Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - The Last Promise: Duty, Loss, and Healing - With Scott Tatum

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Scott Tatum is a seasoned veteran in the fields of emergency medicine and tactical medical support. With over 35 years of experience, Scott's career has spanned the adrenaline-fueled roles of helicopter rescue work, street medic, and currently, the med team leader for a county sheriff's Bomb Squad and Tact Team, in addition to teaching tactics to aircrew members for US Customs and Border Protection Air & Marine Operations. This episode, however, takes us on a different kind of mission: Scott shares the profound and personal story of fulfilling a promise to his mother as she faced the end of her life due to aggressive cancer. The decision to ensure her passing was without suffering, the conversations had, the goodbyes shared, and the ultimate act of love and duty performed. Scott opens up about the mental and emotional toll this experience exerted on him, leading to a complete erasure of his memories of his mother before that fateful day. Despite undergoing extensive therapy, including EMDR, the memories remain elusive, sparking questions about the impact of high-stress professions on personal relationships and mental health. Join us as Scott reflects on his incredible journey through medicine and rescue, the challenges of compartmentalizing professional and personal identities, and the silent struggles that professionals like him face. Check out the new Cleared Hot Flannel and Sweatshirt: ⁠https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/collections/podcast-gear⁠ Wolf 21- Check out what they have to offer for the best sleep of your life: ⁠https://www.thewolf21.com⁠ Use Code: "clearedhot" for 30% off of your 1st order The Speed of War Comic Series: ⁠https://www.thespeedofwar.com/⁠

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Before we get into it, I think there's 25 of these badass cleared hot flannels that are left in some sweatshirts as well. There's a link directly in the show notes that will take you right there. And before the episode, of course, let's talk about the brand that makes this all possible. That is correct. Black Rifle Coffee. Going to their website right now, Fool's Gold, a medium roast with Irish cream flavoring in it. I feel like I have had this, but there's also a chance that I haven't.

I bet you it's pretty good because I feel like they do this every single year. That's all they have on their rotating banner for right now. I think St. Patrick's Day is around the corner. I'm not so great with the months or actually keeping track of what day I'm in. So let's assume that that's coming. And if you want to get some of that, you can shop right now. Right underneath that is this slider that'll take you all the way from their lightest to darkest roast. And you can kind of pick what you want.

Each one of them, if you let's say I'll click on the just black roast. It has all of the flavor notes that you could possibly want. You can choose a 14-day delivery, a 21 day, a 30-day, every 60, ground or whole bean. One bag, two-bag, three-bag, four-bag. A lot of options that you have for each of those. So you can read about each of those coffees. And those are the options you're going to get for delivery and quantity. Apparel, gear, I talk about those things often.

Gear, you know, I might have a little bit too much. I might have a gear problem when it comes to making coffee. Coffee bundles and coffee samplers, these are great for starting people off. And then in the bottom is their best sellers. So they are the ones that actually make this podcast possible. I love the people that founded it. I'm a supporter of the brand. And that's all I have on that.

My guest today, man, this is a heavy episode. I believe his initial email was titled to me, I euthanized my mom. And we get into that into the episode. His name is Scott Tatum. and I'm going to read the stats in front of me. 35 years in medicine, 25 of those as a rotor wing nurse slash medic.

I believe he said on the show he had somewhere between 600 to 650 flights. When you hear that, think life flight, which they don't launch for a fender bender. Currently working for U.S. border, customs and border protection air in marine operations as a tactic constructor. and for the past eight years, a TACMed team leader for SWAT and Bomb Squad with Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office. It maintains 23 certifications and still is an instructor with most of them. We talked a lot about that. We talked a lot about some of the calls that he went on, the impact that those calls can have and, of course, about what happened with his mother. So episode number 325 with Scott Tatum. Enjoy.

Smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Michael, I need you to go to YouTube and put in Florida Acorn Cop. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Here we go. People need to see this. They need to be aware of this. And we need some audio on this too. Because it's almost the things that are said that are better.

Make sure you back it up to before the excitement. Yeah, I will. Yeah, just play the fucker. I like this. This is character and plot development right here. Notice there's a tree above his car. With the overhanging branch. Combat roll.

Hit pause, Michael. Pause is not working. There we go. Okay. Back it up just a touch. I want to talk about fields of fire briefly here. A little bit forward. Get ready.

Right. Not yet. Yeah, that's fine right there. Okay. Just to the left of the rear fender, you see another officer in black, which is essentially almost, I mean, I'm going to call that,

if you were to do this on a range, there would be fucking whistles blowing, there would be RSOs, range safety officers tackling you. It's a tactic, all right? I'm not going to say it's a good one. It is a tactic. Let's let this play out because I love,

I'm not going to say, yeah, this is fucking get some. Slide lock, dump the mask. That's gear drift And he's dealing with his gunshot wound right now That he's trying to figure out where he's shot at Which doesn't exist I think right about here

He started to go Fuck That's far enough Michael There's a few things Like let's just leave our pistol there It's slide lock not reload our primary Weapon system And I

And I don't know anything about this situation Other than what I've watched on YouTube About a hundred times I think at that moment, that might have been the moment where the world started coming back to him and he was realizing potentially what the future might hold. So maybe it was actually better that he left the pistol at SlideLock. Did he ever pick it back up? I don't know because the exciting part of the video for me had already occurred,

so I didn't wash the remainder of it. I do know. Well, actually, I can't say I know with any level of certainty. He had heard that the individual quit right after that to avoid an investigation, which I don't think that actually avoids the investigation. It does not null and void what just happened, no. Yeah. I mean, you work around these people sometimes.

You're wearing a thin blue line hat on there. Thoughts. You know, I train federal agents, too, and local law enforcement, and that's just a mess. That's a cluster. He didn't know your backdrop. I mean, there's a parma complex right behind him. Yeah.

So where those rounds went? He's got to count for every single one of those rounds. I didn't count the rounds, but how many holes were in a car, versus how many weren't. I mean, his magazine was empty when it dropped out. So they're probably carrying 15 plus one. Yeah.

So there's that. Plus the three from the sergeant who shot from the other angle. Who was responding and assisting her partner. I have less of a... There's not really a whole lot you can critique with her. She was trying to support... See, I'm a grant. Totally agree.

Officer Colin shots fired, who is... I might have thought it was a little odd that he was shooting at his own cop car. I mean, there's that. But again, she was responding trying to help that officer. So there's, I mean, there's that aspect of it. But yeah, every one of those rounds that left the muzzle at hundreds, if not thousands of feet per second, impacted somewhere. Michael, can you look up?

I have heard that he was a Green Beret officer. Yeah, I'll see if I can find it. Find everything you can. Name, date of birth, home address, contact information. Yeah. And here it comes. Well, anything that's coming is going to be coming because of that video, not obviously even for. If I had those things, I wouldn't release them.

But I can't even imagine what their PR phone line is. Their public information officer is probably going decline, decline, decline. Have you ever seen videos from like Hawaii where volcanoes are erupting? A magma is rolling down. That might look like the handset of the PR. There's nothing that they can do. They're going to have to weather the storm. They are going to have to do an investigation.

And what are they going to pull? They're going to pull train records. They are. And I'd also be really curious about the call that he was responding to because that particular individual was so wound up that. And for people who maybe didn't see that or didn't hear me say that you should Google Florida acorn and cop, the information that is coming out is that you can see as he's walked into a car, there's a tree with an overhanging branch. And what has been reported is that an acorn hit the top of his car. And that is what initiated all of those actions. And then you start shooting. So I'd be curious to see, you know what I also would like to see, the record of calls that he had responded to earlier that day or in the days prior. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's bizarre behavior to scream that you're hit when you're not is a little bit bizarre to me. Tough job. Well, story got a little bit more weird because he was told that they thought they saw a suppressor sticking out of his pants.

So he went back to the patrol car. person in the Yeah. Wouldn't they search before putting in the car? And that was my theory. He went back to the car to search them again and thought he would miss it. Wouldn't they also be handcuffed? Yes.

I mean, I know people should be handcuffed in the back. Yeah, and they can slip handcuffs. I may or may not watch a substantial amount of body cam footage on YouTube for my own personal. First of all, people are way more flexible than you would think. Women seem to be able to slip out of cuffs like nobody's business.

But it's certainly not a guarantee that their hands are still going to be cuffed behind their back. No. No. Well, and the sound of suppressor inside of a car is still not quiet. I mean, it's going to be louder than what an acorn sounds like. You also would have heard glass, you know. That's true. There are indication, was it a supersonic round, a subsonic round?

I mean. It's true, yeah. I don't know. The whole thing was, the sergeant, I'm with you on that because she was responding to, I've been shot, and she's shooting where he's shooting. And my partner is turning fire. Right. What did I miss?

I need to help out. But she stopped after three rounds and went, whoa, whoa, something's weird here. Well, she was shooting at a cop car. so Michael, what did you find? I can't find anywhere. It says he was a Greenberry officer. What can you find? Basically just the story.

Give us the wavetops. Are we correct in our assessment? Acorn on the... Yeah, yeah, it was an acorn. Well, most likely an acorn. Apparently the female officer after asked ACORN, and he goes, yeah, acorn. So...

Well, there's good and bad in every professional, right here we are it's a profession that is staffed by human beings and I get it I mean I'm I'm not going to say I've ever been ambushed by an acorn but you know the memes are going to be incredible oh they already are they are increasing in velocity at a nonlinear rate as well okay I need to download them um they'll find their way to you yeah if you look at the right curated social media feed they'll find their way right to you I've actually avoided social media for five years. I've gotten off it. You were on it and then you got off?

Yeah. Most fring thing ever did. Did it feel when you first got off of it? Was there almost like kicking an addiction? It was like withdrawals. Yeah. 100%. Trying to, you like, oh, you reach for it, but you realize it's not, you don't want to do that. You was already taking it off.

Now I find myself doing that with YouTube now. I'm like, oh, I'm starting to feel this need to look at YouTube shorts, you know, and scroll through and I'll send it to look up and I've been doing it for an hour. Isn't it amazing how fast? the time flies. Yes. Yes. It's scary

because I don't like the feeling of being addicted to something. Yeah. So it was the George Floyd incident that got you to go off social media? Yep.

Right up there. We did four days of riots in Oklahoma City. Where did he die? It was not a... No, but the riots went nationwide, right? So they were hitting us.

They were wanting to go out to the jail. So we were guarding the jail trying to protect inmates. But they were... Yeah, we had four days of riots. They were trying to get people out of the jail?

Rumor has that he wanted to burn it. So we couldn't Exactly let that happen legally? They wanted to burn the jail with the people in it. Yeah. It's kind of... That is a very tenuous line to draw from what happened with George Floyd to burning a prison with people in it.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. You know, it was weird during the riots because we'd have, like the Mennonites would show up to protest. And I'm like, did you park your horse up the road? What are you protesting about what does George Floyd have to do with the Mennonites? Yeah, they literally showed up with their wagon and in their whole full. garb and they were there to protest too. And the thing I found is humans

will follow the person with a megaphone. Doesn't know and four days of watching this. I just people watch for four days, right? Yeah. People I could have grabbed a megaphone and said, hey, the dinosaurs calls all this. And just because I had a megaphone, people would be like, yes, dinosaurs caused this. I was going to ask you, did you

interact with anybody at all and actually talk with them about why they were there or what led them to be there? It was because most of them had personal, some of them were flown in or driven in from out of state confirmed. They were like, hey, where is the police department out? We don't even know. They were wanting to go to OCPD's police department, and we were guarding county sheriffs, jail. They didn't know where they were at. So it was obviously they weren't from our state,

but most of them were just either been arrested or something, and they jumped on to BLM and wanted to, this is their chance to protest. And they would meet downtown Oklahoma City, and then they would have a huge parade, and we just watch it. Eventually, the end of it Once curfew kicked in, CS gas was deployed. They got to be pretty good, though. It was like a cat and mouse game. They would deploy CS gas. We would deploy CS gas.

And they would drop a traffic cone over it and put a water bottle on the top and totally defeated our CS gas canister. And I was like, that's brilliant. That's not bad. No. I was like, that's off to you. What was it that eventually quenched that fire and they stopped? It got hot. Really?

Yeah. Just environmental. Somewhat fair weather, fair weather protesters. I noticed that. Which is interesting because if you have true conviction of belief, it wouldn't really matter. Right. Yeah, you go no matter what. Yeah, they got really, really hot.

They got hot. They didn't really want to do it anymore. They had in OHP, it had enough. Yeah. Oh, HP was like, yeah, we're stopping this. And they play about a little different set of rules. Okay. Yeah.

Fair enough. Fair enough. What do you do for your day job? Work full-time for U.S. Customs Border Protection as a contractor. that takes tactics, tactical med, off-duty carry, and active-shade response. Off-duty carry, like literally like everyday carry, concealed carry. Two agents or two civilians?

To agents. So something that they don't... Interesting. They get zero training in the place coming on how to draw from concealing how to carry off-duty. Oh, fuck, that makes total sense, actually. Yeah, it's a whole... Because they have limited time to prep them for their time in uniform. And so we're trying to...

We teach them how to respond as your... thinking like a cop, but you look like everybody else. Yeah. So you put down the threat, but your next threat is the blue coming because they're responding to a man with a gun. You're that man with a gun. You're in trouble. So you need to know how to...

There actually have been a few instances of where bystanders trying to help have been shot at the go. So what do you recommend? And this is... I'm actually glad you brought that up because I'm curious what the doctrinal answer would be... I mean, best case scenario, you're able to defeat it immediately. and identify yourself, worst case scenario seems like you would get there at the same time,

and then they're confused as to what threat they're trying to address. So I'm curious how you teach that in the curriculum. So if they do arrive simultaneously, you need to take the action of identifying yourself, but we also tell them don't identify yourself as a federal agent. Nobody hears that, and you're looking for, you don't fit that. I'm a cop. Start yelling blue or go submissive until you get established that's your cop. Let them handle it.

Let them handle it. Let them get your gun down, put your hand. up like you would have anybody else and say, hey, I'm a cop, I'm off duty cop. And once they process that and kind of get out of that kind of auto exclusion that they're responding to, then maybe they can utilize you. But if they show up and you show up with a gun and playing clothes, you're basically of the bad guy. What do you recommend for civilians that carry and might find themselves in a situation like this where they don't even have the opportunity to identify themselves as a cop? Go submissive. Drop that gun, take a knee, put your hands in

hear, let them see hands. It's a quick way to take around. I mean, yes, thank you for putting down the threat, but the threat's not over with. You put down the threat, but now you're probably more danger than you've ever been because of law enforcement's arriving. So be very, very aware. 360s, I would go to where you can see the exits, where they're going to be coming through, so you can say, yeah, get rid of the gun.

But it's hard to train that out of cops. It's hard to trade them. Get rid of your gun. Stop being the alpha. Go submissive. and we have a blue-on-blue scenario, they're one of our scenarios, is that the cop comes around the corner

and he's in full guard, police badge, everything else, blue, I'm a cop, police, please, please, and they don't hear it. They're in full auditory, they hear nothing. They put him down, he's instructed to go down.

I've had him literally walk up to them, take the weapon off him, never seen the badge and anything else. At one point, we had him, he's still breathing. They had the gun on him. He's still breathing. I thought,

Oh, God, they're going to shoot my role player again with sim rounds, right? Hold your breath. You're going to get shot again. And then I get the comment of, why does he have a badge? So they still were not able to process out that they had just put down a cop. And but then, you know, we go, we debrief. You've got to be ready, blue, you have to go submissive because you don't look like. You're thinking like a cop, but you don't look like them.

Yeah. And civilian-wise, good God, thank you for putting a threat down. But your next biggest threat is, A, other concealed character. They're waiting for that one. This is finally that one chance in their lifetime. They get to actually use their training that they received one time in a year, right? And then you take a round from another civilian because you just shot someone. It looks like you've shot multiple people.

I wonder sometimes, I know the cohort of people that you are describing who, and I don't think it paints an accurate picture of the vast, vast majority of people who want to carry a concealed weapon for their own defense. but there is certainly a, and you see this online, and of course the barrier to saying something stupid online is very thin, if non-existent. It is. Because you don't actually have to back it up, but you see the people, oh, to shot that motherfucker. You know, like, I would agree with you. It almost seems as if they are waiting for that chance. They want to strap their Batman cape on for a day. I, there's no obvious way to safely pressure test that, but I feel like most people would perform woefully under the Burrower.

100% yes spit out the only way to pressure test it is do simulation-based training even that is not it's still not it's not no um but you start taking sim rounds that somewhat sting especially if you're in short sleeves it's somewhat an emotional bookmark right you're going to ask especially if they've been in the freezer overnight that's what we do we they function better in their freezer that's what I tell them yeah they don't jam the gun as much I would agree and it hurts like oh it'll drop you like a sniper shot to the chest yes calf shots with a frozen sim round oh they'll use we just use sim munitions we don't use the two three the two three rounds that have got the sim those are like oh the rifle rounds those are almost at the point of breaking skin yeah i believe it i believe it yeah we don't we don't take it that far yeah these are mostly pilots that i work with so okay they're pilots who are also federal agents so in order to be work for cbp air marine operations you had you know your your police officer first and then your pilot so we kind of have to train that out of them them because they're thinking I'm a pilot first, police officer, second. You're actually Leo first and in your pilot. So a lot of them didn't want to be cops. But in order to take that role on flying, they had to go through Federal Police Academy and they come out in their federal agents. Do they just assume because they're likely going to be in an aircraft that they won't ever

have any traditional law enforcement interactions? Pretty well. Pretty well. And their biggest threat is, and we tell them is off duty. And your biggest threat is off duty to and from. They get deployed. Of course, they can't carry them when they go. out of country, which blows my mind,

they can't carry it all. Like, they are totally 100% unarmed. They go out Dominican Republic or Costa Rica, and they rely on local police to keep them safe. Well, we oftentimes don't let other foreign entities carry in our country as well. That's true. It goes both ways.

Yeah. But they're, they don't think like cops. Some of them were former Leo, a lot of former military, like this their second career. How many of them do you think don't actually even carry in their off time because I'm sure it's not a, it's not a requirement.

About 25% don't carry off, do you? It doesn't surprise me, actually. No, and it's, they just only get involved. We started telling people, don't wear a uniform to work. To and from, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, don't, don't wear it, especially after the George Floyd thing.

Just don't, we had an agent down in Jacksonville who was going into Publix, which is grocery store. Yeah, came out with a submarine sandwich, is walking out, Drew Stokes is his name, walking out, walking out, and he has CBP federal agent on the back, and there was a guy in the parking lot who said, I fucking hate cops and let him up four times, right there in the parking lot. He survived?

He survived. We got a whole video on him, but he survived, but he had a long recovery process. But he remembers every single those rounds interim because he had no drone dump, no endorphin dump. No, he was ambushed. Yeah, yeah. The guy offed himself in the parking lot, but...

I support that. Yeah, yeah. And the thing of actual shooters now, a lot of them aren't doing that anymore. It used to be that we can act with a shooter, and they won't, you know, they pretty about the end of their shooting episode. They'd off themselves.

That doesn't seem to be turning that way as much. Well, the one in Maine, the most recent one, when he went that route, he killed himself. Why do you think that is? I think they know what's coming. I don't know. Why they're not doing it? Yeah.

Maybe they're actually afraid of death. I don't know, the Nashville shooter. I don't know if, I don't know if he, she, whatever it is. Was that the one at the school? Yeah. The last four active shooters have been trans or non-binary. I heard that was the case at the Chief's parade as well. And the church shooting.

I mean, I guess I can understand the desire. Let me walk that back a second. I don't understand anything that leads people up to the point where I'm going to go slaughter in some people. maybe though they are, I don't know, maybe that step of killing themselves is beyond what they can fathom, but if you're likely going to end up dead because law enforcement is going to engage that threat. So the end state is relatively certain, I suppose. That's interesting. I wonder why they would have, it would have changed from them deciding to end their own life to.

Yeah, the Parkland shooter, he just kind of simulated and walked out with all the rest of students. Yeah. him. He didn't want to kill him so. Huh. Yeah, I don't know. And we're finding these kids who are starting to shoot more and more. They're quite accurate with their firearms, even though I've never had one.

And I'll see what you think. The video games, you're going to call to duty. How much more site picture time do they have than most people based on, you see how accurate those sight pictures are. Eotech, whatever. Simulated, though, and they're using their hands on a controller versus like the actual stabilizing, but I understand the correlation that you're talking about. at least understand what site alignment is.

Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. I mean, how much would a video game like Xbox controller apply to actual... I mean, you still have to grip the pistol. You do. You do. You do.

You do. It's a proper line up the sites. It's in a three-dimensional environment. It's the two-dimensional environment. Maybe. It's the best answer we can give. They'd be more accurate nowadays with video games than you and I would have early, if we just picked up a rifle and went to school to shoot.

Yeah. Our rounds probably wouldn't be nearly as accurate. accurate as well at least they know what a neotech looks like and go there's that dot sure enough there's or whatever do you think that's a solvable problem now we've got a mental health problem in this country that's this does you think that's a solvable problem i think that's to start at home the parents at some point need to be to take ownership or get more involved in their kids life to kind of know what they're doing um that's the only hope i don't because it's starting such a young age maybe broken families whatever else So I'm divorced, but I'm very, very, very much involved in my kids' lives.

I'm divorced as well. And your kids live up here. Yeah. So I'm as involved as I can be to the degree that they're ages and they will allow me to. Spot on. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I wish I got more time with them.

Mm-hmm. They have their own lives to live, especially the 20 and 18 year old. It's like fucking ships in the night. Yep. Yeah. My daughter's 22 and my son's 17. Yeah. I'll take what I can get.

I mean, my son and I work out together and I'll grab whatever I can get with them. Same. and he wants to do what he wants to do, and I get that. But I still try to keep an eye on them. I look for trends and behavior. He's a great kid, but everybody says about it. He was a great kid. Yeah, but he just killed 30 people in a school.

I mean, so I like to think we all think that, but you need to be involved a little bit more. And not intrusive. I don't think you can really attack their privacy, but I think you have a right to dig a little deeper as a parent. I also think that there may not be. anything that you can do as a parent if that's the decision that your children made.

At some point, they're adults, right? Well, you know, just unabashed love for your kids, I totally get loving them for who they are. Of course, like any parent's going to say that. If your kid is like hurting animals, predatory behavior, like you have a responsibility to address that.

Right. I also think you have a responsibility to safely store your firearms. Yes. You know. That. Mm-hmm. People's in that age, it seems to be this transient age for a lot of the shooters of teens to 20s for the men or older boys.

I don't, you know, I know 18 is a man, but is fucking 18 really a man? No. It says that on your driver's license. Yeah, I look back in my 18-year-old self. I needed a good ass weapon. So did I. Yep. So, I mean, you don't know who you are.

You're traveling through and navigating through an incredibly horrible time in your life. Maybe not horrible. Challenging. It's going to be challenging it best. Like, if you're an adult, a parent, and you have firearms and you don't safely secure those things, and those are used in the execution of one of these shootings, I'm sorry, but your ass needs to be thrown in court, too. Personal opinion. That most recent case, the parents, was it the, which shooting was it? They were convicted.

I know, I just saw that. And I don't know which one was off the top of my head. Do you know what the reasoning was behind that? Was it their firearms that were used? I think they purchased a firearm for their child the way I read it Okay Michael did you find it? Yeah guilty of involuntary manslaughter I'm trying to find out why

Unprecedented case well everything is unprecedented the first time All right so four students were killed Seven others in 2021 The Gumbin himself was life in prison without parole Mother phases up to 60 years Scroll down Keep on go going. Oh yeah, it does have to do with the gun. Maybe we don't have to dive into it 2D, but, you know, it was her husband's responsibility to keep trapped the gun. She said she saw no signs of mental distress. I can believe that. I mean, your kids, it's, man, the wearing of a mask and the things that they could be dealing with that you have no idea of. I totally get that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so probably had something to do with the gun. I'm not even going to hypothesize on that anymore since we don't want to spend 20 minutes reading this article. But yeah, it's an interesting conversation. Where does the responsibility that?

when should or when can the responsibility go back upstream towards the parents. And securing the weapons is important, but if you're in your weapons secured all the time in your house. I mean, for self-defense, I can't get to my gun safe or whatever else. But so there has to be... There's a difference between like,

hey, I'm going to take a shower and put my pistol over here on the nightstand for 20 minutes. Right. And I'm like, fuck, you know, I had a clock somewhere. Last time I saw it, it was in the spatula drawer. You know what I mean?

Where did it go? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know people like that. Yeah, I would know if I'm missing a gun, but... The Montana classic is we'll just go straight in the cup holder. Yeah, I'm here, yep. And, I mean, I'm not a criminal by any stretch,

but if I was and I walked by a vehicle and you can use them literally as tools to trade downstream or upstream for the drug that you want or whatever it may be, I mean, yeah, that's the responsibility to the goddamn gun owner to securely store those things. Yep. They make safes for... vehicles that can go in the center consoles. I get it. They're not cheap. But like you say, you can walk by a car and go, I want that and trade off on the street. Yeah, not uncommon for sure.

I've had guns stolen. I had my house that brung into in Arizona, and the guns were using the crime. And I was sick to my stomach. It were locked in a safe. Did they take the whole safe? No, they drilled it. They burned through probably 14 drill bits. I'm like, at least loop the drip bits.

If you're going to ruin everything, don't ruin my bits too. Dilled the safe, got it out, and then it was using a crime down in Phoenix. That's a relatively sophisticated criminal. I'm assuming they need to know where to drill. They were my house for a week. I was out of time. They were at your house for a week. Yeah.

And a neighbors said nothing. They turned the blind eye. You know, like what... Dude, they were shitting in your toilet. I know. And renting porn, yeah. And took my kids piggy bank. Well, they shit, they were.

Yeah. Okay. Yep. And... I wonder how long they were watching your house for? How the fuck did they know you were going to be gone for a week? I don't know if they just doorbells. check down? I have no idea.

Yeah, but how do they know you weren't going to come back? That's true, yeah. I have questions. I, yeah. How long ago was this? Oh, geez, this was 18 years ago. Did they catch them? No.

No. Let's start a series called Cold Case. That's fine. And fucking solve this. Okay. They didn't steal the Jixir 100 motorcycle. They didn't steal the things that were, they're going to get them a lot more trouble. Yeah, and that they would have died on. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and I would end up treating them flying them out. It would be going, oh, damn, there's my motorcycle and my gun. It is while they felt comfortable enough to stay for a week. I feel like you might have had a level of surveillance on you. What type of crime were they used in? That I don't know, because I don't know if, because this was in Prescott, Arizona. Yeah, I'm very familiar with Prescott. And the crime, the gun was found in Phoenix.

So they could have been sold. They probably, honestly, they probably just entered into that ecosystem. stayed at your house for a week. Yeah. Yeah, I just took the rear sliding door and untract it and slid it over and the lock didn't mean anything. They just let it untracked the whole sliding door. Yeah, I was pretty violent. I was pretty pissed.

And once the gun was using the crime, we said, we found your gun. I said, I don't want it back. I said, just burn it, you know, incinerated. I don't need it back. It's tainted. I don't want it. Interesting. All right.

I feel like there might have been a deeper level there. Probably. Yeah. And I didn't really think about that. until now. Yeah. I mean, how do I know you weren't going to come back that night? What if you had come back that night, you know?

That's true. Yeah, no, I know. We really want to know. How do they know to bring a drill? How do they know you had a safe in the house? Oh, they used my own drill. Okay. Yeah.

What else did they steal from your house? Two bicycles, mountain bike and road bike. Expensive bikes. But then just the safe. And the safe, they left the safe in there. They just drilled. I mean, they opened it. Yeah.

And took a rifle, 270. Um, and my Glock. Okay. Luckily, I don't have the gun collection I do now, because it had been a disaster. Hypothetically. Yeah, hypothetically. In case there's still,

ATF, we're, yeah. They're all legal. Yeah. All right. How'd you find your way into your line of work? I started out as a law enforcement major at OU. And, uh, what does that even mean? It's political science, basically, get a bachelor's.

And I hated Polly Sye. I could not do it as the most boring subject known of mankind. didn't do well. I was headed back to my grandparents one evening and had it had an auto pedestrian and had in front of me. A lady was walking across the road and gets hit by a car about 70

and she dies right in front of me. So I get out to my car and I'm like, what do I do? There's nothing I can do. It's a glob of human. And went to EMT school. I thought, well, maybe a law enforcement of anything. I got through EMT school

and decided EMTs don't know much. Did you make the choice to go to EMT school because in that moment you didn't like that feeling of helplessness? 100%. Yep. And they went to intermediate paramedic school and realized I still don't know much. And they went all the way through paramedic school and worked as a medic for years.

Wanted to get into flying. Wanted to get on helicopter to do medical evict. And thought it had to be an RN to do that. I didn't know any better. The people I'd been exposed to were both RNs and paramedics at the same time. I thought, well, shit, I'm going to go to nursing school. And I hated nurses. I could not stand nurses.

Well, you're going to need to unpack that bit. Well, it was one of those deals that I would take a patient to the hospital as a medic to a nurse and knowing that I could do more skills than he or she could, and they're making triple what I was. Most medics are pretty better toward the nurses because we're thinking on our own as medics. We're able to do a little bit more versus an RN who mostly does what they're told by the doctor. So it's a territorial thing. I get that. But why hate the person who just chose a different avenue?

They didn't create a thing. They did not. It was more an animosity thing, probably jealousy thing. But I thought, well, I've got to become a nurse. I got to play this game. I went through nursing school, got through it, didn't tell anybody in school I was a medic. And they figured out the last semester that, okay, I'm like, yeah, well, the last semester was when Oklahoma City bombing happened. And I was like, I need to go back for this.

Why? What do you do? And I'm like, well, I need to, you know, I feel like I need to get back there. Then they figured out was a medic. Would they really have cared, do you think? Yeah, my nursing director said, well, that I was a medic. I just wanted to be left alone. Like, I didn't want to feel like, hey, let's ask all the questions.

I wanted to absorb. I went into a nursing school with the sole purpose of getting an helicopter. So my reasoning behind going was not necessarily to take orders from a physician. It was to get deeper knowledge of medicine and build to assess and diagnose. So I was digging much deeper than what, it was an 8 to 5 job for me for nursing school. I mean, I dug in and did way more and whatever. I could have done a bare minimum. them. That's not me. So I really just didn't want to be that go-to person the entire class.

Let's ask Scott. Let's ask Scott. Or I just wanted to sit and back. Okay. And just absorb and be left in them. They wouldn't have cared though. No, not all. Okay. I thought you were saying that they would have, because I would have imagined in a healthcare profession, previous knowledge and experience would be welcomed, not frowned. Yeah. No. And it is. But then you're that, then you're that classmate, right? So I got their nursing school and started working ER. I needed time as an RN. Did you go back to the Oklahoma City bombing?

I went back two days. It was body recovery by the time I got back. How was that? Yeah, it was rough. I was talking a lot of the people. Yeah, it was rough. At the two-day mark, were they even hopeful that there might have been survivors in there? No, not really.

How do they do that? Do you just slowly start moving debris in when you find? Start moving debris, and you find a body. And it slows down at that point. Yeah. And you're looking for other devices, too. God, they were pulled out of that. They didn't know it was a U-Haul truck or something like that.

A rider truck. They probably didn't know that at that point. They were pulled out of that scene three times, thinking they found another device, and everybody had to leave, come back, leave, come back. But at that point, it was just their clear and rubble. No, there's another body. Yeah, it was, and the smell started getting it because it started raining.

And then the water, it had to spray. It was not a pleasant. But my nursing instructor and my director, said the day it happened she said you can go but you're going to start a semester over and I was like I was pretty bitter about that because these are my people back here I felt like I needed to get back but I had just spent three years trying to get where I was at yeah to me it would have gone back I couldn't afford to go back financially student loan wise I couldn't afford to go back and time wise so two days later I went um spent time in the R got in first air medical job

in Gallup, New Mexico. I drove across the whole state just to get a flight experience in an old fixed wing, small, Cessna, 410, so small that the pilot had to hold up the tail when we loaded the patient in, otherwise it would clip over. So you had somebody flying and you would provide medical care of the patient? Yep.

Fixed wing. So it wasn't my thing. I didn't really want to do it, but I knew I needed a flight time of some sort to get into rotor. Was that more of a transport anyway with the fixed wing? Yeah, stabilized transport or a higher level of care. Yeah. That happens up here sometimes as well.

I didn't realize, no way I think most people realize there's a very thin veneer of capability, not only from a law enforcement perspective, from a medical perspective. So I, in December, had that intestinal blockage and ended up having surgery. The doctor was bouncing back and forth between two hospitals. The person capable of doing my surgery, it was, what would be the most accurate way to describe this? It wasn't life-threatening in the moment, but if it had not been treated, it would have certainly had cascading severe injuries and could have been life-threatening to include, like, intestinal and bowel issues, which I don't have, thankfully. But, yeah, they're like, he's back and forth. Yeah. You might, the dog might be stuck in traffic.

And you're sitting there needing a surgery. The veneer is thin. It is. And you had, how you didn't, you should have come out with a colostomy. I mean, every small bad obstruction that I've seen in my career, you come out with a, you're pooping in a bag until those intestines fix again. I think they caught it at a time. The doc said I was about 24 hours away from needing that claustomy bag.

Yeah. But he also, there was no dissection of intestine or bowels. It was the kink in the intestines that had worked its way through a loop of scar tissue on the inside lining of my stomach and cinched itself off. I was trying to figure that whole thing out. So they went in laparoscopically, and I guess they could see. see the obstruction and the it being bound. I don't fucking know what they would describe it as,

but everything downstream of that was black due to lack of blood flow. So they zip me open. Removed the scar tissue first. And this is a conversation. I'm repeating. I was not, I guess I was physically there, but not mentally or emotionally present when the doctor was talking to my wife.

He said that as soon as he cut the scar tissue, the color of the intestines immediately started returning back to normal. And he understood. what would potentially happen later in my life if you start dissecting intestines and bowels. He said he wanted to give my body the opportunity to not have to deal with that. So then I guess then they pull all that shit out and they work their way through. Every single, every inch, 20 feet of intestines. I'm just tell you, I'm glad I wasn't wait for that.

Because I remember the anesthesiologist saying, I'm going to give you something for the pain. And then I went, what happened? Yeah, you wake up and go, did I have? I'm so happy that I was not present. for that two and a half hours. So I woke up with an NG tube. Fuck those things. We train on each other.

That's how we learn those. They came in. This young, I probably was a nurse, came in with what she described as two of her little ducklings, which I think were people there doing their learning time.

Yeah. She was very excited. We're going to get you set up. We're going to give you an NG tube. I looked at her and I said, no, you're not. Nope. And she said, why?

And I said, because I've put those in on people. Uh-huh. And she's like, I know all the tricks. The lydicane and all this. I'm like, get the, fuck out of this room. And you woke up with a window, didn't you? He told me he was going to.

He's like, we're going to give you an NG2. I'm like, I don't give a shit what you do when I'm out. Right. And then, let me tell you, a chainsaw, start, pull of when that thing comes out, daddy. Take a deep breath. Yeah. And it is all the way out. Bear your chin.

And she pull started a lawnmower. Uh-huh. Outcomes, yeah, no. You would think it was a small one. It's about three feet of tubing. Uh-huh. we go from your nose to your ear to your belly button that's how we measure here here that's how long it was so bizarre because not that the the pain that I experienced in my stomach was horrendous for sure like profusely sweating through all of my clothes that I was wearing that tube though it was on my on my left hand side you know I'm laying in that hospital bed after for I had it for about 24 hours after surgery and if you moved your head one way you feel like contacting the back of your throat and then you get that drip and so like you're trying to sleep you're trying to sleep

with your head at this angle. Meanwhile, I'm just like, the lotted, please. And just, just, just push on the button. Yeah. They would just come in every two hours. And I said, can we just have it where if I don't ask, what does I say? I'm like, keep giving it to me until I say I don't want anymore. Like, can we just do that until I get this fucking tube out of the way?

It was the only way I get sleep. Did they do that? Yeah. That was nice. I mean, how anybody can rest in a hospital? You don't. No. Every two hours, they have a business meeting in your room.

that's true hey how are you doing i was doing fucking great until you just woke me up two hours later peep peeper peeper peepro peep oh hey how's it going not as good as it was five minutes ago and i was sleeping so they would tell me they're like hey it's you know because i was on a particular time but life got way better once that tube came out they're uncomfortable and imagine those people leaving in there for me a month at a time i mean you're getting sores on inside of your nose they're on a ventilator because we have to put an ing tube down you for an event um It's just kind of standard or an OG. Sometimes they'll slide right next to your endotracheal tube bounding their stomach.

But the OG is a little bit better because it's not going through your nose. I'm going to say hard pass on both. I've only experienced one and I don't need to experience the other. I guess they pulled a liter and a half, a fluid out of my stomach, though, before the surgery. Everything was backed up, had nowhere to go. Yeah, and, you know, I don't know how much it would have helped me if I had had done that before the surgery. I don't know how much of the pain it would have removed, if any. And I don't care because I don't want to want to be.

that thing shut down on my nose. Well, you didn't wake up during surgery, so it's just good. I don't remember waking up. They call that recall. It's a very expensive lawsuit. The anesthesiologist, it's a horrible thing, and it's called recall from the disease's oldest, which means you wake up in the middle of it. Is the anesthesiologist literally just sitting there monitoring?

Like, how do they know you're out-out? Are they looking at vital signs? How can they tell that they're giving the appropriate? Nerve stimulators. So it's a little deal they put on your cheek, and they push it, and it's like a tens unit. Okay. And they see how much you're called a twitch. They're looking to see how much you twitch.

And also the surgeon, while he's working on you, we'll start to fill muscles starting to come out and it'll start to spasm. Hey, he's starting to spasm. And they'll either reparalize you, chemically paralyze you, or snow you have a little bit more anesthetics. Okay. So more than likely you may have been paralyzed for a while, chemically paralyzed. You don't remember, right?

Two and a half hours. Yep. It was, I had never been in an OR, you know, they moved me over, to the table and they strap my arms down and it hurt people, hey, they'll have you count backwards or a mask or whatever. They had just given me some ketamine about an hour before that. I was in a good amount of pain and I was having a hard time laying flat so it was obviously not comfortable to go from the movable hospital bed to the very, it seemed very rigid surgical

bed. I've also heard that they'll like articulate you up and all over the place during the surgeries. The bed itself moves around. Yeah. But he, I think he could tell that I was in a good amount of pain and literally the last thing I remember was he patted me on the shoulder. He was like, hey, I'm going to give you something for the pain. And that was it.

That night, and you wake up to, you're surgery's over. Yeah, it was people around the bed. And he had told my wife, like, when he comes out, he'll probably be shaking and cold. And that's kind of what it felt like. I felt like I had the chills. And it's like, whoa. It'll take about six months to get out of anesthesia out of your system. What?

Yeah, it sits in your out of post tissue. Your fat tissue is for quite a while. Up to six months. Some people a little bit quicker, some people a little bit longer. Yeah. So if you still feel like. I'm still kind of just tired or whatever. You may still have anesthesia.

Because you were in surgery for, how many hours? Two and a half. Yeah, you may not have a whole lot left. When you get to the four-hour mark and you've been under gas that long, you're going to have a little bit longer issues. As far as how shitty the situation was, I came out of it pretty good. Oh, my God, yeah. I actually think it solves some stomach issues I was having.

I think I had had like that kink in my intestines for a really long time. Yeah, that didn't happen overnight. Yeah. And I also don't know why it happened in that moment. I was doing a podcast with my buddy Mike Glover, and I took a sip of coffee, and I remember feeling the first indication of pain. It was just weird, but it wasn't something that I hadn't felt before. It's like, oh, damn, dinner last night. It's going to be a fun ride here in a little bit.

Right. And then just kept getting worse and worse and worse. Of course, I rolled for like an hour and a half because I'm a fucking idiot. And then I told my wife that I would drive. And then I was like, it's just a stomach ache. What are the doctors going to do? And then I was laying on the emergency room floor, waiting room because I was sweating and it was cooler on the floor than I was sitting. in the chair.

How did it take him to get you back in the yard? They had to wheel in two other people first. One of the, this poor bastard. And again, this is a story my wife told me I didn't see this. I guess he had a pretty clearly broken foot. Was just sitting in a chair, though, waiting. And as they wheeled him by and I'm on the floor, he mouths or he goes, I'm sorry. He should have been you.

I mean. You're curled up in a field position. And the other people in the waiting, one of them was, I think was like a severe cold or something like that. And they're kind of looking over at me. as their name is getting called first. And I was really, I didn't give a fuck at that point. You know, I was not interested in who went in or what was going on.

I was just trying to make it through the moment. But I guess my wife is just kind of looking at this like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. Tell you, I have to stay off WebMD, by the way. Actually, it's a problem for her. She was like, I was waiting for them to say it was cancerous. Maths. All she was doing when I was in surgery was spiraling through WebMD.

Do you go down deep, dark holes? She does it at night. Like if she has a cold, you know, it's like, I think I have to sell my head off. You know, I have cancer of the brain. Like, I think you have a sinus infection. You know. That thing has been more annoyance to the medical world. Oh, because people call thinking they have stuff.

And yeah, maybe there is a chance you have that, but 99% of time, it's not that. But in your head, suddenly you're dying. You're white nut, your will. I'm gone. This is, it's, yeah. My wife said she literally was like holding herself back at moments from panic because of what she was finding on WebMD. What can cause in touch?

She's just like cancerous masses, you know, atrophy. I'm just like, put your fucking phone down. Yeah. Just be here for me. Yeah. All right. So you're working in the ER. Yep.

Worked ER and then eventually transferred to flight. Got on a rotor flight out in Arizona. Moved at Mesa, Arizona, William's Field Air Base, which was recently converted to civilian side. Started in Rotor Wing out there. Did many years, about 20 years air medical, kind of on and off and went back to Oklahoma, flew in Oklahoma. Is that kind of essentially life flight?

Yeah. When you say air medical? Yeah. Yeah. So you're responding to shit that is gnarly. Yeah. Yeah. You're not calling life flight for a guy who bounces his head off the steering wheel and has a concussion.

No, no, it's legit work. And Arizona, most of their flights are seen work. So which means they're actually landing at the scene and doing scene work, which is kind of different. Most air medical, like Oklahoma, a lot of it's inner facility. So hospital A and hospital B. Arizona, we did a lot of, sometimes we're first unseen at the middle of nowhere. And I guess that makes sense. Again, the veneer is thin, reporting time, or responding time, I should say.

Yeah, so I got to do, I have over 650 patient flights in my career, documented every single one of them. They had a little three-ring binder. I put down to patients age, sex, what the mechanism of injury was, what I did for them, flight number. I did it just in case I needed if we went to court. 20 years down the road. I'd have no memory. But what's weird, because I look at them now, I have no memory of any of these. None whatsoever. I was just going to ask you, out of those 600, are there any that stand out to you? One. And that's it. What was it? DPS officer. And the reason why it stands out is because I revisited it too many times afterwards. And it pulled it out of that

compartment. We put everything in. And I could never get it back in. But it was a DPS officer. It was kind of a fucked up. The whole thing was. fucked up. What does DPS stand for? Department of Public Safety. I was going to say it was right on the tip of my tongue. Yeah, Arizona Highway Patrol. We got put on standby for an auto accident on interstate. And I knew it was our last flight of the day. We couldn't take anymore because a pilot was timed out. So once F.A., they can't fly anymore. I was catching a flight to Albuquerque to pick up a pickup truck. So I knew we refueled at Sky Harbor Airport. So I threw my bag in the back the aircraft because I knew after the flight, I could just get out at the airport and catch a

shuttle and go jump on airline. Look at you using government assets as a taxi service. This is civilian assets, sir. Paid for it by tax dollars. Exactly. Yep. Yep. Yep. 100% yes. But we don't waste anything in this country. We're just talking about efficiency. Yes. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yep. It's efficient. Saved money. Yeah. Because it was less weight going back. I didn't want to, yeah. Let's go with that. So we got put on standby for an accident. And I'm like, I don't know if I'll go or not. Sometimes we'll go, sometimes we won't, they went and launched us, and we're circling the scene on superstition highway, and I see one car down there, and I'm like, that's, the whole highway

shut down, you know, six lanes are shut down. And we put the aircraft down in the middle interstate, and I grab my bag, and I'm walking up, I'm walking towards, I'm looking at it, and that's like, oh, fuck, that's a vehicle that's smoldering. And walking up, and a fire, Phoenix fire meets me halfway and goes, hey, do you have any fentanyl? So you have paint meds? I said, I got tons. He goes, it's a DPS officer. He's, he's a DPS officer. He's going to need a lot. I'm like, oh, Jesus. So get closer to him.

By the time we get closer, I see the vehicle that's smoldering, and I see the officer on the ground, and he's black from head to toe. His gun belts are burned into him. His boots are burned into him. His head's probably two times a size normal. It's been long enough now. I don't think if the family heard this.

What would the cause of the head be two times of size? Swelling. From the burns. Got down. How did his car start on fire? So he got, you know, the Crown Vicks were kind of notorious. when they got re-ended was catch on fire. Really?

They had an issue with that, especially the law enforcement edition. Okay. Electronics, whatever else. Kind of a known issue with the older Crown Vicks. He got ruined. I get down next to him, I'm like, let's get him go.

He is, they tried to crack him, and I was trying to bag him, which means I'm trying to get Aaron to him. I couldn't get it in his. He was completely clamped down circumferential burns, right? So his chest couldn't expand.

So I thought, well, we need to cut him. I need to give him. be able to expand his lungs. So did a grid pattern, escarotomy. So did a grid pattern on his chest. And sure enough, as soon as I did that, it was popped up, and I could bag him a little bit better. And I said, we need to get him out of here.

I'll get the IV in aircraft. Let's just go. Well, his left arm was stuck at a 90-degree angle. And I log-rolled him, so we're putting on a backboard behind him, so we can get him an aircraft. I log-roll him on to my flight suit, okay? And I roll him back, and his skin stays in my flight suit. no big deal whatever you know i've done this before get him kind of a big deal scott it is but

we kind of i know what you mean i know what you mean and it's easy to say it's not a big deal it's a fucking big deal yeah it is to people i guess who don't do with it but how about to everybody it is to and it people that do deal with it and it came yeah it came with a price a bitter price um got that left arm and i thought we can't get the helicopter door closed with That arm stuck out at a nine-degree angle. What kind of bird was it in? 206. So Bell 206, so small aircraft.

Two rotor blades? Yep. Okay. Like a news chopper. Okay. Long Ranger, so it's got the longer fuselage. I kept looking at him going, why is that arm out? I'm going through my head.

Why is his arm? Well, only thing I'd come up as he was trying to get out of his patrol car. He was pushing on it, and that's when it flashed. So I pulled his arm across him, and I was scared to death it was going to break. So got him tied across, got him in the aircraft, and I had absolutely nowhere to get an IV on this guy. I couldn't feel veins. His skin was as hard as table is. Put my electrodes on them to see if he had a heart rate, this would slop off.

Nothing would stick to his skin. Was he alert or aware of all? I have no idea. And that's the thing that haunts me is I'm like, because I wanted to give him something for pain. Yeah. and I couldn't. I had no options. I could not.

The burn center was about two-minute flight away. I'm huge on not spending time on scene. You're going to a higher level of care. Higher level, because that's their best chance. It's not me. I miss a link in the chain. I can do a lot of deep medicine. You're an amazing link in the chain, but there's that golden hour, right?

Get them to a fucking operating table. Yep. I'll tell you as interesting statistic here in a little bit, that's kind of scary. It's got him in aircraft. I'm like, I have no idea if this guy's alive. I'm still bagging him. I don't know if he's got pulse. I don't know.

I can't even feel for a pulse. Am I bagging a dead body? I don't know. Landed at the burn center, and we got him out, and there's this long line of DPS officers, and they're bawling. And I'm like, oh, good God. I'm trying to get past this.

Get him inside. They start an IV in his big toe with a 24-gauge. That's all they could get. I didn't know that was an option, to be honest. Yeah. That's the only place they had. You can't give fluise for test station through that. Long story, short, he lasts about an hour.

As I'm walking back to the aircraft news me to show up. And they want to talk to us. I'm like, just leave me the fuck alone. And I'm starting to kind of wind down from this a little bit. And go around the other side of the aircraft where they can't see me. And I'm like, God damn it. You know, I'm fighting tears. I'm trying.

Like, Jesus Christ, I didn't do anything for this guy. and partner comes out she's struggling with this she's not doing well with this flight either we head and take off we fly to sky harbor i get my stuff out this flight lasted a lot longer i thought out i didn't have any any chance to change my clothes i'm still on my flight soon get to sky harbor and i'm in the airport and i'm looking at my thighs right it's still got a skin stuck to my thighs and here i am in the airport uh look up at the tv monitor and i'm I'll be damn if they don't show him with his family on a TV. Well, then it became personal.

Now, now suddenly he, family, normal looking, I had no idea what this guy looked like, not burned. Now I'm looking at his family as monitor, and I was like, oh, Jesus, how do I get rid of this? How do I get this out of my head? I have a windshield wiper method. It wasn't going away. It was staying right there. I'm like, I'll leave.

The whole flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque, I'm just like looking at my thighs going like, hmm. I want him off my flight suit, right? I need this off my flight suit, and I need to get past this. And as soon as I got to Albuquerque, there's bathroom, dumped the clothes, got some normal clothes, left, actually put them in a bag and lift them and try it. I left the whole flight suit right there. You want anything to do with it.

So that's one I do remember greatly because it got really personal really quickly. You know, most of the time we fly people out. I don't know their name. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. They don't usually remember us. If we do our job right and we give them medication that they don't, you know, if it's bad enough, I'm controlling her pain. And if I have to inobate them, they're getting sedated with some sort of, you know, sedative amnesia, the milk of amnesia versus that.

So if I do my job right, they don't remember me. This one got real personal. And I end up doing an empty chair. A friend of mine who's a mental health professional said, let's do an empty chair therapy session. Like, what is that? What's an empty chair? She said, I want you to sit down a room by yourself, a quiet room. I want you put an empty chair in the corner and tell him what you would want to tell him if you were sitting right in front of him and let it all out.

And I did. I was like, I'm so sorry, I didn't do anything for you. I had his name everyone else. I still, the name's gone, like I said. did the empty chair and it it did well because it gave me an ability to tell someone the yellow one in a chair to hey i didn't do shit for you i'm so sorry you know i wish i could have covered with snowed you with pain medications during the time that you know fourth-degree burns really aren't painful um because it severs the nerve at exactly yeah you get third and fourth it

severes the nerves but who knows i mean it's uh so that's one i do remember deeply but the rest of 649. I look at it, I'm like, God, that sounds horrible. What do you think that means you can't remember any of the other ones? I think that our mind puts things deep places. We see things that we're normally aren't supposed to see, because I may have back-to-back-to-back-to-back calls. I may have seven flights.

I can't ponder on that first flight, so I put in a compartment. I literally go just with my hands. Yeah, what's this windshield wear for technique you have? It just goes away. It goes away. know we're healthy. What is it though? Like what's the mechanism you talk yourself through? Just go away. Leave my thoughts. Go. Go. So you're bossy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm bossing over myself. Yeah, I am. Type A, right, it's what we do.

But you were able to wipe it like that. Yeah. Most of them, you know, and I can, like I said, I have no memory. I don't know if that's the right vernacular. It's probably. I think you have plenty of memory. I don't know where it went or where you put it, but I'm pretty sure it's still there. It's there, but it's in a compartment that I don't even know what room that file cabinet or file is in, which came in effect with the incident of my mom. But the ability to do that, like I said, it's not healthy. And I knew I reached a point that I couldn't, I couldn't, that file cabinet was stuffed. and I knew the point because I was driving down a road to my kids

and I'm talking to them about Hitler, how bad a person he was, whatever else. I break out in tears. I have a question. Okay. How the fuck did that get on to that conversation? Of Hitler? Yeah.

So by the way, on this road trip, guys, let's talk about Hitler. Let's talk about mass genocide and an uplifting conversation. Yeah. I don't remember. Not the most common fucking road trip conversation with your kids. I think my daughter was studying World War II and they brought up Hitler. It wasn't out of the blue, I promise you.

Hey, let's talk about Hitler guys. You guys want to listen to Mind Conf while we drive? I mean, fuck, dude. Here's Doc Al. Here's Auschwitz. Let's talk about it. But I lost it. I just started bawling.

I'm like, what the hell? What is there? Where did this come from? Like, I had no... Do you remember at what point in the conversation or why that started? Um, I think when he was talking about the concentration camps and we got in that because I had toured Docow. I've been there and I started talking about Docow.

And, uh, you know, normally a pass. I could just talk about it. But at this point, point I reached the point I couldn't I burst out in tears and I thought what is going on here I that I've got no ability to cope with anything anymore and I went to therapy it was like a list do therapy uh DDMDR did all sorts of stuff and internal family IFS internal family systems which is a pretty interesting I don't know anything about that it is kind of a cool therapy technique so it's internal family systems okay when she first told me I was like oh

I don't involve my family. This is me, but it doesn't have anything to do with your immediate family. It's you. It's basically inside your body, you've got different guards or whatever else. You've got one person, one version of you that doesn't want to allow, let's say allow access. I'm not going to let you access this door, this personality, or not personality, it makes me not have an impede. But this individual protective mechanism is not going to allow, nope, nope, we're not going to let you access this. because it causes pain.

So you talk to this, in theory, person and say, hey, I really, I know what you're doing. I know why you're doing it. But I need you to step aside because I need to get a little bit deeper. I need to get to the next level. So thank you for what you're doing. You're no longer really needed to protect that vault. It's almost like avatars of yourself.

Kind of, yeah. Yeah. And it was pretty deep because you go through an initial part where you figure out kind of who you are in personalities and trait, personality traits, you know, or you type A or you're the person who cries a lot or not. You know, you should go through this whole evaluation phase and figure out who these protective mechanisms are.

So you have one by one, you start to ask them to step aside and get the next level. Okay, I appreciate what you're doing. I know what you're doing. You're trying to protect me, but I need you to step aside. You're longer needed, and we're going to get to the next level. Is this internal self-talk or are you verbalizing this to yourself? Verbalizing.

Okay. with a therapist. Okay. So that works. Somebody to help unpackage a lot of these things. I was like, okay, that file cabinet has kind of been cleared. I couldn't, like, I didn't go back and dig into calls, whatever else, because I just don't, that's still somewhere. I don't know where they're at.

I look at the flights. I know where's there, but I don't know where I put them. They're somewhere. Yeah. So that works a little bit. when I can step away from flying now like I said I'm with CBP and I'm also with Oklahoma County Sheriff

I'm a team leader for their attack team of my bomb squad on the medical side so I don't do as much patient care anymore other than it's my operators or friends and family are hungover I've started more IVs and hungover people in the last month than I have my entire life I think why the last month I don't know

start up Is there a particular like Oklahoma season that we are you guys celebrate that we're not aware of here no i actually did it i can't really i did it at work one day um but we made a bleed i would have never utilized government uh medical supplies to fix a heck this is my person you know what i mean yeah it's my personal equipment it's not all right our 18 deltas were awesome little oxygen a little touch of nitrous oxide if you have access to it and i v for therapy our cormon used to give us the ivies while we were still drinking.

You know. What was in must come out. Yeah. First off, giving 18 to 25 year old young special operation soldiers medical training and then access to alcohol, absolutely fucking nothing good comes from that. But it, you know, I will say it does wonders on a hangover. It cares them. And it puts them right back in a fight slash bar.

Yeah. I am fascinated why the last month, though, you need to dig into that and report back to me. I don't know either. Okay. I've gotten a couple of people. But it's pretty notorious. I mean, it's called Scott. I'm the medical guy and more stuff about my operators,

anybody else does, and I keep it to myself, as they know. But I'm kind of the go-to. I know a lot of shit. Yeah. Seems like you better on the block if you tell us. Whose phone to delete or get rid of if they're involved in the shooting where it needs to go? You need you to wipe my phone for me and, yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's kind of up to. Where I'm at. So when you first reached out to me, I think I'm almost positive. We could look back that the subject line was, I euthanized my mom. Yes. As any, I consider, I'm the most normal person that I know for clarity. I rate myself as the most normal person on earth. I saw that hit my inbox.

I'm going to read that email. And it's largely what led us here today. I will let you unpack that one. Okay. We're going to go pretty deep into it. When did it occur in your career as well? I'm curious as to the timing. This was seven years ago. So it was after I had quit flying. Okay.

So pretty well was done. I actually tried to leave the medical career and I built rifles for surgeon rifles for a little while. It was a great job. Made minimum wage. Worked on bows. I was a bow tech. So compound bows, whatever else. And then finally went back to medicine because it was all I know. I mean, it was easy. It's easy to me. So, yeah, so we'll jump into that. My mom's a great woman. She's a counselor, counseled many, many, Leo all the way to, as you know, on a military side, you don't often go.

She saw a lot of military people from Cannon Air Base, which is now a special ops base in New Mexico, Clovis, New Mexico. And she would see a lot of military people on the side, private pay, so it stays off the record and they're never. I hope that they're changing that system. I know what you're talking about. They were trying to seek assistance outside of the purview of their direct supervisor. I've been out now for a good stretch over a decade. It seemed as if it was changing. But it's always that tough.

And I hear this from officers all the time too. There's all these systems in place for officers in their department, but the fear still exists. If you seek this help, what is going to be the occupational, ramifications of that, the badge and gun from the police officer realm. Sometimes I'm going to say that I think badges and guns should be held on to, not taken, but like, hey, we're going to put you on the bench for a bit. And the same thing happens for special operations people, all of those things. The fear is that you'll never get it back.

I don't know how to necessarily bridge that gap, but it seemed like as when I was leaving, they were trying to address that and provide more options. I think most people go the route you're talking about under the radar. out-of-pocket, no records. And a lot of it's spouse-pitched. You need to go get help. FAA, the pilots, when they get their annual, if they've been seeing anybody for a counselor,

for depression or everywhere else, they may not get their ticket. Or if they get put on an SSRI, they're done for 12, at least. Yeah, those SSRIs are devil medicine. They work well, but coming off and was miserable. But, yeah. So, Mom, great counselor.

phenomenal woman, smoke for 52 years, smoke for your entire life. And I told her long ago, I said, you're going to miss your granddaughter's graduation and keep doing this. It was her thing. She didn't want to stop. But she made me promise her years and years ago

that, hey, don't ever let me suffer. And I said, okay, well, we're not there yet, but I won't let you suffer. She knew what I did. I knew what I, obviously, my career. Her mom had died. in December of 2016. And my mom had came down for the funeral.

And we'd been arguing a little bit. I was stressed over something. The only voice I'll have from her, the only time the only voice recording is a voicemail from her saying, she said, hey, pumpkin, if it was called me, you know, hope you're not still mad at me. But, so it was kind of a rough time. She was a little bit short of breath at that point.

And I was like, she's always getting head colds, chest colds. She smokes, you know. She works around horses, you're going to get sick. Send her home with my daughter's inhaler. I said, yeah, use this. She got all the way home back to close to Mexico and got worse and worse and worse, short of breath. End up going to the hospital. Found a huge mass on her left lung.

And stage four diagnosis, stage four cancer diagnosis is what was diagnosed. she we text back and forth. She knew it was uncurable, but my dad was real, my dad wanted to take her out to Scottsdale Hospital in Arizona to get kind of a second opinion. So she did. She went ahead and agreed. My dad drove her all the way out to Arizona. It took 16 bottles of oxygen in the back.

She didn't want to fly because she said, I want to be able to come back home and die. She didn't fly, so he literally piled 16 bottles of O2, and she was on the line. bottle when she arrived just to get her out there she got out there and I kind of been cap and told her she'd been up and out up and down up and now still never actually heard her voice again other than the month before she was too short of breath talking the phone so it was this text messages at certain point she said hey I'm they're going to put a breathing tube in me I said do you mean they're going to animate you you're going to be on a machine and

text message yes that's what they're going to do I said okay I'll check him with you she goes I'll check him with you after your surgery so we're out I'm out washing my truck one afternoon and

my son is in his room and I'm cleaning the wheel and my son comes out of his room he's nine at this point he goes dad I think there's a ghost in my room and I was like he didn't I mean I've done paranormal investigation for years, but I don't talk about it my kids because I don't want them thinking everything's a ghost. So he...

Pause for a second. You just said you've done paranormal investigation for years. Ghost hunting for a long time, yeah. You think I'm going to let that slot back. We're going to come back to this story about your mom. What the fuck are you talking about? So ghost hunting. Looking from a scientific point of view, we've got a team.

I haven't done it probably four years, five years. Why the fuck was that not your initial email? because delete spam absolutely not if you would have put I euthanize my mom and I'm a ghostbuster

that shit goes to the top of the inbox starred important flag with the fucking have you ever found a ghost yeah the fuck you have I know I have

I've been touched do I need to get it all out so you can point it where appropriately I just say appropriately I'm inappropriate I've got some You know, most of the stuff that is so strictly scientific.

So we've got on our team, we had a sacred service agent. We had a school teacher, a police officer, me, medical professionals, so a lot of very much, and I'm building an inspector. These people turn their houses over to us. Hey, I think I've got, and they felt this long questionnaire. You know, are you dabbling in this? Are you any medications we need to talk about?

Be very honest with this. So they would turn our house over to us. and we go in and most of the time we debunk stuff high levels in EMF I guarantee you this room's full of a lot of EMF messes with your head at night when you're sleeping well that's why Michael I don't sleep in you well alarm clocks next to your head I don't have one of those good you're safe yeah Michael do alarm clock next to your head my phone is not far off yeah that's yeah we'll measure that so high levels EMF causes hallucinations so we would we would do the inspection these houses and most of stuff we debriefed punk. Most of the stuff, it's like that alarm clock just spiked at 45 milagos. When anything above seven above messes with your head. I hate those milagosses. Milagossi. Milagosai. So we debunk most of it, but I've been to some things that, yeah, I've been to, we went to a lady who swore, she was not dabbling anything she shouldn't be.

We get to her house. This is in Shawnee Oklahoma, right? So Podunk Oklahoma. And we're going through her house. We're finding Ouija boards. We're finding. We're finding shit that you really shouldn't mess with. Why shouldn't you mess with the Ouija board? They say it's a portal to allow something in. Something really very bad. Who says this? The ghost hunters. Okay.

So the make believe people or say make believe shit? Yes. But You're telling me a Ouija board is a portal? Okay. First of something I don't think. I get just annihilated online for pushing back on any of this. It is, yes, in theory. It is your best with something that allows

maybe something in you don't want in. And this story gets kind of weird All right So Fuck. Yes. We're at this house We're in

And it's We're finding shit in there Like okay, you're lied about that And we're going to go through Your medicine cabinets What are you doing, Michael? I don't know why that happened.

I was going to say, Holy shit, is this a ghost? Go ahead. We're finding shit in the house. We're finding shit in the house That yeah, okay, you didn't tell us about that. And so we're sitting down.

We have all of us are wearing like my job is photography. So I would do open exposure for like four or five minutes, just leave that after open, try to capture something. We all mic up. We're in digital recorders. Let's see if we can catch an EVP, electronic voice phenomenon. Just see if we can grab something. I've been enough dead people, hospitals and things like that.

Weird shit happens in some of these places post-death. You're talking about in like the moments right after post-death? Yeah. Many of our housekeepers, they would not go in the room to clean up post-death. death until you open a window. Like they were, they were hell bent on, we're not cleaning up that room until you open up the window and let whatever's in here is out of here. I was not physically present when my mom passed.

My sister and my dad were there. And apparently there was, she died in her bedroom. And I don't know exactly what was hanging from the ceiling. But there was something on the other side of the room that was hanging from the ceiling. No windows were open. And it started moving around. As she passed, it started moving as if the wind. and was blowing it. Interesting, common narratives.

Yeah, energy leaving or whatever else. I mean, that... Fuck if I know. So we're in this house, and we're sitting upstairs in this great room, right? And we're looking, we're having a quiet time, which means, let's just listen. Let's see if it kept anything in recordings. You have to identify any noises you make. If you clear your throat, that shows up in other people's mics, and they're like, was out of ghost. That was me clearing my throat. You know, if you fart, that's me. I did it.

so we're in this room and our leader Kristen is looking across at what was his name Corey that's a place officer and I'm looking at them and they start to like they're start to look really really pissed off at each other I'm like what is it going on here I'm like what the tension you could feel attention suddenly like are they well they they're not couple but are they what's happening here and Kristen who's very one of the on Paranoma. She was like, hey, well, let's stop. Let's stop and take a break. Something weird is up. Something's not right here. I go outside, and I actively take a bunch of pictures of this house.

I'm like, God, I wish I still had the pictures, but I don't. I actually hit the aperture, took a bunch of pictures, didn't realize I did. We're outside, and Kristen goes, hey, something's not right here. Something, like my stomach's hurting really, really bad, and I'm getting really pissed off. Corey's like, yeah, I was fucking furious at you, and I don't know why. So Kristen calls Jason from Taps. If you do any ghost hunting, Taps used to be a TV series years ago. I don't do any ghost hunting just for privacy sky.

Maybe you should. Maybe give you something to do. So far based on what you told me, hard pass. It gets even more fucked up, I assure you. It's even more fucked up. All right. So he calls Jason because I think you're in a fucking demonic house. You need to get your team and go.

Go, go. Don't go back in that house. Leave that house alone. Get out of there. So Kristen's like, oh, all right. So she goes, we're done. We're packing up. We're not, we'll call the lady and say, yeah, we're, we think something demonic is happening in our house.

We need out of there. We're not staying there anymore. So we pack up everything else. And the next day, I'm looking at my camera. And I'm looking at back. And those pictures that randomly shot, the house looks like it's on fire. And I'm like, what the fuck is that? It's the house looks like literally it's fully involved in flames.

Weird, weird picture. Kristen calls, a guy named Alan Blyce, I believe his name was World Renowned Demonologist. And she's starting to scribe everything to him. He's like, you were in a demonic house, and good thing you left. So that night,

I get home. Usually when we leave these houses, we tell them, hey, please don't follow us home. You're not welcome to come with us. This is your home. Stay here. We were just here to learn from you, so don't come home with us. That night, I get home, and it's about two in the morning

and I hear a simultaneous two knocks on every exterior door in my house and I'm thinking when I get up with the gun I'm like what the fuck and I thought

fucking neighborhood kids right and I kept thinking there is no way physically that someone could synchronize a knock on every external the bedroom

the front door and the back door of the back and I thought god damn they followed me home something came home with me

and I said you are not welcome here you need to leave here immediately and I'm a little bit freaked out at this point right because I'm like what do you do the ghost hunters aren't real right you can't call ghost hunters if something attaches it to yourself that's that's not good how do you get rid of them you can't

you don't take a medicine for it are you asking me I don't have a fucking let me know because I was a little freaked out of course I at the time I was married I didn't tell my wife I was like hey yeah so I think because she's she's three and three Mormon so she would have flipped the fuck out oh god what did you bring home

so a little bit later on we decided to meet this lady we're meeting her at i hop not at her house we meet her neutral location we hadn't seen her about a month and a half we said hey we need to talk to you about your house so we sit down with her and we said hey how you doing she goes things are kind of weird she goes i keep my son's gotten really really violent and she goes i keep having these she loved her dog she had this fluffy little rat dog she goes i keep having I keep having I keep having I want to tear this dog at half

I want to hurt this dog and I look at Chris and she's pale like she's like holy shit like so now you are firmly got a hold of something's in her house and we said okay we think your house is possessed you got a demonic possession

you need to probably call some monks out or someone to come bless it that's not us we're peace out we're not doing this again but that was probably the weirdest interaction that I had that I was like uh-uh and really I kind of backed off a little bit because man I don't need something following me on it it came whatever it was do you have crystals and

shit in your house no do you burn sage no do you throw like holy water against the doors no no and I'm pretty well not very religious anymore so now I'm kind of like well when did the uh spirits touch you we were in lawton right by cemetery and uh we're sitting in a house and I'm sitting against this couch and we're sitting walking out and I'm finally relaxed and I feel fingers roll across the back of my neck and I'm like goddamn drapes you know I'm feeling for hair or something does it again two fingers are across the back of my neck and I was thought okay all right something's here something literally just ran across temperature change in the room that's kind of a thing on the paranormal side of the temperature drops the theory is that they need

the energy to be able to do something Scott, I don't know what to make of these tales. You need to experience it. Come out and do a ghost on. No. Michael, you want to come to a ghost on? I'll do a ghost on with you. Yeah.

Curly-headed ginger flog over there. It's like, oh, oh, what on? All right. So you believe in ghosts? I do. Whether they're out there's spirits or whatever else, whether before and after, I don't think that we... How do they fit into our system? Are we, like, are we existing as humans between heaven and hell?

Is it a biblical thing? How do you think this all plays out? So I think there's a pre-existence. Pre-existence, yes. I think that... Like when you're in the balls? Pretty well, kind of sort of. But literally not in a physical sense.

Like you're kind of, you're off... Before you're shot into space, if you know what I mean. Or something. Or that. Okay. So I think it's a pre-existence. I consider like these called... These are Earth suits, right?

This is the only way I've survived in my career this long is I view our bodies of Earth's suits. It's the same thing behind if we can't survive in space without a spacesuit. Are you fucking Scientologist? No, I'm not. Okay. I'm just talking. No. That sounds like it is.

That sounds exactly like I'm Scientologist, but I am not. So this is our human flesh vehicle. Yeah. So they don't last forever. They're hydraulic, pneumatic, electronic. They don't last forever. The day we were born, met a desicence. The timer started.

So I think there's pre-existence. You acquire an ursuit. All right. You run it in the ground, whatever else. What are we going to do with it, but eventually it's going to fail? It's like a used card. It goes to a salvage lot. We go to the cemetery and we go to whatever's next.

So there's several theories on parallel universes in a paranormal world. So like something's happening in a different, basically it's a different universe. And sometimes they're multiverse. Kind of multiverse. Yeah, or string theory. Okay. And sometimes they cross over and we'll see something. And sometimes those parallel universes will cross into and we'll see something.

and we'll see something just for a split second and then it's gone. So you tell me you've never felt a sense of something else being around you? I mean, there's an aspect that maybe I'm not really paying attention most of the time. Okay. I don't think I've ever had like a paranormal experience.

Okay. Do you believe in ghosts? What do you think? I have a hard time believing in things that I can't objectively verify. I get that. I'm not saying it's outside of the realm of possibility. For me as a person, it's hard for me to wrap my head around things,

that and I don't discount people's beliefs by any stretch. Right. People, when people tell me that they believe something, I think life is easier if you take people at their word. Sometimes you're gonna get conned and fool, but for the most part, I think people, if you listen to them, they'll tell you what they believe. The fuck is it for me to say, hey, your belief is wrong. My personal belief system is foundationally a little bit more in like touch, see, smell,

you know what I mean? That's why it's doing it from a scientific point. point of view, it was a little bit more thrilling versus a psychic. You know, I feel there's, I don't, I don't believe in that at all. But scientific point of view gets a little bit more, I guess, real. It seems like it could point you in the direction, but again, at the end of that, is it proof? It's not. And that's the thing we're lacking is that we don't, there's not hard evidence. And I'm totally fine with that, you know.

Again, I'm not trying to judge in any way, shape, or form. For me, it's, it's a tough one when I can't have some level of objective. of truth to it. That's why we debunk most of it. I'm like, no, there's nothing here. Your house is creeping. So what happened to that demonic house? Did they just went back in there and lived in that thing?

I don't know. We wanted nothing to do with it. Hopefully she called the monks from a local monastery to come out and bless it. But I don't know. We did not follow back up. Okay, so you found a portal to hell and didn't follow back up. Yeah. Probably a wise decision, right?

I mean, I would have gotten goddamn fucking Ghostbuster suit on and get in that shit. Okay. Yeah. All right. So what do you think happens after we die? Shit, I don't know. I wish I'd answer that. I don't know if the lights go out.

I'm open there's something else. I'm open. I mean, you've been there at people's last moments. I have many times, but it's... I wish it was like the movies make it out to be where it's peaceful or, you know, not horrendous. And that's, you know, I've heard stories of people crossing over and coming back. That was the most peaceful thing. I don't know.

That also could be the body's natural. endocrine reaction to the end. They might be totally being juiced up by their own internal chemicals. Or who fucking knows. Maybe they went and knocked on the door and were like, hey, what's up, dudes? I'll be here later and came...

I don't fucking know. I hope it's not like Groundhog Day where I have to do this shit over because I don't really... If I do, can I please have the memory of the mistakes I made before because I can do it right this time? I just assume not get shot out of a vagina again

and have to do this all over again. I'd rather go on to the next whatever there is. That's why I believe time. time is the most precious gift we can give anybody hands down because we we can't make more time in a time we were born unless we continue on after death and have unlimited amounts of time whether we know that i mean that's i don't know after death i've seen like a lot of people die and i've seen i was working in the r one day and i had a guy who crossed from me um i look up and he codes he goes straight and i was like oh jesus i've got up there flat line okay so heart rate um that was back when did

pre-cordial thumps on the head hard shot on a chest and we did that. Fucking live. Yep. And believe it not, it actually works. It's worked more than once from a worker. I mean, it's an electronic stimulus. You're just jumping that thing. Yep.

Yep. And he wakes up and he looks at me. He goes, are you at Tatum's son? And I was like, holy hell. I didn't know him. He didn't know me. And I'm a little freaked out. I'm like, what did you just see?

Well, out of the blue, you asked if I might, if I'm my son, my dad's son. Just after you died, you were dead for about, probably 45 seconds to a minute to I get over there and get their leads on them and I thought I was going to defibrillate them after I got them back Yeah

Were you wearing a name tag? No No I learned that long ago Took that shit off Yeah so I don't really I wish it was more exciting when they Juiced people with the It's not

I mean they defibrillate them They stiff it up for sure Yep God how can I tell this story with keeping the The hippoly off I was recently in the room where that happened, and so they put the person out for a little bit. I was asking for a Sharpie to draw a dick on forehead,

which I'll be honest, they were like, fuck, we need to find one. They couldn't find one. That's the only reason it didn't happen. That is my, I woke up in surgery, my toenails planted, and I was like, you motherfuckers. There are limited times to fuck with people in that situation, and you need to Carpe Diem. Seize the fucking day when that comes up.

Okay. Back to your mom. All right. And how dare you if we try to slide a fucking ghost hunting thing in the middle of this fucking story? Deep story. Yeah. It comes into play here. So Zach comes out and I'm cleaning my wheel on the truck. And he goes, I think I heard a ghost in my room.

I was like, well, that's weird. I stop and go, what did it say? He goes, Zach, it's going to be okay. And I was like, oh, damn it. Maybe mom was in surgery at that point. and I thought Jesus I'm thinking something happened

right I said don't worry about it you know it's maybe it was a dog barking I don't know what to tell him I'm trying to process shit in my head and he goes back inside I wait

I wait for that phone call right 10 minutes roll by nothing 15 minutes rolls by nothing 20 minutes rolls by my dad calls and he says hello and it's just kind of pause right

like he's trying to gather himself and he says your mom just coated in surgery um and i'm like that's what i firmly believe that's what zach saw as he she coated whatever reason you know um he said they got her back but she's on a vent and she's vent dependent blood pressure dependent and machine dependent basically so i said okay uh he said get wink and you got out here i'll be out there next tomorrow morning um go back inside and and i'm like here we are right and we're at this point fly out to Arizona

my aunt and my cousin my mom slash sister at picnic airport and are telling me and I go to the hospital where she's at and I immediately meet with the ICU doctor I'd flown many patients and maybe Blump patients into

this guy so he knew he worked he knew I was yep he knew my skill set he knew everything else and he says hey let's take it takes me in the conference room he brings up her chest x-ray and I look at it and I was like Jesus Christ

her left lungs completely white he goes yeah we're at the end of there's nothing we can do at this point I said this is not what she wanted would be sitting on her machine I said I promised her that I would never let her suffer he goes

what do you need and I said he needed some very loose orders which means don't give me any parameters write them loosely I said of He goes, which medicines? I said,

Propol, which the Michael Jackson's drug, the milk of amnesia, probably what you got in surgery, white, fluid. I don't know if it's commonly called the Michael Jackson's, but just for clear. Well, for the public

who doesn't know what Propol is or dip in it. That is what ended up killing him, correct? Yeah, he got a little too much of it. Wasn't he, and again, I'm way out over my skis

because this is shit I heard years ago. Wasn't he getting nightly injections of that just to go to bed? Yeah. Fuck. Well, that's what you got in surgery. You probably high chance you had propofal dripping. So that's why.

I should go back and look at the very robust bill that I got that listed everything out. First, I didn't understand where they were barcoding everything. I thought it was just for an interaction perspective. Yeah, no. Well, it was for that too. But it was also shishing, shishing. Yeah. So I'll go back and look.

Propofal or dipkema. Okay. That never said, but usually get propofol because I can drip it in. Okay. So that's the reason why you didn't remember it. There was no memory. It's millions. I'm happy that I didn't.

Yes. So I've seen a propofal on fentanyl. I need a loose order of that. He said, okay, you got it. And went to ICU. I had not seen her since her mom's funeral the month before. I go in here walking ICU and she's on a vent. She's swollen up a little bit.

And I was like, oh, damn it. Okay, this is what we got to do. And it was like an immediate switch. Click. All right. Work mode. Sun mode, no more family member, no more work mode. And I get down in and I hold her hand and I said, okay, let's take her out of sedation.

So just enough, propofol, half-life of propofal, it's just a couple minutes. And once you shut it off, you wake up. I didn't realize it was that short. Yeah, it's really short because really anybody who's on it in ICU, you have to break them out of it daily to kind of make sure you're not causing any damage. Okay. So you'll wake them up, pull them off it. I left her on just enough to where she wouldn't gagging on her to.

the breathing tube um pulled her out you know she opens her eyes and it took a little bit to clear up you know kind of realized oh you're here um she looked miserable um we're talking kind of just simple talk and i i don't very simple talk um and finally reached the point i said you know this is it right and she shook her she nod her head yeah i know um um And I said, Dad, can I have some time alone with her? And I knew I needed to say something. And the only thing I could come up with was, I hope I've been a good son.

That was the jest of my final speech to my mom. I had nothing else. There was nothing. That was it. Hope I've been a good son. Because I'm still 15 steps ahead and what I'm about to do. I'm in 100% work mode of the process of pushing her to the other side

then her to go I had nothing I was not that loving son I didn't have that ability it was A or B and I got my promise to her so

told her that and she couldn't talk obviously she had a breathing tube so I gave her piece of paper to write stuff on and she wrote said you and I will always be together forever

and then right underneath that she said let's get this over with and I'm like the strongest Jesus Christ who says that you know who

who who says let's get this over with I mean other than it just to me that she is by far the strongest most powerful woman

world with that statement alone hey let's get this over with I need you to to make me go I said it's not time yet I said we need to FaceTime your grandkids and you need to wave goodbye to them.

So I called up my kids' mom, my wife at the time. I said, hey, I need you to get the kids in the room. I said, Nana needs to wave goodbye. And the kids are bawling, you know, and Nana's waving goodbye and, you know, blowing them kisses. And then I called my brother, and he was, he's a judge in New Mexico. He was in court. He goes, I've already said everything I would want to say to her. I said, okay.

So I sit down with her after this, and I hold her hand, and I said, this is what's going to happen. This is how this process is going to work. And I said, I'm going to put you back under deep, deep sedation. And you're going to wake up in your mom's arms. And that's how this is going to happen. My dad, with the most fucked up since you haven't known of mankind, he's out at the nurse station. He comes in and he goes, hey, Sue, my mom's name of Susan. Hey, I just got a good, good news.

I'm like, what is going on here? And at this point, my aunt, my cousin, are back in the room. He goes, I got a good deal on your cremation. And I'm like, holy fuck. She's still awake. And she's short, and literally my cousin goes, it's really not your problem after this, is it? She shook her head, like, that's all fucking, you got to deal with the suit.

But he literally walks in and goes, I got a good deal. And I thought, is that funny? of that humor or what? I mean, okay, good on you. So I said, leave the room one more time. So I told her, I said, are sure you're ready to do this? She nodded her head.

I said, I'll see you when I see you. Took her under deep sedation of Propofal. Enough propoval is snow horse, put a horse asleep. The fentanyl to snow horse. And we shot off all their blood pressure medications keep her blood pressure up. And she got stuck. She got stuck between here and there

with a blood pressure of 40 over 20, which is nothing. I mean, your blood pressure is probably 1.30 over, an opinion of my coffees you've had. One a day, is what I'm living in myself. One. When we first opened the shop,

like, why the fuck can't I sleep at night? Oh. It's a coffee. I'm drinking coffee until 5 p.m. every day. One a day, no more before noon. Sleeping way better. Smart, man. Smart man.

But she's stuck at 40 over 20. And I'm like, dang it. I'm not keeping my promise to her. What can I do to increase this? I go over to the ventilator, and I dial down the oxygen. I start dial that down.

Well, he didn't write orders for me to fuck with the vent. I didn't know that the vent directly injects the changes into the nurse station out there. And a nurse comes down and goes, what are you doing? I said, she's stuck. I said, we either need to extubate her.

we need to do something. I say, call the doctor. The doctor comes back in. I said, we need to pull the tube. Told my family, my dad, and two others, y'all might want to leave the room for this. It's kind of gross when we pull the tube. Sometimes gunk comes out with it, whatever else.

So pulled the tube, and then she started into guppy breathing. She couldn't maintain her airway anymore. Annette sped it up. She'd probably pass within about 30 minutes up to that. after she had passed, it was like, I still was not emotional. I had no emotion. I was like, okay, I kept my promise to her. In order, to me, that is by far, everything had to kind of happen for a reason at the right time.

The only time you get someone propofal is if they're going to be on a ventilator or somewhere that you can control the airway, because usually you can't control the airway anymore. So she had to code, and the weird part about surgery is if she's, your DNR do not resuscitate, that's usually withdrawn for surgery. They won't do surgery on you without. So they'll code you in surgery. It used to be that way. So she coded,

she got on a ventilator, she got put on popofal, which you just recently having surgery, no, you didn't remember anything. So what better way to be on a breathing machine than if you have got no memory? What better way to allow our loved ones to pass than that?

Heavy dose of fentanyl? and propofal, in a controlled environment, that is by far the most peaceful, humane way that you can go. Why do you think she gets stuck? Just physiological, brainstem function. Yeah. Brain stem function of the body didn't want to die. The body really does not want to die.

Bray stem function only, and that's the heart is the only muscle of body that can self-generate a pulse, a beat, self-contract. SA node and AV nodes. It can contract different parts of your heart. So she was stuck. And because she was still getting oxygen through the vent, allowed her to get stuck. She passed.

We got down, and I remember going back out to the car and going through her purse because my dad needed her driver license. And it just hit me at that point that, holy shit, we can't take any of this with us. Like all her tissues are in there, her wallet.

And I knew that in the past, that we can't take any of these things with us. But it hit me that, This is her, and it's not with her anymore. She's gone. I didn't realize all this came at a cost. The cost is I have no memory of my mom anymore. I got nothing left.

Because of the profession, what has it done to us is anything traumatic? Put it in the Fall Academy and lock it away, the Winchewiper method. It put it away. I've got, through EMDR, I've got no memories of my mom past that day. None. I look at pictures. I hear stories from my brother. I don't remember that.

It is a big blank spot. Even after, so much therapy, it won't come to. I start to see it, and it disappears. And I don't know how to re-grab those memories. Because I would love to talk about mom, stories about mom. I got nothing other than what I had to do for. Even at Christmas right before, nothing. I don't remember her.

at her mom's funeral. How long have you been working at it? Seven years. How consistently? Not as consistent I like because a lot of it's cost. I mean, counseling costs a significant amount of money. I'm no expert by any stretch. As long as you are continuing to work in a setting where you're providing medical aid to people

and you readily have to access that space where you can put things aside without dealing with them, it might not be possible. you might have to move on in your life professionally before you're actually able to access that filing cabinet because you keep going back into a place where you have to add material to it. And it's just getting stacked up against it and everything else you can't. I don't know about any of that,

but it's a place in your brain that you still need. Okay. Because you're professionally still putting yourself into that place. Maybe it's something that you can't access until your mind and fucking knows how, I bet you we know less about how our brain works than how it actually does. Oh, we do. We always like to act like we're the smartest fucking, you know, top of the ant hill.

Yeah, of retards. You know, like, yeah, yeah. I mean, you still need that filing cabinet right now. Yeah. It doesn't, from somebody with no expertise whatsoever, it doesn't seem to me to be unplausible that until you get to a place where it's not needed, it may not be open and available to you. Yeah. It's basically, yeah, it's literally fault password protected.

I think you're right. And I had not thought about because I'm still in that mode or that protection mode. I mean, I'm not very rarely knock on wood to our operators go down with anything, but I've treated several gunshot wounds. It's not even the fact that whether they get hurt or not, you are mentally at a place where you are prepared for it. So you still have that bifurcation between your personal life and your professional life. Right.

You know, the question you asked is who writes something like, let's get this over with? I know the answer to that because my mom got to a place with her cancer. When my sister corrected me on this recently, I thought she had died of non-smokers lung cancer. It wasn't that. It was cervical cancer that had metastasized into her lungs because she was a cervical cancer survivor. She had gone through the whole nine, the hysterectomy, chemo, which, holy fuck, you want to talk about eating nails. She got to a place where she denied the chemo and accepted hospice. She never verbalized, let's get this over with, but you know what it means when you're going into hospice.

She knew that either the chemo was going to kill her or the cancer was going to kill her. Yeah. And the person that says that is somebody who realizes that their choices are no longer good, that they're choosing between bad and bad. Yeah. Yeah. It's a metric of, it's not a metric of the choices. that they have in front of them, it's a metric of the suffering

that they're staring down the barrel of. I mean, I get it. But who else in this world, other than prison inmates who are going to get the lethal injection, who else knows exactly when and how they're going to die? Like,

you're going to die in 20 minutes and this is how. I am? Do what? Did the spirit tell you that? You ghost hunting, fuck? No. but she should have gone 20 minutes

but she fucking hell on. Nobody knows when they're going to die. But she did. She knew this is how you're going to go. Who else gets that? And still be like, let's do this. Well, you have to look at it through the potential of what she was seeing in her eyes.

She's in a bed. She's smoked. I'm going to assume that your mother was an intelligent woman so she knew like the jury is out on whether or not smoking is a vitamin or mineral. You know what I mean? It's not like eating your dream. I honestly, I cannot believe in the modern era that people still smoke.

I know, right? Yeah. It's like, guys, a while ago, we directly tied the end state to this. Yeah. So, but again, people live their life however you want to. She knew what had gotten her there. She knew where she was. She, and you guys had already had the conversation.

The next thing you know, she's sitting, you're sitting at the hospital bed next to her. Yeah. I mean, it probably was. easier because it was something that she had already thought herself, that she had already thought through and communicated with you. Yeah, and she had plenty of time to lay there and go, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't, you know, and that's, she had that ability to, to, you're right to process through this. I'm done.

Like, I'm tapping out. I'm it. Yeah, it's just not have the ability. If I had to do it all over again, I still keep my promise. but God, I would love to just been her son. You know, maybe had a better speech or something or be able to... I've been in the headspace you're in, and I still struggle with this. My mom passed, I think it was like seven to ten days after I got back from being overseas.

I was in a very binary place, very black and white, action reaction, death was on the menu daily. And I got back from overseas and it was quick, and she was in. into hospice and I was not there when my mom passed. I had left a few days before to go back to San Diego. But the last thing I did was give my mom a hug and tell her that I loved her. And as I was laying her back down, she said, hey, can you hand me the garbage can I need to throw up? Those were my mom's last words to me.

And I struggle with that because I didn't have a grandiose speech. I didn't have anything written down that I knew what I should say. I didn't know what to say. Right. I don't either. The most kind thing up into that point I had done to somebody dying is put another fucking 5, 5, 5, 6 around through their face to ease them along in their path. Like, hey, you look like you're struggling. Let me help you out.

And I forget who brought this up to me, but it helped. My mom knows who I was. She raised me. We had a lot of good conversations throughout her life. She know who I was as a person, as a boy, as a man, and she knows what I felt about her. Right. And so did your mom. Just because it wasn't perfect in that moment doesn't mean that your mom didn't know who you were.

As a matter of fact, she probably knew who you were better than anybody else on Earth. True. Very true. Yeah. Can you, you know, I don't think, I try to put this in a context. If, can anybody do both? Can you be the son and a man? If you're involved, let's say that you're with your kids and your shooting kicks off at a movie theater or whatever else.

And people are dying. Your kids are scared to death. But do you have the ability to comfort them in that period of time? Not at that moment. You have to address the threat first. So you wouldn't have, you'd have to go to work mode. You go to work mode and then. In that situation, it's not time for comfort.

In the movie theater scenario, it's not time to comfort anybody. you comfort them after. You have to end the scenario first. Okay, makes sense. You know? Yep. The setting that you're talking about, I mean, there's another way that you can look at this.

Think about how few mothers and sons have the opportunity to share that final moment. In a controlled setting, where she probably felt no pain whatsoever. None. Physiologically, yes, her body got stuck. And one of the things I hate about the movies, among many things, is they make death seem to be this peaceful, peaceful event. And I, like you're saying, the guppy breathing, the twitching, the violent jerking reactions that you've seen from people that you know are clearly dead that makes you think that they're still alive.

It's fucking weird. Yeah, it is. It's fucking weird. It is. You had the ability to be there for your mom at the end when she needed you. How many people can say that? I wasn't there for my mom. I wasn't able to do shit.

for my mom other than try to give her a hug and like choke the words out that I love you. Yeah, well, very good point. You're right, not many do. Almost nobody does. Often people just get that phone call. She's gone or whatever. And I'm thankful that she trusted me to, she knew that I had her back. You know, and that's what I fall back on to is that I got you.

I will not let you suffer. things had to happen exactly perfectly for me to do it legally, you know, but it's exactly like it should have happened for me to keep her promise to her. I just wish it didn't come with the price that it did, and I think you're right. I think once I release them this profession and don't have to stay kind of on that guard all the time, maybe then that other door will open up because I can't, it won't open. And I wish someone would have told me early in a career that, and I feel sorry for those people who have to work on their own, you know, run on their own kids, whatever else, or family or spouses.

I cannot even, I cannot even find that. I got put on standby for pediatric drowning in my neighborhood, and I was 99% sure it was my son. I ain't tell anybody else. I didn't know it wasn't my son, I looked in the back of the ambulance. But in my mind, all the way up to that point, I wrote down all those drug dosages on my thigh

because I knew I couldn't look into his eyes and make my calculations because on pediatrics it's weight-paced. I knew I would have to not have the ability to make accurate calculations looking at my son's dead eyes. How hard for you was it to round that corner and look into the ambulance? It was scared. It was, I don't remember, I mean like that guy's shooter. I don't remember walking.

I remember taking last deep breath. I didn't tell anybody else in aircraft that I thought it was my son because I kind of needed someone to be of sound mind. Not, oh God, the Ciscot's son. I looked in the back, but your mind doesn't disengage immediately. I looked at the back going, it's not my son, but my mind's still going. Because it's the exact same size. We got all the information that we needed from him.

I didn't save him. We took him outside the yard and worked him for matter and a half, and never got him back, watched him all, watched me work him, thinking that's where I was going to sit, watch him work. Yeah. You know, I just feel sorry, though. I can't even fathom, but I don't think, I think you're right. I think I have to release once I leave this profession, that's when maybe it'll open up.

I mean, I think the things that are lost can be found. It's just a matter how hard you want to look for them. There's no way that your mind has erased. No. Your mother. No. And if we can agree upon that, then the only question is the how. The why is easy.

Why do you want to recover these things? If you can determine your why and it's powerful enough, the how is the only thing you have to discover what you want to do. And it's not that, I don't want to use the term. I'm saying it's not that hard because I don't want to be trite in any way, shape, or form or make it seem like it's going to be easy. Yeah. But you can find things that have been lost.

I mean, what would you change? If you could go back and redo that situation, what would you change? Nothing. Nothing. I mean, I took her out the van immediately, make her go quicker. and having to get stuck there. I think it was, like you said, physiologically stuff,

probably not psychologically stuck. No, it was all physiological. It was just a body's response, not wanting to go. Yeah, I just think people, and really your profession and mine, we don't, it comes to the cost that people don't necessarily tell us

what it does to us. Do we become hardened? Absolutely, we do. I had to. I couldn't work back to back to back. In Arizona, we had one point, I ran four pediatric drowning. in one day.

What? Yeah, flew out for the pools, you know, all the pools. I just feel like that's an ungodly number in one day. A lot of swimming pools. We used to joke, we were going to have a water crash in Arizona because it's going to be in a pool. I'm going to have to eat grass and aircraft because it's going to be in a pool.

I mean, would you guys just land the helo, like, in the street out front? Close a second. Yep. We're in a nearby parking lot where the ambulance to bring it to us. Okay. Yeah, that's the only time I've been defibrillated. When I've been shocked was pulling a kid out of a pool and a Phoenix fire defibrillator and we were all soaked with the water in the pool and we got the juice at the same time the child did.

We had, they issued us AEDs. This is how smart the people are that I used to work with. We tried to shock each other. Thank God. It doesn't activate non-shockable rhythm. And you're like, fucking. God damn it, shock. This fucking new guy you're going to pay.

And they're just like, ha. Fuck. It won't go off. Poor new guys. Like, is it going to happen? Is it going to... I feel like we would have killed the person. I'm really happy.

It didn't go off. This is, of course, hypothetical and allegedly, but... There's a high chance it probably would have put them in a rhythm. There were times where they would issue us stuff and then take them back. Tazers is another one. Yeah. I get that. So we gave you guys 100 cartridges and there's three left.

It's been one week. What's going on? Why is everybody twitch and every time we... What's going on? Like, nothing? Give us those back. You have blood spots in your back of your shirt. I don't know.

What are fucking new guys even for, you know? That's what they're for. I used to send people new people into, I go, hey, would you take the vitals in that patient in ICU? Oh, and they've been dead for two hours. Oh, my God. Fuck, yes. That is what I'm talking about. They go out and come out going to come in help?

I go, what did you kill them? What? I'd fuck with them all the time. Do you think your occupation made you a better person or a damaged person? Um, gosh. A little bit of both. I mean, my kids' boo-boos, it better be significant for me to be somewhat worried about your boo-boo. Um, a little bit of both.

Um, my kids trust my medical knowledge through and through, and my whole family does. They're always calling me. Um, but the flip side is, yeah, your boo-boos are not, that's not a boo-boob to me. So you value your time more. Yes. because I know the next fight. Passion or zest for life perhaps a little bit brighter than some because you see so often people passing over. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

Like it changes your life in ways that it is easy to view your exposure to the things that you have experienced. You know, the fact that you don't remember much of the details in the, what was it, 649, Elophites. Imagine the other side of that coin, though, and the impact that you had on those people's lives that you were able to get. them from point A to point B, that higher level of care. Like, it, the fact that you can't remember it is the cost that you have to bear from that. But imagine how important you are in that person's life. And it's so easy to focus on, or would be easy to focus on that you can't remember your mom right now, where you realize or recognize that there's that filing cabinet, which I actually

think is very important that you can realize and recognize that because you're going to be able to lockpick yourself into that at some point in time. Yeah. But it can give you a different perspective on life. They can give you joy in the simpler things and the value for time. You know, the boo-boo thing is real. Like, you can actually turn your kids into a little bit more of a resilient machine if you don't like call 911 if they stub their toe. Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of positive changes that can come from your experience. That doesn't mean you should ignore any of the negative ones, which it doesn't sound like you were doing. but a lot of the times most of the energy and effort and focus is on the shadow as opposed to the light that is on the other side of that and I have embraced more of that

the further along I've got you know like I would go into Walmart and I would see someone I flew out they don't remember me but I'm seeing with their family and I'm like that's why I do this you know you got more Christmases with them you don't remember me

which is fine I'll never go, hey, I flew you out, but I very much remember your face and your injuries and everything else. That's the nice part. Yeah, you're right. I mean, that's, I get to make a difference in people's lives. Now I teach people how to make a difference, which is almost as fulfilling because especially when I hear back, hey, I just, you know, I saved the life today. I put on two tourniquets or whatever else. And I'm like, yes, you know, everything I've taught, see one do and teach one, you're doing that. Thank you. That's the reason why I do what I do.

Most of my work now is teaching. You know, if we get a call-outs or whatever else, I'm the only bomb, the only, well, two medics attached to the bomb squad. Those are my most worrisome calls because it's going to go bad. It's going to go really bad. But I teach all my guys know how to take care of themselves. I don't have to take care of kids. And my son can put on a tourniquet and fastening bells than I've ever seen.

So we got to experience that. That's the making difference that you talked about. So it seems like you've made a difference in countless people's lives. I hope so. When are you going to focus on making a difference in yours? I'm pretty well doing it slowly right now. You're going to have to put down the job. Yeah, but I don't know what to do after that.

That's okay. You don't have to have step A to B to C, to D for your entire life. Yeah. I feel like you've probably hit some retirement thresholds in some of these occupations you've had. Yeah.

I think I would let go with the attack team and bomb squad. Yeah. Because that's just volunteer. I don't get paid with that. Yeah. And I think that's the part that is hanging over me.

The teaching for CBP, I'm not doing medicine. I'm just strictly teaching. Yeah. Maybe backing off, not cold turkey in it. Maybe. because I think I'll miss the camarader.

I'll bring these guys for eight years. It's not the only place you can find camaraderie. And they trust me. If you were diagnosing a patient that had the same symptoms that you are describing to me, what would you tell them to do? And you thought that that was the linchpin that was holding the back. The same thing. You're going to have to leave the profession.

It's easier to say to somebody else, right? Yeah. It's. And I'm not trying to talk to you at a. leaving that profession, you've made such an impact in other people's lives that you deserve to be the person that you want to be. To do that, I think you're going to have to access that portion of the filing cabinet that's all the way in the back that you don't want to. Yeah. And all the way to do that is to release the gatekeeper.

You also mentioned that there's a financial aspect of that. I guarantee you that there either is internal to your organization or foundations out there that will cover the entire cost of that. There has to be. And for anybody who listens to this or are aware of those fucking email me the details and I will send them to you via third party.

There are countless service-based organizations that have so much money that are designed to do exactly these things. Like there's a way. And that's what I mean, I'd be open to it. You know, because it's It's time to, it is time.

I've tried to move on before, but like I said, it's all I know. It's very, it comes very easy for me and the financial side. I mean, it's, I need the income, right? But, yeah. I get that. Price versus cost. And they are distinctly different. They are.

Yeah, I just, it's okay to reinvent yourself. I would say do it slowly every time. You don't have to fucking jump off the Grand Canyon and figure it. it out like how to craft a parachute on the way down. I'm not advocating anybody do that, but there are other ways to make a living. I think teaching would keep you in that world, but you know you're not going to have to be responding and having to switch over into that clinical perspective

where the filing cabinet then comes back to the forefront so you can put that in there and shovel it away so you can go back to your family or teaching or whatever it may be. I know that there are people, places, and organizations out there that would bend over backwards to help you arrive at that spot. Well, I would take it and pass it on other people who call us. What advice would you give to somebody who wanted to follow in the similar vein or career path that you did? I mean, now, beyond, you know, I asked you what you would do differently with the situation with your mom,

but how about occupationally, knowing that this filing cabinet exists, knowing that these things are there? What advice would you give to somebody who's on the, you know, they're looking at this career? on the horizon. It's something they want to do. You know, we joking to say deal with your demons. I mean, that's, but it's legit. Do you need to deal with them? Don't let them the cumulative trauma thing that stacks and stacks and stacks. Don't let it stack until the stack is so high that you, now that's overwhelming to you.

Maybe if I had processed, I don't know, that's a hard one. Because if I had to deeply process each one of those, then it becomes personal. And then it's like, God, dang it. sometimes I wouldn't fall up with a patient because I don't really want to know what happened. Yeah. They were live when I dropped them off. We're good. You know. Well, that is also all that you had control of as well.

Yeah. You know, for the brief moments and time that you were with these people, that's the only thing that you have control. You didn't cause the reason that you were alerted and sent to that location and you have zero control over what happens when they leave your care. Not that you shouldn't care, but I think you should deeply care about, you know, obviously your time with them, which I can tell you absolutely do. I don't know how much is gained by focusing on the tail into that, you know? I've done it a couple times, and then I immediately went back thinking, what could I have done different? Was it my fault that didn't live? Did I leave out of process?

Did I not resuscitate? So then I go back into, fuck, what could I have done? Was it my fault? So I learned to just don't follow up. Just don't, because you'll beat yourself up. I mean, it's, was it my fault? Could I have done something? Yeah, that's real.

I think you should go full-time into ghost hunting. I should. I should. I don't know if there's a lot of money in that. Did the demonic lady pay you? No, nobody pays this. It's just free. It's a hobby.

Is it free though? Is it a hobby? No, it's not a hobby. Well, kind of is. Pickleball is a hobby. Is it? It depends on who you ask, but. I mean, to go to a nursing home, pickleball lady.

All right. I'm going to need to hook you up with my buddy Jack Osborne. He does. fucking, what did you, paranormal TV shit? Okay. I don't know if he actually believes in ghosts. I think he might just get really large checks from the network. I'm fine with either, to be honest.

Well, I've, our morgue is the place I worked at. I'm like you made a name, but we had 300 bodies than in a morgue. At any given time? Any given time. That's a lot of room. It's a huge room. It's huge freezer. Yeah.

Literally going there and, yeah, there's 300. So, yeah, it's, we would, the mortician was quite the unique guy. It's a teaching place, but he would have to just articulate bodies, and he would call me frequently. This kind of goes back to the ghost, and I'm like, okay, some of the Native Americans believe that the way the body is left at the death is how they're stuck for in eternity. And I'm thinking, oh, shit, because the whole body gets disarticulated so that it can be used. used for ortho and neuro and who wants to be a mortician when they're growing up you're always have business yeah i mean so does the person who prepares bodies for funerals but i fuck me like i don't know if i would want to deal with that day in and day out and it's kind of a corrupt business i mean

you're the funeral business oh jesus they're trying to upsell you more how many times so they're going to want to upsell you on caskets i've got a good friend as mortician who got out of it and went to work for a teaching hospital, just in body preparing. But he hated it. He was like he was pressured to upsell the airtight casket. What a motherfucker. I go back to the Big Lebowski.

What was it? It was a Folgers can that they had their body. Yeah. Yep. Have you at least seen that one, Michael? Moving on. Mother. Next question.

Fucker. He hasn't seen the A team. So many times he's gone, I haven't seen that. You truly have not seen the Big Lebowski? No, I've heard so many good things about it. They put Donnie in a fucking folder's. What does the guy say? He goes, it's our most economically affordable receptacle or some shit like that.

They go to a supermarket and dump out a fucking big, like red coffee. Dump it into the wind and it comes right back on their face. It's fucking Donnie. What do we do with her? I don't really know. I don't know. What was the last movie you watched? I think hereditary

It's a horror movie It's actually pretty good Hereditary Yeah I'm not heard of that At least he likes older music I mean I'll give him that much That is spanned

Define older Pearl Jam I like Pearl Jam I like Sand Garden Even older than that I like too Lincoln Park Yeah Def Leppard

Not as much Like I like some of their songs Sabbath Oh I love Black Sabbath ACDC Yeah Zeppelin. Okay. Oh shit, Zeppelin.

Now we're knocking it back a bit. All right. It's like, what, late 60s? Yeah. Okay. Nope. Motherfucker hasn't seen Big Lobowski. I did, I keep saying I need to do this, but I need to start a like a homework

list of shit. So he at least understands the references that I'm making. And in Quism. Yeah, totally. Fuck. How old do you know? 53. All right.

I mean, what's next? Yeah, I don't know. Happiness. watching my kids grow up a little bit more happily divorced so that's that's a huge relief how you've been divorced year and a half how long were you married 28 years okay i'm was one of the longer ones i was married for 19 years and 11 months yeah it was it was a good it was time to go amicable yeah very much okay extremely that's good glad to hear that unless you got married within less than a year after divorced

I think wouldn't even draw yet, but as long as she's happy, it's all matters. Here's the thing, though, who cares? You know what I mean? A lot of people would hang their hat on that. Oh, it's, you know, this or the other fucking person live their life. You know what I mean? And that's where I'm at. If she's happy, then that makes a life around the kids will be happy.

Yeah. There are also some people that have to have somebody else in their life to be happy. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of variables. People are a mixed bag for sure. All right. You got time, maybe, unless we get fucking teaboned in the traffic. The next five minutes aren't guaranteed.

That's what I tell everybody. I said none of it's... Well, how long are you guys in Montana for? Until Monday. Okay. What are you guys going to do? I don't know. What is there to do?

I see mountains, but I... Well, tomorrow, there's going to be nothing to do, except watch the tumbleweeds go down Main Street. I swear to God, this town absolutely shuts down on a Sunday. I'd go get some good food. I'd hit either the Mercantile Grill or DeSoto. You got any other recommendations, Michael? Maybe haliscoes up in whitefish.

Heliccos, in Lakeside, there's Tamarack, which I'm going to this Sunday, actually. Are you going by yourself? Yeah. Michael's newly in love. He's just asked for a maiden's hand in love. It's a male or female? You're not going. You have to ask him.

I can't. I don't want to assume anything. Not sure yet. Wait, what I say? You're not sure yet? I take you you're not going by yourself then. No, I'm not. So I figured.

Yeah. He's smitten. But the tamarack is really good, though. Tamarack? The best restaurant in Flathead used to be right by the tamarack. It was the breakfast place. God damn it. I would have been able to call the farmhouse, but it closed down.

Holy shit. They had a breakfast many that was to die for her. Did COVID kill them? No, it was before that, actually. And the same lady, the bare grass bistro is a dinner place. Expensive. Very good, though. It was the same owner.

She owned the farmhouse. And it was awesome. And we talked to her. And you know, it was interesting. She said that actually the customers were such fucking assholes. That and staffing issues, but the combination of those two things and people just being complete and utter cunts that it just wasn't worth it anymore. Up in this area. Yeah.

I just figure people a bit more down, down homely, nice country folk. I mean, there's still hillbilly assholes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we got all the same shit that everybody else does. Maybe to a smaller degree. But I think probably statistically it's the same. You just draw it a little bit back more towards the origin.

But yeah, so those are some good food options, and that'll take you all the way from lakeside to whitefish, which is everything you're going to see from the base of the mountains down to the north end of the lake. Actually, a little bit south of the north end of the lake. Okay. Do you know if any part of the park is still open? Michael, you know, any part of the park is to like Lakemonds are four-wheel drive though. I don't know if you knew that. They're off-road vehicles, especially if they're rented. Just make sure you get the insurance. I've actually, for about a year, Hertz wouldn't loan me or rent me any cars because I would jump forward horses, allegedly. Yeah, so the park would be good. What else, Michael? You've been living here longer than I have? Yeah, the park. There's lots of little trails off the park, but it's pretty snowy right now. So, yeah. But, yeah, I mean.

I was going to enjoy the scenery. This is. say that I'll fill up your time. You guys leave what time on Monday? Noon. Oh, yeah. So you'll, yeah, between that stuff, that should fill you pretty good. Yeah. It's beautiful up here. Wow. It's not bad. Good that you know, there's a lot of, there's worse places that you could live. Yes. I told her, I said this might be one-way trip. You wouldn't be the first person that has said something like that. What is tough is, you know, during COVID, the influx of people was certainly real. and what that did to the curve of the values of real estate.

It rapidly outstripped what people living here, making a wage here, could actually afford. And then the cost of money being what it is right now. Fucking good luck getting a, I mean, not the good luck getting a loan, but the interest rate you're going to pay on it. Holy shit. What the payment's going to be per month. So it's beautiful, but it's not. So COVID did that to all up here. It did that to a lot of places.

Yeah. A lot of the places where people didn't want to be, this is one of the. places where they did, whether it be the perceived or real freedoms that they thought they would have in the state. And I will say there were many more in comparison to a lot of the more totalitarian states. Like that was real for sure. Yeah. But, you know, the cost of living up here is now higher than what it used to be.

And the median income is about the same. Okay. So you got that huge gap. Yeah. It's not, okay. It kind of crushes the locals. So. All right.

I guess it will not come yet. What do you want to close it out with? Um, to be not cover anything you wanted to. Excuse me. Bless you. I've covered a lot. We covered most everything that I could,

can't think anything else. I mean, it's, how can people get a hold of you? Uh, they can email me. So, I can,

I can blop and block and span the shit out of any. All right. So heli rescue as in helicopter 911 at gmail.com. Okay. Somebody right now who works in the same industry that you were in as fucking pissed

that you stole. that. I've had it for a long time. You can't have it. All right. Yeah. And questions. Email me. I teach all over. So T-T-C, tech instructor, Ph.TLS, you name it. There's about 23 certifications I maintain. All right. Well, I appreciate you taking the time and I appreciate you being so open and honest about your experience. Not a problem. I said if it helps others, that's why I'm here. That's what I've told you. It's, if people know, okay, I'm not the only one this is happening to. I don't know if I'm, maybe I am. Like, I don't know. are 100% not.

Okay. And I don't worry about the people who can talk about it. I worry about the ones who think that they're the only ones and think that nobody can understand what they're going through and think that they have nobody to talk to. Those are the ones I worry about. Yeah. And then they go dark, dark places.

They go dark, dark places, and they start making decisions that cannot be unwound. Because once the acorn hits the cop car, you know what I mean? Fucking rounds ain't going back in the gun. You dump your mag. You know what? We started and stopped with the fucking

Florida 8corn cop. Thank you very much, Scott. You're very welcome.