An Army of Normal Folks - How To Keep Going: When You Literally Lose Your Face. Or Anything Else (Pt 2)

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Pat Hardison was a volunteer firefighter, dad, and small business owner when one call changed his life forever. After literally losing his face in a fire and enduring more than 70 surgeries, Pat took the risk of undergoing the most extensive face transplant in history. This episode will show you how to keep going when facing obstacles…. or in Pat’s case losing almost everything. Check out Pat’s new book Facing The Fire: https://lnk.to/FacingTheFireEP Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Pat Hardison, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltson. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. We have some breaking news to tell you about. Tennessee's attorney general is suing a Nashville doctor. In April 2024, a fertility clinic in Nashville shut down overnight and trapped behind locked doors were more than a thousand frozen embryos. I was terrified.

Out of all of our journey, that was the worst moment ever. At that point, it didn't occur to me what fight was going to come to follow. But this story isn't just about a few families' futures. It's about whether the promise of modern fertility care can be trusted at all. It doesn't matter how much I fight. Doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this. It doesn't matter how much justice we get. None of it's going to get me pregnant.

Listen to what happened in Nashville on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? just one page as a Google Doc, and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman.

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person, a billion-dollar company, Which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way,

and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revision's History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Like, if we're on the air here, and I literally have my contract here, and I'm looking at, you know, as soon as I sign this, I'm going to get a seven-figure check. I've told them I won't be working here in two weeks. From the underground clubs that shaped global music to the pastors and creatives who built a cultural empire. The Atlanta Ears podcast uncovers the stories behind one of the most influential cities in the world. The thing I love about Atlanta is that it's a city of hustlers, man.

Each episode explores a different chapter of Atlanta's Rise, featuring conversations with ludicrous, Will Packer, Pastor Jamal Bryant, DJ Drama, and more. The full series is available to listen to now. I really just had never experienced anything like what was going on in the city as far as like, you know, seeing so many young, black, affluent, creatives in all walks of life. The church had dwindled almost to nothing. And God said, this is your assignment. And that's like how you know, like, okay, oh, you're from Atlanta for real. I ain't got to say too much. I'm a Grady, baby.

Shut up. Listen to Atlanta is on the I Heart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said, Eisman.

We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short story, what it means when people start betting against the market,

and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm.fm. slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

Clay could tell, you know, I was upset after the second time the doctor told me that there wasn't nothing else he could do. And we're headed home, and he said, He said, you care if I email somebody and just see about a facial transplant? I said, no, I'm up or whatever, whatever we think we can do, just to help me get my vision better.

He said, okay. So he emailed Dr. Rodriguez, who was in Baltimore at that time. He sent him an email that night, and the next day, Dr. Rodriguez called me. And he said, I'd like to see if I could help you. And he said, get me in medical records on the way up here, and I'll see what I can do. and it takes about two weeks on medical records to get from Memphis to Baltimore at this time. And Dr. Rodriguez was doing a seminar in New Orleans, just on different surgeries and plastic surgery and all that.

And Dr. Slimming wound up going to that seminar that Dr. Rodriguez was doing. He had no idea that I had talked to him about anything. Oh, no kidding. No, not a bit. He didn't go because. No, he didn't go because of me. He just happened to go. Because it was a plastic surgery and, you know, seminar.

He wanted to go down there and do it. So he went down to the seminar and listened to it all. And when it was over, he went up to Dr. Rodriguez and said, look, I got a patient, I think you can help. And he wrote my name on a card and gave it to him. And Dr. Rodriguez got back to his office after whatever long it took. He was emptying his pockets out and stuff. And here's my medical record that they had made it to his desk by this time.

And the cards lined up and the names were right there together. They said, it's craziest thing I've ever seen. This was in part of 2012 by now. And you were hurt on... I was hurt in 2001. Pat, 11 years. Oh, yeah. 11 years and 70-something surgeries.

11 years. 70-some surgeries. And you've built and lost your business twice. You've built and lost a family twice. You've built and lost homes twice. all because as a volunteer, you went in a burning house because a man was worried about his wife. I would definitely change some things if I could, but at the end of the day, I'd still do it again because that's what we love, what we do. It's just part of it.

You know, I've been in a hundred burning buildings and never thought anything would happen. You know, when you hear the brief part about the addiction to pain pills and the chaos that led to a portion of your life after all that, but in hindsight, I dare anybody to go through what you've gone through. I wouldn't, and the thing about it is, it's, it's, it's, I hated that life, but I listened to doctors tell me, hey, this is part of your life, you're going to have to take this medication. to make it through. I had been to doctors to try to help me, and they would, you know, it's so much money made off of prescriptions and writing this and writing that, and it's frustrating. But, you know, everybody talks about, yeah, man, I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy taking them.

I didn't want to take them. I thought I had to. Once I learned that I could live without them, then I'm good. Okay, so Rodriguez has your doctor's card and your medical records after this meeting, and this is 2012, something like that, in that area. Yeah, I got you. But close enough to get an idea of the timeline. And Dr. Rodriguez at that point says, okay, I got to get in touch with Pat.

So they fly me up there, which I've got work with my comp. They didn't, since you're a volunteer, I didn't get paid a salary, but they do cover all my medical. One other question before we go from this point forward. I've thought about it and I didn't and have hesitated, but I'm going to ask it. You're trying to live a life in the midst of all this 12 years. Yeah, and that's a little bit normal. You got to go to Walmart. You are a man who has a family and built a business and pays his taxes and as part of the community and coaches kids in baseball and were hurt serving your community and volunteer capacity.

yet I've got to believe you felt a little bit like a pariah because there had to have been some awful stares. Oh, it still is. I mean, it's every day. Like I said, when I tell you, you had to get up every day and prepare yourself, just like, you know, when I had been, after one of my surgeries, I had to wear that pressure mask on. What's a pressure mask? So it's just, once they had done something to my neck or something, and I had to, it's a whole mask that covers, you got an eye hose, you got a mouth hole, and got a little hose. he knows with that, I had that mask on. So I'm sitting there, and this time, you know, I'm still, this is early in the game.

This is probably 2002. I'm just barely driving again. And my mom goes with me to, I had to go to physical therapy every day. So I drive out to Lakeland, Tennessee, to my physical therapist, and come back, and I had to go by the bank. And I go through the drive-thru. And my mom's in the passenger seat of the car with me. And I pull up to the drive-thru, and all of a sudden, there's cops. with guns pointing at me.

They thought you were going to rob the bank. Thought I was rob the bank. This is your hometown bank. And as soon as John Boyd, he's the assistant chief at this time of the police, and I knew I'll hang around with these guys. As soon as he saw me, he just put his head down trying to walk down. And that's he could say because he knew it was all just a crazy thing. And he was probably embarrassed.

I'm sure, but he was doing what he, you know, the lady and to find out the bank had been robbed like a week, two weeks before. But I told them, I always, I made jokes about it. And I told one lady, I said, look, I was in a raw bank. I wouldn't do it through the drive through, bulletproof glass. Come on. No, that's stupid. Oh, my gosh.

Without this stuff like that happened every day. It was something every day. What does that do to your psyche? Oh, you just, it's unreal. You just do a lot of praying and, you know, just trying to find how to get through each day. Literally, one day at a time, that's what you have to do. It has to be demoralizing. Yeah.

Here you are fighting your ass off to survive. Yeah. And in 2012, when Dr. Rodriguez called me, my workman's comp gets me a ticket, and I start going to Baltimore, life starts getting somewhat better. I start going through all this stuff to find out if I'm a candidate for a face transplant. So I go through about a year worth of testing, going back to work in Baltimore every once a month or so. Oh, this is government-funded. It's actually the help wounded warriors

because there's so much suicide with veterans. 97% of the people that have facial injuries like, man, commit suicide. That's just, they can't deal with it. And I understand that. They can't deal with the pain, the shame, or what it? This life. It's everything, physical, emotional, everything. So the last stage of this is Dr. Rodriguez has to come down,

he and his team, a few members of his team, come down, and see if I have a good home life because there's been to spend about two million dollars on me. So he comes down and we had a big crop fish cooking at the firehouse and he met all my family and he's getting ready to leave on that Sunday. He'd been here all weekend. And he said, look, I've got to talk to you about something. I said, what do you got done?

He said, I have been offered the chair of plastic surgery at NYU. He said, I'm dedicated to you. I told you I'd stay with you to get this done. If you want to stay at Baltimore, we'll stay there. But what I think we should do is go to NYU. He said, I'll need about six months to get set up. And once I get set up, you can come up there, and we'll get the ball rolling again. So he got to New York, and about six months later, I get there.

This is 2013 by now. I thought all the testing would carry over. It didn't. I had to start all the testing all back over. So a whole other year of doing the same thing I just done all again. So this time, I finally get through. And meanwhile, because you don't have eyelids, you're worried about going blind. Yeah.

And so this time in 2014, that's when I get listed in August of 2014. They're telling me, look, it'll probably be, you've got an O positive blood type, so we can get you a match pretty quick. Probably during the holiday season, because there's so many people in New York, just get your bag back and be ready. I wondered this when reading about this. With kidneys and hearts and other type of transplants, obviously they're waiting for a blood match, but, you know, age and all of that. What are the requirements or what?

I don't even know. I mean, it's for a face transplant. There's so much, you know, they want somebody in the 20s and they want to try to get somebody that's got the same hair type as you. and blood type. It's way off my head. I don't know. But, I mean, that's got to be, I guess, get your bag packed and be ready to go. Yeah.

Because that has to be a, I guess what I'm saying is that has to be a very, very, very, very specific match. It's, it's, it's unreal. So I start in August of 14, I think in this day of the day, tomorrow the day. Waiting for the call. Waiting. You've got to go backpacked. We go through the holidays, not a call. First of the year, not a call.

Come around March, it was around March. I get a call. Dr. Rodriguez said, look, we've got a possible match. We're going to go ahead and get you up here, and we'll go from there. So we'd already had a plan that they had a private jet pick me up in Batesville, fly me to New York. Well, a buddy of mine, Bill, who's in the book a lot, He says he's going with me.

So he meets me at the airport with his backpack. We had to stop at Meridian. We landed at Meridian and picked up my sister because she wanted to go too. So my brother's in Indianapolis, so he met us up there. So we get there. This is, we flew out of basically around 5 o'clock.

So this is about 8.30, 9 o'clock. And we get to New York, the airport, and they have us go to this little hotel type thing. They have us sitting up there at the hotel, and they're talking to us, and, which I can't sleep. I'm pumped. I'm thinking, yes, it's just to happen. So Bill and I go out walking around.

We walk, walk down, and walk to this McDonald's business. I'm going to get some ice cream. This is 11 and 12 o'clock a night. He got, went in McDonald's, their ice cream machines don't work either. They didn't have any ice cream for them. So we just kept walking. We make that joke a lot. All McDonald's ice cream machines broke.

They advertise that. How many millions of dollars they spend advertising ice cream? And no ice cream ever works. Machine down. And come down, 9% of the time, it's just because the workers haven't cleaned the machine. That's right. So we walk around some more where they called me and say, look, you got to come down in the hospital and do some lab work. So I go down and do lab work.

About 30 minutes later, they called me back and said, you got to come back and do more lab work. And I told Bill, I said, it's going to be a no-go. I said, I got back to him. He felt like something was wrong. I knew something wrong. And they called us about 2, 33 o'clock in a morning and said, yeah, this and this and this and didn't work. Y'all go ahead and hang out here for a couple, you know, weekend or so, and go home on Sunday afternoon. We stayed there a couple of days and just kind of relaxed and left.

Went home, waited, waited, waited, and waited. Got another call in July. They said, we got another match. It was his panic guy. And, well, I wasn't crazy about it, but I was to the point, man, I'm waiting almost a year. I'm thinking, man, just whatever. Let's get it over with. But the family wouldn't give consent. Thank goodness they didn't. Because it, It was, it wouldn't have, wouldn't have been right. So we get a call in August. Can I interrupt you one time here, right here? Before we get to this next call, people hearing this need to understand that even with all of the work that's going on, this is a highly risky procedure.

I mean, 50-50 chance. They already told me you got 50-50 chance. 50-50 chance of living. Of living through it. They did, they did one patient in France. and he got an infection and died. That's the only other time that's been attempted

with the full face transfer. Yeah, let's not forget, I mean, you're talking about a full face and the only other person that ever tried it died. Yeah. And they told me that all that

in the beginning, but I never had a fear of down. Even in one of the interviews, they had asked me about that, and he said, you know, when I 100% sure it's going to work, I said, it'll work. I had all that faith.

It's God had put this, he had lined up so much stuff. By this time, I'm starting to see everything God's doing in my life and I know all this has happened for a reason. There's so many years I didn't understand

but it's all lining up now so in August we get the call and it's been a year and I called Bill I said look they called me about coming up here I said I've already had two false runs

or one false run and another call it didn't work out I said this probably not going to work he said pat I'm seven hours away he's a truck driver and he was out of town I said don't worry about it you can come up there if something happens and it's a go you can come up later and I called my sister I said look

they call them and come up there but I'm not even going to stop and pick you she said oh yeah you are I said now I'm going to go on she said no you stop and picking me up it may be so we stopped and rid and picked her up and as soon as we landed the plane dr. Rodriguez at the airport and he said it's 100% go we're going he said go this is 4 o'clock in the afternoon he says go and get you a good dinner and then come check into the hospital about 8 or 9 o'clock So we went to Wolfgangs and had to take, and then I got to the hospital and checked in and had to do all the pre-surgery stuff. Got all that done, and they came down about 5 a.m., wheeled me down, and 26 hours later, I was done with that surgery, but I had a vein rupture or something. They had to go into another eight hours of emergency type surgery.

We'll be right back. I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltson. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. We have some breaking news to tell you about. Tennessee's attorney general is suing a Nashville doctor. In April 2024, a fertility clinic in Nashville. Phil shut down overnight and trapped behind locked doors were more than a thousand frozen embryos.

I was terrified. Out of all of our journey, that was the worst moment ever. At that point, it didn't occur to me what fight was going to come to follow. But this story isn't just about a few families' futures. It's about whether the promise of modern fertility care can be trusted at all. It doesn't matter how much I fight. Doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this. It doesn't matter how much justice we get. None of it's going to get me pregnant. Listen to what happened in Nashville on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no

link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us.

I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shellgame on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's. and its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry,

to the left. I love you. From Revisionous History, this is the Alabama murders. Listen to Revision's History, the Alabama murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Like if we're on the air here, and I literally

have my contract here, and I'm looking at, you know, as soon as I sign this, I'm going to get a seven-figure check. I've told them I won't be working here in two weeks. From the underground clubs that shaped global music to the pastors and creatives who built the cultural empire, the Atlanta Ears podcast uncovers the stories behind one of the most influential cities in the world.

The thing I love about Atlanta is that it's a city of hustlers, man. Each episode explores a different chapter of Atlanta's rise, featuring conversations with Ludacris, Will Packer, Pastor Jamal Bryant, DJ Drama, and more. The full series is available to listen to now. I really just had never experienced anything like what was going on in the city as far like, you know, seeing so many young, black, affluent, creatives in all walks of life. The church had dwindled almost to nothing, and God said, this is your assignment. And that's, like, how you know, like, okay, oh, you're from Atlanta for real.

I ain't got to say too much. I'm a Grady, baby. Shut up. Listen to Atlanta is on the I Heart Radio Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and births of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception.

It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning, movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering

invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. They literally remove what's left of your original face and put a new face with lips and ears and eyelids. I've seen some of the comments on a lot of social media on people. You know, some people are positive. Some people are saying, man, that's so crazy. That's, I can't imagine even doing that.

And I get it. But we've got to remember the face is just a organ, just like your heart, kidneys and everything. I'd do whatever just to see my babies or my grandbabies. It was no-brainy for me. Twenty-six hours of surgery? First surgery was twenty-six hours, and then they had to go back in and do another eight-hour surgery.

They left the back of my head open, so it was tucked in beside because they knew when I laid my head back on the pillow, that's how the other patient had died. He laid his head on the pillow, and it got an infection. It was the only part of my head that didn't get burned or the slap in my helmet was covering it, so I could lay in my head against the pillow, and they went in about ten days later,

days later, and then stitched it all up. Why would they, I don't understand why they left it open. I don't understand. They didn't attach it to my skin. That's the only part of my body that wasn't burned. It's part here in my hair. That's what I had. And then they left it open so I could lay my head back and not laying it on a pillow.

No kidding. To get that from getting infection. Because you're such a high risk for infection. Was it painful? Of course. I had told the physical therapist, you know, I was talking all big shot. And I said, look, I don't care, whatever you got to do. When they tell you to come get me up moving around, you come get me up moving around, no matter what I tell you.

And it seemed like it was a few hours after surgery, which it was days. And they came in, all right, it's time to get up to therapy. And I thought, my gosh, if this guy touches me, because I didn't want to move. I just want to lay there. I couldn't go through that pain again, ever. After I got up, I'm still blind, everything's swollen. And, you know, I can't talk. My eyes are swollen shut.

And after this is two or three days, they take me down and sit me on a bicycle. First day down, I rode five miles on the motorcycle bike. I was just, because I knew my kids were coming. You know, I got five kids by this time. I had another son in 2003 and one in 2004. And they have never seen me anyway, but after my accident. They didn't know me before my accident. So, you know, my...

All they'd seen. pictures. Well, they saw pictures, but that was it. So they didn't know. And my youngest son, he'd say, Dad, how are we going? How am I going to know if it's you? I said, look, if you have any doubt, just close your eyes and when I talk to you, you understand me. So I knew I had to get better when they come. I didn't want them to be scared of me. You don't have any kind of fear. And they didn't. I mean, so I was right. I went through physical therapy every day. They taught me how to do everything. I had to learn how to swallow again, how to talk. Whoa, whoa. Why did you have to learn how to swallow again?

Because it messes with all those muscles in your neck and stuff. The surgery around them, you had to learn how to do everything. Talk? I had to learn. I was so swollen. I couldn't talk. But then you have to learn how to use those muscles and nerves again. Everything.

Everything from my neck up had to learn how to do it all over again. Was it numb feeling? It was just real tingling and real swollen feeling. You just feel like you got, just like you've been bit by a bee on your lip or something. It's just swollen real big. But after a few days, it starts going. down and starts going down. It keeps getting better every day, but it just, it was just different. So how long did you have to stay in New York? I stayed in the hospital about 30 days, and then I

went to an apartment up there where I could still do therapy there. I stayed there about another 30, or 45 days. And my kids wound up coming to New York, the first of October, I guess. So I got to sit for the first time in October. They came and had lunch. Two and a half months. Yeah. they came and had lunch and stayed with me, you know, a few days, and it was pretty good. What was your reaction the first time you ever saw yourself in the mirror with your new face? Well, you know, they had told me that I would be blind for like six months. I said your eyes, the muscles had to have time to attach. You probably won't be able to see.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Your muscles have to... And your alleys. They had to attach the donor's alleys to my muscles, because I still had all my muscles that was just there to put the skin on my stuff. So were your eyes bandaged or? They were, they were just, they just kept Vaseline and stuff in them to keep them moist so they wouldn't. But were the eyelids across the eyes or they just were bandaged so you could. Well, it was both, well, they didn't have bandaged.

They just had it like all kind of chemicals in the weather because I couldn't open them. They were just, it was just like had my eyes closed, I guess, because they were just swollen shut. Was that scary? Did you think, are these things ever going to work? It was, it was, nobody wants to be blind. You know, if you can help it. I don't really remember because it wasn't but like six or seven days

and when Dr. Rodriguez came in the room one day he got right up in my face and I could feel him close to him I couldn't see him and he said Patrick I want you to try really hard to open your eyes and when I did open them they told me like six months and I'd open my eyes after about six or seven days

and he stepped back and I mean I can't see because it's so blurry and he was like I cannot believe that anxiety had worked after this short time and after that it was just getting better you know continuing to get better and get better and get better so I'm dying to know you you have to be thinking what do I look like what do I look like I mean there had to be some eager anticipation you know they were telling me the whole time they kept telling me look you're all swollen you can't you're not you're gonna

look different than this it did it was I was swollen but it was better because I had a nose, I had ears, I had a mouth, you know, I had all the stuff that I'd lost, had hair again, and I could even grow a beard, you know, it was just, it was, it was better. And as the time went on, I think I got back home by Thanksgiving, and it was just getting, you know, getting back used to everything on the daily at home, and life started getting better. I started, after going back to New York and through therapy, after several months in 2016, and I bought a vehicle again. I hadn't been,

hadn't drove in five or six years. So I was able to start driving again, you know, and do things. I got my independency back. And it was so much better, so much better. In 2016, it was right at Christmas,

I'd call it, I was looked up. I said, I've been taking pain meds again for about a little over a year. I said, I'm getting to a point where I'll get up in the morning

and take it automatically why I don't even need it. I said, got to do something. And I knew that I couldn't quit on my own because it ain't the part of not quitting, but it's the part that you get so sick. I mean, it's just like, it's a sickness that I've known. You mean when you put them down, you get so sick. He said, I'll tell you what, he said, come up here the 26th. He said, the day after Christmas, come up here, and I'm going to put you in the hospital, and we're going to get you off of them without you getting sick,

and that's what they did. And I got home that January and hadn't taken a pain pill since. Thank God. Thank God. So to me, that new year of 2017 is when life is reborn for you. Yeah, my son's. You've got a face. You're off the pain meds. And this accident happened in 2001.

It was 16 years. And then for the first time, my two youngest sons, my older kids are older. My two youngest sons and one of their friends, loaded up my truck and took off about two weeks and drove out to Montana, Wyoming and just went all through Yellowstone and everything. And it was just such a good feeling. It was awesome.

After my accident, I mean, after my transplant, in 2016, my whole family went to Disney World. And that was the first vacation that we had had in 12, 13 years with everybody together. It was just, it was great. What's Pat's life now? taking care of my grandbabies, and I don't have any restrictions. You know, I went, I went like seven or eight years with no problem at all.

No rejection episode, no issues at all. Then COVID hit, so I quit going to New York. My doctor basically became ER doctors. They were working on patients that were dying of COVID in New York. So I was getting my lab done here, and Dr. Bagwell and Hernando. I went to see him, and he said, Pat, something's wrong. He said, your face is all swollen.

He said, we need to call you doctor. And I called Dr. Rodriguez, and he said, well, all your labs look good. By this time, my transclass dying. It's coming apart where they sold me together. And he said, something's wrong. So they sent my lab work to UCLA in California. And they found out that my body's building antibodies.

Why it started it, they don't know. Because this is all research. They're learning as they go. just like everybody else. You're a little bit of a guinea pig here. Yeah, so one night, my son was working at Como Steakhouse. My two boys were living with me at this time, and he had got home about midnight,

and I was sitting in my recliner at the house, and he'd walked in, and he was tired, he'd been working late, and he wouldn't sleep on the couch. Well, I just stayed in my recliner, I went to sleep. And about 2 o'clock in the morning, I felt something on my shirt, at 1.32 o'clock in a minute, I felt something warm all of them. I said, what in the world?

look down and had on a white t-shirt and my whole shirt's red blood. I touched my neck and the order right here had ruptured. And I'm spraying blood out everywhere. It looked like a murder scene in my house. So I get over and wake my son up. Of course he's scared

to death because it took him a minute to wake up. I'd look to him. I said son get up. I need you die an hour on one. And he's, oh, what is it? He was asleep. I said, Braden, get up. And he looked at me out of shock And he saw all the blood, he was like, dear God, what is it? And this artery had ruptured.

And so the ambulance gets out. I thought I was supposed to die of that, and I thought I was some bleed death. Yeah, in your order, that's a big deal. You might bleed out. It was, I thought I was. I started getting dizzy, and I got to the bathroom. I mean, I'm taking big bath towels. I'm putting it on my neck, and they're soaked in blood.

Just, I mean, I'm bleeding a lot. And I get to the, get the ambulance out there, and they load me up, and I get to the ER, there in Cententoga thing, God. Dr. Johnson, and he puts a silver nitrate stick on it, well, it stops. And he said, look, you need to get to New York to see your doctors. He said, I got the bleeding stop. He said, don't do anything extraneous when you get home. He said, let me go home.

I get home. I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there, not even hardly moving, and then all of a sudden, I bend down, pick up on the floor, and I heard it just like popped again, and it started spraying again. So I just grabbed the towel and put over it, and I'm holding it. I told my son, I said, all right, drive me down to the ER. I got back down to the ER, and he did it again, but he couldn't get it to stop this time. He said, look, we got to transport you to the med.

Again, they're going to have to do something to fix it. And so they get me transported to the med. I go in there and see their doctor, had to sit in the ER for 24 hours, and they get me to a room, and this nurse, by this time it stopped bleeding, and this nurse comes in, and she said, said, what you're everyone? I said, I got a line of my neck, already on my neck bleeding. She said, oh, it ain't that bad. And about that time, it popped and started spraying blood, and she had walked out. And Chris was with me. She had called, she said, come in there, he's bleeding again. She's walking in there real slow.

And she looked down in the blood already everyone. She said, dear God. And they called his team in, and they called this team in, and they coded me then, which I wasn't, I was alert and I wasn't dying. And they got the bleeding stop. They had to wind up doing plastic surgery and putting head going in there and tied a vein off and then do a skin graft on it. Luckily, one of the doctors in Memphis was a resident for Dr. Rodriguez, so they could... You're kidding. So they could talk. And he told him exactly what to do, and that plastic surgeon here did it.

Like, it wasn't nothing to it. When my transplant started dying, I lost half my ear. That's what it started dying. That's why all the spots on my face, I was. What they do to make that stop? I have to go every five or six months, I have to go back to do. New York and do, like, plasma phoresis treatments, like a cancer patient. They put a line in my chest, and then they fraser out all the antibodies.

So I have to go bury every five months and do like 10 treatments. We'll be right back. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. We have some breaking news to tell you about. Tennessee's Attorney General is suing a Nashville doctor. In April 2024, a fertility clinic in Nashville shut down overnight and trapped behind locked doors were more than a thousand frozen embryos.

I was terrified. Out of all of our journey, that was the way. worth moment ever. At that point, it didn't occur to me what fight was going to come to follow. But this story isn't just about a few families' futures. It's about whether the promise of modern fertility care can be trusted at all. It doesn't matter how much I fight. Doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this. It doesn't matter how much justice we get. None of it's going to get me pregnant. Listen to what happened in Nashville on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game.

This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History,

we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him.

So he had this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is the Alabama murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Like if we're on the air here, and I literally have my contract here, and I'm looking at, you know, as soon as I sign this, I'm going to get a seven-figure check. I've told them I won't be working here in two weeks. From the underground clubs that shaped global music to the pastors and creatives who built the cultural empire. The Atlanta Ears podcast uncovers the stories behind one of the most influential cities in the world. The thing I love about Atlanta is that it's a city of hustlers, man.

Each episode explores a different chapter of Atlanta's Rise, featuring conversations with ludicrous, Will Packer, Pastor Jamal Bryant, DJ Drama, and more. The full series is available to listen to now. I really just had never experienced anything like what was going on in the city as far as like, you know, seeing so many young, black, affluent, creatives in all walks of life. The church had dwindled almost to nothing, and God said this is your assignment. And that's like how you know, like, okay, oh, you're from Atlanta for real. I ain't got to say too much.

I'm a Grady, baby. Shut up. Listen to Atlanta is on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Isman.

We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now

at Pushkin.fm slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. of folks with physical deformities and functional deficits are depressed. Oh, and everybody's got some type of depression. I don't care who you are. Well, and you also said what percent of people that have a facial thing commit suicide? 997 is what that's worse several years ago. You know, we had 22 veterans a day commit suicide with injuries. Army and normal folks, your story is an incredible story of resilience. But let's go back and remind everybody. Young dude grows up a good average North Mississippi life, starts his business, gets married, having families, is volunteering for his community when this massive ordeal

that's now a 20-something-year ordeal starts. And your story is really about resilience in the face of unbelievable obstacles. Keeping hope. And then you write a book. And it's called Facing the fire and the subtitle is the true story of a firefighter or a face transplant in the fight to keep living and I think the most important part of

your story in my opinion is not all that happened and what you've earned and lost and earned and lost and earned back again it's that you want to use

some of the horrors of what you've been through as a result of volunteering your friend for your community to inspire others to have the courage to face their fire. Yeah, hopefully so. So I want to give you an open mic for just a few minutes at the end here to encourage those listening to us because you just said it. I was going to say it. You took my line right out of my mouth.

It's perfect. I said 80% of people, you know, with deformities, face depression. and you said everybody. Yeah, everybody does. I mean, life is hard. You know, I've got young kids that are young adults now, and it's just life is hard.

It's one of my favorite movies is a lonesome dove. You know, when Robert DeValle says in that movie, you expect too much out of life, you're setting yourself up with disappointment. And that's the truth. Because I expected so much out of life,

and I thought I had it all planned out. And, you know, at the end of the day, I didn't have it all planned out. What I thought really meant, nothing. It didn't matter. All the nice stuff, all the money you make it without your family and things like that, it all means nothing. So here's the deal. If 80% of us face depression, we're all facing some kind of fire in our lives. So talk about the book and what you want to inspire people to believe. I want people to read the book and understand that they can keep hope

and never lose hope. You know, always, you know, find that higher power. in you, you know, man, I have a big faith in God right now. I look back and I think there's so many things that he wound up in my life that I never would have, never would have imagined. I never looked and thought my life would be where it's at today. And even before my accident, you know, I didn't think that, but we're all. Every single one of us is just one accident or one bad decision away from a totally different life. It's all of us. Whenever that happens and whatever trials or tribulations you're facing life, just keep the hope. You know, find out how our power.

Pray to God and just ask him to help you. That's all you can do. When I hear you, you have spoken on them 15 different times and the time we've had together. You've said something about your children and your grandchildren. For those out there dealing with depression and contemplating suicide or dealing with friends or family in the same situation, what was What was your inspiration to keep fighting? Mine was my kids and my family, you know. And at the end of the day, we all have to have that one little happy thing in life

that we look forward to every day, no matter what it is, no matter if it's going to dinner with your buddies and sitting around laughing at the table, watching your kids play ball or sitting there playing a video game. We all need that one little happy place. There's got to be something in your life that you enjoy. to do. If it's not, find it. Whatever that happy thing is, find that and cherish it. Whether it's a spouse or a loved one, your kids, grandkids, your pet, it doesn't matter. Just whatever that you, everybody has something that they enjoy. Are you back hanging out with the firefighters?

Some of them, I've got some, it's changed so much now. Some of my buddies are firefighters, and I do talk to them a lot and stuff. But it's, a lot of times I don't have time because I, you know, I keep my grandson a lot, and I spend a lot of time with him, and I just enjoy that. Which is your happy place. I take my granddaughter to school every morning that she's with her dad, and that's my happy place. We go to 12 months to get breakfast, and that's just what I enjoy doing. Incredible story. Facing the Fire by Pat Hartison, Rose and Pearl Publishing. The cover of this book is astounding. It is you in your.

I guess your like official traditional traditional fire department deal before the accident. Yeah. And your face is burned off the page. Yeah. What was your reaction when you saw the cover? Oh, Kevin Bitt did a wonderful job on it. He gave me three or four different options to choose from. And once I saw that one, I knew that was it.

There wasn't another one. That was it. That was the cover. Alex? Yeah, a couple of quick things I love to cover. There's a weird part of your story that 9-11 happened while you're in the hospital. Yeah, I've been in hospital six days when 9-11 happened. And how did you process all that experience?

Well, I didn't. It's weird because, you know, I'm still all bandaged up and can't see anything. And it was several months later before they cut a little pinhole. And because they had to cover everything up, let it heal. Boy, cut a little pinhole and boy, I lit it. So even everybody talked to me about 9-11 and how terrible it was. I didn't understand how terrible it truly was until I could see it. And then once I saw it, I was like, my gosh, those people went through literally a living hell.

And oddly, you probably had a real understanding of what some of those guys went through. To a certain point I did, but it's just I couldn't imagine. But what, and even still, now that I go back to New York every few months, I have people there that I've gotten close to that lost family. And it's still to them, the raw pain today as it was in 2001. We have. We should never forget that. We have done a lot of interviews of family and friends and people there and everything else. And you're absolutely right.

We can never, ever forget that. It's so weird how things happen. Jimmy Neal, a good friend of mine, the first time he and I went to New York, he was up there with me. And one of his good friends was a dentist in town. And when he was in college, his roommate died in 9-11. And we were walking around, and we walked down to the towers, where the towers once stood and walked around that memorial there. They had outside with the fountain and all. Which is amazing.

And we get to right there, and Jimmy put his hand down on that memorial. And he was telling me about this, his Brant's best friend who died in 9-11 and picked his hand up and there was his name. I don't remember what his name was. But he had put his hand on that guy's name that we were talking about and had no idea that that that name was under his hand. He said, my gosh, there's his name, right there. Unbelievable. It's just unreal. How about your ex-wife, Chrissy?

I think it could be beautiful that they attribute to her that, you know, she stuck around. with you, ever this happened. I know she played your nurse, even when you were, you know, struggled with opioids, she drove you to the rehab. And, I mean, I'm sure things are complicated, but it seems to still be a relationship. I hated a divorce altogether, but we've been divorced now 20 years. It's, we've, we taught every day about the kids, but we've grown so far apart now. It's just, she was good when she was good. And there was a lot of bad things that happened between us over the years, things both of us shouldn't have done, but it's over with now.

So, and I want her to find somebody and be happy. I want the same, you know, for her as she would for me, that everybody deserves somebody in life and hopefully she'll, she'll find somebody that would treat her good one day. But the point is she did stick with you through it. She did stick with me through it and thank God for that. How about if anybody wanted to contact you, Pat?

I mean, I think schools would be great to have you as a speaker, or other things related to your book? I'm easy to contact. I'm on all social media platforms. What just Pat Hardison? Yeah. H-A-R-D-I-S-O-N. Shoot me a messenger on Messenger, and I'll sing to my cell phone.

You can talk to me there. Facing the Fire by Pat Hardison, guys. You want to read it. You want to be inspired. And if you want a tale of steadfastness, redemption, and overcoming obstacles, There's no greater story than yours, Pat. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story being so open with us.

And God bless you, Pat. Thank you. I'm so glad that you are through all of it, that your toughness and your dedication paid off and you spend some times with your grandkids and enjoy some life. Now it's the time we're still building back. I hope to give me a house built soon and have my family all over.

and that'll be, that's the end game. I saw one picture of you with an almost hat on, so haughty-toddy. Howdy-toddy. And thank you for joining us this week. If Pat Hardison has inspired you in general, or better yet to take action by giving you a new perspective on life, buy his book facing the fire, gifting it to someone you know, bringing Pat to your community or school for a speech, or something else entirely, let me know. I'd love to hear about it.

You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks.us. And if you enjoyed this episode, share our friends on on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Join the Army at normalfolks. Do any and all of these things that can help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do it you can. I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltson.

My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. It doesn't matter how much I fight, doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this, it doesn't matter how much justice we get. None of it's going to get me pregnant. Listen to what happened in Nashville on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link.

Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. there was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people.

Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough.

And I didn't kill him. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In sitcoms, when someone has a problem, they just blurt it out and move on. Well, I lost my job and my parakeet is missing. How was your day? But the real world is different. Managing life's challenges can be overwhelming.

So what do we do? We get support. The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have mental health resources available for you at loveyourmindday.org. That's loveyourmindtay.org. See how much further you can go when you take care of your mental health. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying. Suicides that don't make sense.

strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.