[Music] every time I go to the mall to the beach wherever I mean I get I get the fraking star Downs all the time hey look at that kid he's got one leg you know and I was just I just wanted to do some but you know I was hums and crutches I had one leg at the time you know what am I goingon to [Music] do well Mr Perry I'm sorry but you're never going to walk again this is not going to be fun I'm like if this is the way I'm going to live
the rest of my life like that's when you start debating whether it's worth it or not first of all you know if you're not an attractive guy girls don't want to get with you anyways so how attractive is it is that I'm in a [ __ ] wheelchair and I can't get it up on my own [Music] anyways I just don't want anyone to know and I tried hiding it for probably about a week and you know obviously everyone knew what happened but I just didn't want anyone to know [Music] I still I can still
hear the scream that I this the scream I I had when I uh this how how how I [Music] screamed oh it devastated him oh it's the first time my daughter saw her daddy cry but yeah he was really really hurt when you know his little girl was hurt because of lack of training they get away with murder that's it down there my son's just lucky he escaped with his life cuz that type of accident that he was in they don't live to talk about you know we've been looking after them all their lives and
then we they go out to a job and we think that employers because they're adults and they're businessmen or they professional they'll look after [Music] them because it was a 24-hour uh shift work job and I didn't like that because he was so willing he was getting more and more tired I maybe the youngest here and they don't usually hire 16-year-olds there's danger when you're tired you misjudge but I can handle it I'm tough hurry hurry hurry that they were really pushing let's get our production and quota so I didn't like [Music] that I he
just went off to work and he was really proud of his job and we were all proud of him his energies are are a little bit fragile right now and and he's um oh there's probably several days a week that I'm driving down the road to this day and all of a sudden it hits me that he's in a wheelchair and he's an adult now you know he he should be living on his own and moving on with his life and now he's sort of stuck here for a little while and I knew right then
that I broken my back and my it was like my whole rest of my life flashed before my eyes you know there was couple of times when you just like Why didn't it just kill me you know and I lost three fingers I I don't know any other girls who have lost their fingers at all the only other thing I could really relate it to is a woman miscarrying it's something no one will ever understand until you experience it for yourself I love to be able to dance now and I can't dance so it's like
those like things that I took I took for granted and I didn't do before my accident and I can't do them now I hate it like I can't go to a bar because I see these people dancing and I go [ __ ] you know like I missed out on that everything happen everything has to happen after something a big accident happens you know that's when that's when everyone gets their heads together and oh okay well I guess you know we need to change things around here it's never it's never before it's never before you
know an 18-year-old loses its leg you know I was starting my working career if you can call it that working at a pizzeria I was thinking you know yeah I'll go I'll get a job I'll work for a while I'll see if that's what I want to do but ultimately I do want to get back into school I didn't really care what kind of job I got as long as I got something where I was making decent money I dropped off my resume that day and literally that afternoon they called me back and said hey
you want to start today I was like sweet the guy with the most training gets the best job my parents were saying you it's time for you to go and get a job start getting out in the Working World for the rest of us out there that don't have a lot of training and are right out of high school you get the job that you think you can do and I knew I could do the job I wanted uh I wanted everybody that worked there to be surprised in how good and efficient that I worked
it was slack ass like it was I think that's what probably appealed to me the most for lack of a better term I was everybody's [ __ ] if somebody told me they wanted something done there's no way I was going to say no uh I first started off waitting there you know maybe I was maybe I was trying to work too hard uh then about a year ler later I started cooking not realizing what I was getting myself into I wanted to impress everybody I wanted to show them that I could do it just
as well as they could so I was like ah yeah no worries I can I can work this job woke up in the morning went to work uh I was having a rough time trying to wake up that morning and uh the day was like any other you know I was cutting me prepping my dough and that we're going to start you off here you're going to you know move the material around the yard clean up be on those kind of jobs all the training I got was basically just passed down my boss calls me
up and asked me to come down to work for a few hours because somebody else had canceled and I wasn't actually scheduled to work that day well the night of the accident it was uh a rainy and cold night so it was quite intimidating um lots of machines that I had to get in and clean up and dust off and you know now eventually 3:00 rolled around time to do my dough and that eventually went on to the machine there's a roller on the bottom with a a chain to to move the the [Music] roller
you know they seemed unsafe but I felt like that was an inherent part of the risk of any job I felt like the things that I did were that were dangerous were just part of the job so I get back on the lift and I start trying to move this medite around again and uh pull it out onto the lot and I stop the load shift the slightest bit it wasn't like it wasn't like it just started to shift and sheets were flying everywhere it shifted just a little tiny bit finished cleaning up and I
was ready to get off the machine but this machine was uh spiled 6 ft or higher in the air and I had to jump off the it wasn't a safe way of me getting in and out of the machine and I looked down the the laneway and I realized that I'm in a an area of high traffic so I um like okay well I should move the forklift I was putting dough into the top of the machine and uh what you do is you just put it through again about halfway and it'll come out the
bottom and then I sat I stood there and I assessed the situation like five times I'm like get back on the lift and I'll drop these things hey Jim yeah you give me a hand I had seen so many guys do this and apparently this is you know forbidden you don't you don't ever go near this is putting the forklift in gear when you're not in it I didn't see anything wrong with it and i' done it a few times myself so what I do is I stand beside the forklift and the gear shift lever
is on the steering column and I just tap the gear shift lever back into reverse and I was ready to jump off and I had turned myself around in the midst of that I guess I slipped and I got my leg caught in the chain I just got a pair of brand new coveralls I was going to you know go to work and had nice new clean uniform and and you know I'm getting sucked into this machine very scared getting sucked in I knew you know this whole time I was trying to pull myself out
of this you know but just Jes help help there's no there's no way what's going on you know I'm looking at it and I'm going all right I don't know if these are going to come down or not so I'm like all right when I move out of the way I'll tell you to drop the load and he's like all right and it starts I I move it I started moving backwards and starts moving backwards and and the only thing I didn't notice was I if IID looked at the wheels I would have seen that
they were turned at first I ran around to the other side cuz I was kind of confused I was like okay how do I get back in this thing when it's moving so it started Mo it starts moving backwards and I I panicked I realized that the roller on it had dough stuck onto it so I went to go and clean it and I didn't quite feel it it felt just like a tickle on on my hand it was the weirdest feeling I I've ever felt come on I think the only thing I was really
scared of was when I was getting sucked in as if I was going to be alive when it went through my head I ran basically all the way around the forklift as it's moving I'm you know I'm panicking I'm a lot of stuff's going through my head I also didn't notice was there was a small puddle of hydraulic fluid about that big on on the ground and I think your mind so set on no this isn't happening it's just too close to the the roll feeder and my leg got caught in two pieces of metal
that were about that close together you know I got sucked into about my thigh and I said it as I turned around okay drop it and then finally the sheet snap my back and I could feel it just go into my back to the point where I couldn't feel my legs the chain it pulled my hand and I didn't quite feel it I just thought something had touched me I wasn't too concerned I'm in the path of the forklift I just had enough time to roll onto my back before it was in slow motion how
everything happened and literally the rest of my life kind of flashed like so I screamed out of fear out of anxiety out of just you know I felt that nothing you know that I was all right no when I saw you know a light and then that's it the machine just stopped I think maybe maybe it was uh an angel from heaven just when I looked at my hand I could see that there was parts of my hand missing I I could see the bone in my fingers and I could see all the muscle around
all the fat um it was almost like it was in a [Music] movie I I felt like just I felt like a baby again I was just I was laying there I'm crying I'm like I'm not going to walk again I'm not going to walk [Music] again so 30 45 seconds before somebody came out and uh and my and it was my uncle he came out and uh started whipping the stuff off like it was toast I could have saw I could have looked up and saw my leg but I was so scared to what
it would look like to me you know going to be okay going to be okay it's okay got into the ambulance I got pretty scared at this point someone should call my mom yeah we're going to call your mom soon I want to talk to her so I'm laying there on the table and there's a whole bunch of doctors and nurses above me can you hear me what what are they going to do to me and what have I done to myself and I'm like all right whatever are you listening to me maybe it's just
what they do while you're you know while you're dealing with paralysis I need you to wake up now that's fine I'll deal with it wake up now this time I don't know [ __ ] about paralysis you're going to use a plastic tube that looks like this pull the sheets up there's this [ __ ] tube sticking out of my dick you're going to have to get used to it yeah and that's Pleasant you're going to stick it into your penis am I going to have have this tube in me all the time it's going
to empty your bladder it's depositor laxatives you're going to take a lot of pills I'm trying to learn how to get on the toy toilet a bowel stimulator like it's a total invasion of my privacy you won't be able to do it on your own this is not comfortable at all you're going to have to get used to it and this is your new wheelchair my dad was just strong steady very calm here was my son so proud to be driving a forklift didn't occur to me to ask myself does he know what he's doing
how fast does it move for instance is he competent in using this machine they scooted around pretty quickly how risky is it that he wasn't indeed paralyzed you know from the neck down or killed I had to go and get uh one of the bones cut down I couldn't sleep in a room by myself the second surgery I had was to have the the nail bed removed in my pinky finger I was in therapy for quite a while I had that surgery done twice I woke up many nights screaming that was very painful they didn't
teach my son the safety and I could have been scratched off this planet right that easily he was sacrificing and jeopardizing his own safety my life wasn't into anybody's hands in a split second your life can change forever oh so I don't have to just worry about Joy writing on Friday night it was so preventable it's ridiculous I have to worry about when they go to work on Monday morning or or after school if they had given me the proper training uh the workplace can be a really dangerous place make sure you know what what
kind of training you need I want parents to know that know your rights know what what is required of you and what is required of your employer well nothing will ever bring her fingers back if you don't know a machine and they expect you to use it just say no it's time to take a step back and you know look at the big ped CH say I will not touch that machine until you train me properly how to clean it how to use it all the different parts that are on it yes she did get
us a small settlement but that's nothing her fingers would have been so so much better so much better [Music] [Music]
