Survive and Thrive A Story of Resilience
[Applause]
i was deep
in the san yacito mountains of southern
california
it was late january it was an overcast
and chilly day
it would also become a very
painful one i had just sustained
a traumatic fall when i
first arrived on the ground my right
foot hit first
it arrived with such energy and force
that it drove
my femur through my pelvis into my
pelvic ring
snapping my pelvis off of my spine
and pushing my right hip all the way up
into my ribs
the edge of my right hip served as a
blade
as it cut arteries and lacerated
multiple organs
i was in rough shape internally blood
was
gushing out then
as if that weren’t enough the back up
parachute
that did nothing to slow my descent
suddenly fluffed open
in these strong winds and began taking
me for a brutal ride
across the top of this barren mountain
top filled with bowling ball sized rock
this only added more broken bones and
life-threatening injuries to the already
long list
as a former emt injuries of this extent
could be considered incompatible with
life
yet here i am in front of you today
breathing and moving about independently
not only that but also managing a smile
how’s that possible
i’m here with you today to share my
recipe
for resilience now the first move i had
to make
to fully optimize
this new world that i was thrust into
was first to say goodbye
to the previous one this is one of the
most difficult things i’ve ever had to
do
but it was necessary saying goodbye to
the 29 year old lane
i wept i grieved i mourned
i i was devastated and just to have an
idea of how devastating this was
i think it’s worthwhile to bring a
little bit of my background
to the forefront prior to this event
i had the opportunity to earn the title
united states marine
i ran multiple marathons i was a
competitive cyclist
and i was a wildland firefighter for
about 10 years
the last four years of which were spent
doing the dream
job of smoke jumping now what makes
smoke jumping particularly unique in the
fire world
and the dream job in my opinion is how
we arrive
so we get to fires we parachute
into fires not into fires but next to
fires
and this opens up the world in terms of
what we can access
it was a job filled with incredible
adventures a
family that was so robust
but now what now what was i going to do
before i could answer that question i
first had to survive
and fortunately my friend scott warren
was first on scene
he cut me free from that parachute that
was dragging me he activated ems we had
a helicopter
that landed within a couple hundred feet
quite quickly
but still with the severity of my
injuries
i was bleeding out i bled out
i coded slash died flatlined the first
time within two hours
notice that i said the first time
over the course of my nine-week coma
my incredible and compassionate mother
was there every single day
and the anxiety and uncertainty she
dealt with
on a daily basis i can never imagine
no no mother should have to look at
their child
while also hearing the sound
of a heartbeat indicator indicating
no pulse she
watched over the course of nine weeks as
my body just withered going from
180 pounds down to 108.
every day they weren’t sure is lane
going to make it
it’s looking good looking good up
something ruptured
so my mom took initiative to
capture these beautiful moments wow she
felt
like she could she took my
my limp lifeless atrophied arms
and put them around my my loving sister
to capture this moving image just
packed full of love
over the course of my nine-week coma i
may have technically been unconscious
but my mind had never been more active
because my ears still worked and my
imagination
was as active as it was then as it was
when i was four
and there was a lot of beauty i could
hear the
voices of my fire family coming to visit
my brothers my sisters my mom and dad
but there were also some very terrifying
moments
one so terrifying it almost cost me my
life
the hospital had been using a particular
medication
that unfortunately wasn’t short supply
there was a nationwide shortage
so they switched over to a different
medication and i did not respond well to
it
but with the severity of my traumatic
brain injury
that could have easily explained my
subsequent behavior
so it wasn’t immediately connected that
this was an allergic reaction
and my reaction was one filled with
agitation
i was paranoid i was certain i was in
the hospital being held there against my
will
i was some sort of test experiment and
my survival
depended on my ability to escape so
somehow
i managed to sit up muster the strength
to pull out my breathing tube
my ivs that were transferring life
sustaining fluid
just again putting me on the brink of
cardiac arrest
then i was pinned down to the hospital
bed and
strapped down to it
this only confirmed my paranoia
no one could get through to me i
couldn’t trust my mom
my dad let alone the hospital staff
but my mom had an idea if anyone can get
through to lane right now
it would be his twin brother lance
and lance wasn’t even in the hospital at
the time not even in the same state
but he got the phone call with the added
sense of urgency
and he dropped everything and some
movers and shakers behind the scenes
did what it took and got lance to my
bedside within
hours when i felt his presence
and heard his voice i was certain he was
also being tortured right there
alongside me
and because of that he had credibility
he could be trusted
and lance was able to to talk me down
and get me to accept treatment
this is lance and i the following year
had lance not been there when he was
there
there is no doubt that i would not be
here
on this stage in front of you today
and that’s why these human connections
with other people are fundamental
to resilience so i consider human
connections to be the first of four
ingredients
and my recipe for resilience now just
what is resilience well
the dictionary alludes to it as being an
ability
to return to the previous state
but this didn’t seem really applicable
in my situation because i had said
goodbye
to the previous state instead i had to
learn to navigate an entirely new one
i had to learn to do more with less
i had to learn to hit turbulence rough
air
sinking air and make the necessary
adjustments to continue flying
so as a paragliding pilot i see the
world through the prism of free flight
so we’ll be using metaphor to help
convey
this understanding of resilience and the
ingredients involved
so as a glider pilot the first thing you
need
in order to go anywhere in order to
cover any ground you first
need altitude altitude
lets you go places it offers an
incredible view
not only that but altitude
altitude gives you time to fix problems
because you
will encounter turbulence
so just how do you go about gaining
altitude
well i talked about one way already and
that’s through these
human connections so we’ll be calling
these ingredients now
sources of lift because human
connections
is a phenomenal source of lift
now the next source of lift may be the
easiest to overlook
and that’s our own health what we choose
to
do with our bodies and put in our bodies
is of extraordinary significance
i’m certain had i not been in the best
shape of my life
on the worst day of my life i wouldn’t
have survived
now the third source of lift i think
requires the most
discipline and determination and that is
keeping a
constructive attitude when i first came
out of my coma
and was sizing up what i was dealing
with
it’s easy to get caught in that
whirlpool and just
eddie into it but i shifted my mindset
constructively on you know i may not
have control over this this this and
this but
you know what what do i have control
over you know what i can bring a camera
to my
to my one good eye so with that i took
my savings from the previous fire season
and i went all in on camera equipment
and since i was a child a camera has
always been a close companion
and this continued all the way until my
time on the hot shot crew
and at the end of every fire season i
would put together a
season summary video highlighting all
the fires that we went on
and i didn’t realize it at the time but
i wasn’t
only growing my skill set as a
videographer but i was also
demonstrating it to my fire family
and this was huge because
in the national fire world there’s an
ongoing need for training videos
and in my state of paralysis i had a
need i
i needed work and again through these
human connections
driven by a constructive attitude i was
able to make training videos
for the national fire center and the
first video
i made just so happened to be about
helicopters
and their evolving role on wildfires
now with the helicopter playing an
essential role in my survival
i felt really strongly about this so i
placed significant emphasis
on their role in emergency medical
situations
and i did this by highlighting a couple
federal agencies
that were using some advanced techniques
because not everyone is as fortunate as
me where a helicopter can land within a
couple hundred feet
especially for wildland firefighters
that are working in the most
mountainous densely forested places in
the country
so these other techniques like hoist and
short haul
are game changers and at the time the
forest service
did not have a policy like that
and i think this video i produce just
joined the already mounting pressure
on the forest service because the next
year the forest service signed off on
the first
new forest service aviation program and
50 years
the emergency medical short haul program
and i was brought in to create all the
training videos
for the first ever united states forest
service
short haul class and i’m confident
that this program and these firefighters
and this image
will save lives i could have never
imagined that the crowning achievement
the greatest
contribution i would make to my
nationwide fire family
would be after i was no longer fighting
fire
now the fourth and final source of lift
may be the most simple and that is
recognizing
the power of choice regardless
of the devastation and depression you’re
dealing with and how limiting
the may seem you can always find some
semblance of a decision
to be made this was
hugely insightful because when i first
came out of my coma
nothing seemed to work i would
say move foot not not today how about
hand no
not happening so in this limp
paralysis state
i made a realization i may not be able
to control much
but i can control one thing perhaps the
most significant thing
i can get a hold of my mind and i can
direct my imagination i can choose which
memories i want to relive
and what futures i want to imagine
and this had the effect of pulling me
out of
depression and despair it tilted my
chin up and and gave me hope
and the other thing that kept my chin up
and my eyes oriented skyward
is my passion for paragliding i knew
the moment i was able to leave the earth
again
and re-enter the sky i would get back to
a familiar world
a world filled with boundless
[Music]
potential
[Music]
so going forward starting today
go out there find lift
gain altitude appreciate the view
and know this you will encounter
turbulence you will
find yourself in massive parcels of
sinking air
but through that do what’s most
important and that’s adapting
and doing whatever it takes to keep
flying thank you
[Applause]
you