Armchair Anonymous: First Responder II

8:01Dax Shepard:So right away, we open up the big garage door. I raced back to the truck to get some tools to be able to lift this vehicle off of the person. By this time, another fire truck is pulled up with four more firefighters in it. The ambulance supervisor pulled up. They're in like an SUV. So it's like a single paramedic. So I go to the truck, I get the tools. And by the time I get back and down the driveway, which is only like a regular residential driveway, they've already grabbed this vehicle manually by the bumper and lifted this vehicle off the station and dragged the person out from underneath. God.

8:35Monica Padman:Calm down. We're only just getting started in the story.

8:39Dax Shepard:Only you get to get excited. Once we get this person out and onto the driveway, you can already see this guy's in bad condition. He's basically blue and purple from the chest up. His arm was kind of across his chest and the vehicle had his arm pinned. So he wasn't able to breathe at all. And he had no pulse.

9:01Monica Padman:Oh my gosh. Really quick, do you know at that moment from the time the call was made to your arrival, how much time has gone by?

9:08Dax Shepard:Maybe five or six minutes.

9:10Monica Padman:Oh, OK. OK. OK.

9:10Dax Shepard:Yeah, it was quick. So, yeah, he is blue and purple, no pulse. The paramedic supervisor, he says, start CPR right away. So we started. I open up the medical kits, get the AED hooked up. They start doing compressions and rescue breaths. Two minutes goes by. Another ambulance pulls up. They have two paramedics in the back and a stretcher and everything. they come out another minute goes by and we get a pulse back but it's still in really really bad

9:39Monica Padman:condition can i ask you when you're going through that process how long is your window of hope when do you start getting discouraged like at what point or is it variable yeah it's a bit variable

9:51Dax Shepard:like it depends on the kind of heart rhythm and stuff so if we have like zero heart rhythm you're going for like 30 40 minutes and you're kind of hoping that something changes in that time Then there's different heart rhythms that you are able to shock. And every time you shock, then there's like a little bit more hope.

10:05Monica Padman:So two minutes in, you're still pretty optimistic, I'm guessing. Yeah. One cycle of CPR is two minutes. Oh, OK. OK. God, I'd be terrible at this. Two minutes in, I'd be like, fuck, I don't think this guy's. It's over. Yeah, fuck, he's a goner. I've been trying for two minutes.

10:20Dax Shepard:We get this person packaged up onto the stretcher, into the back of the ambulance, off to the hospital. They go. We're all still kind of standing there. All the paramedics are gone to the hospital. the supervisor got to the back of the ambulance so his vehicle's still at the scene which means that we have to take it back to our station they'll pick it up later so we kind of walk up to the construction workers and we're like did you hear anything at all and they're like well we kind of thought we heard like help me help me but it's halloween so we kind of thought it was a

10:48Monica Padman:prank or like maybe a decoration well a skeleton on the porch that goes help me help me or no the

10:54Dax Shepard:legs under the...

10:55Monica Padman:Sure, even if you saw that.

10:57Dax Shepard:Because sometimes they do have like witchy legs. I've seen that.

11:00Monica Padman:Ill-timed for this accident.

11:02Dax Shepard:The garage door was closed, so in their defense, they didn't see anything. So we go back to the station, and during the ride back to the hall, we're going over the whole call, and we're thinking, we did the best we could. We gave this person the best chance of survival. We were all very proud of what we did, and the quick response, and getting the pulse back. We were very proud of what we did, but whatever the outcome, We drove back to the hall, back the truck's in. Then like a couple hours later, that paramedic comes to pick up his vehicle. And we're kind of like, hey, any word on this guy? How's he doing?

11:31Dax Shepard:And he's like, well, unfortunately, the intracranial pressure was so high that even if he does survive, like he'll have major brain damage. It's not looking good.

11:40Monica Padman:So his head too, not just his arm, his head had been under a lot of pressure.

11:45Dax Shepard:It's because of all the pressure from the vehicle, like actually crushing him. And so then he wasn't getting any oxygen and shoved all the blood up into his head. So it was all just really bad.

11:55Monica Padman:And Kate, sorry, one more question. You hadn't observed around this classic car that there was like a jack out or anything?

12:01Dax Shepard:It was up on four jacks, but the jacks were very precarious. They were up on rollers, probably so he could move it around easier. Bad idea. I would not recommend doing that. Yes, yes. Okay. So the paramedic comes, tells us this bad news. I have some friends that work in the hospital that this guy went to. So I was like, I'll just message and see what they have to say. They messaged me back. They say, yeah, he went for a CT scan, came back clear, but he's still in pretty bad condition. We kind of leave it at that. Four or five days later, he walks up to the hall and gives us the thank you card and some treats.

12:31Dax Shepard:Wow. Oh my God. So he was fine? Fine as you could be. He was able to walk. So there was some pretty good closure. And another crazy part about this story is that when he works on his vehicles, I guess he puts his phone up on the windowsill about eight feet away. and that's how he was able to call 911. He used Siri. Oh my God. And that's why all the information was so vague because they could barely hear him because A, he was under a car and B, his phone was eight feet away. And his wife was inside the house and didn't hear anything.

13:03Monica Padman:God, it makes me want to enact Siri, but I don't want Siri to be able to listen to me.

13:07Dax Shepard:Put it on.

13:07Monica Padman:Maybe I'll just enact it when I work on shit.

13:09Dax Shepard:Okay, yeah. Oh, wow, that's wild. Smart thinking. All right.

13:14Monica Padman:Now I got a couple of personal questions because you drive the engine. Have you blasted through anyone's front end? Every time I'm watching them negotiate here in LA intersections, it's like, it generally goes well, but I'm also like, I'm sure it doesn't always go well.

13:28Dax Shepard:I have never gone in an accident or had to like move anybody aside or anything like that. Usually people are pretty good.

13:34Monica Padman:Okay. That's good. Okay. Have you ever seen them respond in New York? That's about the most exciting thing you can see because they got no choice. They just blow through cabs. They do all kinds of stuff.

13:44Dax Shepard:Oh, yeah. Once in a while, we'll throw that up on the TV, just on YouTube. It's pretty entertaining to watch.

13:50Monica Padman:Yeah, I was there once I was like 17 with my buddy Kenny. We watched four or five arrive. You know, people are double parked. Tough shit. They got no time in New York City.

13:58Dax Shepard:It's an emergency. We got to get through.

14:00Monica Padman:That's right.

14:01Dax Shepard:Exactly.

14:01Monica Padman:Okay. Last question. Have you appeared in any calendars? I feel like you really must have. I sure have.

14:06Dax Shepard:Yes! Of course you have. I know it. You belong in a calendar.

14:13Monica Padman:Thank you. It was last year's calendar. Did we go shirtless with the suspenders over? I went shirtless, suspenders down. Oh! Very provocative. Right on the edge. I was on the cover, too.

14:27Dax Shepard:Oh!

14:28Monica Padman:You son of a bitch. I'm so jealous. Are you a listener?

14:31Dax Shepard:Did someone tell you to write it? I am a listener but not as much as my wife. My wife listens to you guys all the time. She was the one who actually saw the prompt and wrote in. And I was hoping that she'd be able to come in and say hello to you too. Yes, we would love that. One more thing before she comes in. Dax, I have to tell you that I probably watch your Hot Ones episode every six months. Just for the part where you get the one math question wrong and then you're just like, it gets me every time. It's so funny.

15:03Monica Padman:My two primary identity pieces are I'm a good driver and I'm good at fast math. So yeah, like I lost half my identity in that moment. It was incredible. I love that. It was like if you looked in the mirror and you had no mustache, all of a sudden you'd be like, what the? Yeah. Devastated. Well, lovely meeting you, Chris. And we'd love to meet your wife.

15:20Dax Shepard:And thank you for your job.

15:22Monica Padman:Yeah. Thank you. He's a stud. Nice back muscles. Yeah, he's so hot.

15:26Dax Shepard:Really hot. Oh, a baby. Hi, friend. Hello. Look at this little baby.

15:31Monica Padman:Yeah, tell us about this little person that's here.

15:34Dax Shepard:Oh, this is our son. He's five months old. And I think he just had an evacuation of his own. Unexpected people.

15:42Monica Padman:Unauthorized. I bet no one greenlit that.

15:43Dax Shepard:He wants to write in. Yes, he has a story he wants to tell. I thought you might like to see the calendar picture. Yes.

15:50Monica Padman:Yes.

15:51Dax Shepard:Oh, my. Get it?

15:53Monica Padman:Oh, my gosh. This is so erotic.

15:58Dax Shepard:Someone needs to send me this calendar.

16:00Monica Padman:Yeah, this is top-notch stuff.

16:02Dax Shepard:I thought Monica would like it, but I knew. Well, I asked him.

16:06Monica Padman:I'm like, this guy has to have been on a calendar. And sure enough, front page.

16:10Dax Shepard:It's all in the mustache. I just wanted to say hi. I love you guys so much. You got me through a long pregnancy and having a fresh baby. And we just love your storytelling. It's so nice to talk to you.

16:21Monica Padman:Yes, right back at you. So nice to meet the whole family. Yeah, what a lovely, lovely little unit you guys have.

16:26Dax Shepard:Thank you so much.

16:27Monica Padman:I feel very encouraged by this whole thing. Yeah, everyone's gorgeous as hell. Even the little guy. That's very good.

16:34Dax Shepard:Thanks, guys. Have a good day. Bye. All right, take care. They're so beautiful. She looked like Elle Fanning.

16:40Monica Padman:Uh-huh. And he just looked. She was really hot. He looked just really, really hot. He looked like the shirtless for the listener. You got to picture Hugh Jackman in Wolverine. I mean, it's that caliber of physique.

16:52Dax Shepard:The stereotype of hot firemen is just real.

16:55Monica Padman:It's almost like they must only hire. I know. And they haven't gotten sued yet. Guys aren't going to sue over that. That's not even going to occur to them.

17:02Dax Shepard:Well, they just tell them, like, you weren't fast enough. They lie.

17:06Monica Padman:Yeah, yeah, of course. But you should be able to look at the group and go, like, well, I think something else is going on. Everyone's a 10, and I'm not. And I didn't get hired, and they're saying it's because I can't wind the hose well. Or that I don't have enough hose. No, we said you don't have enough hose. Not that you can't wind the hose.

17:39Monica Padman:We just interviewed a firefighter that, honest to God, we were sweating. He was so attractive. Oh, man.

17:44Dax Shepard:So hot. Is he single? No. Beautiful wife. He has a beautiful wife and a beautiful child.

17:48Monica Padman:Beautiful little baby. He was actually on the front page of the calendar this year.

17:52Dax Shepard:Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

17:55Monica Padman:Okay. Anyways, enough about him, Kendall. How are you?

17:58Dax Shepard:I'm great. How are you guys?

18:00Monica Padman:Wonderful. Where are you?

18:01Dax Shepard:I am in southeastern PA.

18:03Monica Padman:That's Pennsylvania?

18:04Dax Shepard:Yes, Pennsylvania. That's how you talk about it. You're like, I'm from the PA.

18:08Monica Padman:And you're close to what, Maryland? How far away is Maryland?

18:10Dax Shepard:Maryland's probably an hour and a half, probably like closer to Philly. We're like an hour away from Philly.

18:15Monica Padman:Okay, great. Do you go into the city?

18:17Dax Shepard:Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

18:18Monica Padman:What type of first responder are you?

18:20Dax Shepard:Okay, so I am a volunteer firefighter as well as an EMT.

18:24Monica Padman:You don't have a mustache. I couldn't guess that because you didn't have the mustache.

18:28Dax Shepard:I love that you're a volunteer firefighter and an EMT. Thank you.

18:31Monica Padman:So you have the light that you can at some point put on your dash and get going?

18:36Dax Shepard:Yeah, a blue light.

18:36Monica Padman:And have you ever abused that?

18:38Dax Shepard:We have a strict rule not to, although I've definitely thought about it. Sure. Especially when people are driving slow in front of you. I got to get places, you know? I can tell you're a rule follower, though. Thank you.

18:49Monica Padman:You could not trust me with one of those blue lights. That's why you're not. We know. We know, yeah. No one's letting you.

18:53Dax Shepard:It's a lot of power to have.

18:55Monica Padman:Yes. Oh, my God. God, I'm doing bad enough without a blue light.

18:58Dax Shepard:It comes with great responsibility and you're not prepared for that.

19:01Monica Padman:And have you been in southeastern Pennsylvania the whole ride or did you relocate there?

19:05Dax Shepard:I've been here the whole time.

19:06Monica Padman:It was mom or dad a firefighter?

19:08Dax Shepard:No, but actually my older brother is and I have a twin sister and she is also a firefighter EMT. What? That's so cool. Fraternal twin?

19:17Monica Padman:You would have said identical, right?

19:18Dax Shepard:Identical. Wow. I love that. And you have the same profession.

19:22Monica Padman:Did you hear our twins episode by chance?

19:24Dax Shepard:The expert, yes.

19:25Monica Padman:She's studied twins her whole career. Yeah, she was interesting.

19:28Dax Shepard:Yeah.

19:28Monica Padman:What's the freakiest moment? You got itchy. Your sister was getting poison ivy a thousand miles away. Anything like that?

19:35Dax Shepard:I don't think we've had that, but she works at a bar too. She's a bartender. And every time I come in, it's almost like I'm a celebrity. People are like whispering to each other, like, she looks like the bartender. That's fun. That's kind of what we get a lot. A local celebrity vibe.

19:51Monica Padman:I would feel a little robbed if I hadn't had the like, she cut her leg on vacation. I felt it.

19:55Dax Shepard:But we don't even know if it's real. Maybe we should do an experiment and see if it's real. Okay, yeah.

20:01Monica Padman:There's got to be double blind. We'll torture her and then... Yeah, bring her our way. Monica will smack her. Okay, Kendall, tell us your crazy first response story.

20:09Dax Shepard:This story takes place about three years ago. I had been a firefighter for about four years at this point and an EMT for about three. So I kind of know what I'm doing, but still a little new at things. So this story takes place in rural Pennsylvania, where I'm from. It happened on a Friday night in the wintertime.

20:27Monica Padman:And you guys have shady winters, right? You get the eerie effect?

20:29Dax Shepard:Yeah, it was definitely really cold and not a nice night for everybody involved. So around 7 p.m., we get dispatched from the fire company for what we call a wires down call. It's going to be anything involving a power line. So think power lines on the road, low hanging wires, anything like that. And they dispatch the fire company first so we can mitigate the hazards before the electric company can get there. So sometimes it's as simple as like putting up caution tape and leaving. Sometimes we have to sit there for a while and wait for the electric company to get there.

21:00Monica Padman:Sometimes I'd imagine a fire is already in progress, right? Because they cause a lot of fires.

21:04Dax Shepard:Yeah. So sometimes we get dispatched to maybe like a brush fire. This dispatch comes out and full disclosure, most of these calls are pretty boring. It's not our favorite dispatch. It's kind of like, okay, run of the mill. We're not doing a lot. We get to the station. I get on the truck and then we make our way to the scene. On our way to the call, the only other information we get from dispatch is that there's low-hanging wires over a roadway. We continue into the scene, and what we see is two telephone wires that had been sheared off at the bottom, and then they're now suspended over the roadway.

21:35Dax Shepard:So the wires are kind of holding the telephone poles above the roadway. Okay. So it's a little bit more interesting than what I was expecting.

21:44Monica Padman:Yeah, you must wonder immediately how did these telephone poles break.

21:46Dax Shepard:Yeah, unless like someone's running around with chainsaws cutting out telephone poles. I'm really assuming that this is a vehicle accident because nothing else is going to cause that. So we get out of the truck, we start investigating. And to give a little bit more of the lay of the land of what I'm seeing, the road continues about 100 yards straight and then turns into a Y intersection. In the split of the V of the Y is a cornfield. And then 100 yards past that is a tree line. We're walking down the road and there's nothing else wrong. There's no debris. There's no tire tracks, no skin marks, no nothing.

22:20Dax Shepard:So I'm very confused. I have no idea what happened. Maybe they flood the scene. We don't know. So we continue walking and about a quarter mile down the road to the right, I see red and blue flashing lights. So my mind's like, okay, police officers down there. Something must have happened down there. Maybe the car is down there. And as we're kind of walking towards them, a group of people is now walking towards us. And I'm able to kind of recognize that it's a police officer. And then there's a young man and a young woman. And the young woman is holding a towel to her head. My brain kind of switched from firefighter mode to EMT mode because now we have a patient.

22:56Dax Shepard:I approach the young woman. I'm kind of giving her a glance over. Don't see anything else wrong with her other than the fact that she's holding a towel to her head. She's walking. She's talking. She has a little bit of blood on her face, but overall looks okay. So we walk her over to the bumper of one of our trucks. At this point, there's no ambulance on scene or anything. And I'm basically the only EMT on scene. So I'm really kind of in charge of this. We sit her down. The first thing I want to look at is the wound on her head. So I was like, do you mind removing the towel so I can see the extent of your injuries?

23:28Dax Shepard:So she peels back the towel that she's holding. And when she does that, she peels back about a palm-sized portion of her scalp as well.

23:37Monica Padman:Oh, okay. Getting somewhere. Oh, boy. Cool.

23:40Dax Shepard:So now instead of this boring call that I'm thinking I'm going to be on, I'm now staring at her skull.

23:46Monica Padman:But not her brain. Kind of comforted it that we're not seeing brain.

23:50Dax Shepard:We're not seeing brain. But a few thoughts were running through my mind at this point. The first was like, oh shit, that's her skull. Just because I have never seen anything like this at this point. The second thought was fleeting, but it was like, this is kind of cool. It's not cool that she's hurt, but the injury is kind of interesting. And then the third thought was, I'm the only EMT on the call. this is my problem now.

24:11Monica Padman:Can I tell you my thought? And you can be really mad at me and everyone can scold me, but I'm immediately thinking she was blowing the guy and they got in an accident. She hit the top of her head on the steering wheel and that's why it ripped.

24:22Dax Shepard:That is not what happened, but it is a good guess.

24:24Monica Padman:Okay.

24:25Dax Shepard:So I calmly told her maybe we should put the towel back on her head because at this point she doesn't know that that's her injury. I had to make the game time decision. Am I going to tell her that her scalp's missing? That's probably a bad idea because she's probably going to freak out. So we have some medical supplies on the truck. I started wrapping her head, kind of keeping the wound clean, keeping her scalp in place until the ambulance could get there. Shortly after the ambulance arrived and we were able to walk her over and get her into the ambulance. The EMS providers at that point take over patient care.

24:57Dax Shepard:But as we're in the ambulance, the young man that was with them comes in. He sits down. He has no injuries. What we find out is that young man was driving, was drinking, driving way too fast in his truck. I think trying to impress his girlfriend lost control of his truck and slammed into both telephone poles. And the reason there was no other debris or skin marks or anything is because he just kept going. He kept going straight through the split of the Y intersection. He went straight through the cornfield and into the tree line. Oh, wow. Also, what we didn't know and what he didn't know was directly past the tree line was a 60-foot drop into a ravine.

25:38Dax Shepard:Oh my God.

25:39Monica Padman:Lord, it was like a cartoon. Telephone poles, trees.

25:42Dax Shepard:Because it was also dark outside, it must have been very disoriented to run into the forest and now you're falling 60 feet. Yes. After the call was over, we actually went over and looked at the truck. The truck was standing straight on its grill. Its grill was smashing almost to the cab. They were able to self-extricate out of their truck. We assumed that the wound on her head was because her head hit the windshield and it kind of scalped her.

26:08Dax Shepard:But they were both able to climb out of the vehicle, climb up the ravine somehow, get out of that ditch, and then walk the quarter mile down the road to the first house that they found.

26:19Monica Padman:What's the saying? My mom always says that God loves drunks and somethings. Like the kind of stuff some drunks survive is really miraculous.

26:27Dax Shepard:He had no injuries? He had no injuries. What? Yeah. Oh, my God.

26:33Monica Padman:That feels impossible. I got to buy that brand truck. I mean, my.

26:38Dax Shepard:He was upset about what happened, but yeah, he had no injuries. She went to the hospital and got staples in her head, but other than that, she was fine.

26:47Monica Padman:Wow. I want to know if they kept dating. I mean, I hope for her that was a wake-up call.

26:52Dax Shepard:I hope so, too. Yeah, but people make mistakes.

26:56Monica Padman:That's a pretty sizable mistake. Yeah, but people make sizable mistakes.

27:00Dax Shepard:I mean, the fact that he didn't stop or like try to stop, I don't really know how that happened. Yeah.

27:05Monica Padman:Well, he's like, I got to get out of here. I got to get home. I got to not get in trouble for this. I'm drunk. I got to get to. I'm drunk and I got to get off the road.

27:12Dax Shepard:They were coming from McDonald's. I do know that.

27:14Monica Padman:Oh, so they were a little drunk and they got hungry.

27:16Dax Shepard:Of course, that happens.

27:17Monica Padman:Now, do you live in a small enough town that you're liable to bump into these people?

27:21Dax Shepard:Yeah, I didn't know them, but some other members were aware of who they were. Oh, wow.

27:27Monica Padman:Yeah, I'm thinking if like anything like this had happened to me in my hometown, like everyone knows everybody. They would have been like, oh, Dax did this.

27:35Dax Shepard:There's definitely been calls where I've known the people involved. Makes it interesting. Yeah.

27:40Monica Padman:Is it harder to do the job when you know the people?

27:43Dax Shepard:I think so. You don't get to dissociate from what's going on. There's a lot of emotions involved.

27:48Monica Padman:I bet. This is back to that thing I've been more and more fascinated by lately is how anonymous LA is versus how not anonymous most towns are. And you just get really used to, for me, 31 years of no one would ever know if I crash something.

28:02Dax Shepard:Well, it depends. It's like it's anonymous if you're not a celebrity. If you're a celebrity, you can't do anything without getting.

28:09Monica Padman:The odds of a first responder arriving and knowing any one of us is zero virtually. That's kind of what I'm saying. Like if we were to have any kind of episode, the people that arrive would be total strangers. But not in most towns in America. You're going to probably have gone to high school with one of the people.

28:23Dax Shepard:That has happened.

28:24Monica Padman:Well, I'm so grateful that you're into this.

28:27Dax Shepard:Thank you. Yeah.

28:28Monica Padman:We need people who are like, ooh, scalp. This is interesting. That's the vibe you need.

28:32Dax Shepard:You can't be like, oh, fuck. Exactly. It was a very interesting call for sure.

28:36Monica Padman:Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, thanks for telling us that, Kendall.

28:39Dax Shepard:Of course. Can I give a quick shout out? Yes, of course. My sister would have been really mad if I didn't mention her. So my twin sister, Jordan, she wanted to say hi. She wished she could have been here.

28:49Monica Padman:She's an armchair as well.

28:50Dax Shepard:Yes. During our weekly debriefs, we talk about armchair a lot. So cute. I love that you're a twin. I'm grateful for that, too. Yeah, yeah.

29:00Monica Padman:Let's add it to the gratitude list.

29:01Dax Shepard:And you guys should do a twin episode for Armchair Adonimus. Twin prompts. Oh, that's a great idea.

29:07Monica Padman:It is a good idea. Adding it to the list. Oh, well, lovely meeting you in. Shout out to your sister. And keep doing what you do, please.

29:14Dax Shepard:It was great meeting you guys. All right. Take care.

29:18Monica Padman:Hey, afternoon, folks.

29:19Dax Shepard:Hi.

29:20Monica Padman:We're going by Chuck. Yes, we are. How did we come to this name as a nom de plur? Is that it? Nom de plur? Nam Deplure.

29:27Dax Shepard:Came about from my brother's wedding. There were a bunch of people in the wedding party with my same name. And so everybody got assigned a nickname. Oh, I like that.

29:35Monica Padman:And it stuck. Chuck stuck.

29:37Dax Shepard:Chuck stuck. I was strongly discouraged by my girlfriend from using this as a moniker on here. Oh, she was. No, it's great.

29:44Monica Padman:What was her issue with it?

29:45Dax Shepard:I use it for a lot of things. Oh, she's just like, now everyone knows.

29:49Monica Padman:Have you seen Dave? Do you watch that show Dave by chance? I don't. There's a whole episode where they start calling each other Chuck. They both go by Chuck. Okay, so Chuck, can you tell us what part of the world you're in? I live in Wisconsin. Oh, okay.

30:01Dax Shepard:The neighbor that I heard you slander Wisconsin in a previous episode, but I'm willing to move past. Wait, what did I say? I only remember that you were joking with a Minnesotan and that it was just about us being the intermediary neighbor. I just don't understand why we're not targeting Illinois. They're the obvious enemy. We can't. Rob is here.

30:20Monica Padman:I think the joke I made. Well, I don't even think it was burning Wisconsin as much as making fun of Michigan. Like if I was in Wisconsin, I'd be like, what are you talking about? The UP is yours. That is connected to Wisconsin. And it's not even connected to Michigan. That's fair. Yeah. You guys have a real grievance on your hand. I think it doesn't make geographical sense. Okay. So are you in a rural area or a city area? I live in a city area now. Okay. And you're a firefighter? EMT. Okay. The mustache.

30:45Dax Shepard:He thought you were a firefighter because he has a stereotype about mustaches.

30:49Monica Padman:Well, military. Oh, okay. Okay. That works. You were a medic in the military? I was. Amazing. And now you're an EMT.

30:56Dax Shepard:No longer. So I was a medic in the military, was an EMT for a little while after that, tried the police officer thing as well. And now I do absolutely nothing first responder oriented.

31:04Monica Padman:Okay. Got out of the game. Okay. You saw enough action in your tenure? You can say that. Yeah. Okay. So hit us with your crazy story.

31:13Dax Shepard:This is during my time as an EMT. EMTs generally were part of the first responder wheelhouse. One of the other things that we do is inter-facility transfers. So moving somebody from one hospital to another, just making sure that patients get the right care that they need. So fairly early on in my career, I was working with a new partner that day and get a call to just do a normal inner facility transfer for a neuro patient, which is fantastic because usually in this person's case, they're completely knocked out, sometimes completely unresponsive. Right. And so it's a nice, quiet drive to wherever you're going.

31:45Dax Shepard:Yeah.

31:45Monica Padman:And what is that transfer generally? Like someone's come in with a neurological injury or they were already admitted and something goes wrong and they need to go to a place with more tools?

31:54Dax Shepard:Yeah, I mean, it can completely depend for this individual. I think they were in home care and it just got to be too much. I think the person taking care of them didn't have mental, physical, emotional or financial means to continue caring for this person. So they had to go in. They got stabilized. And then we were just moving them to somewhere that can provide better, prolonged care for their needs.

32:27So arrive, you get basically a very brief kind of informational download from the attending

32:33Dax Shepard:nurses and they kind of let you know what you need to know for the brief transfer. So, you know, neuropatient, this guy's completely out and is not aware of anything that's going on around him. A and O times zero is what we would call it. And let us know that, hey, he's got a couple of bed sores on him. So just be careful when you're moving and be gentle, that sort of thing. He's not going to feel any of it, but you also don't want to aggravate any injuries. So walk into the room and this is a much bigger person than we were expecting. They left this part out. Yes. And typically you'll send a second ambulance to help with the lift in a situation like this, but we have a nursing staff there.

33:04Dax Shepard:They're going to help us move them. Totally cool, which is also probably why we didn't get the second ambulance.

33:08Monica Padman:And if you had to ballpark their weight, what are we talking, do you think? I'm thinking 400 plus.

33:13Dax Shepard:Okay. We're able to get them onto our cot and get them out to our ambulance, load them in, and we start driving down the road. It's probably about a half hour transport. And about five minutes in, a little bit of a smell starts coming up. And it makes sense. They're completely out, so a little bit of incontinence with this individual. I don't really get squeamish around bodily fluids. Everybody kind of has their one thing. That's not mine.

33:34Monica Padman:Oh, good. What a blessing in that role. Very lucky.

33:36Dax Shepard:Get about 10 to 15 more minutes in and I can just hear my partner up front kind of crack his window and just hear a little bit of like sniffling. This is one of his triggers.

33:44Monica Padman:I understand incontinence to just mean urine. Or does it include shitting yourself as well?

33:49Dax Shepard:I think it does. Honestly, it's been a while since I've been in an EMT. So maybe I'm misusing. No, no, no.

33:54Monica Padman:You're probably right. I guess I always associate it with Piddle. Yeah. OK, so we think he's had an unauthorized evacuation.

33:59Dax Shepard:100 percent and has continued to have them. Oh, by the time that we arrive, I mean, it is a very overpowering stench. Oh my God. We're able to unload them and it's winter. So we have them bundled up pretty tight. So I'm sure a lot of that smell was probably staying sealed in there. Gotcha. But we're able to get them in, get them into the next facility and get ready to slide them over. And it's me, my partner, and just these two tiny old ladies.

34:24Monica Padman:Oh, not the backup you needed.

34:26Dax Shepard:So fortunately, they have a little mat that we can use and kind of helps mitigate this. There's a sliding maneuver, all that. So able to slide them onto a bed, this goes super smooth. And this is our last call of the day. It's a 16-hour shift. We're like, this is cake. This is amazing. And as we're getting kind of the paperwork signed, getting ready to clear out, they go, hey, we're really sorry to do this, but we're really short today. It's just us and we have to change his dressings. Would you guys mind helping us roll him? Normally, not something that we're allowed to do. But my partner and I were like, there's no way that you're going to be able to do this.

34:55Dax Shepard:And it's our last call. So we agree. And somehow I end up on the push side of this individual's legs.

35:00Monica Padman:Oh, my God.

35:01Dax Shepard:I have a knot in my stomach. Get him rolled up. And sure enough, there's an ulcer that needs to have the dressing changed. And it's right around his tailbone. And there's just folds of skin. It's not solid.

35:12Monica Padman:It's like an enormous baby has pooped themselves. With a blowout. Yeah. Yeah.

35:17Dax Shepard:Not baby poop. Maybe about the same consistency.

35:20Monica Padman:I'm picturing baby poop, yeah.

35:22Dax Shepard:Get him rolled. They start unpacking this ulcer. And like I said, we get a minimal brief when we receive them. So we didn't know how bad this ulcer was. It is significant.

35:31Monica Padman:Now we have a new smell on the scene, too.

35:34Dax Shepard:Yes, new smell, new visuals, new sensations.

35:37Monica Padman:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

35:39Dax Shepard:As we're going to kind of reposition him a little bit, I put my hand on his back and go to push, and it slips. And part of my hand goes into this person's second butthole. Oh! What are you... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, the ulcer is a butthole, too? It was bad enough that it ate through bone into his colon. No! Oh! And that is where the majority of the smell was coming from.

36:05Monica Padman:Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck.

36:07Dax Shepard:He's so old. Oh, my God. Did you get aroused?

36:10Monica Padman:Oh, no. All right, you've seen and done everything, but do you not at that point go, oh!

36:16Dax Shepard:My partner just locks eyes with me, and it's like I could read his mind, and he's just like, do not throw up. Yeah. The best way I could describe it is there was a texture. No! Okay, sure, sure, sure. Was it jelly? It was a texture. Like, I don't have better words to describe it. There's a texture here, but I don't know what it is. Fortunately, I was kind of pulling back at the time. I don't go terribly deep, but deep enough where this is not the best thing in the world. I'm just dry heaving as we're continuing to hold this person while they're changing the dressing. God bless this woman who is packing this dressing because I don't think I've ever seen anybody do it that fast.

36:52Dax Shepard:High quality, did a great job, but she was like, this guy is fighting for his life over here next to me and just starts feeding gauze into it, cleaning it up.

36:59Monica Padman:This is where their age became an asset. They've probably seen this a couple times.

37:02Dax Shepard:I'm sure that there is a reason that she wasn't on the push side of the legs. Right. Unflappable, though. Yeah. Wow, wow. Absolutely. Fortunately, I was able to hold it together. I'm sure it had something to do with my diet of caffeine and nicotine for the last 16 hours, so I didn't end up voiding my stomach until after we had left. Oh, boy.

37:22Monica Padman:Oh, boy, man. Man. Do you go do a surgeon's scrub on your hand and arm?

37:27Dax Shepard:Thorough decon. Snapped the gloves off immediately. And this was during a period of time where I had a couple of buddies who were laid off. And so they were texting me about, hey, what's going on in your life? Tell me about the outside world. I've watched too much Netflix and done too many job interviews. So I would keep them updated. Yeah, yeah. Kind of like on a day-to-day basis. And the only thing that I could think to send them that day was Joe Dirt. The I got the poo on me scene.

37:51Monica Padman:Oh, my. Oh, God.

37:53Dax Shepard:It's so gnarly.

37:54Monica Padman:I'm so blown away and impressed that folks. I think most people just look at the scenario and go like, I can't. And I don't know what to do.

38:01Dax Shepard:Thank God for you guys. Yeah, I'm super impressed with people who are still part of the profession, whether military first responder or nursing staff, anything in between. To make a career out of that, they're just amazing folks.

38:12Monica Padman:Do you have any curiosity? Like, are you tempted in three months to call the nurses and say, like, is this dude still alive? Is there any improvement in this scenario?

38:20Dax Shepard:I generally was never somebody to do any sort of patient follow-up, just the number of contacts that you get. And this sounds a little crass, but like trying to keep your investment low.

38:29Monica Padman:Yes. I think you probably have to really monitor your reserves. And compartmentalize. Well, even the adrenaline fatigue, you probably would feel. One exciting thing after another for 16 hours.

38:41Dax Shepard:Absolutely. So I got to admit, I only started listening to you guys like a week or two ago. My girlfriend finally wore me down and got me to listen to an episode. And it's been like crack since then it was amazing oh thank you i've been absolutely binging it and she's been like an arm cherry since day one when she heard i was doing this she sat me down and showed me that she had

38:58Monica Padman:listened to every episode my apologies to be the love one of an arm cherry is you know it's its own

39:04Dax Shepard:experience is she around she's not she is on a family vacation but it would mean the world to me if you guys be able to do like a shout out to her yeah what's her name her name's daniella

39:14Monica Padman:shout out daniela thank you for turning chuck i know you don't love the moniker but uh we appreciate you sending him our way thanks for being an arm cherry thank you for doing that guys lovely meeting you and thanks for all the stuff you've done jesus likewise guys i really appreciate it thank you so much all right take care do you think they have to screen emts for

39:36Dax Shepard:pika i do not but continue because after the one with the woman with the twin i was like if she had pika she might want to eat that flesh.

39:45Monica Padman:The scalp?

39:46Dax Shepard:Yeah the piece that came off she might want to eat it.

39:48Monica Padman:I think you want to eat it. I don't. Which is why you thought of it. No I don't. It's like when I said I wonder if anyone drives over these curbs and exits this parking garage without paying.

39:58Dax Shepard:If you wanted to do everything you said what if that would be very bad and scaley. No this is just I think I'm really scared of pika.

40:07Monica Padman:Yeah yeah yeah.

40:12Monica Padman:my guess is that nicole's her childhood best friend so she's throwing her under the bus no

40:17Dax Shepard:she's honoring her by using her name as a code name hi nicole hello okay i made a really out

40:25Monica Padman:there guess but my guess is that nicole's one of your childhood friends kind of okay no that's a no i didn't get it that's okay i take a lot of guesses okay it's a good guess how did we pick Nicole?

40:34Dax Shepard:It's my middle name. Oh, okay.

40:37Monica Padman:That's probably a smarter guess. Where are you?

40:39Dax Shepard:The Midwest.

40:40Monica Padman:Oh, good for you. So you are or were a first responder?

40:44Dax Shepard:I was a paramedic working for an air medical service. Oh, on the chopper? Yes. Wow.

40:52Monica Padman:Okay.

40:53Dax Shepard:That's high state.

40:54Monica Padman:Did you have any fear of flying before you've signed up for this?

40:57Dax Shepard:Terrified. Still terrified.

40:59Monica Padman:Really? And And helicopter is not the safest mode of air travel, we can acknowledge.

41:03Dax Shepard:It's terrible. Yeah, yeah.

41:04Monica Padman:It doesn't have the best track rate.

41:06Dax Shepard:People are always doing things that contradict them.

41:09Monica Padman:Well, we find ways to submersion therapy ourselves, I think.

41:12Dax Shepard:The aircraft that I flew on was very small, and it was held together by what they called the Jesus piece. Oh, God. Okay. You don't want to call it that.

41:21Monica Padman:That's comforting. Jesus take the stick. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so would I be inclined to think that you're dealing with generally the most severe and traumatic issues that require airlift to a very qualified hospital?

41:38Dax Shepard:For the most part.

41:39Monica Padman:Like no one's going in that thing with a broken arm, right?

41:41Dax Shepard:Sometimes I pay memberships. Oh, okay.

41:45Monica Padman:Shit, I don't want this membership. No. Don't you think of all people I need it?

41:49Dax Shepard:Well, I think then you might self-fulfill.

41:51Monica Padman:Oh, I want to get what I paid for? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's a bad idea. Bad idea. So how long did you do that?

41:56Dax Shepard:I did that for five years.

41:58Monica Padman:And what was the overall experience? Obviously, you stopped doing it.

42:01Dax Shepard:My littlest kept asking me if I was going to die every day I went to work. That's a scary thing for your mom to be doing. Yeah, so I finally said, ee.

42:11Monica Padman:Did you have any harrowing flying issues?

42:14Dax Shepard:Weather was always a factor. Most of the pilots were great. Some had chips on their shoulder.

42:19Monica Padman:Were they mostly ex-military?

42:21Dax Shepard:Most of them.

42:21Monica Padman:All right, so hit us with your crazy story.

42:24Dax Shepard:Okay. When we're told about what our flights were, they don't tell us exactly what the call is until we lift. Just because they don't want us to make any rash decisions on the ground in case of weather, any other factor.

42:36Monica Padman:That's really smart. I love how many things they think through.

42:39Dax Shepard:Yes. So we lift and we head towards the coordinates and they tell us that it's a penis amputation.

42:46Monica Padman:Oh, what a blessing.

42:48Dax Shepard:Wait, that's a sim because earlier Dax said we should do a prompt about severed. penis and i didn't even respond yeah she does so stupid that would never happen okay okay so you

43:00Monica Padman:just made my day yeah yeah yeah you made 2026 we're early but so far yeah this is great we're

43:07Dax Shepard:like penis amputation so it's either it is or it's bullshit oh okay right we land we meet the

43:14Monica Padman:ambulance where do you land are you in a rural area we're in timbuktu we are where the hood elves

43:20Dax Shepard:meet the chickens okay okay we open the ambulance doors and there he lays in the fetal position oh boy and he is cut from top to taint no and his little testicles are laying there splayed out divided in half oh my god and there's no penis is there blood everywhere he waited a while to call and we'll get there don't worry oh my god The best part is he kind of looked like Carrot Top. Oh, interesting. That's just a kicker in the situation. So the gentleman had placed a tourniquet on his cut ball sack. And their medical director had told them to release the tourniquet. So that is what prompted him to be laying open with his little balls hanging there.

44:10Dax Shepard:And he's alert, oriented, chill as a cucumber. What?

44:14Monica Padman:How old is he?

44:15Dax Shepard:He's not even in his 20s. No.

44:18Monica Padman:No. No. No. No. And is he on drugs? Is the penis? Does anyone have the penis?

44:24Dax Shepard:He's definitely on drugs, right? He's methed up.

44:26Monica Padman:Oh, he's methed up. Yeah.

44:28Dax Shepard:You're not chill in that circumstance?

44:30Monica Padman:Well, I was wondering, the ambulance had already given him a ton of morphine. Mm-mm.

44:33Dax Shepard:Okay.

44:34Monica Padman:They're letting the meth do the work.

44:35Dax Shepard:We load him up. On the way to the ambulance, we were trying to figure out medication dosages. And we do that by asking height. We asked him how tall he was. And he's like, well, I was 6 '2 up until a little bit ago. I lost a couple inches. Oh, was he making a joke about his penis? Yeah. Oh, my God. He's a jokester. Also, we grabbed his penis that was on ice.

44:58Monica Padman:That was my question. Where did the penis go? But we have the penis and it's on ice.

45:02Dax Shepard:It looked like so.

45:04Monica Padman:Oh, you have a water weenie. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

45:07Dax Shepard:I brought an example. We take it and it's sitting in the bottom floorboard of our aircraft.

45:13Monica Padman:This is insane. Are you just like, what is my life?

45:16Dax Shepard:This is like the ultimate call of calls. We lift, we're heading to the hospital. The aircraft is very small and his head is basically sitting in my lap. I have to check bleeding. So I'm leaning over him towards his junk, but I'm looking at the bleeding. I feel my partner grab the back of my flight suit and pull me back down to the seat. And I'm like, I need to look at his bleeding. And she's like, no, you need to sit down. And I'm like, oh, well, why? I'll tell you when we land. Oh, no. We gave him some medication called ketamine. He kind of got a little crazy eyed. My partner was like, I need you to put the crazy back in your eyes.

45:58Dax Shepard:Stop looking like that. We asked him how it happened. He told us that he was in an elevator on a shaffleding and the ceiling fell in the elevator, pinned him and ripped off his penis.

46:11Monica Padman:You said he was out in the middle of nowhere. Did you see any scaffolding with an elevator?

46:14Dax Shepard:No, he said initially it happened in Oklahoma and then he traveled home and brought his penis. Yeah. So the cut was too clean. We knew it was bogus. He said his girlfriend was outside the ambulance. His wife was at home. We initially thought it was like a Lorena Bobbitt type deal. Yeah. So we give the HEAR report. We call it a HEAR report. And anyone within a large radius, that's an ambulance or another helicopter or a fire department, whatever. They can tune in and they can hear. And so we say, we're bringing in a penis amputation. We're going to a trauma center. We land, we go in, there's a trauma surgeon, there's a urologist, there's every nurse probably in the hospital.

46:59Dax Shepard:And it's like a circus. Every EMS crew and every ambulance within probably a 50 mile radius has now shown up at the hospital and they're doing like the circle through the ER rooms.

47:11Monica Padman:Oh my God.

47:12Dax Shepard:And to the point, like the charge nurse is like, stop, this is not a sideshow. Yeah.

47:17Monica Padman:Everyone needs to grow up.

47:18Dax Shepard:The trauma surgeon's like, that's too clean of a cut. Your story is bogus. You need to tell us what you did. Oh no, no, no. This is what happened. So we leave on the way back. My partner tells me that he was pretending to have his way with me while I was leaning over him.

47:34Monica Padman:What a blessing. He was this high. I mean, You know how high you got to be that your dick is gone, your balls are splayed out, and you're like, oh, this is a 69. I mean, you're gone.

47:43Dax Shepard:Yeah, but that's also what got him in this position in the first place. But it gets better. Oh, boy. We land at our base, and the sheriff's department shows up. And they're like, hey, we found out what happened. It looked like a massacre inside of his house. He journaled while he was doing this. What? Like, doing what? Well, he wanted a fake penis. So he thought that he would take it off.

48:06Monica Padman:And that he would be given a prosthetic penis or something?

48:09Dax Shepard:Yeah. Oh, it was a whole plan. Like, I'm going to get rid of this. So they have to put a fake one on. So what he did was he inserted a bolt into the head of his penis, pulled it back with a pair of pliers. No! Cut off a section with a box knife.

48:26Monica Padman:Oh, my heavens.

48:28Dax Shepard:Chewed it up. What? it into the condom. That was what was on ice for us.

48:33Monica Padman:Was this chewed up penis in a condom?

48:35Dax Shepard:He spit it into the condom and then would reinsert the bolt, pull it back, cut off another section, and then it chewed. It was gone. Oh my

48:48Monica Padman:lord. I hate to say

48:50Dax Shepard:this is a ding ding ding because I did just talk about Pika.

48:53Monica Padman:Oh, you did. You did. You did. Wow.

48:57Dax Shepard:Oh my god. I feel like

48:59Monica Padman:bath salts was involved. I mean, there's something really.

49:04Dax Shepard:Yeah, but he journaled throughout the entire thing. This feels like the guy from Seven.

49:08Monica Padman:I mean, this is very serial killer, but thank God. Yeah, he's doing it to himself.

49:12Dax Shepard:He survived surgery. He obviously doesn't have a wee wee now and he has a tube.

49:17Monica Padman:Oh, and he didn't get that prosthetic penis he was looking for. He was always dreaming about. Yeah.

49:22Dax Shepard:Wow. That is horrifying.

49:24Monica Padman:Talk about a bottom when you're an addict. That would be the top story I'd ever heard in a meeting.

49:30Dax Shepard:Yeah. And I got my partner a golden dick trophy.

49:34Monica Padman:You were able to order that off the internet, I guess.

49:36Dax Shepard:Yeah. It was on. They have everything. They got it all. They got it all. Oh, what a story. Never heard one like it.

49:43Monica Padman:No. Won't soon hear one. I don't think so. Wow.

49:48Dax Shepard:Thank you so much for sharing that. You're welcome.

49:51Monica Padman:I mean, I want to talk to the guy. How many years ago was this?

49:53Dax Shepard:I believe it was 2016, 17.

49:56Monica Padman:Well, he's either dead or sober.

49:57Dax Shepard:That was about to say. Last I knew, he was still alive.

50:01Monica Padman:Okay.

50:02Dax Shepard:Well, thank you so much.

50:03Monica Padman:Yeah, Nicole, that was a whopper. That was a real whopper.

50:06Dax Shepard:We appreciate you calling. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it was a delight. Hope you have a great weekend. You guys too.

50:14Monica Padman:Well, she had the perfect personality to deal with that situation, right? She had like a good dose of sense of humor. That's what you need in that situation. Yeah. I'm going to go to bed cherishing my penis a little more than.

50:24Dax Shepard:You don't want to bite it or chew it up?

50:26Monica Padman:No, I'm going to keep it right where it's at and stay sober.

50:30Dax Shepard:Oh, wow.

50:31Monica Padman:A lot of things to be grateful for after hearing that story.

50:34Dax Shepard:All right. Love you. Love you.

50:39Dax Shepard:Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh. Okay, great.

50:44Monica Padman:We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions And with the help of our cherries We'll get some suggestions On the Flyer Rindish On the Flyer Rindish Enjoy