to wake up from this.”
They told me that, basically, members of the navy were flying out there to come and airlift me out of there. Before they even got there, they gave me this pair of sunglasses but they were more like what you would use in a weld shop to protect all corners of your eyes. They were like, “Hey man, you’re going to need to throw these on because there’s this crazy thing that happens when a helicopter’s flying over you. It’s called rotor wash. It basically kicks up all the debris around you.”
I laid there for a while. It was dark. Everyone was there. I was out from under the boulder. We were kind of waiting for the helicopter. I threw on the shades. Here comes this helicopter in the night and it’s got this gnarly spotlight and I was like, “Holy shit. This is insane.” They put me in a litter which is basically like this big orange stretcher. They got me into the litter. They tied me down – just a broken body basically in the litter just laying there hoping to be rescued.
Scott
The litter– that’s the thing you can be held in and that the helicopter can hook on to.
Kevin
Right, exactly, yeah. I believe they can also carry you out in the litter too, so it’s multifunctional.
Scott
Yeah, but man– I’m just imagining. It took you guys two able-bodied people an hour to hike to where you were and that was in the daytime. Having to carry you out– I would be scared the whole time that they would trip and you’d be tumbling down the mountain again.
Kevin
It would be absolutely brutal. Sometimes, they have wheels on these things and they wheel people out. They do some amazing work – these people – like other other worldly sort of situations where you would never even believe this was possible.
Scott
The navy helicopter showed up. You’re in the litter. What happened there?
Kevin
They fly overhead with their big spotlight. All the rotor wash is happening. It feels like I’m in another world looking up at this light in the sky. I couldn’t even believe that I got crushed by the boulder for so long, let alone a freaking helicopter coming to pick me up. Out of the helicopter repels this guy. I just see kind of this rope coming out of the sky and this guy lands next to me. He’s yelling in my ear, telling me, “Hey, I’m going to clip you to me and we’re going up.” I’m like, “Holy shit. This is crazy.”
Scott
It kind of sounds like an episode of Fear Factor.
Kevin
Basically. I try to think of what to compare it to. Yeah, basically, like Fear Factor.
Scott
But you didn’t have an option to decline the stunt. You were going.
Kevin
Yup, we’re doing this. So he clips me to him and up we go in the sky. The litter was kind of tipped in a way where I could essentially slide out of this thing and fall 50 feet to the ground but, in my head, I don’t really think anything could be worse than I’d already gone through this. This is the way to get help, so I had no choice.
Scott
At some point, you got to think, “Okay, these guys are professionals. They know what they’re doing. I might feel unsafe swinging around in this thing but it’s going to be okay.”
Kevin
It’s going to be okay, yeah. And the guy was right next to me. What’s funny about the whole helicopter situation is, when they get you up to the helicopter and then they kind of have to shovel you into the helicopter, a lot of things could go wrong. Basically, when they were shoveling me into the helicopter, I accidentally hit my head on the side of the helicopter – no big deal compared to the whole situation but shit happens. I’m up there with these guys. It felt like a military style operation. Being in there, all you could see was two guys in there and this red light up on the ceiling and it was loud. Man, it was loud, it was bumpy, and it was cold. I wasn’t under the boulder anymore and that’s all that mattered.
Scott
How long was the helicopter ride and where were they bringing you?
Kevin
They brought me to Fresno Regional Hospital – I believe it was called – something like that. It’s a really great trauma hospital on the west side of the Sierra in Fresno. At first, when I was on the ground, one of the guys asked me if I wanted to go to Fresno or Reno. Someone else jumped in and they were like, “Hey man, you definitely want to go to fresno, for sure. Reno logistically might be closer by drive but I think, by helicopter, I think Fresno is actually closer.” Everyone does great work and shout out to all the doctors, nurses, surgeons and everything but I think that the one in Fresno is better equipped to deal with the injury that I had.
Scott
And why would they give that decision to you? You don’t know which one’s better, right? They know it.
Kevin
I don’t know how I ended up being the guy that got asked. Whoever jumped in for me, I appreciate you, if you’re listening to this right now. I also ought to mention that the navy is the only ones that can fly at night so that was really really important. If it wasn’t for them, then I would have spent the night. In the helicopter itself, I was so exhausted from everything that had gone down. I was kind of just trying to close my eyes and not fall asleep. I knew I had to stay awake to stay alive in a way but I was just kind of like– I’m in their hands now. I don’t have to fight for my life anymore. They kept tapping me on the shoulder. They’re like, “Hey man, don’t fall asleep.” And that was pretty rough. It was real, like I said, a bumpy, dark, cold ride over the Sierra. It would have been cooler in the daytime when you could see all the peaks. but you don’t really get to pick or choose when you’re in that situation.
We got to the hospital. I had been in the dark for so long and, as opposed to other people’s headlamps, those bright lights hit you when you’re coming through the door. Before I could even thank the guys or get their names or anything like that, I was being thrown onto an emergency room table and there’s probably, like, 10 to 12 people you know pulling out different body parts. I don’t know if you want to put this in there but they actually flip me over and someone more or less put their thumb in my butt – I guess they have to do that for the crush injuries, but that was pretty uncomfortable – and they’re like, “All right, now roll him back over.” Everyone’s tugging at my body parts. I didn’t know what was going on or how bad I was injured.
Scott
I’d never heard of that procedure, but I guess it would kind of make sense. I mean, you said your pelvis was broken in two places. Maybe that’s how they confirmed that or something.
Kevin
Right. This is another big part of the story. They took my pulse several times. I think, before that, they put me through what I think was a CAT scan or something. They put you through the big tube and they had me in this weird position where I had my arms up in sort of a weird way and they made me stay there for a while. It got to the point where it was so painful. I kind of told them, I was like, “Hey, I can’t do this anymore. This is really rough on me.” So they put me in a room.
Then, the doctors came in and they were trying to take my pulse on my left foot. While they were doing this, they kind of tried to take the pulse and then they’d look at each other and look kind of concerned. Then, the next doctor would come into the room and do the same thing– they try to take my pulse and they’d look at each other all concerned. So I’m all, Hey, you guys, is everything all right down there? And no one’s saying anything.
It got to the point where the final doctor came in and took the pulse and it was determined that I had to call my mom and tell her that I had to have emergency surgery immediately. I don’t remember if they told me about cracking my pelvis in two spots or whether I severed my femoral artery in my left leg but, more or less, I told my mom, I called her. It was super late at night. It’s probably like three or four in the morning on the East Coast – where she lives in New York. I was all, “Hey mom, it’s Kevin. I’m at the hospital right now in Fresno and I need to have emergency surgery immediately.” She knew something was wrong because I was calling her so late at night. So, she kind of already knew something was up.
Scott
Why did you have to call her? Are you on her health insurance or something?
Kevin
They kind of just told me to be courteous in a way, like, “Hey, tell your mom what’s going on because this is pretty serious right now.”
Scott
And that was the first time she even learned of the accident or anything.
Kevin
Exactly. They might’ve even just been like, “Hey, call anyone close to you and tell them that this is really serious and you’re going to go in for emergency surgery.” Almost to say like if I didn’t make it, at least, someone would have known. So, I called my mom, I told her the deal, and I was like, “But I’m going to be okay” and kind of got off the phone with her, not knowing the severity of what was going on. The nurses that help you after surgery– they’re just so nice and so sweet. I remember taking a selfie at that point – and I can send this to you – and I remember looking at myself and I looked so battered and just destroyed. I look like I have gone through hell and back.
Scott
Well, you kind of had.
Kevin
Right. Bruises all over my body, cuts on my arms that I didn’t know about. I had a bunch of dirt on my face. My hair was all matted, just like absolutely destroyed, and on my last leg. Eventually, they said I could see my mom and they wheeled me out. My mom and my aunt had actually rendezvoused together. My aunt lives in Boise, Idaho, but they had both met up and gotten to the hospital and everything. They wheeled me out and I was all, “Hey guys!” Just happy to be alive and finally seeing some family. They couldn’t believe it. I think my aunt started crying and both of them got pretty teary eyed.
Scott
What’s amazing to me is that you didn’t actually have any broken bones in your legs.
Kevin
No broken bones in the legs – no femur, tibia, fibula, nothing like that – but I did crack my pelvis in two spots, and I think that was from the initial impact. The main injury was all of the dead tissue that the boulder had killed from crushing it in the initial impact and the severed femoral artery, which they actually had to do a bypass on. They went into the other leg and kind of grabbed a vein and grafted the vein around the artery to save the leg.
One of the doctors came in and shook my hand and he introduced himself. I don’t remember his name exactly, but he said, “Hi, Kevin, I’m the doctor that saved your leg.” When he said that, a flood of emotions– I think I got all teary. eyed. I just couldn’t even believe it. I was so thankful and just mind absolutely blown. I’m at a real loss for words over that. That was one of the craziest situations of the whole story, I think. “I saved your leg.”
Scott
To meet the guy that did that, yeah.
Kevin
It was absolutely amazing. Everyone who helped in the whole process was so amazing. I really pushed myself a lot. I’d started with small wins, just sitting up in bed, and that progressed to being able to stand up, and that progressed to maybe taking a few steps at night. I’d get up and I’d push myself to like slowly walk down the hallway and get further each time. They were able to get me out of the hospital by Christmas. The incident happened on December 5th, so that was remarkable timing. My mom– luckily she works remotely, so she was kind of able to get some time to help me. So, she was able to take care of me for a couple months after that. We ended up finding this horse farm. I believe it was used for hospice or something.
Scott
Oh, that’s not where you want to go.
Kevin
No, absolutely not. But it was helpful to my situation in the sense that it’s accommodating to someone who’s disabled in a way. So they had their own building on the horse farm. It’s called Rancho del Sueño, which translates, I believe, to Ranch of Dreams in Spanish. The lady, Robin, who owns the horse farm, has all these horses and I believe they were used for healing for the people that were staying there. We were watching these awesome sunsets every night. My brother was able to come visit for Christmas, so me, my mom, and my brother all got to hang out. It was really, really nice.
Scott
How long ago did this happen?
Kevin
This was December 5th of 2023, probably a little over two and a half, almost three years ago now.
Scott
Are you back to 100% now?
Kevin
I’m back to 111%. By the grace of God, by all the people that put so much effort and help into rescuing me, rehabilitating me, and saving my body, I’m somehow literally better than I used to be. I’m somehow literally better than I used to be. I’m healthier than ever and have a way better mentality than I once did because, when that happened, it didn’t just crush my legs, it crushed my ego as well. It basically took everything that I had from me. I like huge adventures. I need my legs to get around. I wouldn’t be able to do any of this stuff without them. But yeah, I’d say that this is probably the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
Scott
I wondered about that. If you could go back and change it so that you never got crushed by the boulder, would you do that?
Kevin
Scott, that’s a really interesting question. In a weird sort of way, I think that I needed that wake-up call in my life. The fact that that happened enabled me to have so much appreciation just to be alive and breathing. It gave me such a greater appreciation for life and, ultimately, it helped me to take things way more seriously. I wouldn’t say that I think everyone should go through a near-death experience like that but, when you do, it gets you to the point where you’re sort of like, “There’s no more messing around. This is it. This is your one life right now and you’re living it.” I don’t really sit around or hang out. I’m always sort of doing something because life is so short and so precious that we need to use all this time in our life to live it. You can buy everything in life. You could pay for your health, but you can’t buy life itself. It’s just one of those precious things.
Scott
Have you been back to rock climbing again?
Kevin
Absolutely. A lot of rock climbing and a lot of climbing peaks, luckily. I never even thought I’d walk again, let alone be able to get up there in the mountains.
Scott
Do you still dig for minerals and crystals under boulders?
Kevin
Not under boulders, but we do it in a safe way now.
Scott
Good. Lesson learned.
Kevin
Yeah, absolutely. The boulder crushed my legs, not my future. If there’s any sort of message that you could take from this, it’s to not let your worst day define your life. Your circumstances don’t determine your future, your decision to move forward does. I spent three years rebuilding my body. Evidently, I rebuilt my mind. The strongest thing you can really do is refuse to quit on yourself. I believe that resilience is a skill. I used to think strength was a skill and I realized from this whole situation that probably 70% of your life is mental and we’re capable of far more than we think.
My goal is to help others believe that they can get through their rock bottom moments and chase the life that they want and their dreams. You can use me and my story as an example because it’s totally true. I just wanted to thank everyone involved – my buddy Josh, The Inyo Search and Rescue team, all of the nurses, doctors, surgeons, the Lemoore Naval Station for coming to the rescue and getting me out of there, God, anyone else involved with this situation, my mom, my family. I’m so thankful to everyone and I would not be here without any of you individually helping me. So I’m extremely grateful.
Scott
If you want to see pictures of Kevin, I have those in the episode notes. And also, you may not be aware, but every main episode is also transcribed. So if for some reason you’d like to read the whole episode, you can do that. For this one, you can get all of that at WhatWasThatLike.com/267
And if you like this episode, you’re going to love hearing Amy’s story, if you haven’t already. Amy’s office was on the third floor of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building when the terrorist’s bomb exploded, and she was trapped in the rubble –
Amy
Then, very quickly, everything was quiet. I tried to move. I couldn’t move. And I tried to open 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.
Scott
That’s episode 95, titled, Amy’s Office Was Bombed. In the Facebook. group recently, I asked, what restaurant went out of business, but you really wish it would come back? And Liz decided to answer with a voicemail.
Liz
Hi, Scott. This is Liz – long-time listener, first-time caller. I am responding to the question that you asked on the episode I was just listening to about a restaurant that you used to love that is no longer open. I have to say, it was so timely because I have been dreaming about this restaurant that I used to go to all the time in Sacramento, California – it was called Cafe Morocco. It was a little hole in the wall, but it was my favorite. It was Middle Eastern Moroccan food and they had the most incredible food. I mean, there was a dish called chicken sumac that I got every time. What I dream about is this dessert that they had called Aish El Saraya – I’m probably saying that wrong – or Rich Man’s Bread. It was this kind of white bread that was soaked in sweetened rose water with this thick, creamy custard on top of it and pistachio. It was served cold and it is something that I cannot find anywhere.
I cannot recreate it. I mean, I remember going to this restaurant and offering to pay them to give me the recipe – this is when I was like a teenager. That speaks to how passionately I felt about this with my hard-earned babysitting money. They said, “We’ve been offered $20,000 for this recipe and we’re not giving it up.” They went out of business or they shut down, and I still yearn for this dessert so much so that I’ve thought about writing into our local news magazine to see if they would hunt down the people that made this dessert because it is just a moment in time I’ve never in my life had anything so delicious. Most of the people in my life know that that’s my death row meal. If it was my last meal on earth, I’m having chicken sumac and rich man’s bread from Cafe Morocco in Sacramento. Thanks for taking this.
Scott
And you know, we have questions like that every single Tuesday in the Facebook group. The question this past Tuesday was: What made you impulsively quit a job and walk out? I know a lot of people THINK about doing that, but have you ever done it? We want to hear that story! Come on over and join us at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook
Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
And here we are once again, at the end of an episode and we’re about to hear a Listener Story. Do you have a story? You don’t have to answer that – I know you do. Everyone does. Just record it on your phone, like 5-10 minutes, and email it to me – Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com
This week’s story is from Allen Fetters. And his voice might sound a bit familiar. Back in episode 251, he told a Listener Story about losing his watch – then discovering that someone he was working with was actually wearing his lost watch. Pretty cool story.
Well, today Allen is back with another one that’s just as crazy. Maybe crazier. And if you want to get more of Allen’s stories, he’s actually written a book full of them. It’s called WTF Just Happened? Bizarre Real-Life Stories that will have you Shaking Your Head. You can get it at his website – WTFjusthappened.us.
But now, you can enjoy Allen’s story of the night he went to the hospital.
Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time.
(Listener story)
Allen
When I was 24, I moved to a brand new city, started a new job, and a new career. It was also the first time I’d let myself explore my sexuality. I’d known since I was a kid, since I was in high school, that I was gay, but I’d never really explored that. So, I figured now was the time. I started going to the gay bar week after week. I say the gay bar because there was only one in town. I wound up always talking to this one guy for whatever reason. Even if the bar was packed, we kept bumping into each other. At some point during those nights, we hit it off, wound up spending a lot of time together at the bar and outside of the bar. This was before iPhones and social media and all that. So, instead of late night texting, it was late night phone calls with each other until we would nearly fall asleep. I caught feelings for him. He did not catch feelings for me.
I noticed all the guys he would hook up with from the bar were skinny, which I wasn’t. I thought he might not like me in that way because of my weight. I had a little extra 20 pounds or so. “Lose the weight,” I thought. “I’ll be as thin as a rail and he’ll date me.” Delusional, I know, but that’s how my brain worked. So I starved myself to lose the extra pounds and got gallstones in the process.
My gallstone attacks would come and go – never lasted very long. They always hurt, but the pain was not unbearable until late one Sunday night. It was about 11 PM. I was lying on the couch watching TV. That’s when the pain hit. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. It was like someone was stabbing me repeatedly with a white-hot poker in the side while simultaneously kicking me in the balls. Imagine the worst cramp you’ve ever had. Not only is it painful, but it literally folds your body in half in the process. I couldn’t even stand up straight. I knew this attack was different.
I needed to get to the hospital fast, but how? I began running through the synapses and scenarios in my head. I could call 911. That felt a little dramatic, though. I mean, what if the pain suddenly goes away? Which it often did before the ambulance got there. I’d feel like an idiot. I can just see the EMTs rolling their eyes at me. Calling a friend felt like a burden. I mean, it was late on a Sunday. Everybody I knew had to work early the next morning. Nobody lived near me. Who knows how long a visit to the emergency room would last. I know any of them would have jumped at the chance to help me if I just called, but I didn’t want to bother anybody. So, driving myself seemed at the time to be the best option. If the pain goes away while I’m on the way, I just turn around and go home. No harm, no foul.
So, hunched over, I put on some clothes, got into my Honda Prelude. I could barely see over the dashboard. Like those little old ladies you see driving in Florida, all you see is the top of their heads and their hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel. Yeah, that was me. Driving was one thing. Remembering to breathe through the pain so I wouldn’t pass out was another. I just constantly kept telling myself, “Breathe, breathe.”
I knew exactly how I was going to go – the back way. It was late on a Sunday night. There would be no traffic. It would be perfect, and it almost was. As I turned onto the last stretch that was probably 2 or 3 miles long, all I could see was nothing but green lights ahead of me. No cars. The road was empty. So, I started hauling ass to get there as quickly as I could. I knew if I got pulled over, my excuse would be pretty obvious.
All of a sudden, as I was approaching an intersection, I saw him out of the corner of my left eye – a black guy on a bike with a bunch of groceries in a basket that sat on the handlebars starting to cross the street. You know when bad things are about to happen in the movies and they slow everything down? Yeah, this was like that. I knew I was going to hit him and that’s when everything slowed down. My foot slammed on the brakes. I could hear the screeching of the tires on the pavement. I could see him growing in size through the windshield as I got closer. I saw the horrified expression on his face as he slowly turned towards me knowing he was going to get hit.
The car skidded into him. He rolled up onto the hood, slid up onto the windshield. His bike was thrown down the road. As the car snapped to a stop, he rolled off the hood onto the pavement and, just like that, everything was in real time again. I sat there in silence, thinking to myself, “Holy shit. I just killed a man.” Through the windshield, I could see his motionless body in the street. A crumpled bike lay just beyond him, and groceries everywhere. The bag on the front of the bike had exploded. I know it was only a few seconds, but I sat there for what felt like an eternity, looking for any kind of movement to signal that he was still alive and trying to figure out what I should do next, if he wasn’t.
Suddenly, he moved. He slowly picked himself up off the pavement, wiping the gravel off his clothes and skin. Still hunched over, agonizing in pain, I managed to get out of the car. I asked him, “Are you okay?” He slowly nodded yes. Now, I probably shouldn’t have said this at this moment but it just kind of slipped out. I looked at him and said, “I had the green light.” “No, you didn’t,” he said. “Yes, I did.” Pointing at me and walking toward me angrily with his finger leading the way, he said, “Listen here, you motherfucking white cracker. My light was green.”
From my hunched over position, due to the incredible pain that I was in, I looked up to see him, and I saw him towering over me. He was at least 6’4″, probably pushing 320 pounds, built like an NFL linebacker. Realizing the size difference, and that I was in no position to pick a fight in the middle of a dark road with a guy twice my size while having a gallbladder attack, I said, “Okay.”
My pain was paralyzing, and all I could think about was getting to the hospital. I knew he was pissed off and, somehow, I needed to diffuse the whole situation, so I didn’t get the shit beat out of me. I said to him, “I’m going to the hospital. Do you want to come with me and get checked out?” He wanted nothing to do with that, and asked me to take him home. So, still doubled over in agony, I helped him pick up the groceries that were in the middle of the road, and his mangled bike, put it all in the trunk of my car. The ride to his house was silent, aside from him saying, “Turn here” a few times and “This is my house” when we arrived.
A couple of times along the way, I glanced over and saw this giant of a man crammed into my little Honda Prelude, looking forward at the road, silent. Minutes earlier, he’d been sliding off the hood of my car. He literally was the size of the hood of my car. The absurdity of this moment was unreal.
Once we arrived at his house, we both got out of the car, with my gallstone attack still in full intensity mode, I lifted his twisted bike out of the trunk, and handed him the bag of groceries. He said, “Thanks,” drug his bike off, went into the house. I slumped back into the driver’s seat, and continued on to the hospital, but at a much slower speed. I got to the emergency room. They triaged me, sent me for x-rays. It just so happened that a guy that I knew was working in the x-ray department that night. Next thing I know, I’m standing there in a loosely tied hospital gown, telling him this unreal story of what had just happened to me on the way to the hospital, as he snapped pictures of my gallbladder. I wound up having surgery the next day, and they took out my gallbladder. That required a second night in the hospital.
On that second night, my friend came into the room and said, “You’re never going to believe this. A black guy came into the hospital last night, complaining of pain, said he’d been hit by a car.” Yep, it was the same guy. When my friend said that, my heart dropped, and my mind fired at the speed of light, first, hoping that the guy was okay and, second, that he wasn’t going to get the police involved. I mean, technically, I’d left the scene of an accident. Would I have been liable for his medical bills? Could he sue me? That was all going on in my mind. But what came out of my mouth was, “Is he okay?” My friend told me he was fine. Nothing broken. They just gave him pain meds and sent him home. “Whew,” I thought. Safe for now.
I was discharged the next day to go home and recover, which I did with no issues. And apparently, he did too. I never heard anything more about him. I hope I never feel pain like that again. But if I do, I promise myself that someone else is going to drive me to the hospital.