148.5 - The Gift You Don't Want: Pete (and Michelle) Tucker, Ontario Provincial Police

Today we continue our interview with Pete and Michelle Tucker. Pete was a motorcycle cop in Canada who had a catastrophic motorcycle accident that took his left leg and put him in a coma. If you haven't heard part one, it's really necessary for you to back and listen to Episode 148. This episode will pick up with the Pete in the hospital recovering from the multiple injuries and the traumatic amputation, slowly working through the system to win back his job as a cop on the street. You need to hear Pete and Michelle talking about the losses and struggles, because they are a fantastic example of a police couple who, together, survived the worst day possible.

Music is by Mini Vandals

Hey Chaplain podcast episode 148.5

Tags:

Police, Accidents, Amputation, Career, Coma, Confidence, Hospital, Humor, Injury, Loss, Medical, Memory, Motorcycles, Spouse, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Like he would make some comments. I feel like there's a he would dream that there was a plane land that landed on his legs. Like he started making a lot more reference to his legs and that they felt heavy, and he knew something was off, but he didn't understand what. And I must have told him at least 10 to 15 times. I would go through the story and say, you were hit by a bird, your motorcycle, you know, went into a guardrail. Unfortunately, you lost your leg. And then I would continue, of course, to say, but it's okay, we're gonna get you a prosthetic, you're gonna walk again. But I must I had to repeat the story over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Welcome to Hey Chaplin. My name is Jared Altic, and I'm a chaplain with the police department. The purpose of the Hey Chaplin podcast is to bring real-life stories with hard-earned wisdom to the law enforcement community. From the LAPD to Scotland Yard, and sometimes from my hometown of Kansas City, the guests on Hey Chaplain are bringing you what you need to know so that you don't have to learn everything the hard way. And as a police chaplain myself, I want you to hear something positive and encouraging. Today we continue our interview with Pete and Michelle Tucker. Pete was a motorcycle cop in Canada who had a catastrophic motorcycle accident that took his left leg and put him in a coma. If you haven't heard part one, it's really necessary for you to go back and listen to episode 148. This episode will pick up with Pete in the hospital recovering from the multiple injuries and the traumatic amputation, slowly working through the system to win back his job as a cop on the street. You need to hear Pete and Michelle talking about the losses and struggles because they are a fantastic example of a police couple who together survived the worst day possible. Here's Pete and Michelle Tucker. Right? Yeah. I mean, do they do do they actually start the day you woke up or is it sometime after?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

No. Uh what what people need to I didn't know this. What people need to know about a coma is you don't wake up and things are black and white. You wake up in a fog and uh you remember things in pieces. So for instance, if you came if you were one of my friends and you came to see me in the hospital, I might not know who you are. And then you come back and see me in a couple days and I'll go, I think I like him. I I think he's a chaplain. Uh okay, yeah, I he's he's a chaplain.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

And then a few days after that, I'll realize, oh and again, we didn't know if it was actually the coma, we didn't know if it was the brain injury, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Or the drugs. Like I was on a lot of painkillers. So right.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So he says he actually doesn't really, from what we've from what we can gather based on what he's told me he remembers, it seems that there was at least four weeks following um what he got from the coma that he's very he only remembers very small parts of it. And the coma was how long? So the coma was two weeks, and then it was probably another four weeks.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

You have a month and a half that you just lost. Well, two weeks of coma and four weeks of fog.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

I don't know what's going on. And what's interesting, I've told Michelle, is I may be off on these dates by a couple days, but basically I was at Sunnybrook Trauma Center for a month, and altogether I might remember in my head five minutes of that month. And it's just pieces of things. And then they transferred me to uh St. Catharines General Hospital for two months to be closer to my family.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

So here's my question, Pete. Did your understanding of your injuries, maybe specifically your the loss of your left leg, did that happen during the fog, or is that something that you realized after the fog?

SPEAKER_02 4:12

It happened during the fog, and it's hard to believe you don't realize your leg's gone. It's not instant like it should be. But I was in a fog, and Michelle tells me that she and my best friend James would tell me often my leg was gone. I lost it, and I'd forget.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I had to tell him over and over again, which was really tough. Um, I had to keep telling him because I could tell that he was starting to realize because he started to say things about take my boots off, or like he would make some comments. I feel like there's a he would dream that there was a plane land that landed on his legs. Like he started making a lot more reference to his legs and that they felt heavy, and he knew something was off, but he didn't understand what. And I must have told him at least 10 to 15 times. I would go through the story and say, you were hit by a bird, your motorcycle, you know, went into a guardrail, unfortunately, you lost your leg. And then I would continue, of course, to say, but it's okay, we're gonna get you a prosthetic, you're gonna walk again. But I might I had to repeat the story over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Did it upset him each time?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

It was actually not funny, but at some point I remember when I told him at one point he just looked at me and he says, Get my hat, get my gun, we're out of here.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Like I was weeping.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah. I mean, he yes, it did upset him, but almost more like it was kind of humorous because he didn't really acknowledge it. It was just, get my hat, get my gun, we're out of here.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah, not accepting this. Yeah, it got to a point where the best way I understood it in my mind, in all the painkillers I was on and the brain injury, my favorite author is Tom Clancy. So in my mind, I remember telling Michelle I was flying a fighter jet, and a chicken came through the windshield, and I've now crashed in a field, and the enemy's coming through the jungle, but the plane is on my legs. Lift up the plane so I can get up. I had it all wrong, but I had the concept perhaps the details were there, but I wasn't lining things up properly.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Right. Michelle, do you think that Pete mourned his injuries while he was still in the hospital? Did that come later?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

It definitely came later. I think initially his body was just trying to get better. It wasn't until honestly, until we had left the hospitals and we were home that life started to get really a lot tougher. Because when we were in the hospital, there was so much concentration on getting him physically healthier, I guess. Once we got home and life was supposed to be back to some kind of normalcy, which it was nowhere close at that point, that was when the psychological healing had to start. And that was definitely the toughest time. And truthfully, it probably went on for I always say now, it took us about three years before I felt like things were pretty much not back to what was before, but where I felt like, okay, you know what? Life is um and it's yeah, it's a new normal. But the first year was tough.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah. Pete is about as good humored about it now as you could possibly expect. I mean, I'm sure there have to be some people that are just uncomfortable with how comfortable Pete is. Yes, right? Absolutely. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

I think I must say though, agreeing with you and Michelle, that I'm comfortable with it, those first couple years, I was not. I was not funny, I was not me. Yeah. I was very emotional. Like now I'm quite happy with who I am, but the first while it's very difficult to process.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Although, yes and no, because we gave talks. Um, we used to give talks even after the first year. We started to do talks for the OPP. And we would get up and we would talk, and Pete would joke. So there was a part of him that was able to make jokes of it and accept it. But I think when we were at home, some of the mourning was absolutely still happening. I mean, to this day, that I mean, obviously, there is still a certain amount of sadness about certain things. But in general, yes, he's very well adjusted now. Um, and that over time there was healing that took place.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

I think Michelle had some faith when I was healing, just glimmers of my personality coming through, even though I was not all there. But one thing she tells me about, I don't remember, but she tells me is the nurses put something on my bed that I was in, and I yelled out about my leg, but they put it where my leg wasn't, and I was just kidding. I it came out in the coma that I'm making fun of the nurse for putting something on my leg, but it wasn't there. And she's like, Okay, there's there's some of his personality coming out, and then maybe it disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

The jokester in him definitely came out in the hospital. You could see at you could see parts of his personality that came out. Um, so yeah, he was always in there, but it was just it took a while for him to come back fully.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Uh, Pete, what have you lost because of the accident?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Nothing that matters. Nothing that matters. I mean, yes, my leg matters, and yes, I'd like my leg back, but it's not going to happen. I lost my leg and it changed my life a little bit, but it didn't make things worse. I still have my wife, she's great. I still have my kids, they're successful, they're great. I got back on the road with my gun and a prosthetic leg for a while before I decided to take a different job. I feel like a jerk if I say I lost anything because my life is still good. Nobody else is hurt, and I've learned to manage. Again, I'm not downplaying that I lost my leg. That's that's bad. What have you had to give up? What have you missed? I can't I can't run. Not that I ever liked running, but I physically can't run fast enough. My mechanics don't work. Yeah, because it's an it's an above, it's an above-the-knee amputation. I can walk, but I can't run. I'll be honest, I don't like working out, but I do work out because Michelle thinks that'll make me live longer and I'll recover, and it got me back on the road. I can't swim because my leg is too heavy. But I never really used to swim. But I can go in the ocean, I can go in a pool, and I can stand in the water and get a I can do those things. I just can't swim lengths anymore, but I never used to. So that's kind of why I say I didn't really lose. I can still drive. I've learned to adapt my movements to get jobs done. Like if I'm building something in the garage or I need to get up on the roof, I just do it slower. Uh when you first came home from the hospital, Pete, how much help did you need? I need a lot of help because I thought I needed help. I just I I Mish took the garbage out for a year because I thought that was too hard.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

That was actually a big adjustment. Actually, that's actually an interesting um point because when what he just said about how he thought he needed help, Pete's confidence uh was completely diminished after the accident. And he didn't believe he could do anything at the at the beginning. I mean, and in the beginning, I mean, he would ask for help to get his tea mug that was on the counter, you know, a foot and a half away. And he would ask, he would ask for help for everything, which to be honest, as a family was really tough. And for me, I did have to say to him a few times, no, you can do it yourself. And we we sort of had to, I hate to say train that back, but we really did. We had to, you know, say, no, you're capable. And eventually he did start doing things like cutting the grass again and shoveling the snow or going out with a snowblower. And, you know, things that maybe some people, I mean neighbors probably thought, why is why is Pete doing that? And part of my thing is actually, I'm a little bit of a, I don't know what the word is, but I can't say the word.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

You can't say the word.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

But I mean to to put it to put it in perspective, I was bringing weights into the hospital when he wasn't even sitting up straight because my feeling was why should your um upper body become atrophied just because you've lost your leg? You should keep, you know, we want to get you stronger. Here are some weights, start doing the work. And that was has always been my sort of push or my um feeling. So I think after the accident when he was really having a hard time, I was like, okay, no, we're gonna go to the gym, we're gonna go and go for walks. And if you don't feel like it, I'm sorry, but you have to do it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Pete, did you know years ago that you married your personal trainer and physical therapist? Well, she's actually my high school girlfriend.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

And I gotta be honest with you, I am not the reason I became independent again. I am not the reason I got my confidence back. Michelle, and sometimes annoyingly, because I was not in a good place, would drive me to do things to make me independent again. Now I do do them myself now, but I needed that kick in the pants to get going. And I think one of the things I'm proudest of that I taught myself again, I have a five-liter uh standard Mustang, 1986 Mustang. And I've had it a long time, 28 years, and my left leg is gone and it's standard, so that's my clutch. So basically, uh one day I just uh made a contraption with some zip ties so that my foot didn't fall off the clutch because it will fall off and I don't know. And I just left the house in the car, and my wife and one of my sons was looking outside and saw me drive away. And basically I learned to feel the clutch in my groin instead of in my foot. I just rewired my brain.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

A lot of guys do that.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

But I was able to drive the car and that and not stall it, and that was a big goal for me. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

You know, getting back to your question initially, when you said, I actually find it really interesting to hear when you asked Pete um what he lost, and he said essentially he didn't lose anything. I find that actually really interesting because I'm glad to hear him say that. Initially, when he first lost his leg and I would talk to him, I would say to him, Pete, you know, it's okay. We can still travel, we can still do this, we can still do that. We're just gonna do it a little bit slower. So, like if we're gonna go traveling, maybe we can't walk quite as far as as many miles as we used to. We'll just have to stop at the wine bars along the way and take some more breaks. You know, like so that was always that was always my attitude, and I'm really happy to hear. I knew he had taken that on, but I'm actually, it's interesting to hear years later that he would say he doesn't feel like he lost anything. Because honestly, I did. I thought what was really important to me was that I thought we're never gonna walk on a beach together to get again. I thought because Pete had a hard time walking on sand. That was that really bothered me because I love walking on beaches and I love vacations and the, you know, sun and the sand. And we have walked on the sand since then, you know, things like that. Like we can do it. It's just it's not necessarily gonna look the way it used to. It's gonna be a little bit slower, maybe a little bit different, but we can make it work for us.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

I just want people to know I got here. I got here because she pushed me. And I sometimes don't believe I'm where I am because going back 12 years ago in my mind, there's no way I was ever getting here. But all you can do is try and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

And so I have no complaints. And you have someone who loved you enough to give you tough love.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And vice versa. He was willing to accept it and do it even when he didn't want to, because I was asking him to.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Well, actually, in the hospital, she asked me, because I lived, if uh I wanted to get married again. Like, you know, and I was on a lot of drugs at the time, and I wanted to know what my options were, so I asked to who I didn't know who she was, but she wanted to renew our vows. I figured out later.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

So we did, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So one of the losses that happen when a police officer is injured is the loss of their identity, who they see themselves as, because a lot of injuries lead to end of career. So surely at some point you were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we're gonna be able to leave the hospital, we're certain we survived the pneumonia and the terrible surgeries and everything else. But now what? What was the plan initially? Did you what did you think you would end up doing, and how did you recover your law enforcement career?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

I think your point is valid. What now? But I gotta tell you, it makes no sense, but I never thought I wouldn't get back on the road again. It doesn't make any sense. And everybody supported me, and I'm sure some of them thought he's crazy, he's just talking. But I truly believed I would get back on the road again, and I did.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

And actually, on that note, it's funny because I, who was who did not have a brain injury and was much more aware of the situation at the time, I still remember, you know, you have to fill out at first, you have to fill out the short-term disability forms, and then you have to fill out the long-term disability forms and all of that stuff. And I remember talking to an administrator on the phone because she was gonna walk me through some of this. And I had just done the short-term disability, and she said to me, Okay, and then in a little while, we're gonna send you the long-term disability since Pete will be off. And I said, Oh no, Pete's going back to work. And I still remember, I think this woman must have hung up the phone and thought, this woman I just spoke to is crazy. Her husband just woke up from a coma, he has no leg, and she thinks he's going back to work as a police officer. Like, is she nuts? But it never occurred to me that he wouldn't go back in some capacity. I knew that I knew I didn't think he was gonna go back on the road, but I knew he would be a police officer again in some capacity.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

So I think this was this was in mid-2014. Yes. And in that same time frame, give or take a few years, there are Afghanistan and Iraq military veterans who had who had been amputees who returned to active duty. Were you aware of those stories? Or were you doing this just a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

I think we were just doing it. I I think I was just doing it because, or we were just doing it because we knew Pete. And we knew that he always wanted to be a police officer, he was going to be a police officer in whatever capacity that meant. He would go back to work. And also, I knew he was not gonna sit at home and sit in the house and do nothing all day. I'm like, no, this that's not who he is, and frankly, I don't think I could uh deal with that. So like it he would annoy me too much. So it was like, no, he's gonna be working in some capacity.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

I knew of those soldiers later who returned to active duty, but in a completely selfish way, I was in my own world and not paying attention to anything. I just knew I was gonna go back. And I think now I wouldn't believe myself. If I could talk to myself then and now, I wouldn't support myself going back. But I got my gun back, I went on patrol, and really the only thing I can't do is run. But most people don't know that. Right, right. And we got 20 feet of length on the taser anyway, so you gotta get 21 feet away before when and how did the agency get on board?

SPEAKER_00 20:13

It was that was quite a long process. So initially, actually, no, they were wonderful in terms of him wanting to go back administratively. So, like in the beginning, they were absolutely fantastic about having Pete go back in an administrative position. Um, and he had a number of positions, and they actually put him in some hoping that they would be positions he would like, such as well, they put me into the detective unit for a while.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

And as much as I appreciate detectives, it was not my thing. They thought they were giving me the golden ticket putting me in this detective job, and it was not for me. Then they assigned me to the coroner's office as a coroner's constable. Again, for some people, that's a great job. I had an office in Toronto, a car. It was not for me. The OPP never, I never feared missing a paycheck. I never feared missing any of my bills. They uh prorated all my vacations so that I could take it whenever I wanted. They were fantastic, but I wanted back on the road. And essentially what happened is they kept giving me tasks to do psychologist appointments, physical tasks. They kept giving me stuff and they'd give me three months to get it done, and I'd get it done in a week and send it to them. And I think it finally got to the point where they went, we've asked this guy to do 30 things and he's done them all. It's probably just easier if we let him go back to work. Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Well, and he had he did have to keep proving himself. Like the thing is, they I think in the beginning they were like, we can have him do administrative work, but they didn't really want him back on the road because of course they were worried for good reason. But when he kept completing all the psychological and all the physical and they kept giving it to him over and over again, it got to the point they said to him, Well, be careful what you wish. For because they might actually put you back on the road. And he was like, Yes, that's all he wanted. And in fact, when we talk about identity, it wasn't until that point, which was three years after his accident, when he went back on the road and had his firearm back, that all of a sudden the Pete that I knew started to return. Because all of a sudden he knew he was back where he wanted to be, his confidence returned. And again, he may have been a little bit slower, not quite the same, but that's when his identity started to really come back.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

See, and that's a valuable lesson because I worry that a lot of the decision makers may themselves be eagerly looking toward retirement. And they feel like, well, if I can gift that to someone else, that's surely what they want. And that's not always sometimes the best thing you can do to help that officer be healthier is to let them go back to work.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

That is an excellent point. And nobody in the OPP was trying to hurt me. They all thought they were giving me a gift. Right. But it's a gift I didn't want. And a perfect example for your listeners about taking matters into your own hands and getting things done is my inspector called me and said, okay, we need one more psychological test at this guy in St. Catharines, where I live. He goes, You got to book an appointment with him. It'll take a few hours to do it. But he goes, We need his report within six months. We want to timestamp it for that. So they gave me the phone number and the doctor's name. I phoned the doctor. I got his secretary on the phone, explained who I was, asked if I could speak to the doctor, and he comes on the phone and I said, Listen, I don't want insurance. I don't want to retire. I don't want you to write me a note that says I can't work anymore. I want to come in. All I want you to do is say I'm okay. He goes, All right, we'll come in tomorrow. So he books me for this appointment and he's talking to me. He says, So tell me your story. I said, All I want to do is work. I just want to get back on the job. I don't want any treatment at all, nothing special. And he goes, Well, okay, let's do these tests. So I think I did about two hours worth of tests. And he said, Okay, I'll uh I'll write this up. And I said, Okay, when will it be written up? He goes, Oh, probably a month. And I said, All right, doc, uh, a month is fine if that's your schedule, but really you're all that's stopping me from going back to work now. And he goes, Okay, and within a week I had the report and I handed it in and I went back to work. But I could have skated, I could have retired, I could have quit.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Michelle, do you ever feel angry that this happened to you guys?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

No. No, I don't actually. I mean, sometimes I might feel sad about some of it. You know, the things that maybe we can't do the way we used to. Like there might be some sadness there. I don't really think angry. Maybe this much, like just a tiny bit of anger. And that was probably would be around the whole motorcycle thing. Because I think, you know, I never really liked motorcycles. So there's probably a very small part of me that thinks, oh, what if. But no, in general, I would say our lives, I don't want to say it's they're better for it, but I will say we have, because we've come out on the other side and we've grown, and our son actually now originally he wanted to be a police officer. He's now in his fourth year of medical school. Oh, wow. Because he's going to be a doctor. And I really think that probably came from Pete's accident and, you know, him recovering and everything that happened there. Like it's amazing how it affects other aspects of your lives. And, you know, the other side of it is over the last 12 years since Pete's accident, we have told our story on many occasions. And it's been amazing how people have responded to that and how many people I hope that we have helped, that we, you know, we've heard that we have helped by hearing our story. And I will say there's something good that has come out of that. So, I mean, obviously, I'm not happy this happened, but I think there's a lot of good that has come from it.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

How did you guys avoid bitterness?

SPEAKER_02 26:03

I think somewhat to answer that question, and maybe Mish can do a better job, but something I want you to understand as well, people will ask me, and you asked her about being angry, people will ask me if I would change anything about the day of the accident. And shockingly, the answer is no. I wouldn't change anything. Because when you change one thing, life changes forever. So if I changed the day of that accident and I didn't have it, and I still had my leg, maybe because things were different, heaven forbid, Michelle would be in a car accident a month later and I'd lose her. That's kind of what keeps me going.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

That's called that's called not knowing the counterfactuals.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yes, exactly. Um, it's interesting in terms of bitterness, or you know, how are we did you ask how are we not bitter?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

And and I don't know. I mean, honestly, I think a lot of work. I mean, I think, like I said, the first three years following in particular, I'm at those were absolutely the toughest part, the toughest times in our marriage. I mean, we were we all were always okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

We never had any um I thought we were great, but she thinks just okay. I'm learning lots today.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

There were lots. No, I mean it was definitely a hard time. But honestly, I think having grown together through it, and really, I think doing these talks has was therapy, like in the initial stages. It was a form of therapy, you know, talking about it all the time. It really was a form of therapy for us. We did actually learn quite a bit from each other in doing the talks. So that was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

What recommendations can you make? Because there's a lot of cops who've had injuries, they've had commanders and administration giving them stuff they don't want. There's been strain on the family, especially in the marriage. What can you recommend to help with that?

SPEAKER_02 28:13

I would say decide what you want to do and decide what you're good at and do it. Even if people say you can't or they get in your way, administration rules. And I would like to say I've had a lot of good jobs in the OPP, but all I wanted to do was get back on the road in uniform and go on patrol. And many cops think that's the lowest rung on the ladder, and perhaps it is, but I was good at it, and that's all I wanted. I sometimes think administration was trying to give me higher rungs, and they finally went, all this guy wants is to get back on the let's just be done with it and get it done. Don't let people stand in your way, find out what you want and you're good at, and go for it.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

And the other thing I would say that was incredibly helpful is we had unbelievable support. We had support from our friends, we had support from the OPP, we had support from our church, we had absolutely incredible support, and we used that. I mean, we definitely embraced that and weren't afraid to lean on them in the time of need. I mean, we had uh unbelievable support, so that was extremely helpful. The other thing is is counseling. Following pizza accident, a few years um after both of my parents died in the same year. And so between pizza accident and that, I got to a point where I was like, okay, you know what? I need to go to some counseling. And so I started that and I've continued it. You know, I just even just for check-ins. I don't do it regularly anymore. But I do go and just sort of go in for check-ins every couple of months. And I think that counseling has been very helpful in terms of helping to put things in perspective, sometimes just happen helping me to vent when I need to, and having that outside um perspective or help definitely has made things better as well.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

I dropped her off at her counselor one time and I found it odd that the office is in a bar, but I didn't go in. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Pete also had counseling, actually, a real counseling at some point early on. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

I've heard that you can always want a bet in a bar. Can you tell me about that?

SPEAKER_02 30:30

I I have this gag I do where I bet the waitress I can bottle uh balance a bottle of beer on the bottom of my left foot without spilling it. And they'll they'll take the bet every time. But they don't know my legs are official. And also because my leg was severed above the knee, my hamstring's really irrelevant. And I can get my left leg up just 180 degrees from the floor and balance a beer on top, and I always get a free beer that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

All right. So a lot of state troopers in the United States, sheriff's deputies in remote areas where they have to work by themselves, backup is several minutes away. They don't get in as many fights because they learn to talk their way through stuff. You you have to have been concerned about your ability to take somebody out. If you had to put hands on somebody, you had to be concerned about basically your foundation, you know. What was your thought process about making an arrest, dealing with somebody that might want to fight you?

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Well, I was a long time on the job then. I was probably uh I was 20 years on the job then. So I reached a certain level of maturity where I'd rather talk my way out of something than fight my way out of something. But I also had to have confidence in my abilities. And I was a I was a high school wrestler, and I'm most confident on the ground. People say you're losing if you're on the ground. I disagree. I was a wrestler. You felt like you had the advantage there. Yeah, I like being on the ground. And my attitude always was any kind of confrontation, we're going down because I'm best on the I don't have to worry about my leg then. I'm best. But I have the tools and I had the vocabulary, and I think I had the attitude that I wasn't really worried about it. I wasn't gonna get in a confrontation that I'm going to lose. I will let you go before I get into that confrontation. But uh I remember the very first time I got behind a stolen car, and the OPP is a little bit like your uh state troopers. Like backup is not close. Yeah. But I get behind a car and it's stolen, and I confirm it, and my backup's like 10 minutes away, and I realize that uh I'm gonna have to do something on my own. So these guys get off the highway, and I they come to a traffic light, and I just pull right in front of them and uh walk them in, and I get out and I convince them not to go anywhere, and there's four of them. And I have the upper hand for sure, I'm not gonna use it. Yeah, it's just for show, but they're not going anywhere. So anyway, the city cops show up, and I know who they are. They show up and they take them into custody because it's the city. And the first guy, the first cop says to one of the guys, Why didn't you run? And the four guys go, Well, he had us dead to rights, he had us. And and it was a friend of mine, he says, He's got one leg, you should have run. And they didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

So that was the joke that I well it does say too about how well you were, how naturally you must have been moving, that it just didn't there was there wasn't enough of a clue that they thought you couldn't have run them down.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

And they're distracted, they think they're in a world of hurt and they're not paying attention to details.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yep, yep. Their anxiety and your bright lights uh play into your favor. So have you ever threatened to use that leg as a weapon?

SPEAKER_02 33:54

No, although what I did want to do, and they wouldn't let me is I wanted to put a round through my leg. I have extra legs. I wanted to put a round through my leg at the firing range for an accident and have people panic and just go. So they said that would cause too much trauma.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Uh Pete and Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking today. Well, thank you. We really enjoyed it. I've been looking forward to it for a while.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, it was great. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

I want to thank Pete and Michelle for coming on the show and telling their story. I first heard their story in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was at an International Association of Chiefs of Police meeting, and they were keynote speakers at the Wellness Conference. They did such a nice job of telling their story, and their story was so compelling. I knew I needed to invite them on the show, and I'm grateful that we were able to work it out just a few months later. Of the many parts of their story that I truly appreciate, one that really resonates with me is the power and value of a strong marriage in the moment of a catastrophe. But you don't know when a catastrophe will come. So do the work now to build up the strength of that relationship. In regard to this podcast, the best thing you can do for Hey Chaplin is to take a moment and tell someone else about it right now. Grab your phone and text a friend and say, Hey, I just heard a great podcast and I want you to listen to an episode. Or two. Or maybe a hundred. We can be flexible on the number. But podcasts grow because people share them. Let someone know about Hey Chaplin today. The views expressed here are the personal views of the host and our guest and do not necessarily represent the views of any law enforcement agency or its components. If you like this episode, please share it with a cop or someone who loves a cop. Thank you for listening to Hey Chaplin. And as always, let's pray for peace in our cities.