Hal Elrod: The Toughest Decision Of His Life

After his tragic accident, Hal Elrod face a choice that would change his life forever.

Transcript

00:00A man in a full-size Chevy truck coming straight at me got on the wrong side of

00:04the road and that's the last thing I remember from that night and everything

00:10I share with you now I only know from hospital reports, eyewitnesses, police

00:15reports, but our two cars collided head-on around 150 mile an hour impact

00:22between the two of us. My car spun off the drunk driver and the car behind me

00:27crashed into my door at 70 miles an hour and instantaneously I broke 11

00:33bones on this side. My femur broke in half, my arm broke in half, shattered my

00:37elbow, severed the nerve, my eye socket was crushed, so my heart stopped

00:41beating for six minutes. The paramedics revived me, rushed me to the hospital and

00:45in the hospital I underwent emergency surgery where they repaired my broken

00:52bones. I was in a coma for six days. When I came out of the coma my doctor

00:59shared with me that I would probably never walk again and I had permanent

01:02brain damage. I had the responsibility and the opportunity to choose my

01:11response. When we're in a negative emotional state we're not at peak

01:14physical, mental, or emotional, or spiritual place so therefore we don't

01:18make the best decisions, we don't take the best actions, but when you can learn

01:22to manage your emotional state you now have control over how you think, how you

01:26feel, and what you do. My mentor Jesse he said, Hal it's okay to be negative when

01:32things go wrong but not for more than five minutes and he would teach us to

01:36literally set our timer on our phone for five minutes when something happened

01:40that caused us emotional pain. I'd be upset for five minutes and the timer

01:44would go off and I would go, I'm still pissed off, I'm still upset, but here's

01:52what would happen. Our manager taught us to say three powerful words, can't change

01:57it. I thought, well wait a minute, I can't change that I was in a car accident but

02:01what if I just choose to accept it and be at peace with it? I said, and I've

02:05decided that if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life I've already seen it

02:10I'll be the happiest person you've ever seen in a wheelchair. I'll be the most

02:13grateful person you've ever seen in a wheelchair because I'm in a wheelchair

02:17either way. It seems like being miserable in a wheelchair isn't as good of a life

02:22as being grateful in a wheelchair. It can't cause me pain because pain is

02:26caused by resistance. It's our wishing and wanting that something were

02:29different and that was three weeks after the crash the doctors came in and they

02:34said, Hal we have your routine x-rays from yesterday and we don't know how to

02:37explain this but your body is healing so fast that we're gonna let you take your

02:42first step today in therapy.

02:47All my energy goes into walking again. I visualize it every day. I think about it.

02:53I pray about it. I talk about it. That's my focus. It's my vision for what I

02:57want. Will I accept what I don't want? I don't know. I don't know if it's

03:01willing. I don't know if I will. I don't know if that's really even possible.

03:04All I know is it is a possibility. I will walk again.