LEMOND: "HE ALMOST KILLED ME" | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

1.The Hunting Accident That Nearly Killed Him

Yeah it was not too far away from this Farmhouse so uh but we sat there and and I just said they're not coming they probably can't find us and I just said you gotta we gotta go and uh it lifted me out and we drove up to the top of the road and it was the fence was locked and I I'm going why didn't they just break it down but you know they're three four police cars ambulance there fire truck and uh I'm like David probably there for 15 minutes and I think back to it it's I was very fortunate there was a helicopter that um was actually there looking for at they they uh there's a medic police helicopter that was there for an another car accident and decided just to take a look um at the shooting accident and by chance he came by and if I didn't have the helicopter take me to the hospital I would for certainly would have died because it was 45 minute drive um from where I got shot to uh Hospital I've heard people recounting stories when they've had traumatic accidents like this I had an amazing girl on the podcast Meg Fisher and Meg Colorado girl but a tragic story I almost shared a link to the podcast which is she was driving she's been at multiple gold medals paralympian since which she was driving with her girlfriend at the time when she was 18 and the car flipped and her girlfriend tragically died and she lost her leg but she recalls these moment where everything happened so fast but for her it was like everything slowed down and she can recall the car tumbling she can record Vivid detail of Expressions on the face of her girlfriend the diner lady who pulled her out of the car did you have a moment like that where either in the helicopter and trances or in the you know hospital where everything just seemed to slow down oh yeah I mean that's what I said I don't know if I was in the field for 20 minutes or five minutes but it seemed like it was slow motion and then when I was when I was taken to the uh ambulance at the top of the property I I mean I knew they were you know I was probably fading pretty quickly but they kept asking for my address you know 74 74 745 vanilla way I still remember because I repeated it a hundred times but they kept asking my address and then um but I from there I got into the helicopter and I kind of remember taking off um but that was it then I do remember Landing and kind of slow-mo from the helicopter kind of like you see in the movies and then they shoved me into the doors and uh probably instantly they took a they punctured along into a punctured a hole into my lung for my collapsed lung and it's the last thing I remember but it was I I remember I I don't remember the face like that I mean she's she's remembering almost exactly like when I got shot just five minutes where she's tumbling um I could see that I mean it's amazing what your brain can take in you described yourself as uh eternally optimistic person was your mindset optimistic for a comeback in those early days or was it purely survival you know one of the things that I think that people understand too and I maybe it's at our period but you know you make a choice and move to Europe and England you know get married and you got to make a living and um you know as an athlete people don't realize you it's like that's your whole life but it feels like your next paycheck is everything and so it's not just if you're writing bad at the time nobody gave you a break and um if you had an accident like this typically you're done with cycling and without kind of saying okay maybe you can come back and rehab and and uh at the time it wasn't I wasn't thinking that right when I got shot but I would say after my first tour win and uh I was pretty down that winter and really it was you know winning the tour the stream um and fighting for and they're not really getting credit for it not getting that satisfaction of a happy team behind uh the victory really impacted me and and so when I got shot it was kind of like I wasn't certain I wanted to race again at that point um I just when I did go back to Europe that's you know actually that winter I really contemplated I'd maybe taking the period off and then I got back to racing I felt better got you know into racing um but when I got shot I was like I don't know if I can do this again uh that was just the first three four weeks but a month later I got a letter from uh Bernard tappi and basically said you're uh we had a great you know three-year relationship actually two years um but you're fired and he let me go so even that didn't impact me until I started getting healthy and all that and then I realized what I'm going to do to make a living and uh uh so that's part of it you know I had a bike company started that time so I was feeding that and I at that time I wasn't making a lot of money not compared to athletes today and so part of that stress was not just their hunting accident um it was how do I survive what do I you know how do I manage a bike company that I'm not even racing I mean and I'm not even managing it uh my dad and another guy were were doing it so it was the stress for that was incredible this was an extract from my podcast with Mr Greg lamon if you want to check out the full conversation you can click here and also don't forget to subscribe to the channel foreign