Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
Speaker 1: including yours. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
Speaker 1: There's some of our favorites. Today, we have author Jason
Speaker 1: Sawtel sharing his story from his book The Rescuer, one
Speaker 1: firefighter's story of courage, darkness, and the relentless love that
Speaker 1: saved him. Jason was a successful and competent firefighter in Oakland, California.
Speaker 1: Life for Jason seemed to be perfect on the outside,
Speaker 1: but he was struggling with a darkness in him that
Speaker 1: started when he was a boy. Here's Jason with his story.
Speaker 2: Grown up was pretty awesome. For about the first five
Speaker 2: to six years of my life, Mom, dad, everything seemed normal,
Speaker 2: you know, being a young kid, I really didn't know
Speaker 2: a whole lot of anything that was going on around me.
Speaker 2: And then I got sent to kindergarten and it's kind
Speaker 2: of like that's when my life started taking it downwards viral.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't because of school. It wasn't because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to.
Speaker 3: Go to school.
Speaker 2: It's just a series of events came into my life
Speaker 2: at a young age that my parents went through a divorce,
Speaker 2: my mom moved five hundred miles away, and I was
Speaker 2: left to live with my dad, who is a good man.
Speaker 2: He served in the Vietnam War, but he had a
Speaker 2: lot of traumas of his past that would come back
Speaker 2: to haunt him, and unfortunately, he would take them out
Speaker 2: on me. So at the age of five, when I
Speaker 2: was six, somewhere right that area, when I went to kindergarten,
Speaker 2: I remember my mom because my parents were still together.
Speaker 2: Then she dropped me off at school and I didn't
Speaker 2: want her to leave, and I was like clinging to
Speaker 2: her leg and the teacher said, no, no, he's going
Speaker 2: to be just fine. So they pulled me off or
Speaker 2: sent her away. Well, then they took me into the
Speaker 2: high school not high school, but the elementary school office,
Speaker 2: and they cleaned out a janitor's locker threw me in
Speaker 2: there until I stopped crying. And it was horrible because
Speaker 2: when I was in there, I couldn't figure out why
Speaker 2: it's being punished. I wanted to be I wanted my mom,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with that? And these people were punishing me,
Speaker 2: And finally I just submitted. But I didn't submit because
Speaker 2: I wanted out of the closet to go be with
Speaker 2: all the other kids. Honestly, I would have rather have
Speaker 2: stayed in there, but I felt something at the time,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize what it was, and it was like
Speaker 2: an evilness was lurking within that closet, in that darkness,
Speaker 2: and that was the first time I ever recognized evilness
Speaker 2: in this fallen world. And being a non Christian and
Speaker 2: not going to church in my age at the time,
Speaker 2: it was really hard to explain. So those were my
Speaker 2: younger years. My teen years was I mean, it was
Speaker 2: just straight up rebellious. You know, there comes a point
Speaker 2: where you don't want to put up with abuse anymore,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 3: You fight back.
Speaker 2: Well, when you fight back, you get the exit, a
Speaker 2: sign thrown in front of you, and I was basically
Speaker 2: told to leave my house. So I started doing a
Speaker 2: lot of CouchSurfing. I would go up to my mom's
Speaker 2: house and try to, you know, reconnect with her, but
Speaker 2: her boyfriend's up in San Franciuse.
Speaker 3: They wanted nothing to do with me.
Speaker 2: They would, you know, she had one bedroom apartment, so
Speaker 2: I would sleep on the floor and her boyfriends would
Speaker 2: purposely like kick me when they walked by. I'd kind
Speaker 2: of laugh because the beatings I took in my life.
Speaker 2: I'm like, dude, I have some hardened ribs. A few
Speaker 2: kicks from a hippie's not going to really hurt me.
Speaker 2: But emotionally it still sucked. It was just as bad
Speaker 2: as when I was grown up in my dad's house,
Speaker 2: the emotional.
Speaker 3: Abuse that I was put through there.
Speaker 2: So I went back down to southern California and ended
Speaker 2: up just you know, staying with my dad, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't like we lived together. I would stay there stay
Speaker 2: with friends. I was big time into skating, and I
Speaker 2: would start going down to the ocean, go surfing, doing
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So I was kind of like
Speaker 2: during my teen year as a classic skater, outcast kind
Speaker 2: of guy. I never joined a gang. I never took
Speaker 2: on the ideologies of the guys that were part of
Speaker 2: the group that I hung out with. But if you
Speaker 2: think about the skinheads, the gangsters, that crowd, they were
Speaker 2: close to me, but they accepted me. And it was
Speaker 2: because I wasn't getting a love at home that I
Speaker 2: chased the love outside of my house and they showed
Speaker 2: me a worldly love that is not good. But at
Speaker 2: the time it replacement was really bad at home and
Speaker 2: my high school years. I made it up until the
Speaker 2: tenth grade. It was my first month of tenth grade,
Speaker 2: and that's when I dropped out of high school because
Speaker 2: my whole life I had no help in school. My
Speaker 2: dad would be like, the teachers need to help you,
Speaker 2: and the teachers in return would be like, your dad
Speaker 2: needs to help you. And here I am a kid
Speaker 2: in the middle, going, well, it's not working for me.
Speaker 2: So I remember that I would go to school like
Speaker 2: to do the state's project, and I was actually kind
Speaker 2: of proud with what I created, and my teacher just
Speaker 2: belittled me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was like in the fifth grade, she made me
Speaker 2: feel horrible. Shake this is all you could do, and
Speaker 2: she yelled at me, and she made me go down
Speaker 2: and sit in the second grade class to finish the
Speaker 2: project while all my classmates got to go off and
Speaker 2: celebrate and have a day away from school and go
Speaker 2: to the park and all that kind.
Speaker 3: Of stuff because they did this big history.
Speaker 2: And it just made me feel so angry because I
Speaker 2: was like, no adult would listen to me. I would
Speaker 2: go home and say, Dad, I need help, and he'd yell,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not gonna go with EADL. But it
Speaker 2: was basically, gosh, darn it, your stupid teachers need to
Speaker 2: help you. Then I would go to school and the
Speaker 2: teachers would be like, well, you have libraries, lady, the
Speaker 2: libraries on the other side of town. I'm nine or
Speaker 2: ten years old. How am I supposed to get there?
Speaker 2: Can you help me out with that? So a lot
Speaker 2: of those struggles from my childhood also carried into my adulthood.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't an atheist, but I grew up just
Speaker 2: so full of hate.
Speaker 3: That I hated anything that was good.
Speaker 2: So if I saw some of those happy like kids
Speaker 2: that were happy because their projects were completed, well I
Speaker 2: was really mad because I was like, well, that sucks.
Speaker 2: They have everything I don't, so I would want to
Speaker 2: push some of my pain on them. And that kind
Speaker 2: of followed me through my high school years and stuff.
Speaker 2: And so from the Christian standpoint, my dad taught me
Speaker 2: that Christians were stupid from day one.
Speaker 3: I remember, they're stupid.
Speaker 2: And I remember there was a time in high school
Speaker 2: when there was this girl who was actually reading her Bible,
Speaker 2: and as I passed by her, I just stopped. I
Speaker 2: told her and I looked at like, you're stupid, and
Speaker 2: everything that book is stupid. Everything about you is stupid,
Speaker 2: and I lit into her and I had it was
Speaker 2: just because, like it's weird when you think about it.
Speaker 2: I truly believe it was because I'm so rebellious, but
Speaker 2: I think that was actually one of the first times
Speaker 2: God was really calling me to him.
Speaker 3: But I was rebelling against because.
Speaker 2: I see a Bible and I see a girl that's happy,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, no, I'm going to tear you down.
Speaker 2: Because I was of the outcast, because I always figured
Speaker 2: all Christians were going to be alike and just tell
Speaker 2: me I'm going to Hell. So I'd sit over here
Speaker 2: in the eighth and ninth grade getting drunk on the
Speaker 2: high school football field while they were all doing preppy stuff.
Speaker 2: And it was just that rebellion against God coming out
Speaker 2: early on. And so I was actually very hateful to
Speaker 2: Christians even through my early years in the fire department.
Speaker 2: There's a part of my book where actually a curse
Speaker 2: of pastor out of our firehouse. So my nickname in
Speaker 2: the fire department prior to coming to Christ was actually
Speaker 2: the demon Seed.
Speaker 3: So it's a kind of a crazy story.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Jason Sawtel talk about the early
Speaker 1: parts of his life. His book The Rescuer, One firefighter's
Speaker 1: story of courage, darkness, and the relentless love that saved
Speaker 1: him is available on Amazon and the usual Suspects. And
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to hear more from
Speaker 1: Jason Sawtel. His own life story continues here on Our
Speaker 1: American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories
Speaker 1: we tell and love America like we do, we're asking
Speaker 1: you to become a part of the Our American Stories family.
Speaker 1: If you agree that America is a good and great country,
Speaker 1: please make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars
Speaker 1: and seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option
Speaker 1: for supporters. Go to Our American Stories dot com now
Speaker 1: and go to the donate button and help us keep
Speaker 1: the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com.
Speaker 1: And we returned to Our American Stories and to author
Speaker 1: and former firefighter Jason Sawtel sharing the story from his
Speaker 1: book The Rescuer. We left off with Jason sharing his
Speaker 1: abuse filled childhood with us and how that led him
Speaker 1: to some destructive behaviors. Let's return to Jason.
Speaker 2: When I was young and running amuck. Even though I
Speaker 2: hung out with those guys, I like, if we went
Speaker 2: and stole some beer, did something, I felt bad inside.
Speaker 2: If we got in a fight with another group of skaters,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to fight them, and I felt bad.
Speaker 2: But it was just like, Okay, I have to fight
Speaker 2: because everyone's fighting. So I always had this urge inside
Speaker 2: me to want to be part of something bigger and
Speaker 2: want to help other people. Well, when I was seventeen,
Speaker 2: I was getting in a lot of trouble and I
Speaker 2: finally realized by the way of the police department. They
Speaker 2: said you might want to figure things out here, and
Speaker 2: they told me about the California Conservation Corps. And to
Speaker 2: make a long story short, what they are is he
Speaker 2: you know, the brochure says you're going to be in
Speaker 2: the National Forest building trails and doing all this, but
Speaker 2: the realities you're picking up the garbage on the side
Speaker 2: of the freeway and downtown LA and so. But what
Speaker 2: the good part about it is is they give you
Speaker 2: a stable job, a work ethic, that.
Speaker 3: Kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, while we were there, there were some fires going
Speaker 2: on in southern California, and our job at the California
Speaker 2: Conservation corps was to clean up the fire camp and
Speaker 2: feed the firemen and do all that kind of stuff. Well,
Speaker 2: fireman started talking to me and you know, we just
Speaker 2: started chatting it up. And I knew what the fire
Speaker 2: department did, but having that one on one with him.
Speaker 3: I was like, so, what do you do? Just put
Speaker 3: out grass fires?
Speaker 2: He's like, no, we go to car accidents, we help people,
Speaker 2: we go to medical calls, help elderly, help new boards,
Speaker 2: house far and it just something clean like that sounds
Speaker 2: cool number one, because you know the adrenaline junkie side,
Speaker 2: and we really enjoyed that. But number two, I saw
Speaker 2: that he was so passionate about something that was so
Speaker 2: much bigger than him and helping. So I hopped on
Speaker 2: board and I asked him. I said, so, bro, what
Speaker 2: do I need to do to become a fireman. He's all, first,
Speaker 2: you know, you have your high school diploma, and I
Speaker 2: was like.
Speaker 3: Well, that job's out.
Speaker 2: So I went back and I actually got what's called
Speaker 2: the California High School.
Speaker 3: Proficiency Exam, where you can take a.
Speaker 2: Test that proves you know everything that would have been
Speaker 2: taught to you the high school, and they give you
Speaker 2: an equivalency of a diploma, so it's actually higher than
Speaker 2: a GED.
Speaker 3: Well, I took that test and I passed it with.
Speaker 2: A ninety eight percent and I was seventeen at the time,
Speaker 2: hadn't been in school for like three years and stuff,
Speaker 2: so it was a total blessing. I'd passed it, and
Speaker 2: I went to a local firehouse, which out here in
Speaker 2: California instead of like the county fire department, was the
Speaker 2: California Department of four Street, and I applied at that
Speaker 2: firehouse for the seasonal fire season because they would hire
Speaker 2: extra guys to help fight the wildline fires we have
Speaker 2: out here, and the captain hired me on the spot,
Speaker 2: and that's how I got on the fire department. Prior
Speaker 2: to Oakland Fire Department was I worked for a smaller
Speaker 2: county fire department down in southern California, and it was
Speaker 2: the start of it all. It was like just the
Speaker 2: most amazing job on the face here than being able
Speaker 2: to help and love on people and care for people
Speaker 2: was just something that I craved more of. I started
Speaker 2: when I just turned eighteen, because I couldn't do it
Speaker 2: at age seventeen. So at eighteen in December.
Speaker 3: I joined.
Speaker 2: Well that year it was nineteen ninety three was my
Speaker 2: year I was supposed to graduate for my class. Well,
Speaker 2: my firehouse was down the street from my high school,
Speaker 2: so I actually watched my high school graduation because we
Speaker 2: did outdoor graduations in the hills in this place called
Speaker 2: the Remote Bowl, so we'd always assign a fire engine,
Speaker 2: you know, cops that be there kind of you know,
Speaker 2: plus good for taking pictures type of stuff. But I
Speaker 2: actually watched my class where I was supposed to graduate,
Speaker 2: and I watched it from sitting on the top of
Speaker 2: my fire engine. I remember they're going down the names
Speaker 2: and you know, going through the rs, and then also
Speaker 2: they got into S's and then you.
Speaker 3: Know, I was right there.
Speaker 2: That's where they would have said, Jason Slattel and I
Speaker 2: sit on a fire truck, and people like, that's a
Speaker 2: great story, and I said, no, it's actually humiliated. I
Speaker 2: was hoping no one would recognize me and know and
Speaker 2: see me, because up until that point in my life,
Speaker 2: I was still like living in a fiel where I
Speaker 2: could see happiness, but I couldn't build happiness, and it
Speaker 2: was destroying me once.
Speaker 3: Again watching these groups of people.
Speaker 2: Because we only had one high school account that I
Speaker 2: grew up with getting something that I didn't get, and
Speaker 2: I was sitting out on the side as an outcast,
Speaker 2: even though you know, the world looks at his firement
Speaker 2: is like, oh look at you guys. You're glorious, You're
Speaker 2: this and that I never felt it, So how it
Speaker 2: progressed from there, we were on a medical call and
Speaker 2: prior to that time, and I remember a guy was
Speaker 2: hit by a car and it was just me and
Speaker 2: my captain on the fire engine, so we didn't have
Speaker 2: the staffing then, and this guy was so severely injured
Speaker 2: that we needed to bring in a helicopter to fly
Speaker 2: him down into LA to the trauma center. I was
Speaker 2: eighteen years old with nothing more than a first aid certificate,
Speaker 2: and I should have still been in high school where
Speaker 2: everyone else has taken biology. I'm sitting other the side
Speaker 2: of the road with a guy.
Speaker 3: He's just bad.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get graphic, butody's really bad off.
Speaker 2: And my captain left me there with the medical bags
Speaker 2: to go land the helicopter, and I felt so useless
Speaker 2: because I did not know what to do. I was
Speaker 2: a child trying to keep this man alive, and the
Speaker 2: citizens were looking at me to do it. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what to do. So that pushed me to go
Speaker 2: to EMT school in paramedic school, because I never wanted
Speaker 2: to experience that again. How could I serve others when
Speaker 2: I couldn't serve them. That's not okay. So I went
Speaker 2: to paramedic school. Well, the way that I got on
Speaker 2: the Oakland Fire Department was we were on a wildland
Speaker 2: fire and in southern California in nineteen ninety three was
Speaker 2: the year way of the Malibu fires and the big
Speaker 2: fire storms. And people don't believe it, but California's been
Speaker 2: burning long, a lot longer than just these past few years.
Speaker 2: And everybody captain leaving he's like, hey, Jason Dce, those
Speaker 2: city fire departments. I'm like yeah, He's like, man, they
Speaker 2: make like forty five thousand year. I was like, what, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm making minimum wage, which is four twenty five an hour.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go apply for a city department. So
Speaker 2: I started applying for La City Oakland, San Francisco. Wanted
Speaker 2: the big city fire departments after having a taste of it,
Speaker 2: and lo.
Speaker 3: And behold, I told all the right FIBs and they
Speaker 3: liked me.
Speaker 2: At the Oakland Fire department and I passed their tests
Speaker 2: and they hired me and stuff. So that's where my
Speaker 2: transition happened from being a wildland firefighter and moving up
Speaker 2: into what I call the big leagues and become a
Speaker 2: big city fire department firefighter. I jokingly say my PTSD
Speaker 2: has PTSD because coming from the childhood that I have
Speaker 2: and the reason I would go in on medicals, you know,
Speaker 2: it was part of my job. But the reason I
Speaker 2: loved to go on medicals and the fires is because
Speaker 2: I loved helping people, because helping people help me feel better.
Speaker 2: But here's the kicker. Without Christ in my life, it
Speaker 2: didn't work. It was like putting a band aid on
Speaker 2: an arterial bleed, or like trying to stop an.
Speaker 3: Arteria bleed with just direct pressure.
Speaker 2: The second we would get back to the firehouse after
Speaker 2: helping those people, I would take the pressure off that
Speaker 2: arterial bleed, and all the sadness and the emptiness that
Speaker 2: was living inside of me and the darkness that I
Speaker 2: was living under would come back to get me. So
Speaker 2: it was yes, the PTSD, Yes, the living without Christ.
Speaker 3: Yes. The issues of.
Speaker 2: My past and what people don't realize is in Oakland,
Speaker 2: especially the years that I was there in West Oakland.
Speaker 2: It was the hub of the crack wars. Were they
Speaker 2: there's shows done it about it. And we would go
Speaker 2: out the door on in our district alone, in our
Speaker 2: area of town, one hundred shootings per year where people died. Well,
Speaker 2: only one out of every five person shot would die.
Speaker 2: So think about all the people that weren't dying and
Speaker 2: the traumas we were seeing. Plus we were one of
Speaker 2: the busiest and still are one of the busiest firefighting
Speaker 2: in cities in all the United States because being out
Speaker 2: here on the West coast.
Speaker 3: Our city was built.
Speaker 2: In eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds and it didn't burn
Speaker 2: down to the big earthquakes like San Francisco did and
Speaker 2: have a no economy, high crime rate, no jobs. You know,
Speaker 2: we would just go out and could imagine we would
Speaker 2: even have the military would send their medics to ride
Speaker 2: with us to learn how to shoot or how to
Speaker 2: deal with gunshot victims, because that's how many we went
Speaker 2: to Because in wars, yes, major things are going on,
Speaker 2: but we would consistently go back fire us, another shooting,
Speaker 2: back fire us, another shooting, backfire house, another shooting those guys.
Speaker 2: You know, they're fighting, battling, And I'm not taking away
Speaker 2: from what they do. It's and what they've seen in
Speaker 2: the traumas they've gone through. But because we did it
Speaker 2: so much, they would send them to us to learn
Speaker 2: about it. But the traumas that you take on the
Speaker 2: way I explain it is every time you go out
Speaker 2: the door of the firehouse to someone else's emergency, you're
Speaker 2: becoming part of their story that you wouldn't have if
Speaker 2: you've just been sitting home, chilling or anything. But then
Speaker 2: you're also part of their story as someone they're looking
Speaker 2: to to help them and make it better. And when
Speaker 2: you can't, it crushes you, especially when you don't understand
Speaker 2: God's will and you're the rescuer. Because I was like
Speaker 2: a guy who was trying to rescue people without even
Speaker 2: knowing how to rescue myself, so I was dying. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: when you're doing that, each scene you go to, you're
Speaker 2: picking up a piece of that scene and you're putting
Speaker 2: it in your bag and you're putting your back, and
Speaker 2: eventually that bag gets so worn down that's finally going
Speaker 2: to drag you down. And I was at a point
Speaker 2: in my life where I was actually ten seconds out
Speaker 2: from killing myself because of it, and San Francisco firefighter
Speaker 2: who's a friend of mine intervened.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Jason saw Tell. By the way,
Speaker 1: the story you're hearing is not entirely different from a
Speaker 1: lot of first responders, cops and firemen soldiers who, especially
Speaker 1: those who've had early life trauma, bury the trauma and
Speaker 1: then continue to bury future trauma until sooner or later
Speaker 1: they can't take it, particularly men who suffer from these
Speaker 1: machismo cultures which don't exactly reward of this kind of
Speaker 1: confessional or this sign of so called weakness. When we
Speaker 1: come back more of Jason Sawtell's story here on our
Speaker 1: American stories, and we continue with our American stories, and
Speaker 1: we returned to the story a former firefighter, Jason Sawtel.
Speaker 1: We left off with Jason talking about the traumas that
Speaker 1: firefighters carry with him from all that they've seen. Let's
Speaker 1: get back to Jason and hear how he dealt with
Speaker 1: or didn't deal with these burdens.
Speaker 2: I would respond to fires and we would get them
Speaker 2: while people were still alive, but they've burned to death
Speaker 2: as we're trying to get to them. Well, that made
Speaker 2: me feel like the big failure I felt. So I
Speaker 2: took on the weight to the world on my shoulders.
Speaker 2: And what I've always done, I've actually shielded myself from that.
Speaker 3: Like people ask me, oh, what was the outcome of
Speaker 3: that call? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I have never once followed up on a victim when
Speaker 2: we pulled people out of fires. Obviously I know if
Speaker 2: they survived or not. But like one time, we pulled
Speaker 2: this family out of a fire and they lived. Seriously, like,
Speaker 2: it's very rare that that happens. Usually you'll get them out.
Speaker 2: And most people who are truly trapped there, they're really young,
Speaker 2: really old, or they have some sort of disability because
Speaker 2: folks that are quote able bodied, and I'm using the
Speaker 2: physical term on that. You know, when a fire and
Speaker 2: smokes loft, we bounce out windows, we jump, we leave,
Speaker 2: you know, but people would decrease.
Speaker 3: Senses, you know, because of something going on with them.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately we get there.
Speaker 2: They've been you know, in trap for so long, you know,
Speaker 2: but this family, they wanted to come have dinner with
Speaker 2: us in the firehouse. And this may sound wrong, but
Speaker 2: it's how we protect ourselves. We put another crew in
Speaker 2: there that pretended they were was because I wouldn't show up.
Speaker 2: I refuse to show up. And I know that can
Speaker 2: be kind of wrong, saying, well, you need to let
Speaker 2: people give you grace. But I also have to protect
Speaker 2: myself because as a firefighter, you're a stone cold life saver.
Speaker 2: You have to shut you off and you have to
Speaker 2: go out the door. And like, there's a scene in
Speaker 2: my book where I'm holding a six year old girl
Speaker 2: and all I'm trying to do is keep her head
Speaker 2: covered so the mom didn't see the traumas I'm sitting
Speaker 2: in the little street with her because I didn't want
Speaker 2: her mom's last memories to of seeing her daughters just
Speaker 2: messed up from being hit by a car at seventy
Speaker 2: miles per hour out front of our firehouse. And when
Speaker 2: you do that, you have to be stone cold, you
Speaker 2: really do. But you still have to be a human being.
Speaker 2: How do you do that? Well, My safety mechanism is
Speaker 2: I make patients a system of steps. And I know,
Speaker 2: again that sounds heartless, but if they're airways, they're breathing
Speaker 2: their circulation, I need to keep you Okay, they've died. Now,
Speaker 2: I got to slide over here and protect the family
Speaker 2: and give them the care and the comfort they need.
Speaker 2: So where I worked in Oakland, people like, did you
Speaker 2: pray with every patient? Like, dude, that's like a movie
Speaker 2: scene when you have someone with trying to stop lungs
Speaker 2: from doing this and put in an airway through their throat.
Speaker 2: All that's you really don't have a lot of time
Speaker 2: to brainy. It's like, I don't be all. That's why
Speaker 2: I read the Bible. We fill ourselves full scripture so
Speaker 2: when we are encountered with these situations, we know how
Speaker 2: to deal with them. Well, it's the same thing and
Speaker 2: the fire ground and as a firefighter paramedic get a
Speaker 2: busy West Coast fire department, you got to be ready
Speaker 2: to serve the patient. So what I do doesn't work
Speaker 2: for some people. And that's why sometimes there's a difference
Speaker 2: between big city small cities doing.
Speaker 3: It it all hurts. But where I worked, we.
Speaker 2: Don't get called out to a cancer patient that's in
Speaker 2: life because that is part of someone who has gone
Speaker 2: through the end of life care and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. We just deal with emergency care. So everyone
Speaker 2: I've responded to when they died in front of me,
Speaker 2: they didn't expect to die that day. But everything I've
Speaker 2: been involved on, I've had seconds and that's it. And
Speaker 2: so again that's why I've just had an urgency to
Speaker 2: preach the gospel to anyone who.
Speaker 3: Will listener, won't listen in all honesty.
Speaker 2: Day that we got, you know, we're first due of
Speaker 2: the Bay on the Bay Bridge, which is a bridge
Speaker 2: between San Francisco and Oakland, and so it's not the
Speaker 2: Golden Gate bridge. It'll be glamorous one and stuff, but
Speaker 2: this one people jump off of it too, not as
Speaker 2: many as the Golden Gate. And this one day we're
Speaker 2: called out and it was the first time anyone ever
Speaker 2: killed themselves in front of me. Every time we responded
Speaker 2: to a scene of a suicidal person, I can either
Speaker 2: talk them back, we get them back, or lovingly tackle
Speaker 2: them sometimes that's what they need, and then get them
Speaker 2: to the help they need and stuff, because we don't
Speaker 2: want them to hurt themselves. But no one had ever
Speaker 2: killed themselves in front of me. And I was talking
Speaker 2: to this dude, and when I was looking into his eyes,
Speaker 2: this guy was not evil, I want to be clear
Speaker 2: on that, but it was like there was something in him.
Speaker 2: And I'm like abro coming back over the railing and
Speaker 2: I'm like maybe a foot and a half away from
Speaker 2: because I had a good bond with him, And he
Speaker 2: snapped his head up and he looked at me and
Speaker 2: he's like, I'm sorry, and he stepped back and our
Speaker 2: eyes locked as he's taking the eternal plunge, you know,
Speaker 2: down the three hundred foot fall into the bay. And
Speaker 2: when I witnessed that, my whole life just changed. When
Speaker 2: I got back on the fire engine, all the darkness
Speaker 2: I had from you know, the kindergarten story of you know,
Speaker 2: feeling something evil in the closet and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: it came real then, because that evilness that I never
Speaker 2: knew what it was, it became real and I knew
Speaker 2: it was going to take me down too. So when
Speaker 2: I got back on the fire engine, that evilness hopped
Speaker 2: back on the fire engine with me.
Speaker 3: We got back to the firehouse. It was there.
Speaker 2: When I went home to my beautiful house sixty miles
Speaker 2: outside the city limits that I kept perfect because I
Speaker 2: wanted it is my nice little place away from the firehouse,
Speaker 2: that evilness was there. And that all stemmed from the
Speaker 2: recognition I had from that call. And don't get wrong,
Speaker 2: I've been to countless suicides with much more worse ways
Speaker 2: that people had died, but I'd never witnessed that evil
Speaker 2: that took them down, take them down in front of me.
Speaker 2: And so that was one of the roughest calls that
Speaker 2: I had ever been on. And that's where a series
Speaker 2: of events of Christ started calling me through different calls
Speaker 2: I responded to and stuff, but I'd have to say
Speaker 2: that's the most significant one. So during that point, being
Speaker 2: a fireman, I was self medicating with the job. I
Speaker 2: never took on drugs, alcohol, anything like that. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying I'm above anyone, And if anyone's struggling with that,
Speaker 2: reach out and get the help you need, especially firefighters
Speaker 2: and ems, because you know, we're told not to find
Speaker 2: the help, but we get you know, because we're so.
Speaker 3: Strong, Go get the help.
Speaker 2: But what had happened was I finally got to a
Speaker 2: point in my life after that call where I felt
Speaker 2: something bigger and stupid people stop being stupid church people.
Speaker 2: There's something that popped me. One nighties being attacks laying
Speaker 2: in bed and the attacks were coming to my childhood
Speaker 2: and sweatiness and nightmares and true, I mean, the devil
Speaker 2: was attacking. When I something popped in my head. There's
Speaker 2: a little church down the street from my house, and
Speaker 2: I said, you know what, I want to go in
Speaker 2: there and see what these people are finding. What's what
Speaker 2: the goodness is?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean I knew I'm not an idiot. I knew
Speaker 2: Jesus the Bible and all that. I just never read it.
Speaker 2: And you know, the closey at Jesus was a dude,
Speaker 2: But it's not what all these Christians say. He is,
Speaker 2: you know type thing. So I go and I put
Speaker 2: on you know, and I'm as certain and that's what
Speaker 2: I off duty, I would serve quite a bit. So
Speaker 2: I was wearing my best you know, surf shorts, T
Speaker 2: shirt and put on a nice pair of Vans, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to church with these people. And
Speaker 2: as I walked up, there were these two greeters and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden they locked me and they put
Speaker 2: their hand up like, you can't come in here dressed
Speaker 2: like that, dude. My childhood came back because my whole
Speaker 2: life as a child, I was told I wasn't good enough.
Speaker 2: I stunk, I had the wrong clothes. I couldn't even
Speaker 2: play pe because if I asked my dad for a
Speaker 2: PE uniform. He would beat me, so I'd just say,
Speaker 2: now have one. So the coach who would give me
Speaker 2: a D minus and make me stand up against the
Speaker 2: wall all PE time. So all that came back, and
Speaker 2: I have a badge of my walk and I've even
Speaker 2: pulled people out of fires. I was given a medal
Speaker 2: of valor, but I didn't want to throw it out
Speaker 2: their face. I'm like, I'm not good enough to come
Speaker 2: in to your church. So I walked away. And the
Speaker 2: next morning I had my suicide planned. And my whole
Speaker 2: suicide plan was I wanted to take care of other people.
Speaker 2: I was going to paddle out on my surfboard about
Speaker 2: two miles out in the ocean, take my life. But
Speaker 2: I also had bricks wrapped around me, so take me
Speaker 2: to the bottom. So no, I didn't want to be
Speaker 2: another firefighter's worst nightmare sitting at Thanksgiving eating dinner and
Speaker 2: thinking about me, who he found on the beach.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So I had it all planned out in a San
Speaker 2: Francisco fire him and actually swung by my house. And
Speaker 2: he's still an atheist to this day. And he invited
Speaker 2: me to go have pancakes and He doesn't even know
Speaker 2: why he came over. He just felt that he needed
Speaker 2: to come over.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to Jason Sawtell tell his story
Speaker 1: and his book is The Rescuer, one firefighter's story of courage,
Speaker 1: darkness and the relentless love that saved him. And you
Speaker 1: can get that at Amazon dot Com or the Usual Suspects.
Speaker 1: And you were hearing the compelling story of him watching
Speaker 1: a person take his life jump off the Bay Bridge.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever been on the Bay Bridge or
Speaker 1: the Golden Gate Bridge, this is a drop that'll kill you.
Speaker 1: And to watch something like that, well, it's got to
Speaker 1: take the breath out of you, and it's got to
Speaker 1: force some kind of change. And for Jason to push
Speaker 1: them to church, only to be met by Christians who
Speaker 1: judged him by the way he dressed and pushed him
Speaker 1: back away. Jason now on the edge of doubt and
Speaker 1: even deep self doubt. When we come back more of
Speaker 1: Jason Sawtell's story and his journey. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this is the story of many men and women around
Speaker 1: you who are serving as cops and firemen ex soldiers too,
Speaker 1: And know that these folks, many of them, are struggling
Speaker 1: with the same exact problems. We welcome stories from first responders.
Speaker 1: Send them to our American Stories dot com. The more
Speaker 1: these voices are heard, the better. When we come back
Speaker 1: more with Jason Sawtell's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 1: And we continue with our American Stories and to the
Speaker 1: final part. A former firefighter and author Jason Sawtel. He's
Speaker 1: been telling us the story from his book The Rescuer.
Speaker 1: We left off with Jason talking about his urge to
Speaker 1: commit suicide, which was stopped by a fellow firefighter. Let's
Speaker 1: return to Jason and his story.
Speaker 2: After that, things in my life started changing. As opposed
Speaker 2: to scene everything is horrible. I started seeing the good
Speaker 2: even in the bad, and it would always have a
Speaker 2: Bible involved or something like that. Well, then one day
Speaker 2: my niece flew out from North Carolina was visiting. She'd
Speaker 2: come be with her cool uncle Jason and stay you know,
Speaker 2: like a week, and so I take vacation. She's only
Speaker 2: like ten eleven years old, and so well, she wanted
Speaker 2: to go have dinner at the popular restaurant which is
Speaker 2: right by the college, and stuff's like, yeah, le's go down.
Speaker 3: There, and we're there.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, this girl walks bay and I
Speaker 2: tell you what, she is the hottest chick I've ever
Speaker 2: seen in my life. And I'm nothing to look at,
Speaker 2: don't get it wrong. But as a fire less, be honest,
Speaker 2: you know, a young fireman, I would use it, you know,
Speaker 2: and stuff. But she was so unimpressed with me. VI
Speaker 2: at a fireman, She's like, oh, okay, whatever. But she had
Speaker 2: this glow and she had this love and she had
Speaker 2: this light coming out of her and dude, I was like, easy,
Speaker 2: you can see here. I have no problem talking. But
Speaker 2: when she came up and I tried your number, like
Speaker 2: you know, and so finally I got her number. And
Speaker 2: the reason she gave me number and she never does
Speaker 2: it is she said she liked the way I was
Speaker 2: treating my daughter. I'm like, that's not my daughter. She goes, oh,
Speaker 2: thank goodness. I didn't want to date a man with
Speaker 2: a kid, you know, and stuff like that. But she
Speaker 2: just saw something in there, and so her and I
Speaker 2: started dating. And she was a nursing student at Sonoma
Speaker 2: State University and a Christian.
Speaker 3: And she is the first person that I can ever
Speaker 3: tell the truth.
Speaker 2: I didn't lie to try to get stuff, but if
Speaker 2: people would ask me what was your childhood?
Speaker 3: Like, Oh, it's good. I just grew up surfing and
Speaker 3: playing sports. Right.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't let anyone in because the second I did,
Speaker 2: the evilness and emptiness inside of me would eat it
Speaker 2: up and destroy every relationship I ever had. And I
Speaker 2: had some long term relationships, but you know, they got
Speaker 2: eaten alive because they didn't have a foundation. So one
Speaker 2: day in particular, I was talking to Christy because we
Speaker 2: had a lunch date and I just got off duty,
Speaker 2: off my twenty.
Speaker 3: Fourth shift, and she's like, how is your date?
Speaker 2: And that's a rough question to ask a West Oakland fireman, right,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, it's good. You know what this sucks.
Speaker 2: I was holding this little girl that had been hit
Speaker 2: by a car and she died, and you know, I
Speaker 2: was dead, and so I was trying to keep her
Speaker 2: mom from seeing all the body trauma and stuff. And
Speaker 2: I just hold her mom and crying with her mom,
Speaker 2: and it was just kind of sucked. And I look
Speaker 2: over and Christie's crying, and also I thought, oh, Dad, Jason,
Speaker 2: the idiot, you let the filter come off.
Speaker 3: You told the story they'd ever and she's gonna walk
Speaker 3: with me, and she looks at me. She goes, but
Speaker 3: at least that little girl's with Jesus right.
Speaker 2: And my eyes are like, you know, and it's the
Speaker 2: first time I was ever honest again. I said, I
Speaker 2: don't know what to believe. I was truly at that
Speaker 2: point in my life, like, I don't know, maybe she is,
Speaker 2: maybe she isn't, but right now I don't know what
Speaker 2: to say. And I saw something in Christie's eyes and
Speaker 2: she's like, oh snap, and I think, oh great, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get dumped. So she goes back to school and says,
Speaker 2: I want to see you tonight. And she worked three
Speaker 2: different ships at restaurants because she grew up really poor,
Speaker 2: kind of like me, so to eat her way through college.
Speaker 2: She worked at restaurants and she paid her own way
Speaker 2: through college, no help from her family and stuff, which
Speaker 2: was also, excuse me, my layage, super sexy. Okay, guys are
Speaker 2: hearing this, that's hot, Okay. So that night we're going
Speaker 2: to meet up, and I knew she's gonna dump me.
Speaker 2: I go to Barnes and Nobles and dude, I bought
Speaker 2: the biggest King James Bible you ever saw. And I'm
Speaker 2: sitting there and this old lady's like, oh, son, I
Speaker 2: love to see young Christian buying Bibles. And I'm just saying, dude,
Speaker 2: I just want out of here before God smites me.
Speaker 3: Lighting's gonna hit. I'm gonna be done. I'm the last
Speaker 3: guy to carry about.
Speaker 2: It's like, get home. I get that Bible home and
Speaker 2: I'm start flipping through it. I think I got somewhere
Speaker 2: around Deuteronomy and I'm like, I got jipped. I got
Speaker 2: a Bible with no Jesus and this sucks.
Speaker 3: Okay. So and mind you, I'm not a Christian time,
Speaker 3: I've never been to church. Okay. So I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: forget it. Do I want to dump Chris? You let
Speaker 3: her dumb me?
Speaker 2: But something he said, just go meet with her. And
Speaker 2: so as I met with her was like ten o'clock
Speaker 2: at night atting Barnes and Noble, which is kind of
Speaker 2: crazy too, in their coffee shop next to her restaurant.
Speaker 2: She comes in, she sits down and she says, I
Speaker 2: love you. I mean, we're two weeks in.
Speaker 3: And I was like, wellhead.
Speaker 2: She's like, I love you, but I'm not going to
Speaker 2: continue to date you unless you come to.
Speaker 3: Church with me.
Speaker 2: She never once said you have to be a Christian
Speaker 2: after this, after the fact that I asked Heim, like,
Speaker 2: why did you invite me to church? And she's like,
Speaker 2: you're a train wreck. She's like, I was just me.
Speaker 2: I needed to give you to church because I couldn't
Speaker 2: even talk to you about Christianity because I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to someone like you, which she knew she need
Speaker 2: to bring me.
Speaker 3: The body of Christ. So to speed up the story,
Speaker 3: I go to church and no joke, the pastor.
Speaker 2: I talk with him and we had a few toxic
Speaker 2: like come join my small group, Like, yo, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not gianing a Christian small group. What are we gonna
Speaker 2: do for you can cut the heads off chickens and candles?
Speaker 2: And he just laughs like I love your sens a humor.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I was trying to push him away, to
Speaker 2: be honest with you, you know. So I went and
Speaker 2: he gave me the unedited full version of the Gospel
Speaker 2: message over time, not right away. He saw that I
Speaker 2: wasn't someone that's like, okay, let's just go for right now.
Speaker 2: He saw it'd be some pushback. But what hit me
Speaker 2: was he said, Jason, there's no goodness in this world.
Speaker 2: And even though you're going out and doing good things.
Speaker 2: Where does it come from? Like, dude, I'm good, I'm
Speaker 2: a fireman. I've almost died in fires. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but where's that goodness coming from. He's it comes down
Speaker 2: into you and through you, and you want to serve
Speaker 2: something greater God, and that's part of what you do.
Speaker 2: So the goodness thing, plus hearing about the sinner, I think, well,
Speaker 2: that reminded me of the fire department of we do
Speaker 2: something for something greater, right and everything. So after that period,
Speaker 2: we had a fire and almost died in the fire.
Speaker 2: I got trapped, I got cut off from the crew.
Speaker 2: I had no way out. We're in a twenty story
Speaker 2: brick building built in the early nineteen twenties, and it
Speaker 2: was well involved, and I thought I was.
Speaker 3: Going to die.
Speaker 2: And being in that darkness, in that exact room and
Speaker 2: the extreme heat and the pain and we're talking, you know,
Speaker 2: a room that's pushing eight nine hundred degrees and I
Speaker 2: have a pocket of air and I'm trying to survive
Speaker 2: and I'm screaming may Day for help. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the gospel message became real. Sin, everything we've gone through
Speaker 2: became real. The darkness that I recognized was around me.
Speaker 2: The emptiness that was in me became real, and I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, laying in that far, I'm like, I
Speaker 2: don't want to die separated from God. I don't want
Speaker 2: to die eternally in eternal pain. This is not good
Speaker 2: right here. And so when I came out of that fire,
Speaker 2: it was like, over a period of a few hours,
Speaker 2: like it just made sense. It was like the light
Speaker 2: bulb clicked on. You know, it's like, come back up
Speaker 2: to home after a off shift. I'm telling Christy about
Speaker 2: the fire, and you know, of course she's looking the
Speaker 2: blisters on me. I'm like, oh, listen's no big deal
Speaker 2: of fireman. I get blistered all the time. And I said,
Speaker 2: guess what I'm I'm totally in on this Jesus thing
Speaker 2: and I'm a believer. And she looks like she's like, well,
Speaker 2: Awry knew that, you idiot. So there's no glorious thing
Speaker 2: about She's like, oh, I need your coming to Christ.
Speaker 2: And that's what I love about my wife is even
Speaker 2: to this day, she's that hardcore loving feminine in a
Speaker 2: Christian way, helping be my partner where to become one.
Speaker 2: But she's still tough on me to this day. And
Speaker 2: that's the story of how I came to christ Man
Speaker 2: was just growing up in hell, living in hell, being
Speaker 2: a fire department. If you were looking out or looking
Speaker 2: into me from the outside, all you were going to.
Speaker 3: See was awesome.
Speaker 2: He had the truck, he had the boat, he had
Speaker 2: the house, he had all that stuff. Right, you can
Speaker 2: have all that stuff. Give me a smelly, one bedroom
Speaker 2: apartment with cockroaches that's full of love in Christ and
Speaker 2: I'm all in, okay, because all that stuff's just gonna
Speaker 2: go nowhere.
Speaker 3: It's gonna become dust. And then so that's kind of
Speaker 3: my salvation story wrapped up in a nutshell there. A
Speaker 3: few years ago, I broke my back.
Speaker 2: And my hip on a fire and the day the
Speaker 2: doctor walked into my hospital room so I couldn't be
Speaker 2: a fireman anymore.
Speaker 3: As one of the worst.
Speaker 2: Days of my life ever, seriously, but it's become one
Speaker 2: of the best days because of how God's using it now.
Speaker 2: So what happened was I started facebooking some of my
Speaker 2: feelings and thoughts because when I left the fire department
Speaker 2: there was an emptiness in me because it's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Because I did idolize the fire department. But when I left,
Speaker 2: I realized God left me there and he gave me
Speaker 2: over one hundred thousand stories that he sent me. To
Speaker 2: think about it, most of us live our lives of
Speaker 2: responding in the world around us.
Speaker 3: I actually got to go be part of other people's stories. Well.
Speaker 2: I believe when God sends you places and he gives
Speaker 2: you something, he wants you to use them to glorify
Speaker 2: Him and bless others. So I started writing about my experiences.
Speaker 2: I put on what I call my scriptural goggles. I
Speaker 2: look in my Bible, I'd read messages. Then I would
Speaker 2: look back at the responses I went to and say,
Speaker 2: how can I bless people by tying this message all together?
Speaker 2: And my Facebook page started growing and growing and growing.
Speaker 2: Next thing, I'm like three, four or five hundred thousand,
Speaker 2: people are like okay, And it's not about the likes
Speaker 2: or anything. It was just that people liked what I
Speaker 2: had to say, you know, because I'm writing at the
Speaker 2: freaking ninth or tenth grade level as a blue collared fireman,
Speaker 2: but I'm bringing the truth.
Speaker 3: To people and they liked it.
Speaker 2: So I was speaking at men's retreats and I'm blessed
Speaker 2: to speak at churches. And they said, have you ever
Speaker 2: thought about writing a book where you can put your
Speaker 2: whole story together? Because, as you can see, is our
Speaker 2: time here together. It's been eight hours talking about things
Speaker 2: that I've experienced. And so I said, yeah, but I
Speaker 2: have all the stories I write in more like blog form,
Speaker 2: and they said, no, prom you know what, we can
Speaker 2: help you with a writer that doesn't change a story,
Speaker 2: but he'll help pull it out. Like I'll say, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're gonna fire with dark and hot. He's like, hey,
Speaker 2: Jason explained it to me and bring the arcs to
Speaker 2: it and that kind of stuff. And so here I am,
Speaker 2: this dumb fireman from West Oakland. I've never even completed
Speaker 2: reading a book in my entire life. Life is an
Speaker 2: author because I had a story to tell. But it's
Speaker 2: not my story. It's a story God me, and I
Speaker 2: know God gave me, and I know God wants it
Speaker 2: out there because there's no reason someone that's come from
Speaker 2: my background that has never i mean, I don't even
Speaker 2: know have a high school diploma, gets to write a book.
Speaker 2: And the stories are real, they just got cleaned up
Speaker 2: in editorial processes and stuff. That's a straight up God
Speaker 2: thing right there. And that's how the book came together.
Speaker 2: And it's just seeing the way it's blessing people, firefighters
Speaker 2: and non firefighters alike. It's all God.
Speaker 1: He pulled it all together, and a great work as
Speaker 1: always by Madison and Faith putting that story together. And
Speaker 1: a special thanks to joy Neil Kidney for bringing this
Speaker 1: story to us, and of course a special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jason Sawtel for telling and sharing his story with us.
Speaker 1: And the book is The Rescuer, one firefighter's story of courage, darkness,
Speaker 1: and the relentless love that saved him. By the way,
Speaker 1: go to rescuerbook dot com to learn more about Jason
Speaker 1: and his book. Go to Amazon dot com order the
Speaker 1: book The Rescuer. Jason Sawtell's story here on our American
Speaker 1: Stories