National Suicide Prevention Month Special

Ryan Gorman hosts an iHeartRadio nationwide special featuring Jose Martinez, an Army Veteran and triple amputee, joins the show for National Suicide Prevention Month to discuss how, with the help of Semper Fi & America’s Fund, he overcame his extensive injuries, depression, and suicidal thoughts to become an adaptive athlete.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman.
Thanks so much for joining us here on I Hear
Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have a very
important and powerful conversation lined up for you. I'm joined
now by Jose Martinez, an Army veteran and triple amputee

(00:23):
pro surfer. He's with me for National Suicide Prevention Month
and to talk about Simplify and America's Fund, which you
can learn more about and support at thefund dot org. Cose,
thank you so much for your service to this country
and for taking a few minutes to come on this show.
And I want to go back to twenty eleven. What
was it that led you to join the Army?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Actually, you know what, at the time, I had just
trying to figure out what would be a good move
for me. I was in between schooling and working, and
I felt like I could make a difference. I had
just lost one hundred pounds because I was overweight. I
was hitting the gym a lot, and at that point

(01:06):
we were in the midst of a lot of things,
and at the time I felt like I was strong
enough mentally and physically to actually be able to help
in many different ways. So I decided to actually sign
up and do the biggest selfless act that I felt
like I've ever done for the world.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
So you enlist and then on March third of twenty twelve,
you're on foot patrol in Afghanistan and step us through
what unfolds.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
We were told we just need to go in protect
the civilians there. They were trying to build a road
and they kept getting hit by trapnel, all kinds of stuff,
actually getting shot at sometimes, and they were fearing for
their lives. So we got asked if we can just
go and protect them. We said too easy, you know,

(01:54):
went out. But before we went out, we also got
told that the night before they saw someone just crouching
down there. They don't know if they were digging, they
don't know anything, but they told us that just to
be careful. We kind of knew the area already. We've
been patrolling this area for a while. There was a
law in front of that area that would always have

(02:18):
enemy contact right towards us, so we kind of knew
that we were going to go into the midst of
some stuff. You know, we didn't know to what extreme
we ended up going out on patrol. We ended up
having our point men, and that actually it was me
and I had a mind hound guy with me in
front of me. So any step that we would take,

(02:40):
we would make sure that we were sweeping, making sure
that we didn't trigger something that we didn't want to trigger.
You know, all of us at the time knew that
there's many many ideas all around. We've had already encountered them.
Anytime we were on foot patrol. We try to be
as careful as possible. We ended up clearing out the
first Wady line and ended up going on to the

(03:02):
second Wody line. On the second Wady line, we were
on like a higher ground, but with nothing around us
to actually protect us. So we started kind of looking
around and seeing what would be our best option. That
my mind hume guy was still kind of sweeping around
just to clear the area to make sure that everybody
could get on there. And as I had taken a knee,

(03:25):
I'm a machine gunner, so I carried a thousand rounds
on me, a thousand rounds on my pack, and I
was weighing probably about one hundred pounds over everybody else.
So at that time, I took a knee. I had
put my pack down. As I was about to get up,
there's an explosion that goes off behind me, and there's

(03:46):
dust everywhere. It's starting to settle down, and all of
a sudden, I hear a scream and when I turned around,
I realized that was my mindheld guy. I need to
get him as as possible. So I looked back. I
remember my squad leaders were a bit behind me, and

(04:09):
I remember kind of looking at them. They gave me
a nod, like, you know what to do, take care
of it. So I grabbed my pack and I remember
actually looking down and I saw his bootsteps. Okay, I
can see he's about twenty five thirty feet in front
of me, and I could see his bootsteps pretty clearly.

(04:31):
So I'm like, okay, like, let's at least I know
this path is cleared. You know that's at least stay
on it. So I took the first step and I'm like,
all right, forgot to go, you know, And I got
a little bit more confident to the third step, fourth step.
When I took the sixth step, I remember it was
my right leg and it it set off the primary ID.

(04:58):
I remember flying up in the air, landing head first
onto the dirt, and that's when I remember everybody instantly
jumping up on top of me starting to close me up.
I remember the guys kind of digging around my head
just because there was kind of a blood bath, but

(05:18):
they were more worried about closing me up, so they
were closing me up as soon as possible. And after
they closed me up, I started telling him to pull
me off. When they pulled me out of the hole
that I was in, I remember just seeing my body
and realizing that I was completely like not here. You know.

(05:42):
My right arm above my elbow was a text but broken,
if that makes any sense, and my left leg below
the knee was the same thing, like my arm attached
but broken, and my right leg was just completely obliterated.
I don't remember seeing any of it, to be honest

(06:03):
with you. Yeah, and I the guys closed me up instantly.
I mean they jumped on top of me within seconds,
it felt like, and I was out there fighting them.
I was telling them to let me die. I didn't
think I was worthy enough at that time, even by
looking at myself like I didn't think there was any

(06:24):
life left for me, you know. And I remember my
buddy power slapping me, telling me to shut up, and
he goes, we're gonna be drinking beers in two weeks.
Just shut up for this moment. And I told him,
I'm like, all right, man, just just save me then,
you know, fix me up. And I told him I
was like, can I get drugs? Like I you know,

(06:47):
I'm hurting bad. A couple hours before we actually went out,
we had gone through another ied on the patrol that
we were on, but this was the mindheld. Actually the
m RAP had hit the ied and it was my
platoon leader, ur medic and the driver. So we had

(07:11):
used all our medical supplies on them. When they opened
up the bag, it was the same bag we had
already used, so they couldn't then give me some of
the things that I needed, besides having the Turner kids,
because all of us carried Turner kids. I mean, you
could have checked my pockets. I'm sure I would have
had some on me, you know. So that was the

(07:32):
biggest play for them. I don't know if you've ever
watched Black Hawk Down. If you have, there's a scene
in there where they're trying to close up one of
their buddies and arteries just blowing out a bunch of blood.
So after they closed me up, we started realizing that

(07:53):
I was still bleeding out. One of my buddies actually
looked on my ribcage and realized that my whole ripcage
was opened from my arm pit pretty much all the
way down to my leg and he saw something bleeding
out and when he grabbed it, I screamed for your
life and ar Medic said, hold on to that, I

(08:15):
need that real quick. Armetic twisted it, closed it off,
and that's when we started realizing another problem. I realized
that I wasn't able to actually breathe properly. So I
had my lungs had collapsed and I was able to
take in a breath, but I wasn't able to let
go of that breath, and it was very weird. I

(08:38):
don't know why I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't let
go of that breath. Everything was just taking it in
and I felt like a balloon and getting ready to
blow up, and I was just losing it. I told
sturdivn Armetic, I'm not Sturdivan. I can't breathe and he goes,
what do you mean you can't breathe? I was like, dude,
I can't let goll of this breath. It's it's it's

(09:00):
hurting me, like I'm losing it, you know. And he
started seeing like me really not being able to breathe,
and that's when he hit me with the nasal fair
and Jael, it's this tube that you put down your
nose and it opens up an airway just to see
if you're able to breathe. Since I wasn't able to,

(09:20):
that didn't help me. He actually had a hit me
on the collarbone. There's an another airway that we know
if you look on your third collarboding down, if you
actually press right into it, it's actually located into your lungs.
And the minute he hit me right on the collarbone

(09:40):
and open up that airway, I was actually able to
breathe properly. And I remember hearing driving him back to
fall passob fol Passov was a very long way for us.
Not only that, every single time it would towards that area,

(10:02):
we would get ambushed, we would get hit. I remember
my squad leader screaming on on the mics, like on
the airways saying, there's no way you guys need to
send someone asap gracefully. I like to call them the
angels in disguise. There are special forces up doing a mission.

(10:23):
They heard all the chatter and they said to Pop
Smoke that they're going to pick us up. I feel
like that's one of the main reasons I actually survived.
Besides the fact that all my boys jumped on top
of me. It's literally the fact that there is enough
people to get me to where I need to close
me out properly. You know, I ended up flying into facade.

(10:46):
They grabbed me. My friend that was on the mind
found had just snapped his ankle and he was on
the helicopter with me. He told me that I thought
the helicopter three times on that wow, just wake up
at nowhere. He literally said, they said you were done,

(11:08):
and then out of nowhere you would just come back
to life. He says that I did that three times.
I do recall landing and follo pasod. I remember I
had told you that my platoon sergeant had gotten hit
a couple hours before. Well, he had heard chatter of
what was going on. Basfully, he still had his whole body.

(11:31):
They were just doing evaluation on him to see if
he could come back. When he was hearing what was
going on, he didn't know exactly who it was, but
he knew it was our team. I remember that pushing
me through the doors, and the first person that was
there was Sergeant Harris. Starry. Harris pulled the sheet off

(11:51):
of me, and I remember him telling me, I'm sorry, Marty,
I should have been there with you. And the last
thing I felt his tears rolling down onto my cheeks.
I felt this bliss. I can't explain it. I don't
know if my adrenaline was just done what, but I

(12:13):
just felt very comfortable with Sorry Harris. There welcome ten
days later's data. Well, it's really goodesta.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
For National Suicide Prevention Month. Here on iHeartRadio Communities, I'm
Ryan Gorman, joined by Jose Martinez, army veteran and triple
amputee pro surfer. He's with me to talk about Simpify
and America's Fund, which you can learn more about and
support at thefund dot org. So, following that ordeal, you
obviously face a number of challenges. Years in the hospital,

(12:45):
more than twenty surgeries, and during that recovery, understandably you
struggle with depression, you have suicidal thoughts. Talk to us
a little bit about that and how you overcame all
of that.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean after I woke up in the hospital,
I recall like waking up and looking over and looking around,
and I remember closing my eyes and just saying, God,
if you're real, please just put me back in the game.

(13:23):
Just please, don't let whatever I thought I dreamt was real.
And I remember opening my eyes up. I remember pushing,
trying to push up with my right arm because I'm
right handed, right right hand dominant. There was nothing there.

(13:45):
And that's when I just completely just I lost it.
I had a tube stuck in my throat. I couldn't
even talk clutch your full bit, so that just maybe
even more scared. I remember threatening my little brother with
my eyes because I told him, I mean, we're so
close that he knows me very well. I told him

(14:07):
with my eyes pretty much like you tell this doctor
that he has one hour to take this tube out
before I start doing it myself. It's a pretty big boy,
so he could hold me down, and doctors are like,
all right, just hold him down for an hour. I
was patiently waiting there the hour came and one minute
passed it, and I was already pushing my brother off,
trying to fight him. My brother's a like a right, doctor,

(14:29):
he's still my older brother. He goes, either you're gonna
do something about it, or I'm gonna let go because
he's still my older brother. And Doctor's like, all right,
all right, hold on, hold on, He goes, how do
you know you're gonna be oko Braids. I was like,
I'm stuck, and I remember screaming that. He goes, okay,
So took out. The two ended up screaming, and instantly

(14:50):
just had that dog in me all over again. It's
like I never left, you know, as bad as wounded
as I was, I felt like that a little bit
of me never left, and I carried that on through
this whole recovery system. Like I felt like, in the
sense as much it was as much as it was

(15:13):
painful to go through all of it, as much as
it's a burden to see myself sometimes this way, I
felt like I got a second chance at life. At least.
If I had a second chance at life, I'm gonna
try at least to do the best. Yeah, I've I've
felt I've struggled. I've had suicidal thoughts. I mean there's

(15:36):
times to this day that sometimes I think about, like,
what would happen if I just drive off this cliff
right now, you know. But now I instantly be like, no, no, no,
no no, I got more to live for, you know.
And I've always kind of had that thought, even though
I felt like leaving this earth would be a lot easier,

(15:56):
it would be a lot better, it would be less painful,
you know. But then I really think about it. My
brother saved me for a reason. My family stuck by
me for a reason, my friends stuck by me for
a reason. The community, the fund, everybody has believed in
me for a reason, because they see more. Slowly, I

(16:19):
started seeing that more of myself, you know, started really
seeing what really mattered. And it was acceptance. It was love.
It was allowing others to help me and things that
I thought I needed to take care of myself. You know.
I remember waking up and the fun being there for me.

(16:41):
They take care of my family, they take care of
me more importantly, they just made me feel human again,
you know, because for a very long time, anytime I
would go outside in public, I mean, to this day,
I still get the looks. You know, I feel sometimes
like a caged animal, like zoo animal. But then I

(17:02):
get reminded a lot of the reasons why I'm still alive.
You know, the fund has helped me with a lot
of those reasons. It's helped me with all the resources
that they have given me. It's to the point now
where we have breath work every week, we have yoga classes.
They're not just helping us by helping us financially in

(17:24):
certain ways when we get in a little bit of
trouble and when we need a little bit of help,
but making sure that we're staying alive every single day.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
You know, how did you first connect with Simplify in
America's Fund.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
To be honest with you, they were at the hospital there.
They would come in and randomly just come and give
us gifts, feed us, sometimes come and stay with us
and just talk to us and see how we're doing
doing some of the things that we never got from
a lot of other people, you know, because there were
so many of us wounded, there are so many of

(17:59):
us getting hurt. There was people saying that they were
going to help us, and never did you know, But
the fun stuck by us every single step of the way.
Like I remember them coming around in ICU, which a
lot of people don't get the chance to do. I
see you is very very reserved, very special, and they

(18:19):
would go in there after surgeries and just come and
talk to us, give us a little bit of gifts,
ask us how we're feeling, you know, little things like that,
and all those little things mattered because at that time
I felt worthless, but like I shouldn't even be alive.
But I had people coming up to me and asking

(18:40):
me how I was feeling, you know, telling me that
things were going to get better, coming with other veterans
to show us that things were going to get better.
You know. There there wasn't a lot of people that
did that for us, and the fund was there every step.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Jose Martinez, Army veteran and
triple ampute pro surfer. He's here talking about Simplify in
America's Fund for National Suicide Prevention Month and you can
learn more at the fund dot org. Again, that's the
fund dot org. How did you get into surfing and
then begin competing with other adaptive athletes?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
So surfing actually was part of our physical therapy at
the San Diego NAPO Medical Center. That's the second part
of my recovery. I was actually moved on the West
coast because I'm from California, and they're like, it's going
to be a lot better for you to go home
and recover there. I couldn't agree more. I love the

(19:43):
Sunshine State. It's the best, you know. And I ended
up coming over here and there is a therapist named Betty,
and at the time, I had a cost to me bag,
and I knew the answer that I was giving her
it was a lie. She came up to me one
day and she goes, hey, Jose, she says, I think

(20:06):
swimming will be a good thing for you. It'd be
great for recovery. It'll start helping your core out. And
I remember telling her. I told her, I was like,
you know what, once I reversed this colostomy, Bag, I'll
jump in there. She goes, why, Like, you can jump
in there right now. I was like, you know what, Betty,
I was like, if I have an accident there, like
I don't know if I can mentally come back from that.

(20:27):
And that was just me being real and she's like, Okay, Okay,
I totally get that. But what she didn't know was
that I kind of knew that I was told already
that a reversal was probably impossible. To be honest with you,
and towards the end of my recovery, I remember going
up to the doctor and saying, Hey, doctor, it's like,

(20:48):
is there any way we can reverse this? I told him.
It was like, look, I'm twenty three years old, I
have a girlfriend, Like I feel like I can use
the bathroom regularly if you just give me a chance,
you know, and they're they're like, Jose to be quite
honest with you, I mean, we told you from the

(21:09):
beginning that ninety percent chance of non reversible. It started
eating me away, to be honest with you, I couldn't
believe that I was a triple mputee. I was only
twenty three years old, that I had to use the
bathroom for my slomach. You know that there's no way
that I did this selfless act and this is the

(21:32):
way it was going to turn out for me. You know.
I just couldn't believe in myself and I started going
into very depressive negative thoughts and I eventually got to
the doctor for the second time, and I told him
it was no doctor. It's like, if you don't try anything,
I'm just going to take my life. I was like,
I'm not even going to make it past tomorrow if
you don't even give me an answer right now. Doctors

(21:54):
like Jose you can't talk to me, though. I was like, Sir,
with all due respect, I'm the one in this situation
right now. I'm the one in this chair. I'm the
one missing my lips. You can't tell me how I feel.
I'm just telling you how I feel. The doctor instant
is like, okay, Ose, let's at least try to do
some testing. Let's try to get things things done, and

(22:17):
let's square you away. They did the reversal. The reversal
went wrong. I couldn't eat for about three months, if
I'm correct. My girlfriend, which is my wife now, was
taught to feed me through too. She was taught to
feed me water and some nutrients just to keep me
alive for three months. It's probably the hardest three months

(22:40):
of our lives. I remember she would cry anytime she
would be eating, because anytime I would get a smell,
I would just start crying because I couldn't eat, you know, Eventually,
after those three months, the reversal perfectly fine. I started
going to the bathroom allone over again, and the very

(23:02):
next day I got cleared by the doctor. Betty was
at my doorsteps say hey, jose are you ready to
go swimming? And I'm like, oh, no, I told you,
you know, and I'm a man of my word. That's
the only thing I've ever had. That's something that my
uncle taught me. I wasn't. I didn't have a dad
growing up, so my uncle told me, your word is everything,

(23:26):
so make sure anytime you say you're gonna do something,
you do it. I told Betty, I was like, okay,
tell me what time I got to be there tomorrow.
She goes, five am, bring a swimsuit. I'm like what
five am. I was like, I haven't had a wake
up calling that a long time. Five am. I'm like,
all right. Well, was there the next day and I

(23:46):
remember going fifty meters took me about two hours, and
I was so upset with myself. I'm like, I could
call faster than this. So I went back the next
day and the next day and the next day, and
she had me working with the swim coach. The swim
coach had taken guys to the Olympics, like through different
meats and stuff like that. So he was a great

(24:07):
coach with me and he had me swimming laps within
two weeks. I think if I was correct and gave
Betty a great report and he's like those he's doing great.
Betty came up to me right after then she goes, hey,
you ready to go surfing? Like what I was like, dude,
I look like wounded seal, Like you're gonna put me

(24:28):
in a wet suit? Like there's no way. And she goes, hey,
there's bigger fish in the water. I'm like, and there's
people that have more limbs than you. I think the
shark will go off the bigger limbs, don't you And
started laughing. I'm like, you're right, Like I wouldn't want
the little guy either. So I ended up going with her.
I ended up meeting two incredible people that to this

(24:49):
day are still in the water with me, and that
was Amanda and Aarren Klassen. They were both the first
people to ever push me into a wave. I felt
like I was like on the ten foot way, but
it was all white water. And that was two thousand
and fourteen times. About six years ago, I hit rock

(25:12):
bottom again mental struggling. I was helping out a bunch
of veterans and those veterans turned their back on me
and just kind of like kick me to the curb
and made me deal with a bunch of stuff that
they had going on that now was my problem. I
was just so lost because I thought helping others was

(25:35):
my form of a vettering this world, my form of
bettering myself, and I just got kicking as a curb,
you know. So instead of me being upset and just
doing what the normal human body does and just self exploding.
I remember about surfing and calling Betty and Darren. I'm like, hey,

(25:56):
you guys still surfing every Thursday, like absolutely, And went
back to that next Thursday, started circling with him again,
and Betty came up to me and she goes, hey,
do you know that there's actual guys like you that
are competing against each other and try and figure out
how good they are? And that's why I was like,
no way. She's like yep, and we signed up for

(26:17):
a competition. Within two months of that conversation, I ended
up breaking two boards that I borrowed they weren't even mine.
I remember crying because me being who I've always been,
I thought, I'm a natural athlete. I anything with sports

(26:37):
I'm really good at. And I thought, because you know,
I was pretty good an army dude, I was pretty
good at sports that just showing up I was gonna win.
I didn't even make the podium, but I remember that feeling,
and I remember telling myself that I'm a clap for
these guys, and I'm a cheer for them because next
year they're going to be there cheering for me. I'm

(26:58):
gonna be up in that podium. Within a couple of
weeks from that loss, they started going to the gym.
I ended up losing about thirty pounds I think now
ended up gaining about ten pounds of muscle as we speak.
Now started motivating myself, the world, everybody around me, and

(27:21):
just instead of giving them this you're gonna be okay
type deal, I'd rather show the world that they're gonna
be okay because you're not in the situation as bad
as you think you really are. Once you truly see,
once you take yourself out of that box. So instead
of me screaming at you and saying you can do it.
You're gonna be okay. Let me just show you. Let

(27:43):
me smile through all of this struggle that I've gone through.
Let me just continue to show you. Even though the
doctors told me that I'll never walk again, how I've
flown through all of it. Instead, they were right. I
wasn't going to have the life that I had before.
I have a way better one now. You know, I
have an understanding of who I am, not this crazy

(28:04):
person that feels like there needs to be a reaction
every single time someone makes a mistake. You know. More
than anything, I've been able to help a lot of
veterans out that have lost their buddies, that have felt
like they needed to go instead of their friends. You know, basfully,

(28:24):
I've been able to remind them they're living through us.
The best thing we can do is live the greatest
life we possibly can because we pay the ultimate sacrifice.
They pay the ultimate sacrifice so we can enjoy this
life time. So let's enjoy it, you know, stop worrying
about the little things, even stop worrying about the pain.

(28:45):
Eventually it's going to go away, especially if you're doing
something fun.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
It's a truly incredible story and again Simplifying in America's
Fund with Jose every step of the way. It's why
it's so important for you to check out this organization
on online and offer your support, which you can do
at the fund dot org. Again, that's the fund dot org.
That's where you can learn more, you can check out

(29:09):
their programs, you can get involved, and of course you
can donate. Jose Martinez, Army veteran and triple ampute pro
surfer with US for National Suicide Prevention Month and to
talk about Simplify and America's Fund. Jose can't thank you
enough for your service to this country and for sharing
your incredible story. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Thank you all so much for the opportunity. I hope
you all understand that you have the will and power
to change every single bit of things that you don't
like in your life. But most importantly, you're here to
enjoy it. So just smile fun, all.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Right, Jose. We can't thank you enough, and that's going
to do it for this edition of iHeartRadio Communities. As
we wrap things up, want to offer a big thanks
to our guest Jose Martinez and to all of you
for listening. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to
you again real soon. Thank you.