Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Was Hoping He Would Just Think I Was Dead

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

Along with her best friend Liz, Brandi Hicks is abducted by a man they picked up at a video store. Joseph and Lorenzo are lost at sea during a fishing trip in Mexico. Sam and Suzanne are held hostage by a wanted killer while driving home in Arkansas. Ro - Go to Ro.co/Survived to start your health journey today! Progressive - Call the shots on your auto insurance with the Name Your Price tool at Progressive.com 

Hi, I Survived listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And if you're enjoying this show, I just want to remind you that episodes of I Survived, as well as the A&E Classic podcast, Cold Case Files, City Confidential, and American Justice are all available ad-free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now, onto the show. This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. He said, it's very matter-of-factly, he said, I killed your friend. Real people. The next thing I know, I'm on the ground. He's on the ground with me. I yell at Suzanne. I said, run, Suzanne. He's not dead.

Who faced death? I said my goodbyes to my wife. I said my goodbyes to my kids. And my primary goal now is to get out of here, is to live through this. And live to tell how. I was hoping he would just think I was dead and then leave me there. This is I Survived. It's May 2000 in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Brandy and Liz are having a sleepover before high school graduation.

They drive to a local video store to rent a movie. So the whole way, we were just talking about which movie we were going to pick, we couldn't decide on anything. We pulled into Hollywood Videos. We picked out a few movies. And as we were coming back out, this guy approached both of us. He had just a baseball cap pulled down over his head and black hair curling out around him. And he just looked like a nice regular guy walking down the street. He just said that he needed a ride home.

So being in the small town, we thought it was safe. So we went ahead and agreed we could give him a 10-minute ride down the road to his house. It was probably about 15 minutes down the road. We noticed there were becoming less and less houses, and it was past 9 o'clock, so it was pretty dark outside. So finally, we asked him how much further, and he said, Oh, just down the road, just down there. So we went a few minutes further. And then finally I pulled over and told him, um, that if it's not that much further down the road, he could just get out and walk that we had to get home because it was a school night and gave him that whole excuse. And at that point, um,

he said, well, would it make a difference if I said I had a gun? We both kind of looked at each other, and Liz started shaking, nervously shaking her hands. He asked us if we had any money, and I said, well, we don't have any cash or anything on us. And he told us to start driving again. So I continued driving down the road, and he told me exactly where to turn. At the top of the hill, he asked us to stop the vehicle, put it in park, but keep my hands on the steering wheel. He told me to take the shoelaces out of my shoes, and Liz had to tie my hands to

the steering wheel. He made sure that they were very tight so that I wouldn't be able to move. He stepped out of the car, and as soon as he shut the door, I looked over at Liz, and she was looking at me. And she reached over, and she squeezed my hand since I couldn't move mine. And she said she loved me, and I told her I loved her, too. And I said, I'm sorry. I said that I'm sorry that I got us into this. And she said we both agreed. I said that I'm sorry that I got us into this. She said we both agreed.

It was a joint decision. And then right after we said we loved each other one more time, he opened her door and told her to step out. And the last thing I said to her was, Liz, I'm going to see you again. Don't worry, we're going to see each other again. And then I saw him lead her up to the top of the hill. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't see anything. I was scared.

I saw him coming back down, and he was by himself. And then he came to my side, the driver's door, and opened the door. And he yelled at me and told me to get out. And then, I don't know what was going through my head at the moment, but I yelled back at him. I said, you're an idiot. You made her tie my hand to the string while I can't get out of the car. He took something and really, really fast, just like sliced the shoelaces. And it didn't occur to me in my head at the moment that he had a knife. And then he started walking me up the hill. And at that moment, I kind of thought, this is it, this is the end, this is the end of my life.

I lived 18 years, and that's that. I just kept thinking about everyone that was really close to me, and I wasn't even worried about, I was just worried about, you know, would they be able to find us? Would they figure out what happened? Would they be mad because we let some stranger into our car? I didn't know. And then we got to the top of the hill and he started to lead me to the right.

And I started to look over this way and he took his hand and went like this. And I'd seen a mound on the ground. And I didn't, again, it didn't click in my mind that that was Liz's body right there, that she was gone. Liz's throat had been cut. She'd been stabbed so many times, the knife had broken. Brandy didn't notice her attacker was covered in blood. And he stood there for a moment, and he was smoking a cigarette. And he wasn't saying anything to me. And then, um...

And then, after two or three minutes, he grabbed my arm again and started leading me back down the hill. He had put me back in the vehicle. He got into the driver's side behind the wheel. As soon as he started driving, he looked at me and he said, it's very matter-of-factly, he said, I killed your friend. And I didn't react. I remember I just looked out the window. I didn't cry. I didn't do anything. I didn't yell at him.

I didn't, I was just in complete shock. And he let a few seconds pass by. And then he said, I just wanted to see your reaction. I wanted to see if you would break down, if you would cry. And he said, since you didn't, I'll tell you the truth. I really, I just let her go. I told her the directions to get back to town and she went on her way. So with thinking that Liz was okay, my next thought was, oh my goodness, why am I still here? She's safe and what is he doing with me now? What is he going to do with me? The killer has driven Brandy to a deserted riverbank. We're walking along these railroad tracks with no lights, businesses, houses, nothing around us.

He was asking me about my friends, if I had a lot of them, if I had a boyfriend. In the back of my head, I was probably thinking along the lines that if I did keep up this friendly conversation, it might help him to see me more as a person. The killer led her towards a rail bridge. His whole demeanor changed right then. He just said, how badly do you want to live? And I said, more than anything, he said, how badly do you want to live? And I said, more than anything. He said, okay, now strip. I hesitated, kind of thinking, obviously I don't want to do this.

He told me again, he said, if you want to live, you're going to listen to every word I say and do as I say. He unzipped his pants and pulled them down. I honestly don't even know how long that actually lasted, because in my mind it lasted hours. And he got down and threw my clothes back at me and told me to get dressed. So I put my clothes on very quickly and stayed sort of huddled up in a ball. I didn't want to move.

He was standing on the railroad tracks again, smoking. He told me to walk onto the railroad trestle, and there was like a little platform off to the side of it with a railing around it. He told me to face the river and kneel down, put my hands behind my back. The next thing I knew, I couldn't breathe. The killer is now trying to strangle her with a shoelace. I didn't realized he was behind me. And he hadn't realized that I had woken up yet. So I closed my eyes and I held my breath as much as I could. I didn't want him to see me breathing.

I was hoping he would just think I was dead and then leave me there. And then he started punching my back and kicking my back, trying to see if I would wake up or breathe to really see if I was dead or not. He hit my back so hard one time I couldn't hold it anymore, and I just gasped, and all the air came out, and then my eyes flew open. And he straddled me and took a hold of my head and tried to twist my head around to try and snap my neck. That didn't work. He tried it several times.

He got very, very angry at that point that he couldn't kill me. On the rail bridge, Brandy was now barely conscious and bleeding profusely. He was banging me up against the railing, banging my head up against it. Nothing was working, and finally he just tried to throw me over into the river. My feet got stuck and got wrapped around the railing. So then I just kind of hung there and he got even more mad the whole time. He was just getting angrier and angrier and finally got me loose. And since it had been raining so much, the water level of the river was up quite a bit.

And that was very, very fortunate for me because I fell headfirst into the river. When I came up, my face was still in the water and my back was floating. I just let my hands and legs just sort of flow with the water and pretended to be dead. I let the river, the current, take me under the bridge. Luckily, there were logs that had been tangled up and stuck underneath the bridge. So I grabbed onto one, and I was trying so hard to be quiet because I knew he was right above me. And I could hear him walking and I could hear him cursing and I could see the light from his cigarette. It was so cold in that river, I didn't think I could stay in the water.

So I finally was able to quietly pull myself up onto the log and stayed there and waited and watched him. Listening to him, his footsteps walk back and forth. He was pacing. And then I saw his footsteps walking this way behind me. I waited a few minutes and realized, or hoping, he's gone. So I slowly crawled back into the water. So it wasn't very far, but it seemed to take me forever to finally get to the other side. And then once I got to the shore, I was suddenly very, very nervous thinking, what if I swim to the wrong

side of the shore? What if he really didn't leave and he's just sitting up there? I kind of peeked my head up, looked one way, didn't see anything, looked the other way, I didn't see anything. I took off running. A few cars passed me. They just kept right on going. There was actually, there's a bar just down the street from where I had come out of. So pretty much every vehicle passing by just assumed I was just some drunken woman from the bar. Finally, a truck pulled over. As soon as I saw it stop, my heart just lifted. And I was so excited, just thinking, okay, this is done. This night is over.

He was an off-duty police officer. He took care of me. He didn't leave me at the police station either. He didn't just drop me off and leave. He stayed there the whole time. Brandy's attacker, Michael Vaca, was arrested after a tip-off from his mother. When the police found him, he had blood all over his shirt and all over his pants, and they asked me if I had seen that. And I said, you know, honestly, I didn't realize it. I didn't notice it. If I had let myself really think about what I had just seen

and what had actually occurred at the top of that hill, I would have broke down, and I don't believe that I would have survived either. In court, Brandy had the opportunity to confront Vaca. The whole time I was saying to him about Liz, just how could you? You have no idea how wonderful of a person you took away. Brandy requested the prosecution not seek the death penalty. Michael Vaca was sentenced to life imprisonment. I believe I survived because of a combination of the love of all my family and friends and my own survival instinct inside of me. The powers of your mind, if you let it do its job, it can do amazing things. The holidays are here and that means all kinds of conversation with family over dinner. And there's one topic that will no doubt come up because it feels like the whole world is talking

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Go to roe.co slash survived to find out if you're covered for free. That's R-O dot C-O slash survived. For boxed warning and full safety information, go to rho.co slash safety. Prescription only. It's October 2000 in Baja, California, Mexico. Joseph and Lorenzo are on their annual fishing trip. Lorenzo is a very easygoing person. He's very well-educated, kind of quiet and reserved.

We were always pretty good friends. For a week, they fished the islands in the Sea of Cortez. They were 125 miles from the nearest port. When we first met Jose, who was our guide, he was pretty very personable person. Nice guy. He seemed to know what he was talking about. So we just, we were relaxed with him. The three men left the ship in a small boat to fish. We knew we were just going for a few hours. And since it was our last evening, we didn't take all that much extra drinks with us. It started getting dark.

So then our guide said, okay, you know, let's pack it in. So we reeled everything in, and we put our gear away, and just sat back for the ride back to the boat. And he kept going south. And it was about a few minutes after that, we told him, hey, aren't you going the wrong way? The boat's up north. And he said, no, no, the boat's over here. He passed us. You guys didn't see it. The boat

passes and they're over here. They're waiting for us. It's just a little bit ahead. Jose was not a licensed guide. It's starting to get windy. Water's starting to come in the boat. And we asked him again, are you sure you're going the right way? And he said, yes. We're just in tank tops and shorts, and the water's coming in, we're just getting soaked, hit the toe. And it was just, it was cold. And at this time, Lorenzo

mentioned to me, said, hey, you know, this is not vacation anymore. This is not, this is not right. The guide, he just kept going, and just kept going, and going. And finally, it was about, I think it was around 7, maybe a little bit after 7, and he mentions that he's running out of gas. We didn't have any cell phone.

We didn't have a marine radio. And we're telling him, well, we're better off beaching the boat than just staying out at open sea with no power, no oars or nothing. The men headed for an uninhabited island. As soon as he went in, the front of that boat just went straight up, and the back end got swamped, and I fell into the water. And on Lorenzo's side, when he jumped off, he just had flip-flop sandals on. And when he jumped out, he slipped on the rocks, and he kind of sprained both his feet.

Cold and wet, they started gathering driftwood. Lorenzo had a hard time walking. He said to him, why don't you set up a little break so we don't get the wind, and you can just be sitting down. They had a cheap cigarette lighter. We had a lot of firewood. And we set up a huge bonfire. It was huge.

And we burned this wood through the, we burned it all through the night. The following morning, the guide said, you know, they're not going to come pick us up. I said, what do you mean? Yeah, they have to. No, they're not. They're not going to come this way. The remote island had no fresh water. He started telling us that he could swim across the channel to the mainland.

Now, this is a 20-mile channel with high currents throughout. And he said, I could make it across. I can make that. He stripped down to just his underwear, and he put his boots and everything in a grocery shopping bag, put the bottle of water in there, and he's had everything. The guide started swimming. Joseph and Lorenzo waited several hours in the 85-degree heat.

The next thing that happened, I saw somebody three-quarters of a mile away. I said, hey, Larry, Larry, we're saved, man. There's somebody walking down here. As he got closer, it was Jose, it was the guide. He had come back. There are great white sharks in the area. He said that he got about halfway across and that he saw a big shark underneath him. There are great white sharks in the area. With no fuel left, the men decided to row to safety. We made some makeshift oars out of some planks of wood that were laying there, and we started rowing the boat across the channel.

And that's when I started visualizing seeing my grandson. I just kept visualizing my grandson, and my primary goal now is to get out of here, is to live through this. Towards the evening, around 5.30, 6 o'clock, before dusk, we see the shore. We could see people on boats. And we started yelling and screaming. They didn't see us. The wind started blowing our way, in our direction. And we tried to row as fast as we could.

Now we were not making any headway. And the harder we rode, the more we just kept going back towards the island. Exhausted, the men fell asleep in the boat. It was about 3 or 4 in the morning. Jose, he woke us all up. And he said, we're going to crash, we're going to crash. We couldn't see anything.

I mean, it was just pitch black. They had been swept 10 miles south from where they were. The guide was able to find a small cave that was carved into that cliff. It was just big enough for the three of us would fit in there. And we got in there, laid down. We were just tired. When we woke up and we came out, the boat had broken up during the night. We just saw the pieces of wood there. On the third day of their ordeal, with no radio or cell phone, the men were stranded on the island. With sprained feet, Lorenzo couldn't walk.

The others built a raft to push him through the water. Our goal was the northern end. We knew that there would probably be some more of these tourist trips that were there or some commercial fishermen that would be fishing up there. So that was our goal, is to get there. The northern end of the island was 20 miles away. The desolate island had no fresh water. The only source of water that we had was

the bottled waters that washed ashore. Sodas, cokes, or whatever that people finish and they leave a little bit at the bottom and put the cap back on. One of them looked like an old squirt. It was yellowish. It looked almost, it was kind of curdled, almost like cottage cheese. Less than a cup a day is what we'd find. But it was something. They had a fishing rod and caught an occasional fish. The lighter just fell apart. That salt water just ate it up.

It just, it fell to pieces. So now we had no way of making a fire. So then we'd found some sea cucumbers that we found, and we ate those. Those things are nasty. Sea cucumbers are non-poisonous and high in protein. At night, temperatures dropped below 50 degrees, and the men had only wet t-shirts and shorts. There was a couple nights where we had to spend the night out in the open. It was just freezing cold. That wind would get you, that wind would just rip you apart.

You can't believe how cold it can be. I couldn't see in the water, so as I was walking through there, I would find rocks by hitting them with my shins. Okay, and since all that coral that was growing there, I just kept cutting up my shins, I cut my knees, I cut my feet. My feet were just shredded. They were still unsure of their exact location. We finally get around this one turn, and we see the beach where we crashed the first night. That was probably one of the lowest points for me. We're just back where we started. Now we're

tired. Now we don't have any water. We have nothing. We're back where we started. Surviving on liquid from washed up soda bottles, they catch three fish. Lorenzo looked at me and said, I can't eat that. I said, what do you mean you can't eat that? They said, I don't have a plate. I can't eat that. And at the time, I didn't know if he was joking with me or if he was being serious. You can't eat it. He said, no. I said, come on. He said, no, I don't have a plate. Lorenzo was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. The guy that picked up a swim fin, it was just laying there from junk.

And so I took that swim fin and put his fish on top and it was there. Now you got a plate. Eat it. Joseph and Jose were pushing Now you got a plate. Eat it. Joseph and Jose were pushing Lorenzo on a raft because he couldn't walk. Their goal was the northern end of the island, 15 miles away. We had to go through this gap. And as we went through this gap, Lorenzo got taken in underwater. And as he came up, his glasses came off.

I always knew those glasses were important to him. He said, my glasses, my glasses, I have to have my glasses. They're gone. There's no way we can get them. I think Lorenzo, I think he was tired and wanted us to be over with. I guess in the back of my mind, yes, we could die, but I never accepted that. I said, we're getting out of here,

and I kept telling Lorenzo, we're getting out of here. I heard some gurgling, just water gurgling, and I turned around, and I just see the top of Lorenzo's head, and finally I realized he's underwater. It took me a while to realize it, and I pulled him out. I said, what are you doing? And he just shook his head, and he looked at me and said, I'm all right. Something about the way he looked.

And I told the guy, hey, we're going to have to get ashore. We're going to have to dry him out. He needs some sun. Lorenzo's body heat had dropped from being in the water and he was suffering from hypothermia. Joseph was also exhausted and collapsed in the water. I couldn't get up. It took me 20, 25 minutes to get up, to get out,

to get out of the water. Finally get over there, and we pull Lorenzo completely out of the water. We put him on his back in a sunny area. And I looked at him, and he's just staring. He's just staring. He's face up, and he's just staring, you know, he's face up, and he's just staring, and I said, Lorenzo. And, you know, there's no reaction at all. It's just a glazed look on his eyes.

And I told the guy, nah, he's dead. You know, he's gone. So, yeah, I told the guy, let's just pray for him, and that's all we can do. So we did. So the hardest thing I ever had to do was leave him that morning, that 13th day. Joseph and Jose have traveled 20 miles in 13 days.

The northern end of the island was frequented by commercial fishing boats. We were pretty close to our goal of the northern end of the island. Jose told me that, did you see that boat? I said, what are you talking about? He said, I swear to God I saw a boat, and I'm going to run over there, see if I can find the boat. So I agreed. I said, okay, go ahead. Once he got around a bend that was there, and he wasn't visible to me anymore,

I just thought, what the hell did I just do? What if something happens to him, or what if something happens to me? Damn. No more than 20 minutes later, a boat came around from the way that he went. And he was up front standing, looking into the water, pointing at me. And they came alongside. And they said, want some help? I said, yeah, no kidding.

Lorenzo passed away on the 12th day of our ordeal. It wasn't that much further. He would have, if he would have just made one more day, I think he would have made it. After they were rescued, Joseph discovered Jose wasn't a licensed guide. Even though one person or the other made the wrong decision, we didn't fault him for it. We just made some bad decisions and we got over it.

We worked calmly towards a goal. Joseph still credits Jose with helping him survive after an extensive aerial search had failed to spot the men. I survived because at the time, I did not want to die. My grandson had just been born. He was very important to me. And I just did not want to die at that time, at that place. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Hey, I Survived listeners. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews, news, or even motivational speakers,

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There was a man standing outside the vehicle. He had his arms crossed. He appeared to be cold, almost shivering. He was probably about 6'2", 6'3". He had on a cap. He had on a pullover sweater and some jeans. I looked at him and I thought, this could be one of my sons. He looked to be about their age and I felt the thing to do was to stop and offer assistance. And he said he'd fill his car up with gas and he couldn't go any further. It just wouldn't go and he didn't know what was wrong with it. I said, well can we give you a ride somewhere to get out of the cold? He said, It just wouldn't go, and he didn't know what was wrong with it.

I said, well, can we give you a ride somewhere to get out of the cold? He said, yes, I would certainly appreciate that. I had hesitation about him getting in the car from the very beginning. I just had this feeling that something wasn't right. He sat in the seat behind me. He said his name was Michael. As we reached the place where we were going to turn off Main Highway to go towards our hometown, I started slowing down, pulling into a convenience store, and he pulled a gun, stuck it in my right side.

He said, folks, I'm afraid we're going to have to keep driving. You know, we get inured on watching things on TV where people get guns pointed at them. But until you've had a gun, a loaded gun pointed at you, I can't tell you how horrible that is. It is extremely frightening. And then the most, I guess to tell you, the strangest thing happened. My wife grabbed the pistol. And we wrestled with that gun until he made the statement. That's what that old man did when I killed that old woman.

And I knew he had committed murder. And I let go of the gun. And I'm sitting here thinking, you know, oh my goodness, what am I going to do? I turned to Suzanne and I mouthed the words, I'm sorry, because I knew I had made a big mistake. I knew I made a very big mistake picking this van up. The gunmen took their cash and cell phones. Basically, we just continued to drive south after that. When we take trips, we probably stop about every hour and a half to two hours for a bathroom break. And we were needing a bathroom break. He had us drive down a little dirt road there and then back

the vehicle up sort of behind a little mound where nobody could see us from the road. And that's when he said the statement that was probably the most frightening. He said, okay. He said, I'm taking the safety off the gun. He said, I won't hesitate to kill one of you if the other one tries something. I'm already facing death row in Oklahoma. In my business as an emergency room doctor, I frequently get involved in situations where there is chaos. And in my business, I have to try to remain calm even though there's chaos going on. No, I didn't want to antagonize him at all. I never tried to question him. I wanted my demeanor during this whole time to be docile and meek. I had a gun in the side pocket of my car

and I kept him fussing with me to keep him from searching the car. The.22 pistol was hidden in the driver's side door. In Arkansas, if you are traveling more than 50 miles or if you're protecting valuables, you can carry a firearm in your vehicle. And I knew that pistol was there. Trying to retrieve that pistol would not have been easy as long as he was sitting right behind me. He said he wanted us to drive him to Texarkana. Texarkana was 25 miles away.

And when we got to Texarkana, Sammy said, you're really not going to Texarkana, are you? He said, no, I'm not. So I took the road that goes south, and he said, when I get to the next town, I'm going to let you out. I'm going to let you go. When we get to that town, he said, the next town, he's going to let us go. The tension in the car kept building and building and building, and we realized he was not going to let us go.

And all of a sudden, he said, Doc, how much life insurance have you got on her? And I knew what the implication was. I'll kill her for you and you can get the money. That angered and frightened me. And that's when I became convinced that he was going to kill us. I just point out saying

he's going to kill us. I just said it out loud. And there's a song that the people sing at all the funerals. It's I'm Bound for the Promised Land. And Sammy hummed that to me. Let me know that he thought that he was going to kill us too. I began to tell him I had to go to the bathroom again. I really need to go. I actually began to squirm. I was faking all this. I was trying to have the element of surprise. We pulled

over the side of the road. He told me to turn off the lights. I did. This time, he got out at the same time Suzanne did on the opposite side of the vehicle. And when he did, I slumped over the steering wheel, and then I reached into the door pocket and retrieved the little.22 revolver pistol that belongs to my wife. He gets out. He stands by the vehicle. And I slowly try to open the door, and as the noise of the door happens, I cock the pistol. I stand up, and I am probably about two feet from him, but it is dark, and I open fire.

Sam fired eight shots, but only hit with three. I really didn't know how many times I shot, but then all of a sudden I realized that the gun is not in my hand. The next thing I know, I'm on the ground. He's on the ground with me. I yell at Suzanne. I said, run, Suzanne. He's not dead. I could hear him fighting, scuffling in the dirt.

And it was dark, and I couldn't find him. Sam had lost his gun, but the murderer was still armed. His pistol is between us, and I see it, and it's pulled in right at my stomach. And I get a hold of it and try to wrestle it away from him. I'm very fearful he's going to shoot me. Then all of a sudden, he pulled it away from me, and then I realized I am being hit in the head over and over again. And my little voice in my head said, go down and play dead. So I immediately fell to the ground, and I'm lying there, and I'm figuring,

well, I turned my eyes to heaven. I said, Lord, I'm coming home. And then all of a sudden, I hear this little voice come running around and said, don't kill him, don't kill him. It's Suzanne. He said, I'm not going to kill him, bitch. I'm going to kill you.

And he held a gun to my hand, and the gun clicked. The gun didn't work, as it had no firing pin. And then he turned the pistol around and hit me in the head right here. And my knees buckled to the ground. The man got in the car and started the engine. We're right on the edge of the road. I said, Suzanne, we've got to get out of the way. We've got to get out of the way.

He's liable to run back over and kill us or come back and shoot us. And just sort of tried to lift her to move out of the road. Finally got her enough out of the road, and then I laid down on top of her. And he just drove off. The badly wounded man drove to a store for medical supplies. I hugged Suzanne. She hugged me and I said, we're alive. We're alive.

It's such a flood of relief to know that you're alive. Scott Eisenberg was arrested after the store clerk alerted the police. He was convicted on two previous counts of murder and sentenced to death. First of all, I don't think you ever get over anything like this. I drove by a couple guys in the ditch here a couple years ago in a snowstorm, and I had a four-wheel drive vehicle, and they were waving at me, and I just drove right on. I cannot do that anymore. If you go over it in your mind, you go over it in your mind.

And sometimes I still do every once in a while, but I've learned to kind of just put that in a different category because if I get to play in the what-ifs and think about what happened and what could have happened, and, you know, that didn't happen. We survived, and that's all that matters. Hi, I'm Stassi Schroeder. On my podcast, I share candid updates from my personal life, chat with some of my best friends about what's going on in our lives, give commentary on the

latest pop culture headlines, and sometimes deep dive into random topics I'm obsessed with, like human design. It's a bit all over the place, but that's how I like it. And you will too. Listen to my podcast Stassi wherever you get your podcasts.