SPEAKER_06 0:00

Here comes the Sun Do D. Here comes the Sunday It's all right.

SPEAKER_05 0:20

Hello, Fortitude audience. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am sitting next to my incredible husband, Amos, my co-host. Hello. Hi. And today on Fortitude, you are in for such a beautiful treat to hear from Carrie Hoffman, who is located in Woodbury, Minnesota. And for those of you who may not be familiar with the name Carrie Hoffman, she recently is an author and wrote a book called Miracle or Mall of America. Miracle. Miracle at the Mall. At the Mall is what it's called. Yes, sorry. Um, and Carrie's story from 2019 is where we're going to take this episode today. But I wanted to start a little bit with who you are now, Carrie. Share a little bit about who you are, and then we'll kind of take a store or take a step back. Okay. Childhood, because I want to get a little bit of you have been under attack since like since you were born. Your family and a lot. So you've had a lot going on. So I want to touch touch a little bit onto what happened to you and your family. And then I want to fast forward to them all.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Okay. Yes. So just today, today I am a mom of three. So I have 13-year-old twins, Hayden and Haley. Um, and they are completely different. Uh Haley likes to stay home and be homeschooled. And Hayden is wants to be all over the place, moving every second. Loves sports, loves hockey, loves baseball. And then Landon is 11 years old and he loves everything Hayden loves. So those are my three kids, and I am busy just being a mom every day. I don't ever have a second to sit down in the summer because I am running all over town to all the activities. But that I that's what I love to do. Okay. And your husband's name is my husband is Dave. Dave Dave, yep. And he works for Love Travel Stops. He sells their fuel, so he travels. He travels for work and goes around to different states and sells their fuel. So you really are being mom full. Like you're you're doing home. Yes, he is home a lot too, which I mean we're all home this summer. So it can be pretty crowded, but it's it works.

SPEAKER_05 2:42

Well, Carrie, when you and I were connected by a dear friend of mine here um from my hometown area reached out and she just said, You really need to meet Carrie. I'm really good friends with her sister. And um, I thought, oh my goodness, I don't know if I remember this story. I I I had um the exact same time at after you and I had talked, we were both going through things almost at the exact same time. Yeah. I was in my deepest part of my story. Yeah. When you were also, and so you and I were parallel walking through spiritual battle. And when we got to, I mean we met and we talked for like two and a half hours. It was such a great conversation that I got to hear even more of your story. And then I was just like, I'm yeah, you are such a woman of God with such faith and dedication to prayer and the promises. And so for our audience to get to hear your story today, um, take me back to your house, your home with your mom and your dad.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

Yeah. Um, we lived in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, and we lived on the Edinburgh Golf Course over there. And it was just like a new developing neighborhood. So there was lots of houses being built back back when we moved. Well, I was in second grade when we actually moved to that house. So um, I don't know. We were, I have a brother and a sister. So she's older and he's younger, and I was the middle child, and I was exactly like the middle child stereotype is. Um, my sister was into all the sports. I was into sports too, but she um like did everything perfectly, got all A's, worked really hard, and I did everything for fun. I played them all and I was good, but I didn't try it that hard. So everything I did just was to be on the team because it was fun. And why I bring that up is because um when we were living there and I was in second grade, so the first year that we were there, we were my brother, my dad was out in the front yard playing softball with my um sister and teaching her how to hit really hard. And she like, I remember that day that she he pitched to her and she hit the ball so hard it dented his car. And he said, Why don't you hit that like that every time? But that's um that's what we were doing this one specific day. Yes. And I was running around the neighborhood with my best friend who from preschool who lived three houses down. So I was just so happy to have her in this neighborhood. And we were, it was that's I was just we just lived together and we're still best friends today. So she was down the street and we were running around and we went to bed about it was summer, it was June. It was actually my parents were gonna wake up into their anniversary the next day. So they went to bed that night. Um and then when they woke up, it was their anniversary when we had some very traumatic things happen to us. Do I'm gonna go into it right now? Just a little bit, yeah, because it's in the stuff.

SPEAKER_06 5:52

Okay, so I know.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

Okay, so um we had gone to sleep about 11 o'clock. It was late, and we my sister left the garage door open. And when we went to bed, um, you know, we all had our own rooms. So what had happened was an intruder came in and he went to our kitchen and he took a tablecloth off of a kitchen table and had wrapped it around his face. Um, he rode, he had a bicycle. He was riding around the street in a bicycle, and then so I guess he didn't, and but he did have a loaded gun and he wanted to get some money. So he found our house that had our garage door open, came in, wrapped that um kitchen tablecloth around his face. So it was like almost to his knees, like a big tablecloth. And he came up the stairs and went into my brother's room first. And he was eight years old. And she woke him up and said, Get up and don't scream with a gun. And then so he did. He followed directions. Then he went into my sister's room next and said same thing, get up and don't scream. They came to my room last, and my sister said, You have to get up and don't scream. And the guy was standing right there with the gun, and I saw him and I saw my brother and sister there, and I just stood up. You know, nobody really knows what's happening when you're startled and awake out of sleep, but that's what he said to do. So we did it. Then he said, Go go in your parents' room and wake them up. So we he woke, we were all woken up, and then he led us by gun down to our um family room. And my mom kept saying things like, I get I need to get my glasses. Can I get my glasses? She was just trying to distract him and saying, like, what do you want? What do you want from us? Just kept talking and talking and talking. Well, the whole time my dad was saying, um, rebuking the devil and praying out loud as loud as he could, just saying, Heavenly Father, protect us, keep us safe. He we we grew up in a church where they pray in tongues. So he was praying in tongues and he was saying, kids pray, kids pray. So we were just kind of like mumbling, praying while my mom was asking questions to him. So he she's like, What do you want us to do? What do you want us to do? And he said, Sit on the couch. So we were all sitting on the couch while all this is still happening. And my mom's saying, I can't see, I need to get my glasses. You know, we were just, she was, I didn't, we were kids and we were just following along, but now that's what they were doing was trying to confuse him, praying out loud and ask a bunch of questions so he doesn't know what to do. And my dad said he was waiting the whole time to a chance to grab the gun, but he just kept feeling the Holy Spirit say, Not yet, not yet. So he was just waiting for the perfect time. So then he said, Um, go in the I want to go in the garage. I want the keys to that. We had a big, huge Buickle Saber out there that a great aunt had died and gave given to us, and he wanted to go in the garage and all of us to go into the trunk. And then he wanted to have my mom drive around to cash machines and get a lot of money out. That's what he thought he could do. So we went one by one out in the garage, and um, I was first and I was eager to get the keys because he wanted the keys, and the keys are always in the ignition. We just leave, we leave them in the car, and so I knew that. And so my mom kept saying, Well, we're not getting in that trunk, we're not getting in that trunk. And I like ran and got the keys and I held them up and said, Here they are. And the man looked, and right when that happened, my dad felt it was the time, grabbed the gun, punched him, got him to the ground, held him on the ground, and kept hitting him until he would let the gun go. During this time, the gun went off. It went through my it was loaded with 27 bullets, but it had jammed and he but he wouldn't let the gun go. He kept he kept saying, I give up, I give up, I give up. Like he had my dad had him pinned to the ground, and my mom was trying to take his fingers off the gun to pry it out of his hand, and he wouldn't let go. And she said, he kept saying, I give up. And my mom said, Well, if you give up, let the gun go, but he wouldn't let it go. And he bit her in the leg and the inner thigh so hard that she had to get rabies shots the next day. But he did finally let the gun go. And during this time, I ran next door to the neighbors. My brother went and hid, and my sister, my dad worked for a fire control extinguisher company. She was trying to shoot him in the face with a fire extinguisher. However, she couldn't remember to take the pin out, which later, like when I wrote my book and we're like going through all these details. You think we learned these things like if she would have sprayed him in the face with a fire extinguisher, that would have hurt everybody in the garage. More kid, we're happy that didn't happen. But he held him there until he did finally let the gun go. My mom put it under the trunk, and my dad sat there and held him to the ground until the police came.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

Oh man. So that was just moved into that house there, can all and Carrie. I this the reason I bring this up, and I wanted the audience to hear this is because you share the next part of your story to me, and then you brought that up, and you just how you were raised. Yeah, really does lead up to the outcome of what happened at the mall. It does.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

The power of prayer, the power of like not the the rebuking the devil, this this, you know, like just the model that you had in both of your parents and how I didn't realize that those things like really were connected until I started writing and connecting these dots and like talking to people that the reason I did what I did is because that's what I saw when you are in a traumatic experience and your life is threatened, you cry out to God. Yeah, and I and you pray, and there's no person that's gonna help you, you need God, and so that's what I learned back then, and I didn't even realize it until I didn't even realize it when it happened until I started writing.

SPEAKER_05 11:54

So to fast forward to that day, thank you for sharing that. I kind of threw that at you. I we didn't really chat about that, but um yeah, to go to that day, you had just got done having conferences with Landon's teacher, and you were so excited because you got this awesome praise report that he was so good and he's graduating and he's moving on to kindergarten. So you I was so happy, yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

Yeah, yes, I was thankful because my other kids had lots of issues in school. Like my dot, my daughter was diagnosed with autism later later in life, but we didn't know that when she was younger, and her twin brother did everything for her, and so it was always what are we gonna do next year? How are we gonna make this work? Who are we gonna put her with? And then my her twin brother is also a little hyper, so then you know, there were just always these things that we had to worry about. What teacher should he go with? What kids should he go with? You know, all of these things to think about. And with Lannon's conference, it was it was none of that. He can go with any teacher, any kids, just so quiet, so polite, just such gentle spirit, knows all his ABCs and how to write his name. Nothing. There was nothing to worry about. And I was so thankful that morning for him, like overly thankful. I really just felt it that morning.

SPEAKER_05 13:07

Yeah, you probably went in with a little bit of the defense of oh heard before, you know, and to get all the goodness that was poured out. You were heading straight to the mall to go celebrate, right? You and your friend.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Yep. There was a friend right behind me that Lana was really good friends with, and we said, let's go do something fun to celebrate this day. And the other kids were in school still. So it was just us, and it was just the day to celebrate these little boys.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

And celebrate you did. Yep. We never got to there, but yes. No, all right. So you load it up and you headed to the mall with you just go ahead, Carrie. I'll just hand the wheel over to you. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

So, like I said, I was feeling so thankful driving there. Like Lannon was in the backseat coloring on a water bottle um with markers all over his water bottle. And um I called my husband just to tell him how thankful I was, which I never called him during the day and interrupted him because he's just on the phone constantly with customers. So nothing is really that important until he gets home. But I did call him on the way there just to say, Lannon did he's doing amazing. We have nothing to worry about. That just sticks out to me because it's just things I normally don't do. And that morning I was just feeling so good. Um, but we get to the Mall of America and we pull into the parking ramp. And I have got I've gone there many times, so I always park in the same spot. But as soon as I like entered the ramp to where I was going, I just got a weird feeling that something, something just didn't sit right with me. And I had been there so many times that I know it's a huge place and it's a number one tourist attraction. And I've always worried that there could be a terrorist attack or something there. So I thought, you know, something like that could happen. I always like ask people, where do you go if something like that happens, just to be aware of you know what would happen if I was inside and something like that happened. So I just prayed. I just prayed that heavenly angels would go before us to keep us safe everywhere that we go. I pleaded the blood of Jesus over us. I just drew a line and just made sure that when we walk through here, we will be safe. Whatever happens, we're gonna go have a fun day. And then you park and you start chit-chatting right away with who you're with, and I let it go. I just thought, okay, I prayed, we're good, let's go have fun. So we get out of the car and we go in there, and it's it's 9 45. The mall doesn't open till 10. So it was pretty busy. They let you in to like walk the hallways, you can get a coffee, but like none of the stores or attractions are open. So it was pretty empty when and it was really it was April, but it was snowing in Minnesota. So it was a cold day. It was it really wasn't that busy. I mean, I don't remember seeing anybody when we were walking from where we were going to this third floor Crayola factory. So we get up there, and right next to it is the Rainforest Cafe, and it wasn't open, so we're just you know chit-chatting along, and there's the alligator there that has a oh it opens and closes its mouth and has steam all around it. And the boys knew it knew it was there, so they were excited to see it. So they're running ahead and they get there and they step on the rock and are looking over the edge at the alligator. And I'm still chatting with the mom, you know, thinking we're okay, everything's fine. I kind of just left it in the parking lot. I didn't really think we were in danger anymore. It left me. So this while we're doing this, a man comes up and he leans over the rocks with these two little boys, and he's whispering to them and they're giggling. And so I did think, what is he doing? I thought he must work here because he had jeans on and like a white short sleeve shirt, no jacket, like we all had winter jackets on and boots, and he had jeans and a short sleeve t-shirt. So I thought he must work here. So I said to him, Um, excuse me, do you do you not want us here? Because I thought we weren't allowed to step on the rocks there. Because it says don't step on the rocks, but the kids step on the rocks or you can't see. So they were stepping on the rocks, and he said, kind of just mumbled and said, No, no, no, you're okay. So I thought, okay, well, that's kind of weird. The boys were giggling about it. So I stepped back again. I mean, I'm still really close, like arm's length from landing, but I'm just not like right leaning over, listening to what he's saying. But the man came even closer and was whispering, and he was the boys were still giggling. And I thought, what is he gonna do? I said, Um, are you gonna turn on the alligator? And then he looked at me and said, he smiled. I remember he like he didn't look like a mean guy, he just looked like a normal, nice guy. He smiled, and right when he did that, he picked Lennon up under his armpits, ran to the balcony, and threw him. It was like in the matter of seconds. So I um because I had prayed going in there and I had that feeling, I felt a spiritual attack. That's how I felt. I felt this was the devil working through this man. That's just the feeling that I got. And I immediately yelled, devil, take your hands off of him. Somebody threw my baby. And I ran down, I knew where I was, so I ran down the escalator stairs. Three escalator flights just screaming, somebody threw my baby, somebody threw my baby. Um, and what happened was there were two nurses that worked at Children's Minnesota Hospital on the second floor waiting for a store to open that was not open yet. And they were on the second level and saw this happen and came running right after me. And they're they work in the cardiac unit, and their job is to save life. So they were the right people to be there. And I don't believe that they were there in accident because it's the angels you prayed for. Yes, it was the angels I prayed for, and they came right behind and I went down, I found Landon, I picked him up, and there was another lady at the bottom of the stairs right before I got there, and she said, You can't pick him up, put him down. And so I put him down, and then these nurses started working on him immediately. And I backed away and I just kept praying, devil, take your hands off of him. He is going to live and not die. And they were like, Yes, um, they were like, He took a breath, and I like cheered, yes, he took a breath, landing, keep fighting. He took a breath, get your hands off of him in the name of Jesus. And I just looked up, and people were on balconies just staring. And I looked up and I said, Pray, what are you looking at? Pray. And there was a man on the second level who serious locked eyes with me, and I don't know if he was real or not, but he just let me know he was praying, and it just gave me the most perfect peace that were everybody here's praying. He's going to live. I just how did he let you know? How just I mean, I just I think he did he did this to me. Okay, and I never saw him again after that. And I've talked about this, you know, many times, and I would love to know who he was, but I really think he was an angel because I have met a lot of people there, and I don't know anything about this person. But in that moment, when I looked up and said pray, he locked eyes with me and said, I got you. That's what he did.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

That's amazing. Did did Landon land on the floor?

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Yeah. So what had happened was he fell face first and like caught himself, and so his arms and elbows were shattered and his like nose was completely smushed into his face, and he had injured his frontal lobe. But he um and then he did break his femur and you know lots of other bones, but because of the way he fell, he injured his frontal lobe, which is like the most uh the thing you want to hurt if you're gonna hurt your brain.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Okay, there's a place in the brain that have if if like I got him back, I got him back right from that injury.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Oh right, he was walking, he was talking, he was going to be landing. The badass.

SPEAKER_05 21:07

There's yeah, then you have major brain damage. That makes sense. Yeah, you won't get him back.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

How far these are I mean a mole levels, so they're 12 foot levels.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

So do you know how far 39 feet that he did a free fall of 39 feet? Which they the medical professionals could not say he should not be alive. Um, they also said he must have landed, they thought he landed on a photo booth or something to break his fall, but he didn't. Just straight to the concrete. Um he doesn't remember. No, he doesn't remember the man coming up to him. He doesn't remember going to the mall that day, nothing. He doesn't remember falling. Um what he remembers is waking up in the hospital and not even he was intubated for eleven days. Um, and it was really Hard when they ex if you've ever gone through that experience where they extubate somebody, oh, it's awful. But um, I thought he was just gonna wake up and I was gonna have him again, and that's not how it goes. So um so these two nurses are working on him. Yeah, and he took a breath, but then he took a then he had a heartbeat. Okay, they said, We have a heartbeat. And I said, Yes, we have a heartbeat. And then the the um the nurses were like, What what do you need? What do you need from us? And I'm like, I told them I need a ride to the hospital because I thought I don't how am I gonna get there? You know, that's what I was thinking at the time is we're going to the hospital because he's alive and we're living. So I said, I need everybody to pray and I need a ride. But um, but um, so they got a heartbeat, they got had him take a breath, they got him on a stretcher and they're rushing him out to the ambulance. And I'm chasing down the hallway after him. Um, just everyone who who stand was there, I guess said, pray, please pray. Everybody pray. The whole way I ran down the hallway, got into the ambulance, I got in with him, and they said, No, you can't be in here. We need room to work on him. And I said, Okay, I won't be in here. And I said, Landon, you're gonna live and not die. Get your hands off of him, Satan. And he opened his eyes and looked at me, and then he shut them and they shut the door, and I went in the cop car behind. So I knew I knew he was alive. So then I go, I go in the cop car behind, and that was a long way.

SPEAKER_05 23:33

Oh yeah, yeah. Your faith, your faith, and just how you approach that whole situation. Um, that whole fight, fight free. You were a you're a fighter in a good like you're a yeah it was a spiritual battle.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

I didn't care who was looking, I don't care who was watching. I wanted everyone to do it with me, and I just thought they would, and they did.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

Yeah, yes, so it wasn't it was I mean powerful, yes, that's what it was. Because I want to fast forward and then we're gonna come back a little bit, but you the nurses, you saw the nurses later, and you didn't you didn't want to know.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

I didn't meet them, I was in the hospital for four months, and they I knew they were on a different floor, I knew they were a floor down, and they can't come up there unless I invite them. And I knew that, but he was Landon had such a battle in the hospital. I said, as soon as I get as soon as he's good, as soon as he's stable, as soon as he's awake, then I want them here. But it took us four months to get there. And so I did not during this time, one of those nurses, there's two of them, her dad wrote me a letter. Um, and it's just said how his daughter scaved Lannon CPR and saved his life that day. And he has been watching on TV, and he just he wants this the story to be told about our heavenly father. And if I ever can find it in my heart to meet him and her someday, and I wanted to, but it just I put the letter in my Bible and I left it there until I was ready to actually deal with that. I I knew what I went through, I knew he was alive, but I didn't know if he was actually dead at all, like when they got down there, and I didn't I knew they knew things I didn't want to know, and I wasn't ready to hear them until Landon was okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Ah, sounds like good boundaries. Yeah. What happened to the man during this?

SPEAKER_04 25:36

Yeah, so he threw Landon and fell to the ground. I remember him on the ground, like trying to get back up as I was like running away to get to the um escalator. And then he took off running. And the mom I was with knew he had a white shirt and white Nikes on. So she kept yelling, white shirt, white Nikes. Um, and another angel in the mall saw he was in his 60s and he saw him running and like body checked him, knocked him to the ground, which it's it's delayed him. It didn't stop him. He got back up and got to the light rail. But the police at the Mall of America got to the light rail right before it took off. So it was like a like a train that yeah, there's a train that runs through there. So he got to the light rail, he sat down, he was just it was just about to take off, and they caught him. So just I didn't know any of this until I didn't even know any of this till way after I came home from the hospital. I wanted to know nothing, but I know that now because um we did find the man who tackled him, and I did. We had a perfect celebration party at the very end of all this to invite all the heroes who helped us to this party, just so we could thank him. All the firefighters, ambulance drivers, nurses, doctors. We had that man's name in the police report. He did not come, but he he caught him, he tackled them and delayed him enough.

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Man, just enough. Like four seconds there's like four seconds in that light rail, but he would have been on it and gone and gone. He came in on the light rail, right? Can you tell us a little bit more about the man that you he was homeless?

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Do you know? I think he was homeless. Um I know that he was there the day before to kill. He said that um he was trying to pick up women and nobody wanted him, so he was going to find a woman to kill. And he did not succeed the night before. So he was gonna come back the next day and find a woman to kill. And so I'm sure he was looking at me and knew I wasn't too close to the balcony, so he grabbed Landon instead.

SPEAKER_05 27:49

You get to the hospital, your husband yet does not know, right? No, and can you lead us into the hospital? Because it was chaos. Like when you got there, there was so much going on, and yet you stayed true to your prayer and fighting the spiritual battle for your son.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

Yeah. So when I got there, they take you out of the ambulance and straight into this like huge life-saving room. So this is not where they're like gonna do any kind of surgery or anything, but they're just gonna assess your injuries, fix them really quick, and then get you into the MRI. And so I they also learned this later that usually there's one doctor, maybe like the um in-charge doctor there, and then they call all the other people in who need to come. This morning, that a specific morning, they were all there ready to work on Landon. They didn't need to be called in, they just happened to be there. One of the um trauma surgeons' nurses told me that the day I left. She said, I just wanted you to know that. I'm like, that's another little there's just God's fingerprints are all over the story and all these little details. And that's why I just wanted to write this book so I could get it all down in one place because it tells the whole story and all these little details where God shows up over and over again. And you just when you were looking for it, you see it. And if you're not looking for it, you will miss it. So they were all there ready to work on him. Um, and they put him, I mean, they just wheeled him in on this bed, and there's these doctors starting to do everything, like everything they possibly can, setting his bones, um, getting his blood pressure regulated, whatever they're doing. And I couldn't see, and there was one like folding chair in there. So I took the chair and I stood up on it so I could see. I wanted to see, and I just started praying, Heavenly Father, be in this room, be in all these doctors' hands, and put Lana back together, give him back to us. Devil, take your hands off. You have no right to be in this room. I command you to flee in Jesus' name. Jesus, be in here, be with us. And that's just what I kept saying. And they were yelling things like, Um, what is everybody be quiet? What is his blood pressure? And I yelled, it's perfect! That's what it is, it's perfect. And I I really I really believed it. Give her pom-bombs she's like, it's perfect. I claimed his body perfect though. In that second, I really did, and I meant it. Like, we are claiming him perfect. Everything that is broken, we are going to put back together, and I'm going to fight until we get there. And that is how I felt in that moment. And one lady yelled out, um, if you don't need to be speaking, please don't be speaking because everybody was shouting things. But I considered myself need to be speaking, and they let me. I wasn't doing it like interrupting or rude, like I wasn't in their way, but they let me. So I I needed to be speaking. I wanted him to hear me, I wanted him to fight to stay. Yeah, one of the doctors said, Yeah, you he or said something like let her speak or let her this was when so then right after that, um, they take him really close fast across the hallway to get an MRI. And so this is when I ran in the hallway, and um, my mom and brother and dad started running down the hallway at this time. And when so that when they got there, um Lannon was in the MRI and we fell to the ground together, just hugging and crying. And this is where I yelled, um, I forgive that man because I grew up in a church where I knew that if I was gonna hold any hatred hatred or unforgiveness inside my body, that God could not move. And I needed God to move. And so I needed to, I didn't want to know anything about him. I just wanted to forgive him. He's hurting himself. At the time, I wasn't thinking of all the things that I don't need, I didn't care what his name was, nothing. I just thought this was the devil. So I forgive him. Please take him, God. I'm done. And I just asked God to take him and left it there. And I that's what I did. And then Lana comes running, comes out of the hot the MRI right after that, and I yelled, Stop! We need, I need to give him mommy kisses. And the doctor yelled, Stop. And they stopped his bed and they said, This is very important. She needs to give him kisses. And I kissed him all over, and so did my mom, and just said, You're gonna be okay. Jesus is watching over you. Um, you're coming back, you're here. You know, I don't even remember all the things I said, but just reassured him, kissed him everywhere, and then they took off and they went upstairs to have all the other surgeries they were gonna have.

SPEAKER_05 32:25

How long was he in surgery? That whole day, that's right. That entire day, yeah. Um so while all this is happening, Carrie, I can't even imagine what the the it's like it just an explosion across all news stations. Yes. So how did you handle that?

SPEAKER_04 32:43

Yeah, so I mean, I I obviously did not know or care, but they were all down there, and the police are waiting to talk to me. All these people are waiting to talk to you about like what happened. Well, I couldn't do that and I wasn't going to do that. So, this is when my husband came right then. He had no idea. I tried to call him and he didn't answer, and I wasn't gonna keep trying to call him. So I think my mom got a hold of him or something. And then he came shortly after that, and then right when he got there, he grabbed me and said, We need to go and we need to go stuff talk somewhere alone. And so a nurse said, Okay, there's this empty room down this hall. You guys can go in there. So we went in there and I told him every little detail of what happened because I wanted him to hear every little thing that happened. And he's he kept saying, Well, who did this? And I said, I don't know, some man, I don't have no idea, just some man that came up and did this. I don't know who did it. Um, and he said, Well, there's a bunch of police and news people who want to talk to talk to you. And I said, I cannot. I said, I have to stay in here and fight for Lannon's life. He is alive, he is in surgery, and I have to focus. And so I need you to go do that. I told you every detail that I know. So now you go tell talk to the police officers and you go talk to tell the media we can't talk. And he did. He said, I said, let me do this and you go do that. And that was his role, and that was my role, and he let me do that. We just we established our roles in that minute, and it worked for us because he was, you know, able to see where I couldn't leave.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

Yeah. And honor, yes, what you kept them all away.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

I didn't speak to anybody. And he wanted to go talk to the police and say who did this, and you know, he wanted those details where I did not want those details. Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Are you are you normally so intentional?

SPEAKER_04 34:36

I don't I really don't know. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

What I'm what I'm seeing is so much intentionality and clear and clear thinking, not not panic, yeah, acting, you're not freezing, you're forgiving, not for not holding on. Yeah, you're you're making sound decisions. Is this is this normal for you in in a in tough situations?

SPEAKER_04 35:03

You know, I never thought about it really before. I don't think I've ever been in a tough situation. Besides, when I was a kid and our house was held like that, and that is how my parents were the entire time. They were talking in calm voices, they were asking him questions, they were praying. I think I learned I I didn't know that, but I think I saw that, and that's what I did too.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Um, I also like it's like special forces level of selfish.

SPEAKER_05 35:28

Um carry like he's he's like in awe, he's in awe of how you no.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

I did a couple things. I did grow up in a church where my dad was the lead counselor and it was a huge um charismatic church, and so we were there three days a week, and it was really fun because I was a like on the puppet team, and we did skits and learned things that like rebuking the devil and how to command him to flee. When I was a child, we sang songs about this that we are the head, not the tail, we are above, not beneath. We we have authority, and we he can we can stomp all over him, he has to flee in the name of Jesus. If we say his name, he has to flee. He is not allowed to stick around when you say that. And I've known that since I was three, probably, whenever I could know that.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

So this was instinctual for you, it was instinct because your parents parented, because your parents poured in your life, before because they put you next to the right people who taught you these things, yes, and who modeled this for you, and we loved him.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

Like there was a show called the Gospel Bill Show, and there were movies, and they were so good. Like, we memorized me and my siblings memorized every single one, and they're all lessons on what you do when Satan comes after you, or what you do when this, or what you do if you lose your peace, or what you do, and so we loved those videos, we've watched every single one of them.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Gosh, you just you just can't but you can't find that on Netflix, can you?

SPEAKER_04 37:04

I have YouTube it in.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

You can't, yes.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

Gospel Bob, Gospel Bill, gospel, and then it changed to Adventures in Dry Gulch after that. They're so good. Adventures in what it adventures in Dry Gulch. Dry Gulch, that was the name of the city where they all lived.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

I feel like I may have seen these as a kid.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Oh, they're so good. I learned everything from them. Me and my siblings quote them still to this day all the time because they're funny, entertaining, very entertaining. They're so funny, but you learn something, you learn something, you learn a lesson in every single one, and they're great life lessons.

SPEAKER_05 37:44

So, parents. Anyone who is listening to this that is that are parents. I mean, we're sitting here going, I'm gonna be pushing playing on that tomorrow because I feel like the best we've got today is Bluey.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

Right. I know, I know there isn't anything like it anymore, but um you can YouTube them. The songs, I mean, they have songs where you just I command you, Satan, in the name of the Lord, to pick up your weapons and flee. For the Lord has given us authority to walk all over thee. Like, I just know these, they're just in me. So he he comes after us, you rebuke him. And he has I've always learned that he has to go. If you say to flee in the name of Jesus and you mean it, he has to go. And so I rebuked him.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Are you sharing these with your kids today?

SPEAKER_04 38:32

Then so when they were little, I had TVs and uh like a CD player in my car, and when they were little, I played them all the time. Everywhere that was the good time to do it in the car, but now they won't do it anymore. They're 11 and 13, and they're old fashioned and they're done now. But they did listen to them all the time, and they know these songs that I sing still.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Yeah, sure. So you're embedding that same at a young age. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 38:55

Yes. The the piece, the piece that I'm in awe of you is that it's um the equipped, the equip we talked about being equipped, and because your parents instilled that in you, you were equipped in that moment. Yes, exactly what God has called us to do. Even even the discernment and that stirring that you had in the parking lot, Carrie. I know. Of something feels something feels a little off. So I'm going to immediately, versus like dwell on it or worry about it, or like then a little bit fearful because that's what the devil wants us to do. Yeah, you wholeheartedly said no. Yeah, I rebuke like I rebuke this in the name of Jesus over his blood. Like you have go before him, he send your angels, and that's exactly what he did. You know, I know he said that, but like just to know that in any moment we get we have the power to just stop dead in our tracks. Anytime I feel any type of anxiety working up, I'm like, Yeah, rebuke, I rebuke you though. You do not give access to me. Like, no, I am not gonna allow you in Jesus' precious name. Yeah, to flee.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

And do yeah, it's it's like and it doesn't take time, and it's not a big long prayer. I was just saying it in my head as we were parking. It wasn't a big long anything. I didn't think about what I was gonna say, I just said it to protect us. And when you draw a bloodline around you and around your kids, or whoever you're with, or whoever you're praying for, you are protected also, and so it is a spiritual warfare, wherefore warfare.

SPEAKER_05 40:29

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 40:30

Yeah, every day, every day, and he's after us, and he is wants to devour us, yeah. And it's every single second of every single day. So you have to constantly just be thinking it's just little tiny things, it's not a big long anything, it's just nope.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

This is I take res take a lot of responsibility for for my family, like as the head as the household. You've got to go through me before you my family.

SPEAKER_04 40:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

How has this impacted your husband's life journey, faith journey?

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Yeah, um, so he did not grow up the same way as I did, and um he I mean, we go to church together and he believes the same things, but not that not like he doesn't have that in him like I do. But yes, he has um definitely opened his eyes, and he is so thankful. Um, my brother-in-law um gave him a song to listen to because he wasn't really, really close with God and gave him a song. Um, do it again, you'll do it miracle. I think it's you do it again. I forgot, I don't know, but he could not take that head, those headphones out of his ears the whole time. He gets he's a man of creature, like a creature of habit. So he got something that worked and he would play this song. So what had happened, his company is so amazing that when this happened, they told him he does not have to work, he does not have to come back until everything's good. So he had, I think, a whole year off. They hired him a private driver so that he could get down to the hospital easily. So what he had a routine where he I could not leave the hospital. Once I was there, I was in Lannon's room, I was locked in, I was staying. My husband could not see Landon broken. Like he, there's no way he it would have broken him. He would have he just can't see stuff like that. And I knew that. So he said, I cannot come in there until Lannon knows I'm there. When he is awake, I will walk in there. But until then, I will stay at home with Hayden and Haley, and we will act like everything's fine. He's gonna drive them to school every day, he's gonna do everything they've always done. And Lannon's in the hospital because he fell, and mommy's gonna stay with him, and dad is gonna be home and doing all the things that we need to do. And it was April, so there's only two more months of school left. So, what he would do is get the kids up and out of the house, drop them off at school, come home. There'd be a private driver driver here taking him to the hospital, and he'd listen to that song and just cry and just tune in with God, get to the hospital, come talk to every doctor he could possibly talk to about exactly what's going on. He wanted to know every detail about everything, walk the hallways. He'd walk past our door over and over and over and cry a lot and moan a lot and talk to when he got to know everybody up there, but um never came in. And then as soon as the school day was over, he would go home. And he did that every single day until Landon woke up.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

What a great guy. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Yep, that's how he was dealing with it. And the first tight day that he got there, he said, Um, he took me. So if he wanted me, he would have me come in the hallway and we would go down to the end of the hall. So we went down to the end of the hall and he said, Something about the man is caught. I hope, I hope that they're taking care of him in prison or something like that. And I said, I don't ever want to hear anything about that man again. I understand that you have those feelings, but please let me just stay in here, not know a thing. I said, please tell me nothing. I don't want to know his name. I don't want to know what's on the news. I don't want to know anything. All I want to do is sit in here with Landon and pray and fight for his life and have it peaceful and happy. Because the joy of the Lord is our strength. And so I want to be in here laughing and praying and listening to worship music and chit-chatting with my family. I don't want anyone coming in here crying and talking about what happened. And he's he said to me, I hear you. I got it. You go. Like he wanted me to go do that.

SPEAKER_06 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

Because he could do he could do what he could do at home. I could not leave. So I can't go home and I couldn't even talk to Hayden and Haley.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

I have to imagine all of the spiritual work that you're doing in that room. I see in the spiritual realm, like that room is lit up.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

That light would permit into adjacent rooms as well. I would just hazard a bet that that entire floor was impacted by the work that you were doing in that room. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Yeah, my parents came every day, and my mom is one who likes everything cozy, and so do I. So right away she she said, um, weird, we cannot have these lights on over his bed. She went home and got a lamp and brought one in. So we had a little lamp in the corner because a lamp light is so much nicer. And she brought in our own blankets and pillows. We're not gonna use what they have. I had essential oils that I would put on his feet, Landon's feet, which they let me do, and just praise and worship music. And then they would just my parents would come in, and then I had it like a few close relatives that also would come in and they would just sit and spend the day with us all day. We would talk to the nurses about, you know, whatever we're gonna. We had a check, we praised and we celebrated every little tiny milestone that he had. Like he had CSS fluid coming from his brain out of his nose. So it was constantly joining for the first like five days, and we needed it to stop. And so we just kept praying for that fluid to stop. And so we had a countdown, we needed to stop within five days, and we were you know checking off each day, and it finally it stopped. And then and then we're going to the next thing. Like his finger was totally ripped just grossly. That I wanted it, it just looked like it hurt so bad. I wanted that healed, you know. So I'm praying for his finger and just you know, asking God to take away the pain, just you know, whatever it was, every little tiny thing I wrote.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

Checklist for God. You gave the creator of the universe a checklist.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

I know.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

I don't and I bet he was like, I bet he was going, What's next? Yeah, let me let me work, let me do this. What do you want me to do next?

SPEAKER_04 46:59

Absolutely, and then you could see, I could see it, I could see God working all over. And the nurses were all on board with all of this. One nurse, the first day, she said, Okay, I think you I wouldn't have even thought of this because I hate I actually hate writing and I hate journaling. I can't believe I wrote a book, and anybody who knows me can either. But and I did not want to journal. But I said, Um, she said, you need to sit every day and write what day it is and what we did that day, just so that you can look back and remember. And I'm so glad she said that because I wouldn't have done it. And Hayden and Haley had um packed a bag of Lannon stuff at home and gave it to Dave to bring to me. And in there was like a Minecraft with a little silver lock that with a key journal, and he got it at the book fair at the school, and I thought this is this is the perfect place to start my journal. He had scribbled all over it, and I started it in there day one, day zero. Day seven. And I did it, I wrote down every single day what we did that day, and some days were not good, so I and I didn't even want to journal, so I'd write day 27. I don't want to journal. Bad day, you know whatever.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Yeah, bad day, bad day, bad day. I quit today on the journaling. I would journal to it for skip.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

Yes, yes. Sometimes you just don't, you just can't, but that's okay, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Yeah, I mean it's it's okay to have bad days, like so it it so it sounds like um where you were very intentional and very strong. It sounds like you still had some very tough days.

SPEAKER_04 48:42

Yeah, because it it wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. So I'm not at first, though. At first, everything was great. Um, everybody was in the room, every we're counting down all these checklists. We were I wanted him to be extivated because he kept trying to wake up, and he wanted so he was in a medically induced coma for the ultimate pain control, but he could wake up if he wanted to. So I would be sitting with him in his bed and say, Hi, Landon, are you awake today? And he'd like try to open his eyes and I'd say, Well, please, please let him wake up. I really want him here, and they would put him back down. And so, I mean, it was day 11 when he finally was extubated, but I had to fight for it too. They wanted to keep him down just because it's that's how you keep him the pain in control. So I didn't know that because after that he was intubated three more times, so I finally learned that, and then I wanted to keep him there. I mean, I guess I never did want him to stay, but I knew they explained to me that if we keep him intubated, he won't have any pain because when he wakes up, he's in so much pain, and then we need so much pain medicine to stop the pain.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Intubated means this is that a breathing tube, yeah. And so when you go into medic medically induced coma, that you need to have a breathing tube.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

At the same time.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Yep, the breathing tube is down your throat. So you took out one time they were Oh, he was extubated and it was great, and everything was healing up good. Um, his they had a neck brace on, which was really uncomfortable, and he had to be able to like do a flex X x-ray to prove that his neck wasn't broken before we could get it off. But it was he has four bald spots on the back of his head right now because of the pressure sores of that neck brace when he was intubated that they didn't know that was just too hard to move him. So, like all of those things to get him extubated and get that thing off of him. We knew we didn't need it, but we had to prove that he didn't need it. Everything you have to prove everything in the hospital. So soon as we got that off, that was like, okay, now we can finally heal. And he was, he was healing. We were doing our therapies. Um, they there's Gillette Children's is in Minnesota too, and this is where you go for rehab, like to learn to walk again after your life is saved. They came to talk to us about day 15. Like we were gonna be able to go there. And I thought, okay, like so. We started in this fishbowl room where you're have glass doors, so everybody walking by, your intensive care, you have around the care, two nurses nonstop. We got to move down the hall um after he was excavated. So, like day of 12. So we don't need as much attention, as much care. Then Gillette came to talk to us, and I was thinking, wow, this is really fast. We're gonna, wow, we're gonna go home. This is amazing. But then um, he had like some breathing. They could see he was like struggling to breathe. I forgot what they call it, but you could see it. You could see that he was struggling to breathe. And so they said, Um, we gotta put this tube in his side to get some of this fluid out, and we're gonna leave it in until it stops. It should just take like a day or two. And I was like, okay, then they got to test the fluid and see what it is. So they put him like on ketamine, so he's like there in the room still, but he's unaware of what's happening, and they like stabbed him with this tube and left it in there, and it just drained this yellow stuff, and it was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't wait to get this thing out. And they kept just telling me, We wait till we get the results back. We're sure it's you know, whatever it is that's making him not be able to breathe, just from everything that happened, some kind of trauma fluid, and it will go away and we'll be fine. Well, it wasn't going away, it was getting worse and worse and worse. And when it came back, they it tested as lymph. So you have lymph fluid all over your body, and it they're like, This is really weird. We don't know why he has lymph draining from his body, but we can't take it out until it stops. So we can't go to Gillette right now. We gotta figure out what's going on here. So then we went on this train of a couple months of putting, let's put another drain in. Let's now he's got two in, and they're like big, it goes down to a box on your bed and it's really loud, bubbling machine that fills out this full of yellow fluid, and it would just kept getting worse and worse and worse. So they couldn't figure out what to do with it. If you go on a fat-free diet, that's supposed to um solve issues. So we went on a fat-free diet, nothing. Um, then we went to IV nutrition, nothing's still getting worse. So every day they would do rounds and not know, not what they don't know. And so they said, Well, we could go do this surgery where we can like go inside his body and like rough it up to get his body to respond and like heal it and seal it. And I thought, okay, well, let's do that. Um, because it just every day was the same and it was just getting worse. So we went and did that surgery, and it was like the worst surgery of your life. Like they spread your ribs apart and just kind of just rough it up for no reason, just so that the body would like rush there and stop it, maybe. But you know, I had church, I had so many people praying and churches praying, and we were just standing on stopping the sleek that I thought this has to work, this has to work. But he comes back and I said, I cannot have him intubated again before he went to this surgery. Oh no, he won't be. They take they come out of surgery and they said he is in so much pain, he's not breathing on his own. We have to keep him intubated. So it just broke me. I don't know about what day that was, but it was probably about day 20. And it just broke me because now he's intubated again and the fluid won't stop. And so now he's got three drains in, and it just won't stop, and nobody knows why. And so now it just comes up with all these other ideas on how to get it to stop. That's the life we were living. Anyone else have any idea on how to get it to stop? And I just had people coming in and and praying for it to stop, and it just kept getting worse. Um, so we get you think that would be the worst. He gets he gets excavated, he's back. I have him back now, but the the the leak is still there. Um and these stupid things can't. I so after he came out, I could sleep in his bed, like actually in his bed, which I stayed. But when he got these three drains, they were like, You can't sleep in here because you might kink one, you might pull one. But I wanted to so bad that I did I learned how to sleep just like a statue. I just laid there like this, and I did, and I didn't touch anything. Um so I did stay in his bed, but I did accidentally like nudge one once, and they had to like re-put it in there, and so the trauma team comes in to put um a new a new one in again, and they accidentally they he's on ketamine, I'm in there with him, they stab him, and green stuff comes out, not yellow. And I know that's wrong. So I said, What's green? And they said, Um, I don't know, we have to go. Sorry, this is like the worst thing that happened, but um they punctured his stomach, so it was stomach pile, and so we had to go to emergency surgery in the basement to get that fixed. So now he's open for the third time down his stomach, and um it was an accident, but they came back and said it's okay because we we we hit his stomach and we fixed the hole, and he'll be okay. If we would have hit his intestine, he would have died. You can't puncture that and live. So I'm like, okay, this is when I started not even wanting anybody to come anymore to the hospital. Like everybody's rushing down because something happened, and I'm like, no, please just leave. There's no answers, and it's just getting worse. But um, I just sit in his bed every night looking for I listen to Joyce Myers all the time. She just really encourages me on um just standing when you can't stand anymore, stand again. And so that's what I was doing. And eventually we got to the real root of what happened, and we did get answers. And um, but it was a long hard road up and down battle of that. Um what actually happened was when he fell from the mall, um his vena cava ripped up from his heart, his main main artery going to the urbane, and it was hanging on by a thread. And the reason his lymph was coming out of his body is because his heart was injured and they didn't know it, because you can't injure that and be alive. But because of him being intubated and staying in the hospital, all the inflammation in his body was holding that vein in place and it was slowly reattaching to the heart back. And while it was doing that, it was closing to the size of a pin hole, and that's why the lymph was coming to um the lymph was leaking to tell us something's wrong, something's wrong with the heart. And they kept saying they don't know why he has a lymph problem because that's usually only in the cardiac unit. Well, something was wrong with his heart, and they didn't know it.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

Lymph was like, well, I think a lymph nodes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:38

Is that wrong? It's fluid, it's fluid all over your body. Okay, but so his body was working so hard to make a new pathway to get blood to his heart to keep him alive. So all these veins were forming everywhere. That's what your body will do to fight to stay alive. And one doctor finally came in and noticed that and kept going home and researching why would he have all these pronounced veins and getting sicker and sicker? And he's on all these protocols for kyolic and it's not stopping. Something else is wrong. So we get we gave him a CT scan. They saw that the vein was the size of a pinhole. They he came in the room to tell us, and this was a doctor I didn't want to listen to because he kept taking things away from us. Now we can't have any drinks, now we can't have any sips of water. And I'm like, I don't want to hear anything else he can't have.

SPEAKER_05 59:34

Like annoyingly quiet. But he what you didn't realize is that he was analyzing everything, he was clicking in his brain, like try he was engine trying to re-engineer what was going on, and then he'd go home searching and come back.

SPEAKER_04 59:51

And so all the other um they go on three weeks times, so there would be one there for three weeks, then he's gone, then the next one comes in, then he's gone, then the next one, you know, nobody could figure it out. And this one came at the end, and I did not like his attitude because he he would come in and just you know, stare at him and something's really wrong, and I don't want something really wrong, so you can leave, you know. That's how I was operating, but it was just getting so out of control, but I just didn't like the way that he was looking at Landon. I didn't I he was gonna tell me something I didn't want to hear, and I didn't want to hear it, so I didn't want him in there. So um he came in to tell us they did the CT scan, and he came in and he's sitting outside our room holding a sparkling water, looking so happy. And I was just like, What is happy? Like, you're gonna take away drinks now because he has a twisted intestine, so we're gonna fix that. That's not that's not happy to me. And so he I said, Can you tell us? And he said, No, I'm not gonna say anything until everybody gets here because my husband was still coming. So I'm like, Okay, so he's just sitting there drinking his water, and I'm thinking, I texted my husband, when you get here, I am leaving. You can hear what he says, but I don't want to hear, so I'm not listening. So my husband gets up to the floor and he says, Out in the hallway to the doctor, we're talking out in the hallway, and he's like, Nope, I'm staying right here. And he's like, No, I need to speak to you in the hallway. He's like, Nope, I'm everybody here needs to hear what I have to say. So my Dave's like, Fine, what? And he did start with he has a twisted intestine, so we are gonna have to take away drinks. So when he said that, I bolted, I bolted down the hallway. I was not gonna, no wait, but his nurse chased me and she said upgrade tobacco as sequoia. Sorry, his nurse chased me and she said, You have to hear what he had what he has to say. This is going to end, this is over. She said, He has been coming in your room and looking at Landon and wondering why he's got all these really pronounced veins and why he's sunken in, and he's been researching. There's got to be something else, and he found it. His main vein going to his heart is the size of a pinhole. We need to put a stent in immediately. Like he called all the heart team back tonight. It was a Friday night, everybody had gone home, nobody works on weekends. He called them all back in. They gave him surgery, they put a 10 millimeter adult-sized stent in there. Blood immediately started flowing. The kyolic stopped and it never came back.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:23

How about that? And how long? That was four months.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:29

Four months of the up and down and more drains. And what are we gonna do now? And it just causes more problems all over. You like him now? Oh, yes. He came in my room after that. He came in my room that night and he said, Um, I said, I'm so sorry that I treated you the way that I did. I just I was so angry. And he said, You know what? We all want the same thing, and what I want with his arm around me. And it was like midnight with like the Minneapolis skylighting out the windows, and Landon was okay, and we knew it was gonna be okay. And he had his arm around me, and he just said, I want Lannon to grow up and be a grandpa, bouncing his grandkids on his knee. This is what I want, and I know that's what you want too. So, this is this is um why I had to be the way I was, and I said, I'm so sorry, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:19

So beautiful. Oh, so oh my gosh. So, how quick did he bounce back? And how like what when did he walk out?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:30

So then that was the leak was over, and now we get to start moving. I mean, they wanted to make sure. So, again, you have to prove everything. So we had to prove it for two weeks that the leak was gonna stop, and then we have to slowly add in fat-free foods again, see if he could handle that, which once you haven't eaten in that long, he like he says he wants watermelon, and I think the first thing he wanted was watermelon and broccoli, which weird things, but that's what he wanted. So he tried eating it and like it's one bite, and then he doesn't want it anymore. So it was a very slow process to get back to eating again.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

Um, he's so he's graduating in kindergarten, you said, right? Is he six or six five?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:16

He was graduating preschool, he was five.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:18

Preschool, so he's five. So we're just hard to communicate.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:23

Yes, but we had so much like the days that we were awake in the hospital that he was awake with me. Here he comes. He was awake with me. We had fun. I'm talking about the fun parts of the hospital. Do you want to say something? The fun parts of the hospital?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Okay. Oh so for those of you who are listening to this by audio right now, we are recording this video as well. And Landon is joining us. Hi, Landon. Hi, Landon. Hi, nice to see you. Nice to see you too. So awesome to see you, man. What a miracle you are.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:01

Yeah, how old are you now?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:03

11.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:04

11 going on 30.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:08

Uh no. I don't know, Landon. Uh, we have an 11-year-old little girl we might have to introduce you to. He's like, dude, too soon. Too soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:22

We read it. So I'll let him. Do you do you wanna say anything or do you wanna no, not really? Okay, you can just say bye then.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:28

Come on, I want to stay here. You wanna stay?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

So it's really nice to meet you. You've got a really amazing story.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

Are you gonna read your mom's book?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

Uh I don't need to read it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

Fair point. Yeah, that's fair point.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:44

Yeah, you know it all.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:46

Yeah. Do you remember what's what's so what are your fondest memories of of the being in the hospital?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

Uh laughing gas.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:56

He likes laughing. So there was a guy, there was a nurse named Laughing Gas. Carrie, we called him, and he would come in anytime Lannon had a band aid change. He had a big open wound on his belly, so it had to be dressed a lot. And so I couldn't even look at it. I would put a sheet up and cover cover it because I didn't want to see it. But laughing gas carry would Lannon would have every different flavor of pop chapsticks. You want to tell him?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:17

And then I'll put it in the like the mask part, and then I'll put it on. And then because it smells gross, but that makes it smell better.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:26

And then tell us funny stories the entire time. And Lannon would giggle. We would sing songs too. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:35

You would get that, and then they would do the work on your belly.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Yeah, it didn't hurt.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:39

I know because you were laughing. Even laughing. What do you love to do now?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:48

Uh play hockey.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:50

Ooh, you play a lot of hockey?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:52

Yeah. Well, not in Yeah, I took a break. Summer. Yeah, it's summer.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:57

So he's doing baseball. Okay. Do you love to go swimming? Do you guys swim a lot? Yeah, I swam today. Okay. So do we swim a lot too? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:07

It is the season. Well, we can.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:09

And do you get along with your siblings pretty well? No. No.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:15

He did. In the hospital, Haley came every single time. So as soon as the school got out, that's what her routine would be to get dropped off in the morning and spend the day with us, no matter what we were doing. So she would do all his surgery, I mean therapies, the fun stuff with him and take care of them. So we want to tell him about the bump of sprite really quick.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

Well, we did this thing. If I with my tummy or something hurted, um, I told the nurse I needed a bump, and that's behind my bed, and you push a button. A bump of pain medicine. And then yeah, but I told that to my sister, and she ran over to the fridge and got me Sprite. And she put it up to his mouth, and she said, I'm giving him a bump of sprite.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:59

We thought that was so funny. I thought you were gonna say she went behind and she was like boop, boom, like oh no, she gave him a bump of sprite. Oh, an odd of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:10

So they yes, they used to be really good friends, they're just getting older, doing their own things.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Yeah, um, it's pretty normal, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:18

Well, Carrie and Landon, you two are such a blessing. And I am I'm just so excited that our audience gets to hear the faithfulness and the like you're just like the um the strength that you have and that you poured out over all that time and how hard of a moment that was for you and for your family to have Landon sitting here. You think dude, isn't it fun to like? I'm a miracle. Do you say that? Do you like no yes you do?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:47

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:47

I don't say you need to work. What do you say?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

I would work that. Tell them what you say when people ask you. I say I'm the dude. The dude that what that got thrown, landed on the thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:59

I did the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:00

No, what do I say?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

What does he say? I'm the dude that was thrown over the balcony at the Mall of America and God saved me.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:09

Oh, yeah. And then that's when you drop the mic.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

Yeah. What's your scar?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:16

If people don't believe me, then I just show them all my scars, then they believe me. Oh, how many do you have? Let's count.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:24

One show us?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

You wanna show how many? Six, seven, eight. How many do I have? Four on your neck. Wait, one, two, three, four. I say seven. Eight, nine, ten, eleven. Well, these are all the drain the drains. Yeah. I have seventeen. Wait, no, eighteen. Nineteen. Nineteen.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:53

Is do you have one on your forehead? Can you show him that one? Yes, it's right here. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Yeah, it looks like a backwards L.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:02

All the rest of them are just from surgeries. Well, but this one hit Oh, that's from the brain drain.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:07

Brain drain. You had a brain drain.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

People can say that. Oh, 46 years old. I only got three, I got three scars.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

Oh my gosh. Three? He's just got do I need to work?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

Do I need to work harder?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:21

Do I need to no listen to that? Listen. No, you don't need any scars, but they are his battle wounds for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

It's a guy thing. Yeah, it's a guy thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:29

Battle wounds. Man, well, I I'm excited to have you guys in our lives. Next time we come up to Minneapolis, we're gonna come and visit you guys and take you out.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

Sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:40

I come too. Yeah, you're invited. For me, Landon. You're invited. Delighted. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story on Fortitude, Carrie. It really means the world to us. Thank you for having me so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:57

We love being here. Okay, take care, you guys. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:04

After we got done with the podcast, we got to talk about Carrie a little bit more. And she mentioned a detail that we didn't want to miss in the podcast. Um, this is a detail that's in her book. So we recommend going by her book because there's just we just scratched the surface of her journey. And one of the things that she said that she had to do was because of Lennon's brain injury, she had to mourn the loss of Brandon, whose personality changed enough that um she felt like she needed to mourn the loss of Lennon. So she got a new Lennon in a way. And so just we recommend go go buy her book Touching Details that we just scratched the surface of. And um thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:49

Miracle at the Mall. It's called Miracle at the Mall by Carrie Hoffman.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:54

Thank you so much for listening. We want to change lives through this podcast. And if you want to support this podcast or our guests, please see the links below for our Patreon and giving links.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:03

And like and subscribe and also share our podcast as much as possible. Thank you.