Inside a Firefighter’s Battle with Trauma, PTSD & Addiction | Brandon Smallidge
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It's a little different than normal story-wise. Yeah, well, we love it a little bit different. If I sat here and listened to a prison story every day, I think I might lose my mind. Every episode is meant to have a different perspective, whether it's addiction, criminal justice, prison guard, or EMT or firefighter, anything. We want to switch it up and keep it different, or lawyer or prosecutor. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's a got quite a few of those checked off. So now did you grow up in Connecticut? Yeah, so I was born and I grew up about like eight years in West Haven. Not not too too far from here. And then my mom remarried and we moved out to East Lyme. So like the Groton, New London, Norwich area. East Lyme is a great town.

Great schools. It's a safe town. Great place to have kids, raise kids. It's middle class, so, you know, it's doing what my father did, what I do now. You struggle, but you try and do the best for your kids.

I see that now with having kids. How many kids do you have now? I have two. I have a boy and a girl. Oh, the perfect match. Girl came first, came during COVID. So that was an interesting. I never had a kid born during the height of COVID. Yeah, that must have been interesting at the hospital too. Oh, yeah. Were you allowed to be there? I didn't.

So when our daughter was born, it was just when they lifted and they allowed the other parent to come into the rooms. So it was nobody else. Like my mom couldn't be there. Her mom couldn't be there. It was just us, which was kind of nice because it's more like intimate. And it's not just like my mom, her mom. And it's like, okay, well, we get to have that little moment with our child first before they want to.

take your kid because now it's their grandkid and what grandparent doesn't love you know their grandkid yeah so it was uh couldn't leave the hospital they didn't want you really to leave and like leave the room mask on the whole time so couldn't see anything going on into your face so it was kind of nice because I tend to have like a stoic stone face but did you have any siblings growing up

So I found out about a bunch of them, but I did grow up with one of them. So I don't really know my biological father from like a hole in the wall. He was never there. I've heard stories what actually went on. I know some of it like ripping phones off the wall. So my mom couldn't get a hold of her brothers or a dad come help out. He was abusive, drug addict, whatever.

I guess from what I was told, like the final straw was my mom found me and I was crawling around with a bag of drugs and a needle. That's what I heard from a couple different people that, you know, like my grandma. His mom or your mom's mom? Yeah, it would be his mom. So his parents stayed in the picture? Yeah, so I've had four grandmas, four grandfathers, yeah. Oh, because of your stepdad too? So...

Like I thought about it and I'm like, all right. As a kid, it was like a rocky relationship because it was like, who are you to come tell me what to do? Like, you're not my dad. But now, like I see it and like that's my father. Like that's the man that raised me, loved me, took care of me, did everything for me. So the other one, he's like biological. He's like a sperm donor. Put it nicely. Yeah.

So your biological dad and your mom were together when you were first born. So that's like the rabbit hole right there because he was – so I have an older half-brother and then it would be me. And then I have a sister and I have two other brothers with him. I have a relationship with two of them, the older one and the sister. The other two are trouble. So try and stay away from –

Anything like that, especially having kids. I can't deal with the drama, the trouble, the headaches that come with that stuff. But then, so my mom remarried, we moved. I have my other brother. So, like, I kind of look at him as, like, my full-blood brother. We grew up together. It's an eight-year difference. Like, I'm about to be 33. He's still in college. So...

Um, it was growing up as a little different than like my kids are going to grow up. They're only just under like two years apart. So like my daughter's four, my son's two, it's about to be three. So it's not like too much where they'll grow up pretty close. And we were a lot different because I was in high school and he was in elementary school. So it was like, Hey, I don't want anything to do with you. Sorry. But it's,

it was like a rocky rocky childhood did your mom have any addiction issues too or she was sober my mom is like i don't think i've ever heard my mom swear and i have like the mouth of a sailor so it's it's like night and day between us but she's like like disney mom like the perfect perfect mom he was always there always loved you would give you all the affection any attention that you want she was always like right there

if you were struggling with like homework she was there to help you she she's like the straight laced my dad's done a lot of exploring he's told me he's he's backed back through europe as a you know like 20s he saw the grateful dead he was telling me you know he had some fun as a kid experimenting with drugs like i found out my mom's done like mushrooms i'm like

Okay, like, that's nothing. But that's how, like, my mom was. She grew up pretty strict. I guess her great, her grandmother. So my great-grandmother came from Ireland. So pretty, pretty strict, like, Catholic. My grandma, her mom was rough with them, I guess. I saw a different side. She was, like, almost like a second mom. So my grandparents and all my mom's brothers...

They all helped raise me. Like, my stepfather, my father, he was there, but they were still dating. They were engaged, so he wasn't, like... He was still trying to be a father figure, but I get it was, like, hard, because, you know, that's not your kid, but it's gonna be your kid kind of thing. So, like, all my uncles stepped up. They all helped out. They all took me wherever. Like, anywhere. Like, Milford used to have Milford Rec. It was, like, a big arcade. So it was...

like polar opposites with my parents how they grew up my dad was I guess they were it's like the almost like the generation like his parents were strict but it was go to school do well do what you're told to do and that's it like just you can be a kid but no there's actions now your actions have consequences like I heard stories like having to go out and grab a switch

And that was punishment. Like my mom, you know, it was a belt. Wait till your father gets home. So they tried not to, they never really got physical. Like they were not the ones to turn around and spank. And I was a tough kid to deal with like undiagnosed bipolar and anxiety and stuff like that. So it was the undiagnosed part was, was rough, especially for them. They, uh,

They had the work cut out. Simple things, even like things not going my way, it would be like I'd snap. Just never got like violent like physically with my parents or my brother. But remember those sand toy, the sandboxes that were like the turtles, the plastic? Yeah, I chucked one into the pool because I was mad about something. Just I was a little little asshole for a kid.

Now I know the bipolar played a huge part in all of that. Do you know why your mom was with your dad? Because he was an addict or did they start off normal and he developed that? Or was he always like that? Do you know anything about that? See, my mom never talks about it. I can understand it's...

Like really traumatic and I know she's like told my dad about it and he's mentioned some things here and there like you know, you're acting like your father and it's like oh But how they met I don't know cuz they they're from North Carolina and my mom grew up in West Haven so How they actually met and what happened there? I don't know. I don't want to pry with my mom either and

Because it's, I don't want to bring up those bad memories of all that when she's had a pretty happy life since then. So I don't want to raise some trauma again. Do you think that some of the issues you were just describing that were going on in your childhood and growing up, do you think that stemmed from your dad, your biological dad? So doing therapy, getting, you know, like diving into my life, it's,

Starting to look like a lot of what I've gone through has all stemmed from him because he's dealt with the addiction issues. He's had bipolar. He's had suicide attempts. It's all things that I've dealt with. So it's like, all right, I do share a lot of similarities. I kind of do look a lot like him. So I actually went down to my brother's last year and I met him for the first time.

never met him i've had like minimal interactions so my dad adopted me so as a kid before my parents got married i think it might have been after they we had to go to probate court but dcf had to come out they had to sit with me alone and ask all these different questions as like an eight-year-old kid there has he ever put hands on you do they yell at you like just

intrusive questions and you're a kid and you're sitting with these people that hold essentially your fate in their hand they can take you away in the blink of an eye it's uh that was that was scary as a kid and then sitting in probate court and having them make a phone call and talk to my biological father and him ask me is this what you want and cause he has to sign his rights away so then he could adopt me um

So, yeah, that was like a huge, like, pivotal moment as, like, a kid where it was kind of made me look at, like, my parents told me a little bit at that point. And it made me look back and go, oh, so, like, I kind of am acting like what they're saying because, you know, they'd be like, hey, you're acting like them with your attitude. When, you know, acting out, acting like a little asshole, they're like, hey, you know, you're acting just like them. And, oh, oh, but...

It's... he was never around, he was never there, never paid child support. He... like the... What truly happened? I don't know. I mean, from what I was told, my mom just packed up and took off to her mom's. Like her parents, we lived there for a little bit and then we bounced around like West Haven. And she met my dad. So, they met through... it's kind of funny. My godmother is my mom's cousin.

She was dating someone my dad works with. He, I've actually worked for him since then and that's how they met was through someone my dad was working with who grew up in West Haven like right around my mom and

Yeah, it all went from there. Was it hard to adjust to having a new dad at that age? Because you're around eight years old. Yeah. That's a weird age to, you know, you were old enough to know that you had an original dad and have those memories and then all of a sudden, you know, switch it up and have a second dad. What was that adjustment like for you? I was actually just talking to my therapist about it.

And that's awesome that you're actively going to a therapist. Yeah, it's been life-changing. It was one of those things that you're old enough to recognize, like, okay, so big life-changing decision now. And trying to cope and deal and understand with you aren't my dad, but now you are. So there was always pushback from me.

Like, hey, I need you to go mow the lawn. No, like, you're not my dad. And realizing now that's hurtful, especially being a parent. And if my kids ever said, like, no, you're not my dad, that would crush me, break my heart. But it was an adjustment. And even going from, like, West Haven to East Lyme, like, going from not, like, a great area to a really nice area, but knowing...

Absolutely no one being ripped away from like my safety net, which was like my mom's side because that's all I had. Everyone else from my biological, they live in like North Carolina or Florida. So there was like no one from that side to be anywhere near us being ripped away and no one, absolutely no one having no friends. And eight years old, you start making friends.

Now you have a couple by that age, you know, a couple like close good ones. And then there was nothing. And like I went to school down West Haven with my cousin. So like my two of my cousins are one's a year older, one's a year younger. So we were all like in school together. All of a sudden it's like, here's a really nice town, great school district. You don't have to worry about getting robbed. My parents told me.

It's a kid living in West Haven. There was a police chase and they came through our backyard. And my dad's like, I remember looking out cause we lived on the, I think the third floor. He's like, I remember looking out the window and seeing West Haven cops hopping fences and seeing the guy running and them yelling at him, the police get on the ground. And he's like, realize like, well, I'm about to adopt this kid. I'm about to have a child. I can't be having them grow up with police chases through the backyard and

Nowadays, I see what he did for me. I respect that. He's a great man. He stepped up big. What was high school like for you? High school was interesting. I hated school so much. I didn't want to be there. It's funny because East Limes High School is almost like attached to where the elementary school I went to. So there's three elementary schools in East Limes, one middle school.

And then high school, there's one. And then another town, Salem, because they have one school for kindergarten through eighth grade. They come to us for high school. So it was, you have your set group of friends already. You went to elementary school and middle school with them. And now here's like this whole new wave, which there wasn't a lot of them. Like probably 400 of us all together, including them. And it was probably about...

I think probably like 60 to 70 were kids from Salem. So it wasn't like a huge group, but it was kind of like standoffish. We're like, who are you? Great people, though. They're humble. They're more like farm. We always called it like cow town. This is a nice, nice area to live out there. You probably have some land, you know.

what kid doesn't want some land and a dirt bike? So like we would always go hang out eventually once we got to know them. We were always going out there and they had one resident state trooper. So you can get away with anything over there, especially high school kids. We liked the, high school was weird though because we liked

Smoking weed and drinking. It's not like nowadays with the heroin and the fentanyl. Like, that really wasn't around for us. Like, cocaine, kind of. But most of us, it was almost like psychedelics. Like, you get shrooms, you can get acid. You can get weed wherever. Anywhere. But, like, the whole high school thing was, it was weird. Because you had the kids that thought they were, like,

cool as shit and who would treat people like shit. And then you'd have the kids that did like band and theater and choir and all them. They would all hang together with like the art kids. I kind of hung out with like the stoners. The easygoing, I was not easygoing. I was a lot. I was the kid that had a mouth. I would pop off on the mouth real fast. Got into trouble with that.

That comes back to get you. High school, though, was, if I could go back, absolutely. I wish I could go back. Looking back now, that was a great years.

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See terms at casino.draftkings.com slash promos. Ends 4-27-25 at 11-59 p.m. Eastern Time. Did you dabble in any other substances other than weed or alcohol or there was just nothing like you were saying to get into? Not really. Like there were, you know, you had your few kids that were getting in just some heavier stuff. Like they were getting into pills. Yeah.

or Xanax, but it was more just like weed and shrooms. Occasionally, like Adderall or Ritalin. Didn't do anything for me. I have ADHD, so it actually worked. So they're all high, and I'm sitting there like, I'm ready to do some schoolwork now. It was, you know, played football a couple years, played lacrosse as a kid.

That's a fun sport. If anyone's ever looking to get into a sport, lacrosse is a great sport. You look like a lax bro a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. It's the hair. The hair and the hat. Yeah. No, it's, you know, high school was talking to people now. They were telling me about their school. They're like, you guys were privileged. You guys had a pool? And it's like, Jim, we'd get to go two weeks every year. You go to the pool.

They try and teach you how to swim or whatever. But towards like the end, you get to have fun, play like water polo. You know, they let you go off to diving boards and stuff. So it's, Eastside is a great school. What were your career aspirations? What do you want to do? Did you want to go to college? Did you want to go into a trade? What did that look like for you?

So we were talking a little bit before. One of my uncles, one of my mom's brothers, he was a West Haven fireman. So growing up, that's all I ever wanted to do. I just wanted to be a fireman. Thought about maybe being like a cop at one point, and it's like, nah, the fire trucks are so much cooler. Sirens are better. Sorry, but you know.

You get a big red truck and loud sirens. Like, that was sold as a kid. I'm like, you know, seeing my uncle, like, I looked up to him because he helped raise me. So I also think, too, is with being, like, a civil servant, it's something that you kind of can't pick. Like, you don't get to just say, I'm going to be a fireman. It's something that you have to be, like, almost born with. You have to be born with, like, the desire to go out and help people and, like,

put your mental health on the back burner. And it's a rewarding career. Like if you choose to go down that path, it's, it's really rewarding, but it causes a lot of, a lot of damage too. I see my uncle, he, he drinks, you know, sad. It's unfortunate. You know, he gave his life up for helping people and turn. You see it where he's like destroying everything he worked for, but yeah,

Yeah, that's all I wanted to do. I just wanted to be a fireman. How did your mom feel about you wanting to become a firefighter? Both my parents were super supportive. My mom is one of those overbearing, like super protective. She will jump on a grenade without hesitation. That's just how she was. So I know it was like tearing her up inside, like...

My son wants to be a fireman. He wants to go climb into fires? Like, what is wrong with him? But I know she also knew her brother. He's done well. Now he's gotten hurt. Now he's gotten knocked off a deck. He's broke his ankle and some other things. But my dad was always really supportive. So one of his brothers was...

actually a fireman where I was in East Lyme. They break up the town into villages. So there's the village of Nianic, which most people know about Nianic. And then there's Flanders, which is where the high school is. It's where I grew up. So when I became a fireman, it was Flanders and the firehouse is right out front of the high school. So never wanted to be at high school just, and I get

I got a little bit of privilege where I could park at the firehouse and walk into the school and not have to get and pay for the school parking pass. And it was just pull up to the firehouse because I was going to go there anyway after school. So I ended up stop playing football, stop playing lacrosse, stop playing basketball because that's all I wanted to do was be at the firehouse. Like where we were, it was like 50%.

I want to say 14 or 15 you could join. They considered you like a junior member. So there was restrictions on certain hours you could go to calls, certain hours that you could be at the firehouse. They kept it almost like a routine because they knew you're still going to school. Your main priority is graduating, doing your schoolwork, not being here. I didn't have a license, so my dad...

I mean, my very first fire I ever went to, he drove me. I always took my stuff home and he, yeah, he would drive me down to the firehouse, would drive me to a fire. Summertime, my mom would drop me off in the morning. He would pick me up at night. Like I was there every summer, like every day, all day. So that's all I ever wanted. And then start meeting people and

One of them ends up being a New York City fireman. And I ended up finding out the easy way to get into New York City is their hiring is, it's every couple years they'll hire. And they do like hiring freezes and it's hard to get in. He waited eight years to even go to the academy. So you have to do the civil service test and it was an eight year waiting process.

But yeah, it were eight year waiting list. And he he said the real easy way is become an EMT first. You still work for FDNY, but you're an EMT. I think it's after like two years you can transfer over to fire. You still have to do the academy, but two years instead of waiting eight, nine, 10 years to get in there. So it's almost like a fast track.

Wish I knew that back then because I would have jumped on that in a heartbeat. But instead you ended up joining at Connecticut. So I found that out like years down the road. But yeah, I joined. It was Flanders and East Lyme as a 15-year-old kid. And then once you turn 18, you can...

They have classes and courses in the state to be certified. You have to get certified to be interior. You can't just walk in. So I took a course in Willimantic because Willimantic from East Lyme wasn't too far, probably like 25 minutes. I want to say it was like every other Saturday and Sunday, all day, go up there, do a bunch of book work, take tests.

They were pretty strict. You know, state says like 75 is passing. They were like, we hold you to 80. Anything under 80, you fail. So it was nice because it's like, okay, you're shooting high and you're putting your expectations up here instead of keeping low and try and set goals. I'm like, all right, they want 80. I want to do at least like 90, 95. So if you can excel in doing that stuff, it's,

You can start moving through ranks and everything too. I mean, and it's not just, you know, how to put a fire out. There's math behind it. There's science. You have to know every floor you climb that you lose a certain amount of pressure in your hose. So if you're operating pumps, you need to know they're going three floors up. And if it's 10 pounds of pressure that you lose, you just lost 30 pounds. You have to adjust the pressure on the pumps so they have good amount of water coming out.

And then even other stuff like throwing ladders, you have to know, all right, well, if it's a rescue, the ladder has to be placed here. If we're ventilating and going up, like breaking out a window, ladder's got to be in this spot. It's all about, all right, the wind's blowing to the left, so now we don't want to put the ladder in the left and just have all the smoke blowing into us. So you got to go to the right side, and it's a lot. It's a lot.

It's not just like, hey, this is how you put a fire out. Here's a hose. You open it up and spray. It's a lot. It's learned everything from car accidents, how to operate, call them cutters or spreaders. Spreaders, everyone knows, like jaws of life. You learn how to operate everything from those, like chainsaws to cut holes in roofs and ventilate, let gases escape so they're not trapped, etc.

All the way to like wildfires. Like, yeah, Connecticut, you know, we're not California, like those crazy wildfires. But, you know, we get brush fires out here and it's a little bit different than fighting a normal fire. Yeah, they try and teach you the basics. And then so there's fire one and they also bring in it's hazmat ops. So hazmat operation ops.

and hazmat awareness so awareness you can essentially like look and say oh hey yeah that's a diesel fuel that spilled the operations you can get more hands-on you're the ones that you can decon so you know you've seen the movies they have the big bubble suits on those are class a hazmat suits so you're completely encapsulated your scott pack or air pack is inside with it on and you're

Ops, you can decom them. So they come through, you can scrub them, rinse them, get them all cleaned. But you can also do a little bit more hands-on stuff where the guys in the suits, those are hazmat technicians. So there's like one more that you can get. So they give you your basics, your fire one, your hazmat awareness, and your hazmat ops. And you're now a state-certified fireman. You can go into fires, you can...

do whatever you need to do. I mean, there's still some restrictions, but I think it was probably like a three-month course. Just on the weekends? Yeah. Other courses, I mean, like EMT courses, you can take them. They have them during the week sometimes, like three, four hours a night, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursdays, or whatever is the schedule. A lot of times they're out of firehouses. So like where I live now in Ledger is –

Gale's Ferry's Firehouse is about, like, three minutes up the road from me. And they have a big, like, banquet bingo hall. And they'll offer, like, an EMT course. Or they'll offer, like, a Fire 1 course out of a firehouse. But you're not getting, like, the school I went to. They had buildings to burn in. They had trailers set up. They had everything for, like...

You're going through and you're crawling around and the floor collapses out and now you're tangled up in wire. So it's confined space rescues too. It's a lot of hands-on and a lot of book work. But I think it was a better opportunity doing that than going to a firehouse for a

Not every single one has a burn trailer or a burn building or somewhere they can go do all that stuff. You're learning how to throw ladders outside of a firehouse instead of actually throwing it to a building and them saying, throw it up to the fourth floor window for a rescue. So you're getting that little extra. I think it was beneficial, too. The instructors were great. They were all like career firemen. One was...

Willimantic lieutenant. One of them, I think, was another Willimantic fireman. I think there was like a, maybe like a Manchester. They're all like Connecticut, pretty close to that area. They're knowledgeable. So you have to do your state test at the end. It's a practical and it's like a written exam.

So you have to do the written, you have to score for the state 75 or better percent. And then once they said, okay, you passed, they give you a date, you come back, and you have to do your practical. And it's all hands-on, and they're state instructors. And nerve-wracking, because it's not, you know, it's...

They want to see even like climbing out of the truck. They want to make sure you have three points of contact. So like two hands on the railings and one foot on the step and one on the ground. They don't want to see one hand and like you hanging off, jumping down. And they'll mark you down. And, you know, people failed because one hand and there's a couple points there. Okay. And then it was tying knots. That was a big one.

I got lucky. My dad's parents, my grandparents, they were big in sailing. So as a kid, they put me into sailing lessons. So I learned essentially how to tie knots as a kid. And I tell you that that helped out a lot because even like tying a nozzle, you have to tie it a certain way so that when they pull it up, it doesn't open up.

I don't know if you've ever seen a video of a fireman that lets go of one of the hoses. No, I haven't. Oh, yeah. You should look it up. It's deadly. It whips around. It'll kill you if it hits you. Oh, wow. I mean, I figure it's about a hundred and... I've been out of it for a little bit, so it's like remembering things. I want to say it was about 120 pounds of pressure coming off the tips of the nozzles. So, I mean, put it this way, you're...

car tires are like regular cars, 35 PSI. So no, but almost a hundred pounds more coming off of that. So it's a lot of pressure that you're sitting there holding. And if that opens up, it whips around and it will, will take people out. It's scary. I've never actually seen it in person. I've seen like videos of it. Thank God. But it's a, it's a,

Being a fireman definitely caused some trauma, for sure. Now, once you passed everything and you got certified, did you get offered a paid position with the department, or what happened? So we had, we were mainly volunteer. During the day, we always had three paid guys. And we staggered start times, I think it was like 6, 7, and 8 a.m., so that they would leave at 3, 4, and 5. 5 o'clock would be like the second shift guy,

During the week, they would be there till 11. Uh, Friday and Saturday, they were there till midnight. It's, from what I heard now, it's, it's changed up. There's a paid person 24 hours now, but getting certified, I could have went and tried to pick up like part-time, pick up a shift here and here, but I never got my EMT. You need, we ran ambulance out of our firehouse, um,

A lot of places like New Haven and Hartford, they use, like Norwich by me, they use American Ambulance, AMR, whatever private ambulance company they'll use. We had ours. So the whole town had three ambulances. There was one for us, one for Nyanic, and we had a spare. Ours needed to go get maintenance or broke down, or theirs broke down, and Nyanic.

We would cover, like, yes, our primary area was, like, the Flanders Village. But if Nianic had something or their ambulance was out, we were now covering the entire town instead of just, like, the village. Nianic had pay guys, but technically it's two different departments. So you couldn't be like, I'm certified. I'm going to go here and pick up a shift here. It didn't work that way. So because it was a volunteer, did you have to work another job as well? Yeah. So high school I worked there.

I worked, there was a car wash like down the street. So that was, actually no, my first job was, I worked in the kitchen as a dishwasher. I want to say it was like a beach club in Old Lyme. One of the kids I was friends with, he worked there. He's like, hey, you asked like two of us, you guys want a job for the summer? We're like, sure. And we were 16. We needed money, you know, beer money. But yeah, it's, worked at the car wash.

Which was nice because I don't have a license. I could still go save up for a car, save up for a license. It was within walking distance. So I would walk there after school and go work. And my mom or my dad would come pick me up. And then later on, I went to college for like a semester or two. Did the community college. Was going for the fire science and technology. Because it was fire related. That's...

Like, all I ever wanted to do. School was not my thing at all. I didn't want to be there. Couldn't stand being there. Like, I had left high school for fire. There was an old Sears warehouse, and actually a couple kids from I went to school with set it on fire. Yeah, they got charged with arson for that one. But I left high school and walked right out, and the lady in the office, her two sons, she knew my grandparent. My...

My dad's parents, they all worked for the Board of Ed. My grandfather was a math teacher. My grandma worked in the Board of Ed. So my dad and all his brothers, they went through East Lyme School. I was the oldest, so I was the first one to come through. So everyone knew, either my grandparents or teachers knew my dad or one of my uncles. And they, it was like, it was strange, just strange.

Having everybody know like is Steve your uncle or is that one your dad? How's your grandfather John? I'm like, oh no. I had a teacher tell me if you don't turn your homework in you need to call your parents and

But she never let us dial the numbers because she knew we were calling one of our buddy's cell phones in the class or in a different class. She dialed the number and she told me, if you don't turn it in, I'm not calling your parents. I'm calling your grandfather. I was like, oh no, don't do that. Because that's like double punishment. I get it from him and my father. It's just, I couldn't do the school. The ADHD was...

It was running rampant. I couldn't focus on anything. I got put on, it was like Concerta instead of Adderall or Ritalin. When I was on it, I could pay attention. I did well in school. Other than that, all I wanted to do was leave, go be at the firehouse or go be a dumbass kid. And I did the whole school thing. I tried for like a semester or two.

And I was working like three jobs. I was landscaping. I worked, I would open McDonald's in the morning because my buddy was a shift leader. So he got me a job so I could open and leave, go to school, leave, go landscape, and then work at the car wash too. You were a hustler. Yeah, I tried. So I didn't grow up with like, you know, tons of money. My dad was a union worker and...

I'm doing what he did. So our local has had some issues over the years where owners of contractors were getting arrested and sent to federal prison for, they were rigging bids. So say like this building needed to be done, they would be in cahoots with each other. Hey, you put a bid in that $500,000. We're going to shoot high. We're going to get you that work. You give us a cut of the money.

So they were rigging these bids and they ended up getting caught, which caused a huge issue and like big lack of work. But a couple of years before that, there was a company that did Mohegan Sun and the owner had a big gambling problem. And all of a sudden employees paychecks are bouncing. I want to say some people, it was like six paychecks. And it's like, we didn't really grow up with like tons of money. It was money was tight.

So East Lyme, it's a weird town because it's pretty middle class, but there's a lot of upper middle class. There's Pfizer's right in Groton. So there's a lot of Pfizer kids. Their parents are working as scientists or researchers at Pfizer making, back then, probably a couple hundred thousand. I don't want to know what it is now. But yeah, I was not that interested.

Wasn't gifted like a girl I went to school with. One of her parents was a lawyer, the other one was a doctor, like a neurosurgeon. Privileged, given a brand new Audi, or no, given a brand new BMW, 16th birthday, didn't like it. So they went out and bought her a brand new Audi. I had to work. My dad had a truck. He's like, you could drive when you get your license, but you pay for your license, you pay for the driving course.

You pay the insurance, you pay the gas and any repairs. We'll pay the insurance, I think. Yeah, no, I didn't have to do the insurance. They paid the insurance, but everything else was me. But it was like, here's a 1996 Chevy pickup truck. So good luck. Cause this was 2000, like late two thousands, right around 2010. I graduated high school in 2010.

So like right around that time frame was like 96 was still like old. And I'm like, all right, great. Time to start fixing stuff. Learned how to fix cars. Ended up, you know, quitting all the other jobs after high school. Still was in the firehouse. One of my uncles worked for a dealership chain and they needed someone to wash cars and I'd

worked at a car wash so there was like detailing you know cars for the dealerships they come in you get to wax them clean the whole car the used cars and then they get you know put out on the lot you come in to buy a brand new one that gets all clean and uh started doing that started paying attention was friends with one of the kids that worked there you know

Essentially, it was like teaching me how to work on cars, so I didn't have to pay someone to do it for me. I could do it myself. And then from there, yeah, there was cars for a long time. Started towing. Got into doing repossessions. That must have been interesting. Yeah, that was... That one's got some stories. You see a lot of... It's sad because you see a lot of people in some of their worst moments. You're taking...

They're only transportation they have to get back and forth to work or a doctor. And it's like, you can't feel bad doing it because you need to eat. You need to make a paycheck. Because we were getting paid per car. So I had a night where I didn't get any cars. I wasn't getting paid. Yeah, it's even just towing. No, I was towing. I was still a fireman. So you're seeing accidents from...

You know, like just after they happened to after everything's cleaned up and now you're grabbing the car and toning it off and see some kind of funny stuff. Some of the stuff people keep in their cars. It's like, what are you doing with this? What was the funniest thing you think you saw? So there was a car that we had repossessed a couple times. It was funny, but it was nasty and just littered with like

dirty women underwear just like piled up on the floorboard and we're like i'm not even i'm not even getting in this car that's disgusting dildos find those laying in the cars and you're like i really hope that's a girl um kind of thing i mean found one car but so like when you repossess them we have to technically we have to inventory um

for for me it was like whatever was in like plain sight so look in the windows and it's like okay well there's like a cd laying there there's like basketball like jordan's laying on the ground so it's all documented so we have laptops like police laptops sitting in the truck and you have to write everything down like found like lots of cash and

Found this and found dirty women's underwear laying on the ground. One car. It was almost like, what were they calling those guys? Like in New York, like back in the day, they would have like the watches. They would sell you all like the knockoff watches. It was like that. There was all kinds of like knockoff watches, like colognes. We're like, what is going on here? And then...

The guys in the office, they would come through and they would completely inventory everything. And then they would put it in bags and they would put it off to the side into a storage area so that, you know, you have a certain amount of time to come and claim your car after it's repossessed. Otherwise, it goes to auction. So now your car is no longer yours. He's like...

Yeah, man, there was like maybe five or six colognes and a couple watches. He said he opened up the trunk and it was filled. And then he's like, it's not just knockoff like colognes. There was like Dolce & Gabbana. There was like Gucci, like high-end like colognes. He's like, dude, bottles, like a couple hundred dollar bottles. That never came. You know, it's, you see a lot of things like that. Drugs. I remember like rolling around in like the north end of Hartford.

Hartford, you know, it's not the safest place to be rolling around, especially the north end, and come into an apartment complex to grab a car. There was a kid sitting on the corner of the complex, and it was almost like gated. There was no gate for the entrance. It was like those iron fences that you see with the spike tops and all that. And he was standing there, and I'm like, that's not good.

He went running so I zipped up grabbed the car real quick and By the time I hooked it and put it up in the air Connecticut it's once the car is off the ground even if it's like a centimeter a millimeter You legally own it. They can't lawfully make you put down the car He starts banging on a door and next thing I know this dude comes out and he had drugs in the trunk and

I'm like, dude, I don't care what's in the car. I'm taking the car. But get your stuff, move it. I don't want an issue. But it was, you know, I'm going to kill you tonight. I'm like, I hope you pull faster than me. Like, because if push comes to shove, you know, 99% of us carry. Connecticut doesn't have a stand your ground law, but.

you know if if push came to shove and you pull a gun on me i'm gonna make sure i protect myself make sure i get home i ended up getting out of doing all that because it was it was bad i mean i had a pregnant woman pregnant woman i went to go grab the car in meriden i hooked it and she came running outside and i'm in the air and i'm already starting to move and she dove into her car i'm like and you could tell like not

Two months, but she's like six, seven months pregnant. Like it's clear that it's, that she dove in the car and then her husband or boyfriend comes running out like a fuck, like a gorilla banging on the truck, like beating on it. I'm like, this dude's going to shatter the window. Like if he hits the window that hard, like this dude's going to come through my window. What am I supposed to do?

Called the Meriden police. I'm like, hey, so this pregnant woman just like dove headfirst into her car. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, like she jumped. So they showed up and there was nips all over the car. So, you know, they can't technically do anything. But it's like to me, like that, that stuck with me because it's like you're pregnant and you're drinking. That's that's bad. That's like real bad.

But, you know, it's, you put yourself in the really dangerous situations and the money's not worth it. Like, repossession, you don't get paid a lot. I mean, essentially, it's like you're making minimum wage. So if we would have a guy, he was like a spotter. So he had cameras and it would be,

a car that we had repossessed. Instead of going to auction, we bought it and they put the cameras on it. And the cameras are the same ones that the police use. The only difference is the software. So they have different software. So when we come through with the cameras, it's the same thing. When you drive by a cop with them on, it pulls up the car. So for us, it would just scan the license plate and it would tell you like the license plate. And then

If it was repossession, like if it was out for repo, it would like make an alarm sound and you would know you just scanned a car. You need to verify VIN numbers. You can't just go around grabbing cars off of license plates because people misuse plates and you get a wrongful repossession. That's bad news. You know, you open the company up to lawsuits. You open yourself up to getting in legal trouble, um,

But yet you're putting yourself in the dangerous and just bad situations. You don't know what's in the car, like drugs. Who knows what else is in the car? A body, you have no idea. Like someone just stored a body in a car and you just grabbed it. I mean, things like that happen. We had a kid we worked with, he got shot at. Wow. And it wasn't like Hartford, Meriden, New Haven. It was like a nicer area. And he went down the...

driveway and it was a neighbor from next door that started shooting at him for just doing his job and the spotters would get paid 75 I think I want to say it was 75 per car me coming to pick it up I was getting 35 if I spotted the car and grabbed it on my own I would get the 75 but even if you do 10 cars a night you just made 350 bucks but it's not worth being put in the

having guns pulled, being shot at, having people threaten you, trying to fight you. It's not worth the money, the danger that comes with it. One guy, yeah, one got shot at. One had like a machete pulled. Another one had a bat pulled on him. Like people get guns pulled on them all the time. I'm like, my dad's sitting there. He's like, what are you doing?

What are you doing with your life? Like, why are you putting yourself into these situations? And it all came full circle. Because, you know, like, I've had my fair share of issues, like, addiction-wise. I had an issue with pills. It wasn't as, like, I don't want to make it sound like it's any worse or, like, any better than what it is, but...

I don't think it ever got to the point where it was like, I'm going to go get heroin and start shooting up. Like, I know it was bad, but my thing was always, like, if I could enter Percocet, occasionally, like, I would grab Oxy. Like, my dad had, so I broke my hand, and that's kind of, like, where it started was that. Was that towards the end of your firefighting journey? Yeah, that was, like, toward the very end.

I ended up just moving, and it just kind of like I never joined that one. They wanted to send you to go see the town psychologist, and I'm like, oh, I'm not getting through that. If I was honest, yeah, absolutely not. Then I broke my hand right before my 21st birthday, like two days before. Yeah, and that's where the love came in because the feeling was

Because growing up, it was like I knew there was something going on with me. Like I never could put my finger on what it is. I just knew like I was different than like other kids. Short fuse, like temper, like real bad, real fast. When I started taking that for the hand, it was like that first feeling. It like took everything away. All like the worry, all the anxiety.

the things going on in my brain. Because by that point, I was already out of high school. In high school, I had, I was talking with a friend and I told him that I had like a suicidal thought. So they, the next day, went to the school, talked to the school. I got pulled into the school's psychiatrist, psychologist's office and talked to again. And then I'd already done therapy by that point.

Like outside my parents had sent me and then we had stopped because I was a kid. I didn't want to be there. So it wasn't like, hey, I'm going to open up. I'm going to talk to you and be honest and like, let's figure what's going on now. It was shut down and just give them what they want to hear.

So then even with that, I was like, I played it off. I'm like, no, no, that was taken out of context. That's not really what happened. No, that's what happened, but didn't want to own up to it. It's embarrassing. Young, not supposed to feel like that, being that young. Being like 16, 17, you want to take your own life. I wasn't bullied, but...

It was just a whole bunch of things going on. It was, like, just too much for my brain to handle at once. And so then, like, taken, it was either, I want to say it was Percocet first, because one of them I have a reaction to, and I can never remember which one, but I get, like, super itchy, and I end up, you could tell the difference in my breathing. It's not normal. It's almost like labored breathing where it's, like, delayed, but the feeling it gave was

Just, like, everything left. Like, all the worry, all the pain, everything was just gone. And then it got bad. So, like, the kid I grew up with that lived behind us, his grandma was dying. And he didn't know really what was going on. Like, no one did. And he was like, hey, do you want to come take a ride? Like, say goodbye to my grandma. Like, yeah, because, you know, we'd...

We would go and say like to Walmart. She lives pretty close by. We'd go stop and hang out for a little bit and see his grandma. And so we went over and when I got into his car, like I kind of like slumped in the seat and he was like, dude, what, what's going on? The hell are you doing? I played it off. Like, oh, it's nothing, you know, tired, some medication. And I was like, okay.

Instead of saying, hey, like he recognized that something's going on. Like I should probably look at this problem. I said, okay, now I need to hide it. I need to hide it better because now he caught on. So other people are going to catch on and it got worse. And then my dad got hurt. So then he had prescriptions and I was taking them from him. And it's just, it led down like this rabbit hole. And I remember my dad taking me out one day, took me to a bar. And I remember him sitting there and

Looking at me and just going, what are you doing? Why are you taking, like, all my pills? And again, just not owning anything and just playing it off. Like, oh, my hand hurt or this hurt. That's not what was going on. For me, it was just, it took away all the, like, the darkness that, like, lingers in my brain. Because it's a pretty dark place. So I'm like...

Back to, like, the fireman thing. I was 16, and I remember them saying, like, hey, this is what you want to do? Like, let's go. It was a lady. Her husband owns a gravel company, like a big company out in Waterford. And they own, like, I think she was, like, a real estate agent. I think she owned her own or something like that. And they found her unresponsive in the back of her car in the parking lot of McDonald's.

So I remember them saying like, hey, let's go. Like, this is what you want to do. Let's go. But we go there and yeah, she's unresponsive. So start doing CPR. So I don't have my EMT. I didn't have my CPR or my first aid. So I was more of like the runner back and forth to the ambulance. Like we have, they call them backboard. They're backboards. They'll put you under the help of mobilize you and they'll support you back. So you're on a hard surface.

But there's also a CPR board that's almost like that. It's a small. So if you're on the grass, you know, grass is soft, especially in the summertime. It's hard to give someone CPR if they're laying in, like, mud or if they're laying in something soft. So you slide the board under, and now it gives them that firm surface underneath to where you can give them good compressions. And so I had to run and grab that. And we had...

paramedics come from the hospital so most of them were EMTs so the hospitals around like Lawrence and Memorial and New London and even Bacchus and Norwich they have paramedics they buy them like rigs say here you go they're stocked up with everything they need medically so they would come when it was something that needs like advanced care like cardiac arrest or overdoses and

And then the paramedics showing up and having to help grab like defibrillators and grab the monitors and all this. And then sitting there watching this lady get compressions like 16 years old and watching her die. And I don't know if you've ever heard, but when someone's on like their way out, it's the death rattle. Hearing the death rattle for the first time and like not knowing what that is, that's traumatizing big time.

Because all it is, it's like, I guess, the fluid that's in there. It's like hitting something in your throat and it's getting that rattle. But they say when you hear the death rattle, that's like the person's, they're about to die. Yeah, so like that stuck with me because that was the first time I've ever seen someone like die in front of me. And the first time I heard the death rattle and that was, it sticks out.

Big time. Share with us some of the other traumatic experiences you witnessed and experienced as a firefighter. So there was another one. Like, you don't really know what's going on. You don't know about the person until, like, after, unfortunately. I remember being at the firehouse, and the ambulance was out already, and they were calling for manpower immediately.

And so they just need more hands because we were a volunteer. So there's the one paid guy. It was later at night. It was probably like 6, 7. So we don't wait. You don't wait for someone else to show up, like fully crew, like full crew on an ambulance. It's you go and you start. And most of the time paramedics are going to show up and there'll be an extra hand and other people will show up. Another guy showed up and they're calling for manpower and he's like, let's go.

He's like, I don't care you don't have your EMT. Let's go. They need help. Even if it's, you know, moving the stretcher. Nowadays, the stretchers are a lot better where you can almost just one finger on the button and they lock automatically.

But before, it was, you had to hold it. So if you get a bigger person, you know, there's a couple people trying to hold it while you hold the button down to bring the wheels up to slide it in. So now it's just on, like, a track, and you can just press the button and, like, not even touch it, and it stays. But so, like, we didn't know what was really going on. We heard it was a cardiac arrest, a heart attack, or whatever the case is, the heart stopped. And...

When they dispatch all this stuff, they give you essentially what they know. So whatever info the call taker can get, basic information, man, woman, age, what happened, did you witness them collapse or did they fall and crack their head open? They're trying to get you stuff so they can relate to us so we know. Essentially like ahead of time, all right, it's a cardiac arrest, so immediately grab...

um you know the AED or defibrillator make sure we have the oxygen grab this and this and this like you know okay prepared grab it go and we showed up and they were just bringing her out on the stretcher and I remember her sitting up on it throwing up and then just boom drop right back down and the guy looked at me and he's like yeah she's dead you just saw that

Yeah, she's gone. And then looking at the house and seeing her kid in the door. And it's like witnessing someone pass away is traumatic to begin with. But then when you look and you see her kid just watched all of that, your heart just like shatters into pieces. You're like, that poor kid. I was still a kid, you know, to some people. 16, you think you're an adult. But witnessing this like little child

Almost like just, they're like precious little human beings. And they're so innocent. And having him, or I don't remember if it was a boy or girl, just watch all of that. And seeing their mom like sit up, throw up, and drop back down. That one stuck too. Other things too, even like seeing animals. I like animals. I always say I like animals more than people. But like going to a fire, pulling out cats. You open...

um, like the sheet, you just like, um, she off like the ambulance, um,

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cover up so people don't see what we're gonna look at pulling open and seeing the cat with its stomach hanging out of its mouth and you're like you know in your head firemen police and most civil servants have like a people think it's like a sick sense of humor it's coping mechanism so a lot of times after something traumatic like that you know you'll start cracking jokes and

It's not that we're insensitive or it doesn't affect us or it doesn't bother us. It's trying to cope with what you just saw. And that's how it's just been for firemen. I know it comes off as being insensitive. Do you think that a lot of these instances and situations that you witnessed contributed to your addiction that would, you know, come to be after you suffered an injury? Yeah.

Do you think it was like a buildup leading up to that and you were just waiting for something traumatic happened to yourself to trigger that all open? I think it's like a couple different things. I think it's, I was predisposed from like the start. A biological father was, I heard heroin, but I've also heard like meth. So I don't exactly know what he was addicted to, but I know there was addiction issues, even drugs.

Other family members, alcoholism, other drugs too, different family. I think it was part of being predisposed. I think the bipolar definitely had a big part in all of that. And then being a fireman and having bipolar definitely is like a recipe for disaster. You're asking for an addiction problem. And a good chunk of firemen, unfortunately, are functioning alcoholics. It's...

a big, it's like a big misconception with therapy and making you think that, you know, you're less of a man for going and seeking help. But they've been pushing a lot more mental health because they're seeing like recidivism and alcoholism in firemen. And it's, they help get them clean. And then all of a sudden they're back again because they just witnessed another traumatic thing, like a plane crash and,

especially like New York City's had some very traumatic things happen over there. And they just keep seeing firemen, just addiction over and over and getting hurt on the job. And now they're getting addicted to painkillers or whatever it is. It's, it's, um, yeah, there's a big addiction community inside of like civil service. Yeah. I think it definitely plays a huge part.

is the trauma and everything that you're witnessing and then having to essentially shake it off and go do another one. You go from one car accident to a fatal fire and they could be back to back. You could just be wrapping up with a fire and all of a sudden there's a rollover with ejection. Now you've got to shake off whatever you just saw there, go handle that situation and then turn around and shake that off and go home.

We were volunteer. Yeah, we would hang out at the firehouse. We had TV, couches, and we had a kitchen. We had a basketball hoop, weights and workout stuff. There was stuff to do and hang out. A lot of them, though, I was young. They had kids, and they'd have to shake everything off and go home and be with their kids and act like nothing happened. It's tough.

Share with us the times you went and had to attend to someone in a prison. You were sharing with me off camera when we met. And I think that would be a really interesting perspective to show kind of like the lack of response time and care for some inmates when an emergency service personnel is called to the prison. So it's actually kind of disgusting how slow the response is. And it's not the firemen. It's...

unfortunately it's just how security works and with East Lime there was when like I was growing up there was two active prisons there was York CI which is the women's prison in Connecticut and then like right up the road was Gates which was the it was like a low men's and by the time I became a fireman Gates was already closed so we only had York and

We were like second due technically because that was Nianic's jurisdiction. They had a firehouse literally right outside York CI. It's only like a two bay firehouse. So they had an engine and they kept like their brush truck in there. And I think they kept a spare ambulance. So it was coming from like down the road from like their headquarters. Maybe three, four minute response, like light sirens moving.

And when you would get to the prison, like for us, it was probably like an eight minute response to come across town. You would hit the entrance. You would get to the guard shack. Guard would have to be waiting at the shack already to jump in the ambulance and ride in with you. And then he'd have to go to the Sally port and now you have to be escorted in and escorted

They're not checking our bags because we carry trauma shears and other stuff to cut stuff off, needles. And the paramedics are there. They can administer drugs. But it was so delayed from the minute you hit the entrance to the time you actually got inside the building.

And then, you know, it's one locked door walking in to another locked door and then that being open. And then, you know, how it is, they have to radio in. It's not like turn the key, pull the door or just pull the door. It's pop, you know, like door 2A, pop door 2B. And so it's like 10 minutes by the time, like you're already on the grounds. And a couple of times it was, you know, women in labor from...

East Lyme to L&M, which was our hospital, say about 10 to 12 minutes, like with lights and sirens going. So you're already at about 20 to 30 minutes from the time you get there to the time you can get them loaded. And it's not just like load them up and let's go. It's the guard has to come back. Now they got to get the paperwork done.

They have to come with paperwork to the hospital. And there was always one guard in the ambulance. There was one guard following, so there was two that were coming. And we can't leave until the paperwork's there. Okay, well, she's in active labor, or she's overdosing because drugs get into prisons. It happens, and you're just sitting there waiting and waiting. And then finally, hey, we got the paperwork. We can go. Well...

Why isn't this ready for us when we get there? You guys are waiting the call. The inmates will tell you. I've been telling them I've been in labor for six hours. And you're like, it's 8 o'clock at night. So you've been really telling them since like 2 o'clock, noon, 2 o'clock. You've been telling them that you're in labor and they're just, yeah, no. Like, no. You know how health care is in there. It's not great.

I actually had an ex that was in York, CI. Oh, really? Yeah. And were you visiting her? No. This was after everything. But yeah, no, I dated someone that was, that she was in York and... Like she was in York before you guys met? We had met and then she went to York and then she got out. Into the bad girls, huh? Yeah. That's a theme for me. Yeah.

But it's, she's like, you know, you tell them, like, I had pain in my right side. Like, it could be like appendicitis or could be like kidney infection. Like, whatever's going on, you tell them and they just, they don't care. They brush it off. And it's not until, like, you collapse on the ground that they're like, ah, we should probably do something. I hope it's gotten better. But, yeah, it was always a delayed process. It wasn't just...

They're humans. They made a mistake. You don't need to treat them like an animal. Let us do our job and get them the medical care that they need. It was a hassle. Sometimes, right guards, it would be like, we have everything ready, let's go. Other times it was just like that, where it was a process and waiting and waiting. We never went in without the paramedic, so we always had to wait.

But generally speaking, they were within like a minute or two to three minutes, like right behind us. It's kind of disgusting how bad it is for them when they actually need like true emergency care and it's being forced to wait for hours. And then finally, like they see the relief, they see the ambulance show up and they're like, finally, I can get help. And then having to wait like another 20 minutes.

Yeah, I don't wish that on anybody. How were you able to finally overcome your addiction? It took a long time because it was like off and on again. And so the ex that I had that was in New York, she was a heroin addict. And I still had issues with pills, but she was also getting Suboxone. And if you take enough Suboxone, it gets you high.

So I was, you know, and they're tiny little, like they're smaller than like your pinky nail. Like they're tiny little square. And you just put it on like your tongue, it would dissolve. And so I'd take a couple of those and then you get the same feeling. Like if I took like a Vicodin or a Percocet, you get that like...

super warm feeling and it like starts almost like in like the back like back your lungs almost it's just like super warm and then it just like takes over your body and it was years of just like you know i had a buddy that i can get whatever actually i needed if i needed like perk 30s i could call him he'd be like yeah sure just if you buy one i get one so i'd have to buy two so you'd take a cut of it and it's like all right whatever

But it took a long time. Like I did that with DADX. And then there's a whole nother story that I had surgery and I didn't have anything in my system at the time. And I actually ended up overdosing inside the hospital. I'll tell you about that. But that was like essentially where...

like the turning point was because like up to that point i would still get pills here and there or suboxone and when that happened it was like oh okay hold on like time out let's stop and look like what just happened and you you were done with firefighting at that point at that time yeah this was this wasn't that long ago this was a couple years ago um happened when i was repossessing um

Long story, but I ended up going to clear out a round in my gun. And people will call it like a fucking accidental discharge. It was a negligent. Like I knew guns. I knew watch where your muzzles pointed. I didn't. When I brought the slide back from what the police came and everything and their armory pulled apart the gun and they said it was a

There's a piece they used to use metal and now they're using plastic and it sheared and they let the pin strike. Cause when I brought the slide back, it was all the way back. And so it let go. Like the piece sheared, the pin struck, round went off. I didn't pay attention. So it's not an accidental discharge. It's negligence. Like you need to know where your muzzle's pointed. I didn't. And it went in the leg.

Because I was sitting down. So it went in my knee. It broke my kneecap and it cracked my femur. So I had to call 911. They had to come out. Police came first. They're asking, like, where's the gun? Like, it's right there. I have a sick sense of humor. Like, I generally have a pretty high pain tolerance, but that was just straight adrenaline. I didn't, honestly, I didn't feel anything.

I knew something was wrong because my ears were like, almost like someone boxed your ears and like slapped you in the ear. And you get that like deafening sound. I called 911. The police came first. I ended up cracking jokes with them because, you know, adrenaline is one hell of a drug. You don't feel anything. I got lucky. There was a firehouse right across the street. So...

From the time the police got there, which was probably within three to five minutes, this was up in East Hartford. So a lot of police. And they cleared the scene for fire to come in because you can't go into dangerous scenes like that if it's someone violent.

Or they call it ETOH, but intoxicated. Police have to be there. They have to clear the scene first. So any kind of gun crime or gun victim, it has to be cleared first to make sure the scene's safe for them to move in. And within like five to six minutes, I had firemen right there helping. And got lucky because femoral artery runs up the leg and...

So it's like dodged one bullet right there. Didn't know I was going to have to dodge another one, but literally, oh, yeah, hey, look at that. Dodged a bullet. So they had to put me in the ambulance. And when you're out that way, there's two hospitals in Hartford. So you can either go to St. Francis or you can go to Hartford Hospital. I figured Hartford Hospital is right by 91. Like, I'm going to be up here forever.

Instead of getting up into, like, St. Francis, like, my parents are going to want to come up here. I'm their kid. Kid just shot himself in the leg. Cheddar Bob. Yeah, that was the nickname. Cheddar Bob. If they would make it easy, you know, close to the highway. So got to the hospital. You know, they're asking, do you feel anything?

No. Like, I could feel my leg. I could, you know, feel everything I need to. It's not like, you know, I'm cutting the circulation off and I'm at risk of losing, like, my leg or my foot. So they gave fentanyl. And that was hard because it was, like, the minute I had that feeling hit, it, like, brought me back to everything. And I'm like, oh, I like that feeling. And then that only lasted for about 20 minutes. And...

they asked if I ever had ketamine. So they prescribed in the ER, they gave me a couple doses of ketamine like throughout the night. And then in the morning they told me you're going to have surgery at some point today because that happened the night before. So I spent the entire night like inside the actual ER and then I got moved to a room and then they came in and they're like, so you're going to have surgery today.

This is what we expect, four hours. This is what's going on. You have a hairline fracture in your femur, which that will heal on its own. It's only a hairline fracture. You don't need anything for that. But your kneecap, your patella, they said it's in quite a few pieces. So we're going to have to do reconstructive surgery. It took a little longer than what they thought.

and pulling out bullet fragment, bone fragment. So I have three screws in my knee. So I came out of surgery and my parents were there and they asked, you know, is there anything that we need to do? They said, no, like you guys are all right. He's just going to be in recovery. So my parents ended up leaving and I had a nurse come in with a big brace and it went from like

almost like top of your thigh all the way down to my ankle and it locks. So you can't move. You can't bend your knee at all. And in the process of her putting it on, like what I remember is, is getting tired and closing my eyes. And I guess that's not what happened. It was a, uh, came out from anesthesia. I was in a lot of pain. Um,

If you've never had screws or, like, pins put in, especially screws because they drill into bone. So, like, people will tell you if they've ever had, like, donated bone marrow, it's one of the most painful things ever because they're drilling into your bone. So it was just the worst pain. Like, even shooting myself in the leg didn't hurt. But the screws, like, it was, like, torture. I'm like, this is ridiculous. That didn't hurt, but that does, like...

All right. They gave me Dilaudid, very strong painkiller. And then they gave another dose and I think it was like a shift change. So that nurse gave me more. So it was already like anesthesia and then like three or four doses of Dilaudid right after. And I ended up ODing.

in the bed and the nurse that put the brace on didn't know anything was wrong. She thought I'd fell off. Like she thought I fell asleep. She's like, Oh, he's, he's asleep. Let him sleep. And my ex at the time saw that I was blue, ran out to the nurses and told them. So they hit the, they were, they call it, it's a code, you know, you're coding, you're dying. Um, so I had no idea. Like I was just out dreaming and,

And the first thing I see, like I came to, it's like super bright because everything is on top of you. There's lights on top of you and you wake up and it's like staring into this light and everything starts to like come into focus. It's all like fuzzy and I see doctors and I see this thing and it was purple and I see them squeezing.

So what they did was they intubated me. So they stuck the tube down and they were breathing for me. And they told me they gave me four doses of naloxone, which is Narcan. And they were about ready to pronounce me. They're like, we weren't given any more. We gave you four doses of Narcan. So they unfortunately tried to put the blame on me, saying that I had stuff inside my system,

And that's why it brought my tolerance down. They did urinalysis after that. Like, I remember them coming in and making me pee into a cup and taking it and saying, oh, see, he's got hydromorphone or he's got this in his system, like codeine or whatever it is. And it's because they gave me medication in the ER.

Last night, here we are the next day. Like, yes, it's going to show up in my urine that there's things in my system, but there was actually nothing in my system that night. It was just neglect, being stupid. They had to call my parents. My parents said about 45 minutes, they had to flip around and come race back up to the hospital because they got the phone call. Hey, your son's not breathing. We're breathing for your son. You need to get back up here now.

So yeah, that waking up and to see them have a tube down your throat and you could see them right above your face just breathing for you. That was like, I'd never cry. That was the breaking point. It broke me because it's like, holy shit, I died. And then...

making the mistake of telling them I have to pee and they don't give you an opportunity on nurse grabs and catheter and pulling the, pulling the tube out of your throat is it's not fun, but that was because they actually give you drugs in order to essentially like loosen up your throat. So it's not tense. So you're not tensing up when they're trying to put the tube down your throat. And so you don't feel it.

They don't do that with catheters. It is almost like Vaseline and it's just right up. And it's not fun going in, coming out because it's been there and now all the Vaseline is like not there anymore. It comes out and it is painful. Like I had tears coming down, but yeah.

That was like the first time I think I cried in a long time was waking up and seeing people breathing for me and just like shocked, scared shitless of what the hell. I had no idea that that's what happened. And then, yeah, I still did oxys here and there and would still do suboxone. Like I was definitely a little bit more scared about doing it.

Didn't do it for a while. And I ended up going back to my parents' house because I couldn't walk. And I remember them, I want to say it probably was like stuck in their brain. Like he, yeah, a couple of years ago he was taking prescriptions. Like he was taking, my dad had shoulder surgery and I think knee surgery. And they were pretty close. So like

Yeah, I was stealing all of his pain meds. No one... He needed them. Like, pretty shitty thing to do. But they kept the Dilaudid pretty much, like, under lock and key. Like, it was not around to where I could get my hands on it. They gave me nerve blockers. They gave me, like, muscle relaxer. And then they gave the Dilaudid and...

My mom was scared to give me the Dilaudid, one, because I have a history with abusing, and then two, because they gave me Dilaudid and then I overdosed in the hospital. So come to find out, it's all because I have a low tolerance to pain medication. So that's, it was good and bad. Like having a low tolerance was good when I was using because I

I didn't need a ton. I didn't need to go get like three Perk 30s to feel anything. I can get like a 10 or a 5. I could feel it. Yeah, that was a scary, scary point. It really started making me think about it, though. Like, what am I doing? And then I met my kid's mom. And it was like she had her own issues she was using.

For whatever reason, I've always had it. I want to say probably because I feel like I couldn't ever help my own self. So like trying to be like the savior and help someone that was struggling. Like the ex before her was a heroin addict. She was a heroin addict. It was like I was like sticking with people that needed saving because I couldn't even save my own self. And I remember I met her and...

I could tell like right off the bat, I'm like, she uses, so then I was trying to hide it. And then, um, so I had told her, I was like, Hey, if you, if you ever want to get clean, like I'll help you. Like a little while later, we ended up finding out she was pregnant and, um, she was doing good where, you know, we found out she was pregnant and she wasn't using, I still was. And,

So if she's listening, I'm sorry. But like she didn't, this is stuff that like people don't ever know. Like my parents don't know about a lot of this stuff either. So first time. But she was using and we found out she was pregnant and she started to stop and she did good. And then she relapsed and then she did good. And then she relapsed again. And one of them died.

Actually, right before we found out she was pregnant, her car had a slow leak in its tire, and she had to go to work. She worked at a bar, and I was like, just take my car so you don't have to come out at midnight and have a flat tire, and then I have to come down and put air in it. Just take my car and go. She made it and was like, hey, I'm dropping off a friend. I'll be there in 20 minutes. And 20 minutes went by. I was like, okay.

Like, what's going on? So I text her. I didn't, she didn't answer. I called her and she's like, oh, I'm like, I could see the house. And I hear bang, she crashed like right out front, hit a telephone pole, totaled the car. I didn't care about the car. I heard the bang and I'm like, what was that? And like, she didn't say anything. I'm like, are you okay? And then I looked out the window and I saw, I could tell cause I had, um,

I think I put, it was HID headlights. So it had like that blue tint so I could see like the one headlight that didn't get smashed that was still on. I'm like, oh, oh shit, that's my car. So I went booking it down the road. As soon as I like ripped open the door, I looked and there was a cop right behind already. I'm like, like none of us called yet. She must've just passed them. Cause right there in Groton, they, uh,

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SelectQuote. They shop, you save. Go to SelectQuote.com slash SpotifyPod today to get started. Buddies, it's their power company, and they like to sit, like, in their driveway, set back from the road. So you can't see them until, like, you're right where, like, they see you. And he must have passed them, and he must have heard the bang and pulled out and saw. And I...

I looked around the car because I knew she was using. She didn't sniff. She shot up. So then I see needle caps. Super easy to see. They're bright orange. And even in the dark, they stand out. You could see it laying on the ground. So I grabbed it, threw it in my pocket. Because it could have went two ways. They could have charged her or they could have been like, well, it is your car. And I could have been charged with it.

And I told her, I said, listen, shut your mouth. Don't say anything. They're going to ask you questions. They're looking to see if you're under the influence. Like it was rainy, but it wasn't torrential downpour. It's like you should in a hydroplane. It rained all day. It's not like, you know, they always say first rain roads are super slick. So all the oil comes out of the ground. Mike, they ask you questions. Just repeat.

My neck hurts or my back hurts. Don't say anything except for that. Take the ride to the hospital. She listened. She went. So I was dealing with a cop, and I was like, can I get my work stuff out? I still have to go to work in the morning. So I really wanted to kind of, like, look around the car, make sure there wasn't anything else because I didn't want her to get arrested, and I didn't want to get charged with it. So we go home.

go to the hospital and at first they wouldn't let me I went with her mom they wouldn't let us in the room they kept saying no no you guys need to wait out here like what's going on there's a car accident we should be allowed right back then the nurse came out and was like so we were doing an ultrasound and I didn't know she was pregnant her mom didn't know I don't even think she knew

And, yeah, that's kind of how we found out was she wrecked my car. But then I remember as the nurse was bringing us back to the room, I remember hearing like another nurse in the room talking to her and being like, why were there needles in your jacket pocket? Like, you're pregnant. If you need help, we'll get you the help that you need. And I remember like leaving, going home, talking to her.

her saying like no I didn't use before I'm like It's almost like irrelevant at this point whether you did or not if you did it would make more sense into why you crashed But like what's done is done You're okay. We just found out we're having a baby like and the baby's okay like just be thankful about that like I was still super pissed but and then

Couple like small little things like here and there and I try not to be judgmental about it because it's like Who am I to judge her for using when I was doing the same thing and hiding it from her at least? She got comfortable and she told me like because I would say like hey, you know, I kind of tell Super easy to notice like especially when you're in like active addiction you can kind of tell like when someone else's and

So like a little bit goes by and I had to wake up. So for work for us, because our unions like trades, we do apprenticeships and that's essentially like your schooling. So ours was held at our union hall and we would go for a week every three months and they would teach you what you need to know from us.

For us, it's a lot of geometry and algebra. So mechanical insulation, it's a lot of breaking down circles, knowing like your radiuses, your diameters, circumference, fractions, like decimals. And they teach you that in high school, but I didn't pay attention. So I did my apprenticeship and...

They go over all of that and they teach you everything. And I remember we did our school started at 7 a.m. Wallingford for me coming from... I lived in Groton then. So it was about an hour and 10 minutes. And I remember waking up and looking around and she wasn't in bed. So I'm like, maybe she went down. She made me lunch or maybe she's making breakfast. She was pregnant, so...

She could have, you know, acid reflux and heartburn. She had heartburn bad in one of the pregnancies. So it was like, okay. She couldn't sleep. She's watching TV or whatever. I go downstairs and I don't see her. I'm like, okay. So she wasn't upstairs in the bathroom because I was just in there. I just brushed my teeth. I'm like, it's not like she couldn't sleep and had like restless legs, which is another thing like she had during pregnancy. And that's rough. Um,

Couldn't find her. So like I walked around upstairs and I walked around downstairs and she's nowhere, but I didn't check downstairs bathroom and I walked by. So the downstairs bathroom was attached to like the living room and I saw the light on. I'm like, the hell is that? I walked over and she's laying on the floor, like not like sprawled out, but like hunched over, like leaned up against the radiator and the wall and like,

partially on the toilet, and I'm like, what the hell? And then I'm like, oh shit, she's blue. She overdosed. So she had woken up at some point, and I don't know when, and she went downstairs and shot up and overdosed. And I caught her as I'm getting ready to leave. Yeah, that was like instant panic that caused a lot of issues down the road to where I'm

um like I've always had a hard time sleeping but if I felt her like even like shift I would like wake up in like a panic I had to drag her out of the bathroom gave her CPR was on the phone with 9-1-1 and they're asking all the questions and you know it's it's a lot different when you're on the other end when it's you calling for help and they're asking you all these questions it

It was like I was super short. I'm like, stop asking me these stupid questions and get me an ambulance here now. Like, stop asking me, like, if she, how old she, I'm like, just get an ambulance here. Hurry up. And before the ambulance got there, she just started to come back. And by the time they got there, she was, like, she was conscious, but she was just confused because she,

I've been in that position where you wake up from an overdose and you have no idea what just happened. You're lost, you're confused, you're scared. And I ended up not going to school that day. We went to the hospital and it was during a snowstorm too. Like we had a couple, we had a good like six, seven inches snow.

So I remember the ambulance coming in. I remember seeing a plow first and then the ambulance, which is a common thing. We had a big fire one year and it was back to back, I think like nor'easters that hit. And to get to the fire, I remember the plows just plowing the road and like salting and sanding the roads that they know that were going down so that we can get to the house and get

I remember seeing like the plow and then the ambulance and they had a fire truck show up too. Because Groton has their own ambulance, but they're separate from the firehouses. So they have their own little station. And so they'll send a fire truck out until the ambulance can get to you. At least they can start treating and going to the hospital. And I give her a lot of credit because from that day on, she never used a gun again.

Looking back now, I feel like shit because she didn't and I still did. It wasn't until like a little bit after that that I stopped. And it was like, I don't know, just something about like realizing like, oh shit, like I'm about to be a parent. What the hell am I doing? I've had an overdose that wasn't like me taking anything.

I've gotten lucky with that aspect. Mine was, unfortunately, hospital. Hers wasn't. Just looking back and going, I can't make my kid grow up without a parent because their dad just likes getting high or something.

Mom likes getting high or whatever the case is. It's like, it just something like clicked in my brain. It was like, you're going to be a parent. You need to be there for your kids and like knock the shit off. And it's time to grow up and be a man, not be a kid. Stop being a boy. I've had urges, you know, it's a, it's hard. Cause it's like going to the dentist, getting like wisdom teeth out. They'll give you, um, if I get in, they'll give you Percocet, um,

And me, it's to the point where, like, even doing therapy now, I don't want any kind of medication that is either, like, a benzo or any kind of addictive. So, like, even, like, I take sleeping meds and they're, what's the big one that everyone, whatever the big sleeping med is. Melatonin? No, it's a narcotic. And they...

Like Eminem used to, he had songs and he was talking about that's what he would take. It's like a sedative. People use it for sleep. I can't think of the name of it. I told him, like, I don't want any of that. I want something that's non-addictive because I know my personality. And I get, my brain gets to be like a really dark, dark place.

I've had like multiple like suicidal like ideolations and thoughts and even like a couple attempts and it was yeah it was like time to just to be there grow up and stop because that darkness was really there when I was using like there was still darkness but it wasn't like as dark which you know it's supposed to help

Unfortunately, addiction, it helps take away the pain, but it creates so much more pain because you're not dealing with any of your issues. And yeah, something clicked. And then eventually, you know, we I ended up traveling for work and I went out to Pittsburgh and worked at the cracker plant. So they started.

Or taking like ethylene pellets. And it's essentially like making plastic. Is what I was told. I don't really know. I never got into like knowing what like I'm actually working at. Me, I just want to show up. Just send my hours to the hall so I can get a pension credit. Sign my checks. Like that's what I care about. And so like I was out there. Ended up. Had like some kind of like suspicion that like something was off. And yeah.

She was hanging out with one of her friends and I know the girl's trouble and she was like, oh, she's over. And I'm like, I'm eight and a half hours away. And I ended up finding out that, yeah, they like did like a line of coke. And I was like pissed because I'm like, you know, our daughter's with you. I'm over here. You're supposed to be taking care of her, not doing that. But we ended up

Working through all of that kind of thing. Like it was, it was rocky for a little bit after that. It's always a rocky road to get to, you know, the top of the mountain. It's yeah, it really is. What's the life lesson you want people to take away from your story today? Um, don't be afraid to get the help you need. Like my ex, she's my ex now, but no, she, uh,

She pushed me to go and do therapy. She's like, something's going on with you, and you're present, like you're here, but you're not here for our kids. Like, yes, you're going to work and you're working, you're doing all that stuff, but you're not present with them. You're not going around playing all the time like you should. And so she pushed me to go do therapy, and that's probably been the biggest thing.

So when we ended up splitting, I was still in therapy. And that was probably like the biggest lifesaver because splitting with the mother of your kids is, or the father of your kids or whatever the situation is, it's hard to begin with without kids. And then throwing them into the mix, it makes it so much harder. And I know I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't have the therapy to help because

We split and like the very next day my therapist had a like an emergency session and she got me right and she's worked with me from doing the outages at the nuclear power plant and working with working six days, 12 hour days. She's worked with that schedule and still got me and I've stayed with it. It's like the biggest thing is don't be afraid to like reach out. Like if you feel like you're suicidal,

Like I was to the point where I was about to hang myself. Like I had everything ready to go and someone I reached out to had gotten back to me. And that's like the biggest thing right there was huge lifesaver. Like looking back now, like they saved my life because it was

that phone call and they were able to talk me off that ledge. And then I was able to do my therapy like the very next day. Cause I was all the same day that everything happened and having her talk me off the ledge and saying like, Hey, like you recognized what you were going to do as a permanent solution to a temporary problem and temporary hurt. Like you'll heal. Just got to do the work.

So that's the big thing is if you're feeling like that or, you know, you're going through anything, even if you feel like you're just like an angry person, it could be bipolar. It could be other things, underlying issues. I thought I was just an angry kid. It turns out it's bipolar that was causing all these like angry outbursts and things like that. So just reach out.

Brandon, I appreciate you for coming on the show today, man. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, hopefully this was a helpful conversation for you and it seems like you're able to get a lot off your chest and, you know, I really appreciate you trusting me with your story today and sitting down to talk about it. I appreciate you having me. Let me get the story out. Yeah, of course, man. And, you know, keep in touch and you'll definitely inspire some people with this episode. I hope so. That's what I said before. Like I said to my dad, I'm like, you know, hopefully...

people were there to help me. Hopefully I can return the favor and do some good and help someone else that needs it. Love it. Thank you, man. Yeah, thanks.