200: Jeff lost his arm
What Was That Like - True Stories. Real People.
The Weight of Loss
This chapter explores the profound emotional trauma following a life-altering accident that resulted in limb loss. It captures the interplay of personal suffering and the consequential distress felt by family and friends, highlighting a harrowing journey from accident to surgery.
Have you ever seen stories of someone who was born with no arms?
I’ve seen videos and I think maybe even a documentary like that. Usually they will profile one particular person, who is now an adult, and this person lives a full, happy life - with no arms. Which means, of course, that they do a lot of things with their feet.
And these people are amazing – they have learned to do almost anything with their feet, that the rest of us rely on our hands for. They cut up their kids’ food for them, they drive cars, they compete athletically… it’s just their normal, so they’ve learned how to get stuff done in spite of having no arms.
Jeff was not one of those people. He was actually born with both arms. But as a teenager, working a summer job, he was involved in an accident that meant one of his arms was pretty violently pulled off.
In this Flashback episode, Jeff talks about how that happened, and what he did in the minutes immediately following the accident. And here’s what’s kind of funny – Jeff told this story a few years ago here on the podcast, and in spite of how horrifying it is, I have had so many listeners tell me they loved hearing it because Jeff is so funny!
And after his story, you’ll hear the brief modern-day conversation I recently had with Jeff to find out what he’s up to more these days – and it turns out, he’s STILL being funny.
If you’d like to contact Jeff: jeffbardel@yahoo.com
He’s also in the WWTL podcast Facebook group: WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/200
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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