He Died, Came Back, and Refused to Quit: A Story of Unbreakable Hope with Jay Setchell

What does it take to keep going after life knocks you down again and again? Marine veteran, entrepreneur, and author Jay Setchell shares his extraordinary journey from a demanding Midwest farm upbringing to surviving multiple near-death experiences, including a devastating Marine Corps crash, a drunk-driver collision that left him with a broken neck, drowning, paralysis, and PTSD. Through every setback, Jay reveals how gratitude, faith, prayer, and intentional daily choices helped him rebuild. His story is a powerful reminder that it's never too soon to choose hope—and never too late to refuse to quit.

Jay's contact info:

Email - jay@neverquittrying.com

Jay's book:

The Strength Within You: It's Always Too Soon to Quit

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Transcript

ReLight App And Quick Invite

SPEAKER_02 0:00

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Meet Jay And His No-Quit Life

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Welcome to the Hope Unleaved Podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome Jay Sichel to the show. I'm really excited to have him here today. We had a chance to talk a little bit before we got started, and uh he's just such a great guy. So I know that he's gonna bring so much wisdom and probably even some laughter here to the show. So, Jay, before we get into your story, would you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Well, first of all, Kristen, I'm glad to be here. We did we talked a little bit before and had some good laughs. So you know, a little bit about myself. I I was raised up in the upper Midwest on a big working farm. Uh I've I've uh worked nights and through high school till midnight, 12, well, 12:30 at night, back to school the next morning early. Went in the Marine Corps. I've got multiple deaths that I've gotten brought from, brought back from, resuscitated. I've had four very near deaths, or my wife told me to was told to go home and make make funeral arrangements. I've started, I'm a serial entrepreneur, I've worked corporate life. I got retired from that when I was 41 because I was a risk, which is now 35, 36 years ago, a risk that that I would fall down, or because I was so paralyzed and had so many surgeries, and they didn't need that because I was uh I worked the premise, so I was outside corporately. And you know, but I started some more other companies and kept growing and uh closed it just that's just kind of life. I've been married and divorced, third married my third time, we're raising twins that are eight and a half. We've had since they were three weeks old. We adopted at three years, a little boy and girl. And I just I I don't know. I I don't know the word quit. I don't know the word not try. I don't, I don't, I can't spell the word quit. I don't know how. And it's I know I think it's a short one word, but I don't use it. Yeah, I don't use it. It's everything's possible. Everything's possible through God and and and I know that, and that's why I'm here.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

I'm here because of him.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

So well when I when I saw you know what what you're about and like not quitting, I was like, we got to have him on because I think in our world there are too many that just quit at the first sign of hardship, the first sign of hard, the first sign of like circumstances that maybe aren't lining up in timing. Take us back to maybe when you're younger. Like, is this something that's just always been part of you? Is this something you've grown into? Like in vocabulary, back in, you know, English, you saw the word quit and you're like, nope, I'm erasing that. That's not even like what does it look like for you, Jay, to never, you know, never quit,

Farm Upbringing And Stubborn Resilience

SPEAKER_02 3:40

to be like, nope, I'm not part of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I I th I think probably the first word that comes to mind, and I use it quite often really is uh is stubbornness. I'm just stubborn, you know, and I and I was raised that way. I was, geez, seventh or eighth generation on our farm. Uh so I looked at what my dad was going through, I looked at what my grandfather was going through because he was still with us for many years of my life initially and helped in the farm. And what about the ones that went before us? And you know, and so I was raised with that sense of urgency. And and fortunately, seeing the cycle of life, and I mean that from a farmer's point of view, is you see younger calves growing into feeders, growing into full cattle, and we've we fed hundreds ahead of cattle. And in crops, you you watch your crops. You're in the upper Midwest, way a little further north, but you you know, when you plant a kernel of corn, it's this big, and then it gets into a stock of corn, a bigger stock, and it gets 10, 12, 14 feet tall. It's got three years of corn on it with hundreds of seeds on it that you planted one of. And then you harvest it and you, you know, you turn it over and winter hits, and usually well, I I've always had other work, we had other businesses, we had other jobs, we had so I you you just can't stop because if you stop, then life quits for your cattle, for your crops, you know, and so on. And you know, and when I was a young, young young boy, I had a this problem of stepping on nails. I just had a terrible thing. And this the one time was about I was about seven, I might have been eight, but I think seven, and I had stepped on a nail out towards one of uh the big brooder houses, chicken houses we had. And my grandfather was a few steps ahead of me. And it was in the winter uh early spring, late winter, there was still four or five inches of snow in the ground. We had the four buckle boots on, you know, you put them over your shoes and you buckle them up, and and I'd stepped on a nail that went up through the through my boot, through my shoe, through my foot, out my shoe, out the top of my boot, and I'm sitting there and I'm screaming, you know, like grandpa, you know, it's like, and I'm looking down. I was on about a two, three foot wide piece of two by four, and and we were very, very good about bending nails over or pounding them out and straightening them out and reusing them. And how this one ended up, where it did, how it did, why it did, I don't know. God put it there, I guess, you know, just for me to test me again. And so I grandpa came back and and he told me, he said he looked at it and he said, Okay, here's what I want you to do. He said, I want you to squat down, and I'm and I want you to put your hands on my shoulder, and I'm gonna put my hands behind your knee, you know, or on your on your lower part of your leg, right behind your knee. And on three, I'm gonna pull your foot up off of that nail. And he said, one, two, and it went. And that was it. And and then he took me to the hospital, they took the boot and the shoe off, and they flushed it through, and the water went through the top and came out the bottom of my foot, you know, and I'm like, oh my god, you know, and and the thing I scared me more or worried me more was I had to have a tetanus shot, and I didn't like needles, you know. The nail was bad, but the needle was worse. And so I don't know, it's just like you know, bat patch it up, get back home, and and we went right back to work. You know, I mean, I didn't go in and get three weeks worth of bed rest and sit down because that was like 1957, 56, 57. And that's just what you do. So to answer, you know, I I I I I think it was it it could be somewhat maybe in your DNA, maybe so it just comes from consistently never quitting in every little thing you do, whether it's fight the 30 below zero weather to feed the cattle, whether it's it's it's fighting the hundred degrees in the fall when it's excessively hot for three or four weeks, which it very seldom is, but it happens, you know, deal with it. Just deal with it. You know, if you slip on a wrench and bust your knuckles open, you just do. It's just that's all it is. And and it just never I think each little tiny thing uh just adds up over time, Kristen. It just it just where did you get this or where did you get that? Well, I don't know, I've been through it 400 times or 4,000 times. And it just builds up, and you don't have a reason except I'm gonna go do it, get out of my way, you know. And my dad never had any any time for excuses. And he told me it's like like pulling weeds, you know, and we had a lot of weeds, and we towed a lot of thistles out, and we did a lot of that kind of stuff, and in out in the pastures, and you know, and and he told me, he says, you know, hey, when the I don't ever want to have to tell you to do something, I want to just make a suggestion. Looks like there's weeds around the cattle that need to be pulled.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

That's my idea. Okay, I don't he doesn't have to tell me. So I learned very early that after it rained, given a day or so, let the so the the the earth soften up a little bit. Boy, it's a whole lot easier to to pull the weeds. So recently I told my son now, the adopted son we have, that I've got some weeds out here, and I told him, listen, after it rains here, which we've had a few days of rain, it's a good time to pull it. And he goes on and he goes, Oh my gosh, it's they're they just pop right out, you know. So I think it's just a learned, it's learned experience and then apply it. I mean, you know, I and and one more probably the worst one I had on the farm was when I I had just turned 17, so my birthday is New Year's Eve. Okay, and within the next four or five days, I was up in the silo chipping silage off and came down and was on a a feeding auger that are is oh, they're about this big around, and they churn like some like a a meat meat grinder. And but I was I I had to walk down about eight or nine feet down the L down the auger to get off of it, and there was a big snow drift over there, and that's I was just gonna

Lessons From Injury And Hard Work

SPEAKER_00 10:20

jump into that. And about the second I was getting ready to jump off, the auger started to turn. And my grandfather had kicked the auger on and kicked it off, but it made enough of a revolution that it took my foot, right, right ankle, my right leg, took it down beneath it. It broke my right ankle, cut my boot open, sliced my leg open. But I was launching off of that and got into the snowbank and the blood's coming out and all this, and I'm screaming, you know, and and but I was grateful that it stopped, you know. I mean, I really was. I mean, I was grateful that and and people have asked, how can you be grateful? I said, but because if it would have stayed running, I'd have been chewed into hamburger, they would have never found me. That where did Jay go? He came out the side where he's not up there, you know, and they would have found my bones that the cattle wouldn't have eaten in the in the in the cattle trough. So, you know, it I I got taken into town and stitched up, and they put my foot in a kind of a walking cast. He didn't really have a walking cast back then, and but it was kind of like that. And and I don't remember what day that was, but the next day I was back at school again, you know, and I went to work that night and and I worked an eight-hour shift from four to twelve thirty at night, and you know, and it is what it is, you know. It's like it's like I I'm sitting here right now in a lot of pain from 15 back surgeries, but my pain isn't as bad now as it was before we got involved in our conversation because now my mind's off of it. It's not that I put my mind on the pain, yeah, but it's it's like when you're sitting there and you've, I don't know, you've done something to yourself or you're hurting. Busy mind, busy hand or busy hands, busy mind. If you're doing something, you don't think about it. But then when you have time, or if it's dark out and it's thundered out, now you're hurting, and now it's twice as bad as it really is because that's all you can think about. But I've I've learned, I've had to learn over the decades, many decades, to to to keep doing something. But I don't know. That that kind of goes back to some of what keeps me moving. It's just yeah, it was it was not an easy life. I I remember shoveling coal when I was a kid, a little kid, and then my dad put in LP gas, we put a different furnace in when I was about 10. But I remember telling dad this shovel, you know, this is really hard to get throw the coal back in the furnace as far. So he went and he bought me a smaller shovel. We got an answer for that.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Right, right. Got the solution.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

And he said, if that's not enough, you could throw them in chunk at a time, you know. But but it was hot when you'd open the door up. So it's like, you know, so it's not not a big deal. It's just, you know, and and you look back and I think because today people want they they want a car that's got air-conditioned seats, they want a car that's got heated seats, they want a car that's got this, a car that's got that, or you want a remote control started. Well, back when we were younger, you go out, you get in the car, and you go, okay, it's yeah, we can do this. Well, five below zero or thirty below, and you're going, you pull the choke out. You didn't have an automatic choke, you pulled the choke out, you pumped the gas a couple of times, you went, you know, and ah, okay. We're good. You sit there and you let it warm up for about three minutes and you scrape the ice off or move the snow if it was outside. Ours were generally inside, but it was still the fact that you just got in it and you went. Yeah, you know, and instead of letting it sit there for 10 minutes to heat up or warm up, let it sit for a minute or two till the oil flows, and then drive the car. Because when you're driving it, it's going to warm up quicker.

unknown 14:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

But people don't understand that. So I it's just a combination, Kristen. I think of all the little things that we went through. I can imagine, can you imagine the pioneers?

SPEAKER_02 14:27

I've thought I think about them a lot.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Okay, I do too, because we were pioneers, you know, and that's where how we got where we were at. And before that, you know, and it's like it when I asked my grandmother one time when I was, oh, I don't remember when. I I was probably out of the service. And I said, Grandma, what do you remember about the the the the uh depression? You know, and she said, not not a lot, because we we we lived off everything we grew on the farm, all the gardens, all the vegetables, the fruits, uh, whether it was asparagus or elderberries, we we you know, we we butchered our own chickens and hogs and cattle. We we lived, you know, we canned it. We had the root cellar, you know, down in the basement that was bricks because we didn't have concrete back when they built the basement in our house. And you know, and all that stuff. And that that it just you live, you lived on the land, you live by the land. Now, she said we would read about it, you know, and it affected fuel supply or it affected finances for people that we didn't know, but then we helped those people so because we had stuff that we could share. Yeah, so that that that goes back to another thing of that I think that we don't have today, Kristen, while I'm on the subject, is the the sense of community, or the not the sense of community, the actual community.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Because that's how I was raised, helping other people, working with other people, taking care of other people. It's it was just a natural thing inbred in me, and and I watched it, I lived it. I mean, it was just not a question.

Community Values And Old-School Integrity

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And town people or city people we called them because they they were in town, but town was like 4,000 people, like 4,200 when I graduated high school.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

And uh, but they you know those people as a rule, not all of them, but they had a job that was eight to five, or maybe they worked a second shift in a small factory. But that was it, that's what they had, and they still provided. Where we we had a lot of different things going, you know, and I mean we also did a lot of ag spray, agricultural spraying with the planes, you know. We we had contracts with Del Monte, Green Giant up in Minnesota, up in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, you know, and and plus we sprayed for ourselves, we sprayed for other farmers, and so there was always something going, always something doing, and you're always helping. And you know, my mother taught, she was a teacher, then she also taught piano lessons, and on top of that, my dad was always on the school board or president of the school board or something. So very involved in the community, you know, and and it wasn't that you wanted to you didn't do it. I don't think they did it. Let me go back to them to be they just did it because it was part of what they should do. Excuse me. So, you know, because it's like I'll give you an example. Uh, my dad brought home four or five desks for the schools when I was about eighth grade, roughly about eighth grade. And he said, Listen, I want you guys, we had these people, we had all these, we need desks for the schools. And so I I had all the people that were gonna propose desks bring them in and leave us one. Now, I want you guys and get your friends by, or if they can come over, we're gonna have we got them for a month, and I want you to jump on them, bounce on them, throw them around, do whatever you want with them. But the one that lasts the best is the one we're gonna buy. Instead of just going out and somebody goes, hmm, boy, you know what, I can get a little kickback from that. I can, yeah, I can pad my pocket, yeah, we'll take that one. And that's how what they do today. Sure. It really is. I mean, that's how you end up with the you got one person, you know, and and they buy it. And so we did that. That's what happened. You know, it's it's uh, you know, and it's a good story because it in in those desks lasted for decades and decades, you know. And they and they made a comment. I remember I remember something about something in the paper that, you know, due to something that you know Gibb Setchell had done, my dad, you know, here's what he did, you know, and it's like crazy because these are the most solid desks that we ever we've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Sounds like you had a very good example in your father to bring this like we were talking about this word, stick to it.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yes, ma'am earlier.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yes. I want to make sure that we really capture, I love everything you've shared so far because it's just you know, bringing to light, just even, you know, you've you've lived through a lot of changes in our in our world, you know, the each decade. There we're in such a time of you know, things are changing really quickly. But I want to make sure that we really capture when you first started sharing with us, you know, about your life, you've you've overcome death, you said four times.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Well, three totally, and four, I was right there. I mean, I was not supposed to make it.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Okay. Most people don't come on my show and and say that. So tell us tell us what you've walked through. And and again, this is part of oh, I do want to ask one thing. When when you're when you had that second accident with your foot, was it the same foot as your nail went through?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

No, the opposite one.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Okay, so you were balanced at that point.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Well, God

Facing Death And Faith Foundations

SPEAKER_00 20:15

wanted to balance me.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

I just want to make sure somebody else might have been wondering. But take us back to you know, some of these events that you've that you've walked through. Like, obviously, God has you here for a very strong purpose. And I I have a feeling somebody is wondering like what happened to him in each of these moments. Would you take us back?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I I'd like to just kind of go through them quick though, if I if you don't mind, yeah, if I get too detailed, I get tears. But I, you know, I want to make a comment that a lot of this in in the older I've gotten, and I'm talking even the last 20, 30 years, and there's people listening that probably aren't even that old yet.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Would you share what your age is? Would you mind?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

I'll be 77.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Okay. Incredible. You guys listening in like and please remember.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

And I don't feel I feel like I'm I I I mentally, somebody asked me, they said, How old do you feel? I said, I I'm I feel like I'm kind of stuck between about 22 and 28. That's kind of where I feel. I I I I get in trouble like I'm 12, but bodily, my physical, my physical pain and body is I definitely was in the revolutionary and the civil war. I know that for sure, because I'm I'm still carrying the damage with me. You know, so I've kind of got to balance them out. But I just I don't think young are old. I I think young. I think I think options, I think ahead. I I plan ahead. I I'm you know, I it at at my age, I'm I'm planning what I'm gonna be doing when I'm 90, when I'm 90 or 80, 85, 90, 95. I I want to live to be a hundred. And somebody asked me why do you want to live to be a hundred? I said, well, actually, I want to be live to be over a hundred, but I said, because it'll just, you know, irritate the hell out of some people. You know, it's just like, you know, how did he do that? Well, it doesn't matter. He did it, you know. And but I I think a lot of it, Kristen, to get back really to where you're having me go is I believe a lot of it goes back to being faith-based. And and I would bring that up. And I I went to Sunday school every Sunday, every Sunday that we had Sunday school. And I never, I had we had a little pin that we put on our on our sport coat, and and then each of you had perfect attendance. You had another little thing that hung down from it. And I had all 12, all the way from well, kindergarten through senior. I never missed once. Now we didn't go to church a lot, but we went to church probably about 30% out of the year. And and after we had Sunday school sometimes, or when we didn't go to church right after Sunday school, we would, if it was the weather permitting, we would go on picnics, family picnics. And I had, you know, there were four siblings totally. I was the oldest, and my mom and my dad. And we would go to, you know, the county parks, and the we had a couple of parks that had covered bridges. We had some with little lakes and slight hills where the Indians had been, the the Illini Indian tribe and Chief Shabana and such. And and we we just enjoyed it, you know, and we would, you know, mom, you know, well, anyhow, it was just kind of a you know, dad would come back and we driving home, we'd have the windows down because we didn't, you know, air that was our air conditioning, you know. Right. And uh we'd be singing a church song, or we'd be singing the songs that he had that he sang when he was in Sunday school. And I don't know, it was just it was a very wholesome upbringing. So that takes me that, you know, and so I wanted to mention that I think that's where a lot of my it it had more of an effect on me than I've realized over the years. It was kind of like a good basis, you know, and whether I understood everything that we talked about, which I probably didn't, because you look at it differently when you're eight years and twin and twelve and fourteen than you do when you're 30 or 50 or 70 or whatever, you know, and and but if you got that belief, you know, and but I after after the that when when I was in the Marine Corps, make a long story short, move well, I can't make a long story short, but but I I'm kind of like you committed yourself to tell people they asked me a question, I'm like, do you want the appetizer version or the buffet version? Yeah. But when I was I went in the Marine Corps, I enlisted in 67, went in the 68. My grandfather had had a heart attack. I got put on a delayed enlistment program so I could we could get the crops out and the crops in. And they they picked me up and took me in. All was all during the height of Vietnam. And but I went in and and make a long story, I short, short, I can do that, is I ended up in criminal intelligence. I I did some other stuff before that, ended up in criminal intelligence. I witnessed a guy almost die, and and I I gave a report because I said, Hey, this is wrong. It's wrong, and they need to know about it. And the guy asked me what happened, and I told him in a lot of detail. And he said, How do you know so much detail? And I said, Well, my life has always been detail. How much, how much do you feed the cattle? How much, how do you meter in certain amounts of uh of uh commercial feed or minerals? How long can you plow on on a gallon of diesel or or or disc or how long can you fly uh at 80% power with eight, you know, 12 gallons of fuel, you know, it's just all that. So I pay attention to a lot of detail, and I still do. I'm very detail-oriented, but I I happened by in the Marine Corps though, uh I was in 17 months, 12 days, and about 20 hours when I died my first time. And I had gone to a a guy that worked for me in my criminal intelligence unit. And I well, I just happened to stop. I went into Oceanside, California, I was based out of Camp Pennel at the time. And I I got to their house. And long story short, I went into their apartment, little small, not where non-commissioned officers live, was very, very, very small. And I went in because the screen door was open, but nobody answered. So I in in Stitz, I, you know, but anyhow, I got into the little apartment, I heard a scream,

Marine Corps Crash And Being Resuscitated

SPEAKER_00 26:55

woman scream. So I ran to the sound of the scream, and I went to the right, down the end of the building. And as soon as I got there, I saw another guy running away over around a around another apartment building. I can't think what we call it, you know, and Stitz was on the ground, his wife was hovered over him, she was screaming, he was bleeding all over. They cut his head open with a uh like a box cutter or something, I don't know. But they cut his head, they'd sliced it open, his ear was mostly hanging off down into the neck. They missed what I figured the juggler because but he was pumping blood bad. So I heard her get a towel and I said, grab some alcohol and a towel fast. I know the alcohol makes it bleed more, but I need to see what the problem is. You know, we need to get this taken care of. But those there weren't that many words said, and she was gone, comes back with a towel and a bottle of vodka, you know, and we're 19 years old. We shouldn't have had vodka, but we did, you know. I mean, it's like the you know, I mean, we're jarring as you know, it's like we're marines, and so anyhow, I poured a little vodka on it and wiped it down and found just the bud was just pumping. So I got him carried to my car, put him in the car, I put her in the middle, I had her put her right arm around his neck and head, and then take and put the towel, the drier part of the towel, as hard as she could, push against it like so against like opposing force against it to keep it from bleeding, the best she possibly could. Well, so we took off to go to the naval hospital at Campell in California. And there may have been one locally, but that's the closest one I knew of at the time, and and it wasn't that far away, but seven, eight miles, nine miles. And driving down the road, it was dark. A semi had pulled out from an orange packing plant alongside the road, pulled up onto the road and was turning, and he was covered onto the road that we were, we ran into him. The drivers, the part that, you know, the driving tires were right in the road. The trailer was stretched off behind, heavily loaded. He had one headlight that was working, which we didn't even see. We never saw him. It was like running into a dark tree on a dark night. And he had no side lights, none of the reflectors, everything was covered with dirt. The reflectors didn't, or the reflectors were covered with dirt, the the tape was covered with dirt, the the lights weren't working, and we had four or five cars behind us. And I I I mean, I I didn't, I don't remember any of this, but I know from all the reports and what happened and the stuff as you learn now. Now, you know, it's like, why did that plane crash? Well, you don't know, but you find out later. And the guy that was directly behind us was a Fulberg Colonel, and he and he made a statement to the California Highway Patrol that had he not hit that semi, it would have been us. Because and we may have been decapitated because he might have been pulled further out and we would have gone underneath the trailer and it just would have sliced our heads off. Well, I was driving a 66 Ford Galaxy 500 XL that was 17 feet, four inches long, that compressed to under 10 feet in length, and then it burned. So we were all crushed inside badly. And three Marines coming from the other direction. There were all three captains. They were, and the last one is the one I just told you. I just went and visited. He's the last one that's alive. They were on their third trips to Vietnam, and they were in staging battalion, which is where I was at when the accident happened. It was a long story. And so, but they couldn't tell what that was. They said they could see a glow up there. Well, when they got there, they they realized that there's a car that's at the semi and it's on fire. And Walter, the one that's still alive, said, Hey, we gotta, we gotta get them out. And they didn't they didn't have any clue we were Marines. We were, you know, because Marine Corps, Marines can't leave base. Well, they can leave base in in uniform or utilities, their work clothes, but you can't get out of the car. You just you can't get out of the car. I mean, that's that's rule. And but anyhow, so he he goes on about how he fought and they fought and they fought. And he said, I'm sure we broke some of your bones, Jay, because you're you were crushed. You were your head was crushed into the steering wheel, just like throwing a rotten pumpkin into a a wagon wheel because it was it was it was embedded. So we had to dig your face. I had 32 facial fractures, my skull was crashed in, my hair was burned off, I had burns up here, my left jaw was sticking out here. When they got me out, like my left foot, my bottom leg of my left leg was broken so bad, my uh left foot was turned backwards, I had punctured busted rims, punctured lungs, my every third-degree burns. And he said we worked, we'd the only it was dark, and the only thing we had was the light of the fire under the hood, under the dash, and in the trunk area, and under the car at that time was your leg was on fire. So that's what we were trying to do was, you know, anyhow. So when they pulled me out, I was I was dead, and they got me back later, about 20 minutes, and Linda came out pretty good. Linda, the spare tire had torn loose from the trunk when on the impact had gone through, gone off, and taken off the top back of her head, and then she had slid up over the gear shift, and so she damaged all of her lower organs and lower stomach area. And she was in a coma for 18 months and passed away. So I literally think about her every day of my life. I I it wasn't my fault. They don't they the families never held it against me. They were great, they were grateful that I was trying to help Roy's. Roy would have died. Roy would have bled out, laying on the ground. You know, nobody was there to help, and it doesn't take long. I mean, you believe I know because my ex an ex accident, I did bleed out and die. I did. And but anyhow, so and Roy, he didn't get broken up as bad, but they were trying to get him out and they couldn't get the door, they couldn't even touch the door, it was too hot. All of a sudden it just kind of like popped open. And they think that he maybe he got the handle to work enough or something, you know, and they they took the clothes and they were trying to get it to pull it out, and they got him out and they put him up by a tree about 45, 50 feet away from the car. And then Walter tells me, Walter's got real bad PTSD on this, real bad. And PTSD, people misunderstand it's not what's wrong with you, it's what's happened to you. That's interesting. It's not what's wrong with you, it's not what's wrong with you, it's what's happened to you. Yeah, in other words, how you know, if if you see if if Kristen sees a small child get run over by a car going too fast by a drunk driver, it will have an effect on her for probably the rest of her life, especially with small children. When she sees a small child near a sidewalk, near a road, whatever, it it can have that effect. But so when Walter and I I I I I I didn't connect with them for years, and then God told me that I should reach out to everybody that was a survivor and tell them what a hero their fathers were. And it took me decades to find find them. And through a friend of mine that's also he was a Fulbright colonel in the Marine Corps, and through his contacts at the Pentagon and all the digging he did, he found out two of them had already passed away. And then Walter was alive living in Florida. And I sent him a letter, is now it's been about 11, 10, 11 years, 11 years ago, and I just put, you know, you know, to Walter Reeves, you know, my name is I told him who I was. I'm looking for the man that helped save my life, you know, on the night. November 12th, 1969, and blah blah blah blah blah. And and I put this is not a joke, this is real. I'm very serious. You know, if it is you, please contact me the following phone number or whatever. And one second. Hey, was somebody let oh sorry. And so anyhow, about 10 days later I got a it was around Thanksgiving time, about 10, 11 years ago. And about 10 days later I had a phone call, had a message on my on my phone, and the gentleman says, Hello, Jay, this is Walter, and yes, I am who you're looking for. I am captain of all three rays.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

And wow.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

And I wanted to respond, but I couldn't, and it took me a couple of days, and I finally thought, okay, I'm gonna call and say hello and all that, and sorry. But when he answered, I couldn't talk. I couldn't say anything, I just had tears. And he he uh at that time said, Jay, I know how you feel because I had your letter for a week and I've cried for a week. And uh we finally got it to where we could talk eventually, but it was a hard thing. It was a hard thing. How do you tell someone thank you for saving your life and putting their life 100% on the line? And sorry,

Aftermath Recovery And Living With Pain

SPEAKER_00 37:50

and when one of the things that we one of the things that got me so much about the effort that they put forward when we talked and he came and visited here a couple years later, they were on the way to Oklahoma, and and he told me he said one of the af after all this had happened, and before the emergency vehicles got there, or when they got there, they were going over to the emergency vehicles, and they had skin hanging from their hands and arms from the burns and such. And and when they were getting cleaned up as they cleaned them off, yes, they had some light first-degree burns, but the skin that was hanging on them was our skin. Oh wow. Our skin from pulling us out of the car. So think about that as a as a as a mental picture for the rest of your life. You know, so I got on this thing about, and I was advised against it by a few people, but I wanted to call every wife, every ex-wife, every widow, every child, man, woman, whatever, and tell them thank you and what a hero their father was. And it took me about three months to do it. And and Kristen, I never got through one phone call that I wasn't just I was crying my heart up.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

And my parents had made sure that they were recognized through our congressman, wrote a letter to the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps recognized them with what they call the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism, which is equal to the Medal of Honor, but in non-combat situations. So Captains Hudson, Hudson, and Reeves all received there were 340,000 active duty Marines that year, and only nine of them received that medal. Three of them went to the ones that helped save us.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

So sorry, I that's why sorry to talk. Yeah, but I was in a coma for about a month, and then they put me back in another coma, induced coma. And for a couple of weeks, and I went through trachea, well, of course, I that's how they got a long story, how they got me back. I had a very, very violent, terrible out-of-body experience.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

I was gonna ask if you remember anything. I was gonna ask if you remembered anything while you were.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

I just remember being out of out of my body, Kristen, and and up against my back was up against the ceiling looking down, and everything was red, most likely blood. One second. Excuse me. And three doctors had been working on me and they were walking away. And I customers were like I would have killed them. I I was yelling, you know, I'm not dead. Leave, get don't leave me, get me back. I don't go, you know, and I'm gonna come down there and choke you, I'm gonna kill you. I don't care. I except I was saying bad words, and um and I was really good at it by then. And one second, please.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

But they were walking away, and another doctor came in, and he was a oral max max official surgeon for jaws and all that, and they apparently had probably called him because my face was like ripped off and bad. I was I mean, I lost teeth, and I just broken out. I mean, they're gone. I've never they're my jaws collapsed and such. And but he started listening and thinking and doing some stuff, and what prompted him to do it, he finally got a scalpel and cut my tracheotomy, and they he got something in it to hold it open, but when he cut my tracheotomy, the blood just squirted up out of my neck, it's just like a like a whale surfacing. And what had happened is I had had broken, broken ribs, enough broken ribs, and they'd punctured lungs, and I had drowned in my own blood, and so that compressed my heart because it didn't have any place to expand because of the pressure, because I was so crushed badly. So I had no heartbeat, I had no blood pressure, I had nothing. I can understand why the three couldn't find anything, but when he did that, it gave enough relief that whatever else he did, and I started coming back. Now, at that point, I remember seeing the blood, I remember seeing him get covered with blood, the walls. And uh I don't remember anything then I I I obviously re-entered my body, and then it was quite some time later till I can remember anything else.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Oh my gosh. So you're nine you were nineteen at this age? You you'd already lived a lot of hard up to that point.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Well, I don't I I think I think what I'd been through was preparing me for this.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah, it was yeah, like the we talked about before, it's like strengthening you for the preparation of of you know, being resilient and strong and

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Be and before stepping on a nail, my dad used to use his belt on my fan when I when I was a bad enough boy. That was back in the old days when you know and somebody asked me not a pleasant experience.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

I remember those days.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

I said, Did I say I hate you? I said, probably. Did it hurt? Yes. Did I do it again? No. So, you know, spare the rod and spoil the child. You know, that's where it is. And we've gotten away from that. And look what we got. Look at the society we got, you know, and I I'm not going to go there. I'm pretty opinionated on that.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Okay, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

But but anyhow, so yeah, and then but I mean the first, I I remember being in the coma, Kristen, and being able to stick my tongue up through the roof of my mouth, up, up, up into my sinus passages. Because on the roof of your mouth, when you run run your tongue over your roof, your mouth, everybody in the in your in your audience, run your and you can feel the little ridges. Everybody's got them. It's just everybody in the world. And I've got a scar about this wide all the way up the roof of my mouth. And that's because my jaws was complete, my face, my whole palate was gone, ripped in half. And so I remember that. You know, when I got a new dentist, will go in to do a cleaning or of somebody or a what do they call that?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Uh yeah, like their routine cleaning. Yeah, routine cleaning. They're like, what happened to you? You know, like the x-rays done.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

They're like oh, x-rays scare them because they like, oh, my jaws are bent here and twisted here and pinned here and rotted and wired. I've got wires still in my my nasal upper nasal cavity and so on. And they'll be there forever. You know, they've been there for whatever, 60 years now, so they may as well just stay there. But anyhow, the the I I the first thing I really remember was a voice. I I remember voices, but the first one I re recognized was my mother's voice, and I could hear my mother talking. And and oh I I had a tear that when it went down, it was my my left eye, when it went to it ran down my cheek, and it felt like somebody just put on a big mat and just drag it down my face. That's what it felt. It was so hot, it was just such a hot tear. And my arms worked for however reason. I didn't, you know, I mean they were cut up and stuff, but I didn't have broken arms and stuff for for however that happened. Wow. So I was fortunate with that. And and then later on, and I've got it, it's in my book, it's a little picture of it, and I've got three different things that I wrote, but this it's a it's a little pad, it's about two inches high, two and a half inches high, and open it up, it's about four or four and a half inches wide. But I had scribbled with my right hand the words, am I gonna live?

SPEAKER_02 47:06

You had asked your mom.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Yes. Yeah, because I couldn't talk. I couldn't, you know, I had no couldn't do it. And but if you if it didn't say am I gonna live printed under the uh what I wrote, you you you would have to look at it hard to figure out what it says. So it was really sloppy. I also had two other things like Am I Gonna Die and I love you. Those were the three.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

I don't know what you're doing here, but you got me affected this morning. And but so that was my life, you know, but but I didn't quit and I found humor in it, and I spent time at it and and and and and I I debreed my own burns. I I cut off, it's a long there's a lot happened. You know, it's like today I and I did things back then that today they would never in a million years allow you to do, or if they did, you you whatever was you know, I suctioned out my own tracheotomy. I turned a pump on it, I get the hose and stick it down my neck and down into my lungs, and I could feel where it hit, I could feel it hurt. It has a pain. There is a pain in your lungs, but it does, and they'd already been punctured with, you know, and now this is six weeks later, eight weeks later, you know, that it's happening. And so that's how it was. Then I got transferred to Ward 30A, uh, with an orthopedic surgery ward, but they kept, you know, that was for burns and facial. I mean that's where I that's where I lived in the next 10 months, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

So it was like a an almost a year process. Yeah, it was a year.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

I got a hospital October 31st. Yeah, it was a year. What was what was that like?

SPEAKER_02 48:54

What was that day like walking out? What was that day like when you walked out of the hospital? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Like no, I don't. I I was just I'd been in there so long, I was a piece of furniture. I mean, I I spent eight and a half months in traction. I mean, I didn't get out of traction. I mean, it's like for eight and a half months. I mean, that I was in bed, and then my back was already bad from the car accident. You know, when well, anyhow, my back was just I was always in pain. Always. I I've never I haven't lived with Alpain since then. And but I don't remember, I just remember being glad that I was finally able to get out of traction. I'm glad they finally fitted me with a big old leg metal leg brace that went up into parked up underneath you. You sat on it with your butt, your pelvis, and I have another one on my right leg that didn't go quite that far. And you know, and and you you you first you fit it, and then you finally get out of bed and you stand, and then you lay down and you stay. It's a process. It's a process of walking with it, and then and then crutches. You don't you just don't walk with a brace. I mean, so when I went out of there, I was still had to have dental work and so on, but I got that done in the civilian world. I wasn't gonna wait. I needed to go. I was I was 12 days shy of a year.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

So in the hospital. So but anyhow, so but I got out of that. I I I uh kind of rehabbed at home for a little bit. I I started, well, I I had several jobs, but I couldn't find somebody that would let me sit and somebody would let me stand. I moved up with my aunt up in the way out suburbs of Chicago, and I never had a problem getting a job. I just say, hey, dude, you know, I'm sure I didn't say dude, but yeah, you know, I do know I like that. Hey, listen, you know, what do you mean you don't think I can handle it? Look what the hell I've been through.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Yeah, you know, right? That's a good that's uh give me a shot.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Perseverance, you know. Yeah, it's I'm not gonna I never back down from anything. And I did, I had like 12 jobs and maybe 14 jobs like in three months. Yeah, but I I couldn't, I I I tried. It was just yeah, you you didn't give up. No, and then I so I went back home and I started a little business of my own. I started another business, and I had a I was well a detail business and a long story. Then I started flipping cars and Corvettes and stuff from money I had saved, and I started a trucking company, and that got went real good. And and I was an order operator for a while, but I I had people driving for me. Then uh September 3rd, 1973, I I broke my neck. I I'm sorry, broke my neck. September 73rd, 1973. I had a drunk hit me almost head on, and in the evening, and he got thrown out of his pickup truck, no seat belt, run over by his own

Second Death And The 1973 Wreck

SPEAKER_00 52:10

truck and got killed. And I was in a brand new Monte Carlo with about 300 miles on it, seat belt on. I rolled multiple times, down into a really deep ditch, and there was a car behind us about a half mile that stopped apparently and found that hey, I hadn't been thrown out. I was in the vehicle. They couldn't, they didn't know if I was alive or dead. It tore tore the engine out, ripped the side of the car off. It it the the post, the pillar that holds your steer uh your windshield in and gone in and tore my shoulder mostly out, took the bone out the back of my arm, severed the deltoid muscle, busted my rims, punctured my lung again, you know, lots of. I remember the glass in my mouth. That was very much. I remember my mouth just full of glass, you know, and my face was all cut up, and my, you know, I I was bleeding bad, bleeding real bad. And they went to get help, but don't you gotta remember this is all in the middle of it's like being down south of the cities where you're at, down towards Mankato in the middle of nowhere, you know, and you gotta drive 10 miles to the next little town, and then the town's only 800 people, and you got to find somebody to tell, you know, you got to go into the bar to find somebody because nobody's we don't have a coffee shop. There isn't a Starbucks on every quarter, you know. You know, and so they finally got somebody, and they they got there with their pickup trucks and crew, and and they didn't they needed a hacksaw to cut some of it away the best they could, and they didn't have their hacksaw, so they went down the road to Larry Hinkle's house, and he wasn't home, so they had to break into a shop and get his hacksaw. And meanwhile, I'm up in the sky, I'm leaving, I've bled out. I don't, I'm I'm gone, I'm I'm gone again. And and I I got to the point where I could hear voices. I I I can't say they were angels, I don't know whether it was, but it was peaceful, it was welcoming. And in neither of these instances, the Marine Corps or here, do I recall any pain? I don't remember any pain, none. Whether it's shock, whether it's being dead, whether it's whatever, I don't know. I can't tell you, don't have a clue. Not gonna even guess what it is, but they took two, I could see them working and trying to get in because my car was tilted up and they were trying to get down into me, which was in an awkward position.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

And they had two guys lay down up on a blanket on the road, and then they ran a tube down and stuck it in me. And and they were giving me direct transfusions to try getting some blood in me, and then trying to stop where the blood was leaking out. And as I was still ascending, they must have got enough blood in me, because I I then it was like four or five days later, and I was you know, I came, I I came around, I was in the hospital, and uh, that's all I can that's I that's all I remember.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Okay, so how many years was this? How old were you at this time? You're 22, 23.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Yeah, it was 23. Yeah, yeah. It had been three years since I got out of hospital from the Marine Corps, not quite three, but two years and 10 months, eight months, nine months. And speaking of that, my mother showed up a few days later and she had a rolled up newspaper and was beating the heck out of my right side, screaming at me, quit doing this to us. Quit doing that, you know. And and I said, Ma, I'm not, I didn't do I, you know, but I look back now as being having been a father and a grandfather and a you know, adopted kids and everything, and I'm thinking, I I feel her pain now. Can't even imagine. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, here, she was lit, she stood there for she was there for six, seven weeks till and she couldn't recognize me. She told me years later, she said, Jay, even even when you wrote when you wrote that out, and I've got I've got it matter of fact, let me see if I can find her real quick while I'm here.

SPEAKER_03 56:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

But when when I wrote that out, she said she said, uh I know what's here, I just don't want to spend valuable time in your So this is the the tablet that you wrote in all the first time.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

I know it's in here, but my wheelchair is not cooperating with me.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

But anyhow, you know, and so it was it was taken to the point that, yeah, I mean it had been you know, I got out of the hot well, she didn't know who I was, she couldn't recognize me then, you know, and at all. And so now it's uh less than four years later that it happened again, but less than three years since I just gotten out, you know, and anyhow, so I went through all that and and they got me back and they put my deltoid muscle, reattached it, and did the stuff with bones and whatnot. And and I've got back out of that and I then I I started well, I continued with the companies I had going. And I had people running that, progressed on. I had a little corporate job that they didn't pay me. I well, I got a check for $8,000, and but they weren't paying me. I I was handling seven states up north Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Illinois, no, Iowa, and so you were doing a lot. I can't I yeah, I was on the road a lot. And at any rate, they they weren't paying me, they just weren't sending the checks. They were it was a company out of Charlotte, North Carolina, and I I had I was a regional manager, I had to terminate people, hire people, terminate people. I finally just took it over myself and was doing more myself than all those other people put together. Just because there was no there's no I I found that there's no commitment. There's no there's no determination, there's no perseverance, there's no courage, there's no follow-through. There's it just doesn't exist. And that was that was a long time ago. 40 something years ago. Yeah, it was very, very, very disappointing. So anyhow, I took their I took their van. It was a display van with a uh it was built out beautiful, it was beautiful, and I took it to a regional airport and I took the license plates off of it and I put them inside and I put the keys in it and I called them and said, Hey, your van's available for you to find. It's a regional airport in the upper Midwest. You'll have to locate it. And that that didn't leave the cops anybody to call because they have a license plate number. So I don't know where they ever found it, but I walked away. You know, and then I got not too much later. I was long story how that happened, but I secured a job with GTE. And GTE was the largest independent yellow uh independent phone company in the United States and the largest publisher of yellow pages in the world. And yellow pages, you're old enough maybe to remember, yeah. Yellow pages. Okay. And and I was raised in a GTE area with GTE phone book. We didn't really use the phone book a lot, but boy, if the phone book wasn't by the phone, you were in a phone book. Well, you just there were times when you needed it, you know. And I remember being raised with a three three-digit number in a in a ring up, and then we went to four digits on a party line. We had seven people, then we went down to four families, you know. So I I went through all that stuff, but you've been through all of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

You've been through all the generations.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

Everything but Dixie, everything but Dixie cups with a with a string, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

That's so funny. Well, I want to I want to just capture because I'm gonna have to wrap us up pretty soon. I want to make sure that we capture your book. So can we kind of lead into tell us the name of your book, first of all.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

It's uh the strength within you, it's always too soon to quit.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

I mean, that name in and of itself, amazing. When did this book launch?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

December 20th, just this last year on the ebook, but the book didn't actually publish until late January of 2026. 2026, and it's been number one in inspirational the inspirational area for ph people with physical disabilities and motivation and inspirational book for people between in the late teens to the mid-30s.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Oh, and congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

You're welcome. And and one of the best testimonials I've had out of it was from uh I got an email to my website. My website is and of all the websites I could have ever chosen, I you know, I'm sitting there thinking, what am I gonna name this? I mean, I gotta have something, it's gotta be creative, it's gotta be me. It's gotta so I typed in, believe it or not, I typed in never quit trying. And it came up.com that dot com. That's it. Never quit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

So there's his his website, never quit trying.com. Because I always ask, like, what's the best way to get a hold of you? So never quit trying. That was available. That is wild.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Isn't that wild? Out of all other things, God saved that for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

He was like, This is Jay's, nobody else can have this one. So I want it, I want listeners, I want you to just hear this for a minute because Jay released his ebook when you were 76 prior to New Year's, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Yeah, I yeah. Well, I was 75. It it came out 11 days before I turned 76. Yeah. It took me a year to dictate it and somebody to kind of fill it in and okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:47

So I'm I just really want the listeners to hear at 75, you released your first book. I I talked to a lot of people and they were like, Oh, I'm too old. I I'm too this, I'm to that. And what would you say to somebody who like was was it challenging? I mean, was writing your first book challenging?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

The the the most challenging part out of it, Kristen, was the fact that I had to remember back to things I've been trying to forget for 55 years and longer. Death. Yeah, dismemberment, pain. Yeah. That was the hardest part. That was it's something I avoided. I've been told to write should be I have I've been told for 50 plus years I should write a book. But but if I did, I would have missed a lot had I done it. Because, you know, one thing I want I wanted to jump on real quick, kind of, and it goes along with the book, though, is part of what your show is based on, too. And that's that's in the in the belief of uh the all-powerful being, and that's the our great lord. And but on July 4th, 1981, I jumped in a swimming pool, feet first, broke my neck in four places, and drowned, and was paralyzed from the shoulders down, never supposed to move again. And you know, my as my mom

Broken Neck Again Prayer And Survival

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

pointed out to me about four months later, through a long story, and I know that we don't have time right now, or we'll have to revisit it. But basically one day she said they came to visit me and my mom and dad, and and they said, you know, something about and I said, Well, you know, why me? And I didn't mean why me like badly or woe was me, but why me? I mean, I should have died in high school, I should have died in the Marine Corps, I should have died in the cars, I should have died here. I mean, and stayed dead. I was dead, I was gone. I mean, I was turning colors and all this, and you know, and one of the things my mom said, she said, you know, Jay, you always gotta remember you were the one that jumped in the pool. You made the decision. Yes, some guys were gonna throw you in, and you were all partying around, it was the 4th of July. I was 31 years old. 31 years old. And so, but you jumped in, you made that choice, that decision. But it was the young lady that jumped in to help save you, and then the young man that helped in jumped in to help her after eight minutes when you were turning colors and starting to turn dark. And it was you jumped in, God helped save you.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

And if it wasn't for a prayer that I accepted shortly after I broke my neck, I was married three weeks the day that I broke my neck. Three weeks, and my second wife. And but I she met a gentle gentleman in the waiting room who came in and wanted to offer me a prayer. She said if I would accept it, blink my eyes, because that's the only thing that worked. Of course, I did. I accepted that prayer. And he went to a church of about 5,000 people up in your area, and he went to every service, every Sunday, the entire time I was in. Hospital and Sister Kenny Institute there in your area and and asked for prayer from everybody. And my mother did at her church and I did. And I I I'm an overachiever. I mean, I I I do more than they've ever asked me to do. I always did, always will. That's me. That's just me. And but I got more back, even though I saw incremental successes throughout a week, I got more back on Sundays. And I believe a lot of it, Kristen, to your audience, was the power of prayer, the power of five or six thousand people raising me up to the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

And I and I don't mind saying that. And I say it with all faith and belief. And it's God that allowed me to walk. It was God that allowed me to follow my vision, my my goals, my my and and and help me do what I did and always has.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

You know, I mean, I should have died from Delta COVID five years ago. I uh they told my wife to go home. He'll be dead by Thursday or Friday. And and I fought it. I fought it. I mean, I you know, and I was in the hospital five months, five, five months in four different hospitals. Two years ago, on the I was going to Florida to visit the people that I just went and saw, and got hit a little bit from behind, threw me into the guardrael in the middle on a five-lane interstate. I went across one lane of traffic, across five lanes of traffic, totaled the vehicle out. They got me out of the vehicle, and the only thing I had was a cut on my right leg. And and I felt when I was going through that, it was all just loud noise, fast, but I felt like a toothpick stuck in the middle of a marshmallow. And I and I told the people right there, I said, God had his hand around me. God had his hand around me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

Like do what that is quite the visual, just a toothpick with a marshmallow surrounding. Like you were literally surrounded.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

That's what I felt like. And when when I was up, they got my wheelchair up and they got me up. I was sitting between one of the emergency vehicles and the state trooper car and all the other people, and so on and so forth. And and I didn't even slow traffic down. Traffic was going by at 80 miles an hour. It was like and anyhow, the the EMT people were talking, I could hear them, and they said, We've never seen anybody live through this. Never. And we've been through a lot of accidents. And and the guy, one gentleman came up with me, and another one was standing just a little bit to the back, and he said, He said, You don't seem to be real have a lot of anxiety, or you know, and they took my blood pressure, I was 114 over 72. And he said, You don't seem to I and you know be concerned a lot or terrified or anything. And I said, Sir, you don't have a clue what I've been through.

unknown 1:09:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

I told him you don't have a clue what I've been through.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:07

Let me tell you, would you like to sit down?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Yeah. No, they didn't have time.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:12

Oh my gosh. Jay, this is I I mean, I've I've never met anybody. I feel like I've walked through a lot and I've like I won't get into my story, but gosh, like somebody who's literally walked through the fires and come out and I look at you and hear you, and I I I I don't, you know, I I don't see scars physically on you. But you know, there are you know, I've got a lot of scars, but yeah, absolutely. But but the fact that you're standing here and you're still standing and you're speaking and you're testifying to the goodness of God, that is incredible. And I I just thank you for that. I think more people need to hear what you've walked through, first of all. And second of all, take what they've walked through and testify to the goodness of God because we all have different stories, we all have just different testimonies. Some, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine like the physical pain and and what you've walked through, right? But we all have different things that we walk through. And uh I just want to thank you for sharing everything you've shared.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

We all have stories, Kristen. And I I I want to share just real quick is the you know, the strength within you, it's always too soon to quit. Yes, it does cover some of my physical issues, but more importantly, it was about I want to write the book to tell you what to do to overcome this. How do you get through this? What do you draw on? Where does it come from? And and and all of that courage and grit and perseverance and uh the the commitment to never quitting, the all of that stuff. How do you draw that? And it's in you, you have it in your body, you have it in you. You just need to dig it out to help push you and pull you through the adversities and the roadblocks and the detours. And one gentleman I I had a podcast with said, you know what, you're you're the first person I've ever read, ever read a book that in their acknowledgments,

His Book Never Quitting And Closing Blessing

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

you thank, you thank the people that stood in your way, the ones that stopped you, the ones that told you no, the ones that caused you problems, you thank them because it put more of a fire in your heart and it made you push harder and go ahead because you were going to prove them wrong. So if I didn't have that on top of everything else, so every little bit you go through makes you stronger, and that's what it's about. That's what it's about because we can all be winners, we all are winners. God brought us here to be winners, and that that take that in whatever context you want, but to be successful, and we can be, we just have to choose it and a choice and a decision. A choice is like cup tea or coffee, and the decision is which one you took.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

True.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

But we are a we are a product of our choices and decisions, and and what happened and how you dealt with it. What do you do with it? That's the biggest thing. It's not, you know, it's when somebody tells me they've got an award for something, that's great. I don't I don't belittle the award. I'm just interested in what did you do to win it, and what did you have to overcome to make sure that you could win it?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

Because that's what makes you strong.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:35

That's what you want to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

That's what I want to hear.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:38

Yeah. Well, everybody, I think there's so much goodness you've shared here today that's like I I can only imagine the testimony is already gonna come through this, and people are gonna want to contact you. So you shared your website already. Could you just verbalize your website again?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

It's uh just neverquitting.com. Okay, and there's there's a contact on there, neverquitting.com. There's a little thing in there, and it's gonna get better. It's it's it's it's not terrible, but it's it needs to get better.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:06

But it doesn't have to be perfect, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

You don't have to be. I'm not perfect, and I've I've gone quite a ways, you know. It's like but or Jay at neverquittrying.com or on there, just send it and it appears it comes to me. But I wanted to share this little story because it's very, very important poignant to where we're talking about on age. But I got an email about three three, three, three and a half weeks ago, and it says, Dear Mr. Sutchell, you know, I got your book from my son, and my son got it from his son. So ultimately it came from my grandson, and I've read your book, and I read it again, and the second time I read it, I highlighted it and I underlined the sentences and I I circled words and I all this stuff like this. And and here's what I want to tell you. I'm 88 and a half, my husband passed away five years ago, and I'm not in the best of health, though I know I could improve my health a little by just eating a little better and doing a little bit better and doing things different, but I've really not cared if I live to make it to 90. I just didn't care. But I want you to know that from what I've gotten out of your book and the inspiration and what you've been through, and you're fighting, and you intend on staying alive to your 100, I'm now planning my 95th birthday. Now that to me meant a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:37

It was worth it to write it for the one right.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:41

Just that one person.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:42

Yeah, that one person you know, and it's uh lit a fire in her to keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:49

She that's what she said. You know, she said you've you've given me, I mean, I've never had any of that, and I'm don't care if I live. You ought to live, and you've been through all that.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:01

Why?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

And isn't it amazing how just from somebody hearing your story, you writing it, that it would literally be able to pull somebody maybe out of a pit of of quit. The pit of quit. That is funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:18

Yeah, I'm gonna you're gonna you're gonna have to the pit of quit. You all have to uh what do you call that? Trademark that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

I don't know. I have all these little things that come out of my mouth. Well, this has been incredible. I do have to wrap up for today, but we might have to have you back on again at some point.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

Yeah, there's a there's a whole lot you missed.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:36

There's there's a whole lot you missed that we just haven't covered that I think that you were trying because of what you're talking and the way you're and the the the people you're trying to get the point across. There's a lot out there that we never even we never never engage.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:49

We'll have to go to part two. Part two.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

I've done that multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:54

Well, I'm gonna close for today, but thank you so much for for being on today. And I'm gonna close with the anchoring verse for the podcast. It's may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And that's Romans 15, 13. So thank you, Jay, for being a brave voice to setting so many free. I appreciate you having being on here today. Like I said, we'll have to have him back for part two, and hopefully he's back with another episode next week. Thanks, listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:26

Thank you, Kristen. God bless.