A midnight pager goes off, and what sounds like a standard “rollover, party pinned” call turns into every parent’s nightmare. On the way to the scene, I answer my phone and hear my son JJ screaming for help, and suddenly I am not just a medic responding to an emergency. I am a mom racing into the dark, trying to hold it together while my family’s world collapses in real time.
We tell the full story of May 26, 2016: the graduation bonfire, the decision to go back for a forgotten phone, the donut in a field, and the Jeep flipping with JJ’s best friend Casey pinned underneath. We talk through what it looks like when first responders work a scene involving people they love, from setting up access in a confusing field to CPR, a helicopter landing zone, and the moment time of death is called. We also face the immediate aftermath, including protocol, handcuffs, and the hospital, plus the brutal weight of “He’s dead, and it’s my fault.”
Then we zoom out to the part that rarely gets said out loud: first responder PTSD, cumulative trauma, flashbacks that hide in small triggers, and a fire service culture that too often replaces real mental health support with silence. We share what helped, what didn’t, how our family tried to survive the prison years, and why healing is not a finish line but a daily practice. If this story hits you, please subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more families and first responders can find this conversation.
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