Charged: The Eduardo Garcia Story Page #4

to leave the hospital.

The doctors in the burn unit

decided I was healthy

enough to go home

or leave the hospital today.

So we packed up our stuff

and put it in the truck.

Pretty amazing that

we're out of here,

pretty f***ing

glad I didn't die.

I don't have my left hand.

But otherwise we're

in really great shape,

really great shape.

I think I got over there

two or three days

after he was discharged

and I worried about them both.

Although they were

pulling together,

there was an atmosphere

because they were

both so exhausted,

both so exhausted.

(laughing)

We didn't know what

to do for Christmas

and I think I'll

never, ever forget

the fact that we decided to

go to Arches National Park

and it was just unbelievable

when I could see Ed's face

thinking that even he had said

he never thought

that would happen.

(laughing)

[Eduardo] What's

happening now?

Let's check it out,

let's check it out.

Just stay shoulders right

over your feet, okay?

Yeah, you're good,

it's no problem.

Look at Jen and your feet.

[Corinne] Then they got

me across this high thing

that was so steep I didn't

think I'd get across

but he said,

"No, you're scared,

"we'll get you across this."

[Eduardo] Take it like that,

two, three steps

at a time, pause,

two, three, don't think

of it as a big wall,

okay, very good, very good.

You did great.

That was, this is

just fear, isn't it?

He'd survived,

nothing else, the fact

that he'd survived through

in a wonderful place.

[Eduardo] She's insane, huh?

Ed was, even at

that very short space

that he'd been out

of hospital,

no one would guess that

he was going through

what he was going through.

[Eduardo] I don't remember

the day I arrived home.

It must have been

momentous in that sense

but I don't remember

walking in

to my house

for the first time

and opening the door.

What I remember was

wanting to hide,

I don't even know why.

Locally I live in

a small community.

They knew I had

been electrocuted.

You couldn't hide that

I was missing a hand

but you know what,

I could hide the fact

that I was going through cancer.

Today is February the seventh

and it's official,

my hair is falling out.

Bucket.

You see that?

Bink, how disgusting.

Bink, bink, oh my.

Jen, do you want to try this?

You might enjoy it.

[Jennifer] I will.

Holy, look at that.

[Jennifer] I can

make a bald patch.

Hey, baby, do it

systematically.

[Jennifer] I'm

turning you into my dad.

Look at you.

[Jennifer] This

is just like my dad.

Does it not hurt at all?

This is excellent fun.

No, if it hurt,

I would ask you to stop.

It hurts a little.

Grab a clump and

just go for it but.

Pink.

It's literally

like having a cat.

You've always wanted a cat.

(slow music)

(laughing)

(dramatic music)

[Jennifer] How are you doing?

I'm hanging in there.

It's been a long week.

Pretty nauseous almost

every day this week

but we're hanging in there.

I'm getting my pick

line taken out today

so it'll be nice.

[Jennifer] Happy?

Yeah, thanks.

[Nurse] You're welcome.

Back on Monday,

Monday at noon.

[Jennifer] When he was

going through everything

the priority was get

him rehabilitated

and get him back to life.

But further down the list

is what is the deal with

our relationship as a whole?

How are we gonna get

out of this as friends?

What's gonna happen

in the future?

(hens crowing)

The doubt didn't start

until I tried actually

getting back to life again.

All of a sudden overnight

at 30 years old,

I had to rethink how to do

every single task.

Ashes is one of my favorite

place to hike anywhere.

You now had my mom, Jen , my

sister, my brother, my dad,

take a bear spray,

don't hike alone.

Really concerned

about my ability

to be the guy I was

a few months before.

[Jennifer] Ed losing his hand

is really something

that everybody sees

but not many people know

that he also lost so

much of his muscle mass

from his torso, from

his legs, from his arms.

The fact is that he operates

with way less muscle

than most of us do.

[Eduardo] It's such a

horrible thing, you know,

to have someone care for you

and for you to

think, "Hey back off,

I need a moment to see

if I can do this again.

Give me a second

to fail on my own."

[Jennifer] I think what a

lot of people see with recovery

is this grand coming

out of oh I'm recovered

and actually it isn't that.

It's this kind of

never-ending process

of a million little

achievements.

Undoing these knots

is definitely proving to

be a little more difficult

but I don't think undoing knots

is ever easy for anybody.

There it goes.

That's a deer.

I love to hike for elk antlers

and my goal was I want

to be able to hike

a solid eight miles

into the back country

and feel strong about it.

Being outdoors was

my recovery, 110%

and that was where I,

it was my way

of rehabilitating.

That's a heavy pack.

I would get home at 5 p.m.

and there'd be a race.

If I couldn't get a meal

under my belt by six,

I would be too sick

to cook a meal,

I would lose all interest.

I guess as a bonus,

I don't have to worry

about cutting the fingers

off of my left hand

anymore when I'm chopping.

I'd be pretty crushed if

I couldn't cook anymore,

be pretty crushed.

It was only until

I actually started

getting back into

trying to cook again

that it all started to click.

I'm like, "Wait a minute,

my career is built off of

the ability to work quickly,

efficiently with my hands.

F***, I got one

hand and a forearm."

That's hot.

We knew that my

chemotherapy treatments

would be a three-month ordeal

and we just had to survive that

and the day it ended my

focus immediately shifted

to, "Okay, let's get back

to recovery.

We've got a long

list of things

that still need

to be healed."

[Jennifer] Do you want

to describe what was here

when you were electrocuted?

Not a big box with

working locks on it.

I'd have probably stumbled

straight down here.

Let's see if it goes

to a road.

[Jennifer] Yeah,

you want to follow it?

-Yeah.

-[Jennifer] Okay.

I don't know if I saw

some of these trees.

Incredible, I can't remember.

I didn't like being up there

standing next to that box.

It was hard.

Trying not to feel anger

through this whole event

and then you go back to the

site where you nearly died

and you're looking at it

and it's...

locked up,

posted, sealed,

huge padlocks,

shut down, safe.

That's how it should've been

when I was up here hiking.

That's how it should've been.

It angered me to see that.

One tiny event can

rock you so hard.

I didn't feel a need to

stay there for too long,

it turned me.

Hello.

(speaking in Spanish)

Dad, you're here

early though, man.

[Manuel] Huh?

(speaking in Spanish)

I was totally joking with dad

but I guess he's here to work.

That's harder.

Isn't that weird?

You see the circulation

missing in that finger?

It just gets,

they get cold.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes