Armchair Anonymous: First Responder

Summary

Podcast Summary: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Episode: Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Release Date: April 25, 2025

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard delves into the harrowing and heroic experiences of first responders in the episode titled "Armchair Anonymous: First Responder." Hosted by Dax Shepard, along with co-hosts Monica Padman and Aaron Weekley, the episode features intense and emotionally charged stories from individuals who have faced life-and-death situations in their roles as first responders. This summary captures the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

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1. Introduction to Armchair Anonymous

The episode begins with Dax Shepard welcoming listeners to "Armchair Anonymous," a segment dedicated to sharing extraordinary first responder stories. The hosts emphasize the gravity of the stories shared, urging listeners to approach the content with sensitivity.

Notable Quote:

• Dax Shepard [00:00]: "This is a fucking nuts episode. We shouldn't put it out and you shouldn't listen to it."

2. Aaron Weekley's First Responder Story

Aaron Weekley recounts a distressing incident from his time as an EMS worker in a rural county from 2015 to 2021. The story highlights the unpredictable nature of first responder calls and the critical decisions made in moments of crisis.

Incident Overview:

• Location: Rural part of Aaron's county.
• Call: Motor vehicle accident with vague initial information.
• Discovery: A heavily damaged car in a ditch with no immediate victim present.
• Rescue Efforts: Aaron and his partner locate a patient suspended by tree branches, presumed dead, and perform an improvised rescue using a human pyramid to lower him safely.
• Medical Intervention: The patient suffers a massive brain bleed, necessitating rapid sequence intubation (RSI) to stabilize his condition for transport to a trauma center.

Notable Quotes:

• Aaron Weekley [05:23]: "We don't get very many details on this call. We're just going in blind."
• Dax Shepard [06:53]: "How come they didn't send the firefighter up? It feels like that's their domain."
• Aaron Weekley [07:21]: "It's very invasive. Basically what we do is we give them a paralytic and a sedative and we put them in a medically induced coma."

Insights:

• Aaron emphasizes the lack of protocols for unusual rescue scenarios, showcasing the adaptability required in first responder roles.
• The story underscores the emotional toll and the split-second decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.

3. Eliza's Critical Incident

Eliza shares a gripping account of an unexpected emergency that she and her boyfriend encountered in Los Angeles. Despite not being trained first responders, they found themselves thrust into a life-saving situation.

Incident Overview:

• Location: Downtown Los Angeles.
• Event: Encounter with a man on fire beside a crashed car.
• Response: Eliza's boyfriend, an emergency responder in college, takes charge, while Eliza assesses the chaotic scene.
• Challenges: Managing a severely burned and disoriented individual amidst passive onlookers.
• Aftermath: Emotional relief upon reaching the concert, coupled with reflections on community responsibility and personal privilege.

Notable Quotes:

• Eliza [11:17]: "This story takes place August of 2024. I am not a trained first responder."
• Dax Shepard [13:43]: "How come you didn't quit your job after that."
• Eliza [22:12]: "My cousin is fully recovered and now runs a recovery clinic."

Insights:

• Eliza highlights the emotional complexities of witnessing traumatic events and the human instinct to help despite personal fears.
• The narrative touches on themes of privilege, community bystander effects, and the ongoing struggle with addiction and recovery.

4. Daphne's Unique EMT Experience

Daphne recounts her initial days as an EMT, detailing a particularly surreal and gruesome call that tested her resilience and professionalism.

Incident Overview:

• Location: Urban apartment with a distinctive and pungent odor.
• Patient: Individual with necrotic tissue from the knee down, mimicking a zombie-like appearance.
• Challenges: Managing the physical revulsion while maintaining composure to provide care.
• Transport: Navigating the cramped, non-ventilated ambulance environment while addressing severe injuries and bodily fluids.
• Conclusion: Emotional aftermath of handoffs and reflections on the unpredictability of EMT work.

Notable Quotes:

• Daphne [24:00]: "There's nothing he could do. And I spent the next three hours cleaning out the hallway."
• Dax Shepard [28:10]: "Oh, my. This is like, as close as you can get to discovering a zombie."
• Daphne [38:30]: "Sometimes when you work in this field, the drive home can be kind of tough."

Insights:

• Daphne provides a raw look into the visceral challenges faced by EMTs, including dealing with graphic injuries and maintaining empathy under duress.
• The story underscores the importance of mental fortitude and the coping mechanisms first responders develop to handle repeated exposure to traumatic events.

5. Additional Discussions and Personal Anecdotes

Throughout the episode, the hosts engage in light-hearted banter and share personal anecdotes, balancing the intense stories with moments of levity.

Examples:

• Dax’s Story [21:03]: Recounts his brother’s insecurities during a rescue, highlighting the human side of heroism.
• Monica’s Reflection [10:14]: Discusses the allure of being a hero and its impact on personal relationships.
• Shoutouts [22:03 & 38:30]: Participants give heartfelt thanks to friends and the Armchair Expert community, emphasizing the show's role in their personal journeys.

6. Concluding Remarks and Reflections

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the emotional weight of the stories shared and the enduring spirit of first responders.

Notable Quotes:

• Dax Shepard [39:12]: "This is a real barn burner, as we say. High watermark for armchair anonymous."
• Daphne [38:42]: "Sometimes when you work in this field, the drive home can be kind of tough."

Conclusions:

• The episode serves as a tribute to the bravery and resilience of first responders, highlighting both their heroic actions and the personal challenges they face.
• Listeners are left with a deeper appreciation for the sacrifices made by those on the front lines of emergencies.

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Key Takeaways:

• Adaptability in Crisis: First responders must make swift decisions with limited information, often improvising in unprecedented situations.
• Emotional Resilience: Repeated exposure to traumatic events necessitates strong mental coping strategies.
• Human Instinct to Help: Even untrained individuals can exhibit remarkable courage in the face of emergencies.
• Community and Bystander Roles: The presence (or absence) of community support can significantly impact the dynamics of rescue situations.
• Ongoing Struggles: Many first responders grapple with the aftermath of their experiences, highlighting the need for continuous support and mental health resources.

This episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard provides an unflinching look into the lives of first responders, offering listeners profound insights into the complexities of their roles and the indomitable human spirit.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman and Aaron Weekley. This is a fucking nuts episode. We shouldn't put it out and you shouldn't listen to it. This is first responders and we did hear a story that rivals the very worst of stories we've ever heard.

[Monica Padman]

You can't listen to it. You just like absolutely cannot listen to it.

[Dax Shepard]

It's fucking insane. I'm thinking of the thing when she described it.

[Monica Padman]

Me too, Me too. Me too. It's wild.

[Dax Shepard]

It's fucking wild, boy. First responders, I mean, you know, they see it all, but they see more than you think they see.

[Monica Padman]

I'm sorry, you guys aren't gonna be able to listen. Don't enjoy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, can't eat, can't drink, can't operate a vehicle. You have to be in a pad room to listen to this with nothing sharp around. Don't enjoy. First responders, this message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple card is a no fee credit card that gives you daily cash back every day. That's 3% back at Apple and 2% back on every purchase made with Apple card using Apple pay. Apply for Apple card in the wallet app on your iPhone today subject to credit approval. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on credit card creditworthiness rates as of January 1, 2025. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch terms and more at applecard.com we are supported by Mobland on Paramount+ your next family crime saga Obsession is streaming now on Paramount + mob land an explosive new series from the underworld of Guy Ritchie stars Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren. What a cast. Go inside the Harrigan crime family. Who will stop nothing to ensure they come out on top in a war that threatens to topple empires and destroy lives. As kingdom goes up against kingdom, lines will be crossed and the only saving grace is a bet your life guarantee. Family above everything. It's an adrenaline fueled all hell breaks loose mafia series with a list talent. I love Tom Hardy.

[Monica Padman]

I love Guy Richie.

[Dax Shepard]

I love them all. This is such a stellar cast. I cannot wait to watch it. New series mobland now streaming on Paramount pl hi. You have fun stuff behind you. Yeah. What's happening you biz quick Fallout.

[Aaron Weekley]

I stream video games on Twitch. We got kind of a breakfast theme going on because my name is Breakfast Bot on there.

[Dax Shepard]

What is it? Breakfast Bot.

[Aaron Weekley]

Breakfast Bod. B O D. Oh, Breakfast Bod.

[Monica Padman]

I love it. I was about to say this looks like a show.

[Dax Shepard]

It looks fun. Where you live?

[Aaron Weekley]

I'm in Charleston, South Carolina.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, gosh. Yeah, I kind of want to live there. Do you love it?

[Aaron Weekley]

I like it, but we're full, so don't move here. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I know you guys are, like, not into it.

[Dax Shepard]

Although who was just telling us that lives there that they like Californians?

[Monica Padman]

I think it was another armchair anonymous person.

[Dax Shepard]

They had some distinction between what groups they liked. Okay, so you have a first responder story.

[Aaron Weekley]

Sure thing. I've got two fun facts, though, for Dax real quick if we have time. Yeah, Dax, you and I have the same birthday. January 2nd.

[Dax Shepard]

J2C. Congratulations.

[Aaron Weekley]

Every time you say it, I'm like, Yep, let's go, J2C. And we both have kids named Lincoln.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you have a boy or a girl?

[Aaron Weekley]

A boy named Lincoln. Yeah. He's nine. Before I was a fan of the show and everything.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Do you want to show your tattoo?

[Dax Shepard]

I doubt I can.

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah, I need a good look so I can get my matches. One, too.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

J2C. What a crew. Some people are just born blessed.

[Monica Padman]

Some people are a 24V.

[Dax Shepard]

And that's a cool cuz.

[Monica Padman]

A 24. Actually, it's really cool.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. It only works if you have another. There's no other. A 24 volts.

[Monica Padman]

I know so many people born on my birthday.

[Dax Shepard]

On your birthday. But it's the July 2 cancer that makes J2C so elusive. April24. I guess you could be, but what's the sign for April?

[Monica Padman]

Not V is the only.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, Christian, sorry we ate up so much of your time. Okay, hit us with the first responder story.

[Aaron Weekley]

It was 2018. I worked EMS from 2015 to 2021. So a little bit about the geographics of my county. The lower half is lots of cities, high population. The upper half is very country, very rural. Everything is far apart. So we've already got an extended eta. We get dispatched to a motor vehicle accident, which is a very common call. You know, neck and back pain type of stuff. We don't get very many details on this call. We're just going in blind. When we get there, the first thing we see is a car with very heavy damage. It's in a ditch next to a tree line, and it's got smoke coming out, glass broken everywhere. I mean, it looks like a movie set.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Police are already there.

[Aaron Weekley]

No. So that's the weird thing. We show up, there's nobody there. I mean, it's dead silent. But the weirdest part is that there's no caller. Typically, there's at least the caller. I guess this was just a passerby. When I say it's dead silent, I mean, you can hear the squirrels in the tree line. That's about it. We go up to the vehicle expecting to find a patient. We don't see anyone. We're looking around. I'm looking down the street. I'm looking under the car. I'm looking in the car. We're just trying to find this person because they could obviously be very, very hurt. Me and my partner are very confused. We can't find this guy. So we ask in dispatch for additional information. And I keep hearing these damn squirrels in the tree.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no.

[Aaron Weekley]

I look up, and 15ft in the air, I see my patient being suspended by two tiny branches.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

And he's out cold, it seems.

[Aaron Weekley]

I immediately look at my partner and I say, oh, fuck, he's dead.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah. Which is not very professional. But that's what happens.

[Dax Shepard]

Desperate times.

[Aaron Weekley]

Immediately, we're like, what are we going to do? Luckily, fire shows up two minutes later, they're asking where the patient is, and we just kind of point up. Now, there's no protocol for getting a guy out of a tree. We just reach for the largest ladder on the truck, lean it up against the tree. I think these ladders are made for, like, one guy, maybe two guys at a time. So weight distribution was kind of iffy, but we ended up creating, like, a human pyramid under the ladder with all the guys we could, while me and my partner climbed up there with our gear.

[Dax Shepard]

How come they didn't send the firefighter up? It feels like that's their domain.

[Aaron Weekley]

I volunteered. I wanted to be up there.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay. Okay.

[Aaron Weekley]

So I went up there and we packaged him as best we could. We lifted his legs, and we slid a backboard under his belly. Between his belly and the branches, we had to slide him face down onto the backboard, get a collar on him as best we could, strap him in, and then basically create a human chain to slide him down the ladder.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

This seems impossible without losing him and him flying down the ladder and taking people out.

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah. And keep in mind, he's also very injured. He's hardly breathing at this point.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God.

[Aaron Weekley]

So when we do finally get out there and get him looked at, we can obviously smell the booze he had been drinking and driving. We get him down, we get him onto the stretcher and then we start our assessment and everything. We immediately call for a helicopter, a Medevac EM, because again, we're out in the country. It's about 25, 30 minutes to the nearest trauma center. We get fired to set up an LZ landing zone. His breathing started declining very drastically. So we have what's called a rapid sequence intubation RSI. I've only assisted in maybe three RSIs in the five years that I was working there. It's very invasive. Basically what we do is we give them a paralytic and a sedative and we put them in a medically induced coma. We stop their breathing and we have to intubate them.

[Dax Shepard]

This has got to be a hard call to make.

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah. It's not done lightly, but when we do it, we do it right. So we get them intubated, we drive them to the lz, the helicopter's waiting for us, and then we turn him over to the flight team. They take their report and of course he's transported to the nearest trauma facility. As far as his injuries afterwards, he ended up having a massive brain bleed. When we showed up, I didn't see a big hole in the windshield. I think he was ejected out of the driver's side window.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

As the car was rolling.

[Monica Padman]

And how did he get that high up?

[Dax Shepard]

Momentum. Well, think if you were on a seesaw and the seesaw went up at 60 miles an hour. Cause that's how fast the car's.

[Monica Padman]

I just think you'd be slowed down by your body getting out of the window.

[Dax Shepard]

I've seen a lot of videos of people getting thrown out of vehicles because dumbasses that off road don't wear a seatbelt. And I've seen that a bunch. It's crazy how easily the body just flies out the window.

[Aaron Weekley]

I think he was probably less injured because he was drunk. They say that when you're drunk, your body's more relaxed. Not telling anyone to go drunk driving.

[Monica Padman]

No, don't do it.

[Dax Shepard]

But if you're mid crashed, do drink a fifth of Jack really quick.

[Monica Padman]

This is very, er. This is very the pit. I love it. I love it. I'm sorry for that guy.

[Dax Shepard]

Don't you like how gangster Christian is like, I like these EMTs. They're just like, let's get going.

[Eliza]

That's what the job is.

[Dax Shepard]

You rsi and you stop doing it though.

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah. I went into business for myself in 2021, so now I'm self employed and that allows a lot of freedom for me to do Twitch. I probably stream about 80 hours a month.

[Monica Padman]

That's a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

You're busy now. Have you ever been anywhere post this career and some shit's gone down and you've got to get involved?

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah. Much like you. I feel like I have a hero complex. I want to get in there when I want pulled over. But luckily my wife is reasonable and says, listen, you can see them, they're good.

[Dax Shepard]

No heroes needed. Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Thanks for sharing that. That's wild.

[Dax Shepard]

What a thing. Great meeting you.

[Monica Padman]

Have a great rest of your day.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, take care.

[Aaron Weekley]

Take care.

[Eliza]

Bye.

[Monica Padman]

I don't want anyone to have hero complexes, but I also get it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Cuz it is attractive when someone's a hero.

[Dax Shepard]

Of course.

[Monica Padman]

I just watched an episode of er. George Clooney rescued this boy. He was stuck in a like sewer tunnel and then it was starting to flood and he was starting to pass out. He got him out just in time. But then the water rushes and he can't find him. And then he finds him and he lifts him up and he's a hero.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi. Is it Eliza? It is Eliza. Where are you?

[Eliza]

I am actually in LA in Culver City.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Monica was just stranded there.

[Monica Padman]

That's where I met Ted, my AAA driver. Who is the angel. I do feel guilty because we haven't reconnected. I haven't called him.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're gonna have to for the armchairies because they were pretty invested in that. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

There was a lot of people wanting an update when you guys have lunch and get married.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

And have a family.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, great. Okay.

[Eliza]

You could just send us screenshots and, you know, post those.

[Daphne]

That would be great.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe live stream that lunch. Okay. So you have a first responder story.

[Eliza]

I have a first responder story that takes place here in la. And the reason I moved out here is because my boyfriend and I were doing long distance between LA and New York for three years. He will feature heavily in this story. This story takes place August of 2024. I am not a trained first responder. My boyfriend is not a first responder. We stumbled into becoming first responders for an emergency. I'm not an adrenaline junkie in the way that I want to step in. I shut down.

[Monica Padman]

You don't have a hero complex?

[Eliza]

Absolutely not. So last summer my cousin, who is a musician, was having a choir concert with his group downtown. And my boyfriend and I decided to go. I work sometimes from downtown la, so I'm familiar with downtown proper, but not all of the neighborhoods. So this was somewhere that I'd never visited before. We are driving around looking for parking. And you guys know how horrific parking in LA can be. This is more of a residential area, though. We can't find anything. We're turning down all these side streets. We finally are on a side street that looks promising. So we're going kind of slowly along to try to see whether there's any spots I'm driving. My boyfriend's in the passenger seat. There's a nice silver BMW and its front window and back windows are smashed in. And there's little licks of flame on the front hood. Oh, and then notice there's two men near the car on the side of the road. One standing, shouting over the other one who is now rolling on the ground. And I'm clocking. Clothes are on the ground. Fire is now on the lawn. Oh, no. And I don't know at this point if this is a hate crime, if there's an attack. This is happening within like 0.5 seconds. We notice, okay, this man is on fire. My boyfriend, who was an emergency responder in college, oh, wow. Goes back into full hero mode. I shut down. So he gets out of the car, he's like, call 911. I'm gonna go assess the situation. The man who was standing over is kind of standing to the side. There's gasoline. And the man who was rolling on the ground has now stood up. Two things I clock immediately. He is fully naked.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Eliza]

And covered basically in third degree burns.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a can of gas in the.

[Monica Padman]

Mix too, that the guy's holding.

[Eliza]

There's still little embers on the lawn. I now get a hold of the police. I'm trying to tell them where I am. Cause I'm not familiar with the neighborhood. I look over, the man who is fully nude is now stumbling to my car, trying to get into the backseat to have me take him to the hospital.

[Dax Shepard]

If I was witnessing this tableau, I have no guess at what's going on.

[Monica Padman]

Me too.

[Dax Shepard]

Normally I'm like, oh, I can see what's going on now.

[Monica Padman]

Not to be stupid, not to like. But did you feel that these people that you came across were potentially unhappy, housed, or on drugs?

[Eliza]

No. Unhoused? No clue. On drugs, sure. The guy is trying to get in my car. I'm like, hey, thank you so much, please.

[Daphne]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Thanks for trusting me.

[Monica Padman]

Such a female response.

[Eliza]

Yeah.

[Daphne]

I'm so sorry to impose.

[Dax Shepard]

We are supported by Liquid iv.

[Monica Padman]

I love an electrolyte. You know this.

[Dax Shepard]

I was banging some Liquid IV on my bus trip back because I was drinking so many sodas and everything as I tend to do coffee sodas and I was like, you know, I need some deep hydration.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, you do.

[Dax Shepard]

I just filled up a little water bottle with it, pounded it and felt incredible.

[Monica Padman]

It tastes good too.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

We sure do.

[Dax Shepard]

So they need to meet our new pal, Claude. While other AIs sound like robots, Claude just gets it with the emotional intelligence. Whether I'm researching gas or refining my latest meal plan to get Brad Pitt's abs or looking for the best dating advice to give Monica. Claude is the fact checker in your pocket while you're in the armchair.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's exciting for us. I like having an extra companion.

[Dax Shepard]

Welcome to the team Claude. You can try Claude for free [e-mail] that's C L-A-U D E.com. we are supported by Ring. With Ring you can be there from anywhere with doorbells and cameras that help you see more to exciting features that help you know more to the app that lets you connect more. See more at the front door. Up high and down low with battery doorbells head to toe video capture it all all day and all night with 24. 7 recording and get smarter alerts that know the difference between a person and a package. Right in the Ring app. Now. I relied on these Ring photos quite.

[Monica Padman]

A bit for our unfortunate violation.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, it was so good to have all that.

[Monica Padman]

It's also, it just brings peace of mind to know you can check at any time.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, with Ring you can check in and be there from anywhere. Some features require a subscription and are available only on select Ring devices. Exclusions apply. Learn [e-mail].

[Eliza]

I'm still on the phone. They now cross the street. His person follows him. My person follows him. They're now all going around the corner and down the street. So they're out of sight. The paramedics finally come. At this point, the lawn is still going. The fire is now completely engulfed the car. Oh, the entire hood has melted off. It's a huge fire. All of the neighbors now are coming out. We realized they were watching and filming from the inside, but no one did anything. Which I was really angry about at first. Cause I was like, how are you watching someone in an emergency? But also I recognize my privilege in that when I call the police, I feel safe.

[Aaron Weekley]

Yeah, right.

[Eliza]

Not everyone feels that. And everyone has their own reactions. So I think that's important to say. I am now watching the police try to get this car under control, try to get the neighbors to give some context. And calling my boyfriend because I have no idea where he is.

[Dax Shepard]

Brian, you've got a choir show to see.

[Monica Padman]

Why did he leave?

[Eliza]

I got a choir show. It turns out this entire time, while I'm calling him, he's on the phone with the police. My boyfriend is now trying to have him stay in one place. He keeps running. Cause he, in his state of mind, is saying, I just need to get to the hospital. Not realizing we brought the hospital to you. The paramedics are now talking to me, getting my statement, getting the neighbor's statements. They've put out the fire and are now picking up pieces of clothing and phones and things from the side of the road. They get the three stooges, my boyfriend, the other man, and the man on fire back and are now interviewing my boyfriend. Getting the man who's on fire into the ambulance and into wound treatment and trying to pull his boyfriend off to the side.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, okay, okay.

[Eliza]

I think it was a lover's tiff, to say the least. Where person on fire smashed in the car as like a fuck. You lit it on fire. And then was like, you made me do this. Because the boyfriend kept yelling over him, baby, why did you do this? I told you not to do this. What have you done?

[Dax Shepard]

Did they live right there?

[Eliza]

No, the neighbors were like, we have no idea who these people are. I think they just pulled up. Then we got back in the car, cried a lot, gathered ourselves and went to the concert.

[Monica Padman]

A lot of adrenaline.

[Dax Shepard]

And did the power of choir heal all wounds?

[Eliza]

It was very healing. You have to laugh at the absurdity of Here's a guy with his dick out on my Saturday night.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, I got a one second story for you. It's about my brother. He was out of town on business. He's eating at a Taco Bell, he's by himself, he hears a collision. He looks out the window at Taco Bell and there's a man that somehow has crashed his motorcycle, but is on top of it as it slides, slides into the lawn of the Taco Bell. And the motorcycle caught on fire and gas was getting everywhere and the guy was on fire. And my brother ran out of Taco Bell. He took his shirt off to pat the guy down. But my favorite part of the story is my brother said, I'm like batting this guy out and all I can think is I gotta get my shirt back off. Even while he was actively rescuing someone, he was like really insecure. He would not have taken his shirt off otherwise.

[Monica Padman]

In front of Taco Bell.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, a little bit of personal sacrifice. Yeah. I just think it's so human to be saving someone's life and thinking, fuck, I gotta get this shirt back on before anyone looks at my belly.

[Eliza]

The thing that kept coming to my mind was like, we've got to cover him, like the decency of it. But meanwhile he's got third degree burns. That is not his priority.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. I wonder if his penis got burnt in that.

[Eliza]

I did put it in the submission because I thought you might be curious. He had legitimately the largest dick I've ever seen in my entire life. No, comparable to the microphone.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm glad. Idea the presence of mind to just check. Or maybe it couldn't be avoided, Couldn't miss it.

[Eliza]

It was front and center.

[Monica Padman]

And that's blacid. Cuz he definitely wasn't hard while he was on fire.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, who knows, maybe erotic.

[Monica Padman]

Except it seems like the one on fire is actually the one that was.

[Dax Shepard]

Mad because his boyfriend found someone with an even bigger penis.

[Eliza]

That feels unlikely given the size.

[Dax Shepard]

Low probability.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank you for telling me that detail.

[Eliza]

Of course. I feel so grateful to be able to talk to you guys right now. I have three quick little shout outs. Is that okay?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, of course.

[Eliza]

Jess and Alexa are two of my good friends who are also huge armchairs. And every week talking about what the episode was, what our takeaways are. So shout out. Jess, Alexa, love you guys. The other one, Dax, specifically for you. I just wanted to say thank you because my family has been touched by addiction a lot, and. And it's not always in the media as much or in people's forefront of their minds about recovery and the life after. I think it's really important to show how much after recovery, you still have to keep working at it. And it's a lifelong battle. It's not just you recover and then you're good.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a bummer. It's like the gym. That way you gotta keep going. Can't get the perfect abs and then quit.

[Eliza]

Yeah, exactly. My cousin is fully recovered and now runs a recovery clinic. So it's been really amazing to see his journey and see yours as well. And then for me personally, I actually went through and eating disorder recovery a couple years ago. And during mealtime, every time is obviously a struggle. So I would put you guys on and have a moment to laugh or cry or learn something. And I got through it bite by bite with you. So thank you so much for that.

[Grant]

Thank you.

[Monica Padman]

Awesome.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you like the Nikki episode? Nikki Glaser.

[Eliza]

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

I love how open she is about all that.

[Eliza]

I think it's so important. Cause I think everyone has some type of warped relationship with food, and it's not something that I am embarrassed about at all. I think it's so important to talk about. So again, I just really feel grateful to you guys for helping me on that journey.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, thanks, Eliza. This was a delight. Nice meeting you.

[Monica Padman]

Have a great day. Thank you guys so much.

[Dax Shepard]

Bye. Hello? Is this Daphne? Hi.

[Daphne]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

You're in your closet.

[Daphne]

I tried to follow the rules.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you allowed to tell us what state you're in?

[Daphne]

I'm in Wisconsin.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. Great. Okay. So you have a first responder story.

[Daphne]

I do. So this was when I first started. It was within my first couple weeks working as an emt, so it's pretty green. Also, for a little bit of context, when you first start, at least at the company I worked at, there's such a hierarchy. When you're new, you're doing all the work nobody wants to do. So all like cleaning up the gi bleed.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Daphne]

Picking up the heavy parts of the patient, changing diapers. Like all the crazy stuff that people who've been there longer don't want to do that. That's entirely on you.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I ask what led you to the job in the first place? I'm a little bit curious.

[Daphne]

Mine was a little bit untraditional. I actually majored in philosophy, but my college job, I was an outdoor trip leader, so I had to get a wilderness first responder certification and just really fell in love with it.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, amazing.

[Daphne]

So after college, I tried a couple of jobs, and nothing really stuck, and I ended up going back to get my EMT because I just loved my first cert so much.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you a bit of an adrenaline junkie?

[Daphne]

I would say so. Working in emergency, you kind of have to be, but at the same time, it also tames it a little bit because you see all the crazy shit that can happen. Yeah, I'm like a moderate adrenaline junkie, I'd say.

[Monica Padman]

Are you watching the Pit?

[Daphne]

No, but I've heard it's good.

[Monica Padman]

You're gonna love.

[Dax Shepard]

Pretty accurate, but that's like asking us if we watched a show about podcasting.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, like Only Murders in the building. Yes, I have Good point.

[Daphne]

Yeah. I mean, it's a great show. So the partner who I was paired up with, you could tell that he had one foot out of the door, was ready to retire and go to Boca and spend all his money gambling years.

[Dax Shepard]

What is the average career expectancy? I don't feel like I see a lot of older EMTs.

[Daphne]

I was told that their turnaround rate is, like, six months, so it's pretty quick. Also, the place where I worked, it was a lot of people who they were starting as an emt, but they wanted to go to med school or PA School or nursing school. This was kind of like the first step to get some experience.

[Dax Shepard]

Gotcha.

[Daphne]

So we get a call, and the call is super vague. It was just for a sick person. And that was also a red flag, because usually the more vague the chief complaint is, the more unhinged it is when you actually get there.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, interesting.

[Daphne]

We go to the apartment. The elevator going up is teeny tiny. Like, it barely fits my partner and I. And the stretcher in there, we get all the way up, knock on the door, introduce ourselves, walk in, and immediately when I open the door, I'm hit with this wave of just a blinding smell. And a smell that I had never smelled before up until this point.

[Dax Shepard]

Never smelt it.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Daphne]

And it smelled like a mix of hay, like from a horse. Poop. Sulfur.

[Eliza]

Oh.

[Daphne]

And burnt anything.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, interesting.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, hey.

[Dax Shepard]

A horse trots out of the bedroom.

[Daphne]

I would have taken that. So all of a sudden, we see the patient. He stands up. He has a walker. He's walking over. I could tell he's walking a little funny. Like his gait is a little off, but nothing too crazy. And he's wearing what I thought were black compression socks. And the lower part of his legs looked a little different from the rest of his body. But who am I to judge, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Is he wearing shorts?

[Daphne]

Yeah, he's wearing, like, basketball shorts. And also, as he's walking over, the smell is getting stronger. And I hear this kind of. Of squishing sound with each footstep.

[Monica Padman]

No, no, no.

[Dax Shepard]

This is bringing me back to that bar in Canada.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. Okay. Do you guys remember that?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. No one can listen to this.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay. Squish, squish, squish. Different colored legs squishing his way over.

[Daphne]

And then I go over to help him. I want to give him a hand. When I get over, I look down and I realize, oh, those aren't compression socks.

[Grant]

Box.

[Daphne]

That's completely necrotic tissue from the knee down.

[Dax Shepard]

His legs are dead.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my.

[Daphne]

They're gone.

[Eliza]

Oh.

[Daphne]

And that squishing sound was them sloughing off with each stuff, like, tissue coming off.

[Monica Padman]

No, no, stop.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my. This is like, as close as you can get to discovering a zombie.

[Daphne]

The top, top 75% of his body was a normal average Joe. Bottom half was some out of the Walking Dead.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I have to be honest. I thought it was going to be that he cut off his legs and he put horse legs on.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Monica, that's a.

[Monica Padman]

Because the hay.

[Dax Shepard]

And then there's a horse in his bedroom with human legs. Did you just swap them? It was a transform.

[Monica Padman]

He wanted to become a centaur. He was a little mentally ill.

[Dax Shepard]

So his foot is falling apart as he walks.

[Daphne]

Yes, it looked like a mudslide. Every shade of yellow, red, brown that you can imagine.

[Dax Shepard]

How old were you at this point?

[Daphne]

21.

[Monica Padman]

No, you're too young to have seen something like that.

[Grant]

Wow.

[Daphne]

I keep my cool. I'm not here to judge anybody. I'm just here to get you to the hospital safely. So I take him to the stretcher, and my partner looks at me and he's like, I'm not touching that. And I was like, okay, I'm not surprised. So I help him into the stretcher, and he obviously needs help getting his lower half up. I'm trying to think of the most gentle way to go about this. You know, I don't want to cause any more Damage. So I go down by his ankles and lift his legs up. And as I do, I feel my fingers squish into him. It felt like jam.

[Dax Shepard]

No jam.

[Aaron Weekley]

Why?

[Dax Shepard]

Of course, preserves Is there bone?

[Daphne]

The bone's not out yet, but it doesn't look like it's that far away. So we get back to the elevator. My partner doesn't get into the elevator. He's like, I'm taking the next one. You got this chance.

[Dax Shepard]

This guy's a rock piece of shit. A fucking 21 year old girl who's like, deal with it, toots. I'm in Boca.

[Monica Padman]

I'm already in Boca.

[Daphne]

Yeah. So I'm squished between him and the elevator wall.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I ask what his demeanor is? Because I have a story very similar to this from an ER doctor I know who had someone get brought in that was a shut in and they had a lot of necrotic flesh. And I don't think they knew. They were kind of just embarrassed. Like, what was his vibe?

[Daphne]

He was in a great mood. He was chatting it up with me. I'm trying to banter with him a little bit, but it's so thick and literally blinding. Like I was having a hard time opening my eyes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Did he acknowledge that his legs were dead?

[Daphne]

Verbatim. He said, oh, it's just a little leg pain. No big deal.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. We are supported by Quints. Something about the weather warming up makes you want to get outside and go somewhere new, doesn't it? It's the spring travel itch.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my gosh. It's spring break is upon us. Whether you're in school or not, you should still take a spring trip.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

So many cute things.

[Dax Shepard]

The cashmere, it's so soft.

[Monica Padman]

Beautiful sweater. But also I have these knives from Quince that are incredible. They do have really, really, really high end products.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Daphne]

We get into the ambulance. It's a hot summer day. And also this ambulance has no air conditioning, no ventilation, nothing. And my partner, of course, has me sit in the back with him and closes the only window between the front and the back.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Daphne]

I'm trying to bandage this up, trying to do anything to make him more comfortable, but it's just soaking through. Nothing's working. He needs extensive wound care. We just need to get on the road and get him to a hospital. And of course, he wants the one that's the farthest away from where we are. And in the ambulance ride over. Ambulances have no suspension at all. And we're going on the highway and this is oozing. The amount of liquid that's coming out was insane. So I'm just being jostled around. It's splashing everywhere. Like, it felt like being at a water park stop that I did not sign up for. Oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

And can you wear a hashtag that suit?

[Daphne]

Looking back, I probably should have, but at that point, I don't think I even knew where those were in the ambulance.

[Dax Shepard]

He might have been a little disassociated. Like, let's just get through this.

[Daphne]

Yeah, it's just every body fluid you can imagine, plus chunks of tissue.

[Monica Padman]

No, don't say chunks.

[Daphne]

I'm trying all the tricks for the smell, too. At that point, the smell was the least of it, but I was sticking alcohol pads in my mask and rubbing hand sanitizer on the outside, just trying to do anything while also still trying to be discreet. Because I'm not trying to make this guy feel bad about himself. He's already going through it. I'm just like, okay, this is my life for the next hour.

[Dax Shepard]

I would have said, no, you're going to the one down the road.

[Daphne]

I wish we could, but I think at that point it technically would have been like medical kidnapping or something crazy like that. I feel like, take them where they don't want to go.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Daphne]

So we get to the hospital finally, and we roll him in and we're doing the handoff. Report to the nurses, we're talking to them. My partner finally comes in, like, puffing his chest, giving report. Like, he did everything. As he's giving report, I notice he's starting to paus between words. And then his face is starting to get really red. And then he starts going. He runs into the hallway and vomits everywhere and completely misses the trash can.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, this guy is a bozo.

[Daphne]

We do the handoff. That's done. I walk into the hallway, there's vomit everywhere, and there's tracks from the wheels of our stretcher, like bits of leg and blood and pot.

[Dax Shepard]

This is like, saw or something.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you ever get any follow up on what happens to these people? Like, do you see the ER people a month later and go, like, what happened?

[Daphne]

Yeah, I didn't do that with this guy. I have, however, seen patients in the wild before, after I've taken care of them, and that's always crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you say hi? You don't say hi.

[Daphne]

I don't say hi. But there was this one guy who had his throat slit and he didn't want to go to the hospital, and he was bleeding out of his eyes, ears, nose. And I was like, you have to go. But he refused. And he was his own person mentally, so there's nothing he could do. And I saw him biking, like, three weeks later.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. So he made the right call. Wow.

[Grant]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

That's good.

[Monica Padman]

They call that AMA against medical advice.

[Dax Shepard]

You learn that?

[Daphne]

Yeah, yeah. You have to sign a form. It's very official. But I spent the next three hours cleaning out the hallway.

[Monica Padman]

You had to clean it?

[Daphne]

I wasn't gonna leave it.

[Dax Shepard]

You're a good person.

[Monica Padman]

You're an angel.

[Dax Shepard]

What about the puke? Did homeboy clean up his own puke?

[Daphne]

Yes. And then with the ambulance, there was no equipment or anything for me to use, so I was just wiping that up with paper towel, disinfectant wipes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you got to call dispatch and go like, hey, we need about an hour to clean up.

[Monica Padman]

We need to blow up this ambulance.

[Dax Shepard]

And we need to fire Mike and send them to fucking Boca. I can't believe you didn't quit your job after that.

[Daphne]

I came close. I thought about it. But you kind of know what you're getting into.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, do you? I can't imagine. You think, like, I'm going to show up and someone's legs are going to be falling off. Real time, that's really about.

[Monica Padman]

Someone will have cut off their legs and put horse legs on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. A horse transplant.

[Monica Padman]

Who could be ready for that?

[Daphne]

I wouldn't put it past somebody.

[Dax Shepard]

Our last question, because when we interviewed nurses, they all have a foreign body and rectum story. Did you respond to any of those?

[Daphne]

Yes.

[Aaron Weekley]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Two for.

[Daphne]

I've seen a wine bottle.

[Monica Padman]

With the cork or without?

[Daphne]

I don't know because I didn't take it out.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's got to be empty.

[Monica Padman]

I would guess there's three options. There's a wine bottle cork, there's an empty wine bottle, and there's a wine bottle that, like, you drank some and then you put the stopper in.

[Dax Shepard]

That seems craziest to me because the fluid could pop up.

[Monica Padman]

You know, maybe that's what they like.

[Daphne]

Yeah, it's kind of a two for one deal.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe they put a champagne bottle in there, then you pop the cork and it explodes right when you're. That sounds eventful.

[Daphne]

I haven't seen that yet.

[Dax Shepard]

But someone did have a wine bottle and you put them face down on the stretcher. I guess.

[Daphne]

Guess we had them on their side. Face down technically is like a airway issue.

[Dax Shepard]

Did they make any explanation as to what had happened or. No, just. I need to go to the hospital.

[Daphne]

I feel like people either really overcompensate for it and try to say, like, I was cleaning and I tripped and I fell.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a Sedaris story about the people say they tripped and fell. And he's like, I'm so clumsy. I've fallen down naked many times, never stood up. And there was a candle in my ass.

[Daphne]

Not one.

[Dax Shepard]

What's the second verse?

[Daphne]

They're just silent because they know that you know.

[Monica Padman]

That's best.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you done with that line of work?

[Daphne]

No. So I'm still doing it now. So I work in an emergency room, and I started nursing school this fall.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great.

[Monica Padman]

I can't wait for you to watch the pit. You're gonna love it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Daphne, this was a delight. This is among the very worst stories we've heard. What an accomplishment.

[Daphne]

I'm so glad. Well, thank you so much for your time and for having me. Can I give a quick Shout out.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, of course. We love shout outs.

[Daphne]

I just want to shout out Caroline, Tate, and Em, my three favorite people. I love them so much. And to you guys, I just want to say that sometimes when you work in this field, the drive home can be kind of tough. If you have a bad day, that's kind of when you start like reflecting and things can feel a little heavy. So whenever that happens, I always put on armchair and it makes me feel so much better.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good.

[Daphne]

So I just want to thank you guys for bringing some levity to that.

[Monica Padman]

I can't take that in knowing what you've done for the world.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm going to take it. I'm choosing today to take it. My self esteem is good.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm going to go. All right, that's. That's great. Well, thank you. This is a real barn burner, as we say. High watermark for armchair anonymous. Nice meeting you.

[Monica Padman]

Have a great day.

[Daphne]

Likewise.

[Dax Shepard]

Bye.

[Grant]

Should do a prompt.

[Daphne]

Tell us about your favorite episode of.

[Grant]

The Pit or er.

[Monica Padman]

It'll be me calling into every single episode. You know that drive back is, I think, intense because Che Che, the four year old who died of AIDS on this show. George Clooney and. And a woman medical student. They were the ones dealing with Che Che, and then he died and then they had to have sex to feel better.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, I understand.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Grant]

Hello, can you hear me?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yes, this is Grant.

[Grant]

This is me.

[Dax Shepard]

Where are you from, Grant?

[Grant]

I'm from Boston area.

[Dax Shepard]

We like the Boston area.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Do you know Ben and Matt?

[Grant]

Ben and Matt? No.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Grant]

I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

He doesn't even know who you're referencing.

[Monica Padman]

I know that.

[Grant]

I'm sorry, I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

[Grant]

Oh, yeah. They're my neighbors, actually.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, cool. Now that you have the last name. Makes sense.

[Dax Shepard]

So you have a first responder story.

[Grant]

Yes. I hope it's okay. So I was working as an EMT out in a rural area. I was a college student out there and working on the side. And just to sort of lay the ground for this area, there's a regional hospital that has like an ED, but not like a trauma center or anything. And then 30 minutes away, there's more of a trauma center. But I was working one day and we got a call from the hospital that said. Said they need help moving someone from the parking lot into the hospital. Hospitals have rules where they can't move people. But anyways, we go up and we find this woman sitting on an ATV and Two things sort of stood out to me right away. One is that the ATV is perfectly parked, and I just think that that's really impressive. Two is that there is some blood coming down her leg. And as soon as we show up, she's like, I'm so sorry that they called you. I'm sure somebody else is dying. You guys should go take care of someone else first. And we're like, no, it's fine. Tell us what happened. She's wearing really tight skinny jeans, were exposing her leg, trying to figure out where the bleeding's coming from. And she said she was riding up on the mountain range close by with her boyfriend when they flipped over the atv. Both got hurt, got back on the ATV and rode it at least half an hour down, presumably some trail and then the road to get to the hospital. As she's telling the story, we expose her leg. And she has this open fracture of her fibula and tibula on her leg. The bone has basically pierced the skin. That's a bad injury.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Fuck.

[Grant]

You can bleed out.

[Dax Shepard]

Your body's opened up to the world at that point.

[Grant]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's the nightmare, seeing your bone stick out of your leg.

[Grant]

She didn't realize that she was wearing tight jeans, but she still got all the way there with the bone sticking out of her leg. So we are like, okay, this is not very hospital for you. We're gonna have to take you somewhere else. We're, like, loading her into the ambulance, and she's like, please, I'll call a taxi. I'll call a friend to take me. Somebody else is dying, and you need to save them. Like, I'm sure somebody else is dying. I'm sure you guys have more important things to do. I should be last on the list. And we're like, no, your bone's sticking out of your leg. This is a completely reasonable reason for an ambulance. We can take you. We eventually administer, get her in the ambulance, rush her down to the main hospital. And on the way, for each bump we're hitting, she's like, dropping expletives after each time. She's like, pardon my French. I'm so sorry that I swore.

[Monica Padman]

Is she a nun or something? Like, what's going on?

[Grant]

Yeah, we're like, spar all you want. You have a bone sticking out of your body that's, I'm sure, incredibly pain painful. And the paramedics, you know, giving her pain meds, but they only do so much at that dose throughout the drive. She's truly like, you can pull over on the side. I'll call a taxi.

[Monica Padman]

This is wild.

[Grant]

We get her to the hospital, we drop her off, and she's like, thank you so much. I'll find you after. I'll take you out to lunch. I'll give you guys ice cream or something. Like, thank you for taking time out of your day. We get paid for this. You're welcome. I leave the hospital just in awe, because typically we have people that don't really need an ambulance that call an ambulance.

[Monica Padman]

Well, the opposite situation.

[Grant]

Yeah. And so. So I tell absolutely everybody about this amazing patient that I had. I'm like, she is the best patient I've ever had for all these reasons. Not to mention she parked perfectly.

[Monica Padman]

Impressive parking skills.

[Dax Shepard]

And the boyfriend was nowhere to be found.

[Grant]

I think he broke his shoulder so he could walk into the ed. So he walked in and was like, my girlfriend can't walk in. Can someone go help her? So anyways, that was over the summer. People come back. I'm still telling people about this best patient that I've ever had. And I'm reading the newspaper a couple months later in the fall, and there's been a murder in the town. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Obviously, I'm gonna click on that. And I'm reading, and it's like, so and so has been murdered. So and so is in custody. And they show a photo and the name, and I'm like, why do I recognize that person? And the person in the photo is, like, in a wheelchair. Like, that's my best patient. That's my best patient that is being accused of murdering her grandmother on Halloween with a paperweight and scissors for a million dollars in inheritance money.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

This is such a left turn.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Biggest left turn ever. She was probably apologizing why she killed her. I'm so sorry. I really want a million dollars.

[Grant]

I was shocked.

[Monica Padman]

That's crazy. Was she in a wheelchair from that event with the leg, presumably?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, she broke her leg in half.

[Monica Padman]

Or do you think she did it on purpose to sue the ATV company?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. You think she's just trying to get some money Wild.

[Monica Padman]

She murdered her grandma.

[Grant]

First of all, she has not been found guilty. She's pleading not guilty.

[Monica Padman]

So just to be clear, this is all alleged.

[Grant]

One article says that there's evidence of a second person's DNA. So it could be a tag team.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe the boy. Yeah. The broken shoulder.

[Monica Padman]

Allegedly.

[Grant]

Yeah, allegedly. She killed her for the inheritance for drugs, which also makes me think maybe she. She got an opioid addiction from the injury itself.

[Monica Padman]

Or she was on opiates.

[Dax Shepard]

They were fucked up, which is why she was kind of handling it so.

[Monica Padman]

Well and was able to ride on it.

[Grant]

That's something that I didn't consider.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. Are you at all considering going to the trial? No. Because you don't live out there anymore.

[Grant]

Yeah, I don't live out there anymore, but I feel like I'm going to leave her as my best impression of her.

[Monica Padman]

We need to know.

[Dax Shepard]

I'd be so intrigued to find out what's going on with this person. Why is she so numb? I. Boy, when they say like, you never know, she would be the last person you would have guessed.

[Grant]

I mean, I sat there in the library of shocks. This is the person that I've been telling everybody about.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Your hero.

[Grant]

Truly. And I'm still looking for a new best patient. Nobody has fulfilled that yet.

[Aaron Weekley]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Murder. Boy, I did not see that coming.

[Monica Padman]

The nicest.

[Dax Shepard]

Delicious.

[Monica Padman]

That's what they'll call the doc.

[Dax Shepard]

The date line. America's sweetheart murderer.

[Grant]

This would be a good day line. You're right.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Hopefully they'll interview you.

[Monica Padman]

You really got taken advantage of a little bit. Not taken. That's not the word. You really got tricked.

[Dax Shepard]

Fooled.

[Monica Padman]

Fooled, fooled.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you still in the EMT game?

[Grant]

I actually just lost my license at the start of April. Because it expired, not because of anything that I did.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Are you going to re up?

[Grant]

I'm in med school now, so I will be getting the different degrees.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Eliza]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Well, thanks for that story. That was wild.

[Grant]

Thank you for having me. Have a great rest of your day.

[Dax Shepard]

All right. Take care. Take care.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I forgot to ask him if he's watched the pit.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't believe you did.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

One slipped through. Are you chomping at the bit to go home and watch ER in the pit?

[Monica Padman]

Obviously. I think actually tonight is the finale of the pit.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. That's so interesting. They're doing regular drops for that show.

[Monica Padman]

I hate it, but I love it.

[Dax Shepard]

We have a mixed feeling about the delayed.

[Monica Padman]

I. There's a. Yeah, we'll talk.

[Dax Shepard]

We'll save this for the. Yeah, all right.

[Monica Padman]

All right.

[Dax Shepard]

Love you.

[Aaron Weekley]

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

[Daphne]

One of a theme song.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're going to ask some random questions and with the help of arm cherries, we'll get some suggestions on the fly R On the fire rhyme dish. Enjoy. Follow armchair expert on the Wondry App, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry App or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey what.

[G]

If your mind could trick your body into feeling sick or even worse? In Hysterical, I investigate the bizarre medical mystery that unfolds in a high school in upstate New York. It starts with one girl developing strange, violent symptoms. And then another. And then another. Rumors begin to swirl. Is it something in the water inside the school or is it all in their heads? Hysterical is my search for answers, and along the way I uncover surprising connections to unexplained incidents around the world. World events that challenge everything we think we know about our bodies and our minds. Named Podcast of the Year at the Gambies, Hysterical is a mind bending, unforgettable ride. Binge all episodes right now exclusively and ad free on Wondery. Start your free trial of Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.