Roofing Insights Podcast

Falling From A Two-Story Roof | Jason Einsiedel

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0:00 | 35:55

Dmitry talks to Jason Einsiedel about his roofing career, a traumatic fall, and his hard-won recovery. 

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Today's guest:
Bridget Como
Forensic Building Science: https://www.forensicbuildingscience.com/ 
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Have a question? Text me: 612-558-4881
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Insights

00:00 - Introduction
01:40 - Jason’s Career in the Roofing Trade
03:44 - Taking the Leap: Starting His Own Business
04:42 - Witnessing Accidents Early in His Career
06:20 - The Day of the Accident: A Cousin's House
07:17 - The Moment of the Fall: A Slip on Plastic
08:45 - Impact and Immediate Aftermath
10:50 - The Severe Injuries
11:53 - A Grueling 6-Month Recovery Journey
13:10 - How the Accident Affected His Family
18:29 - The "Invincibility" Mentality in Roofing
21:17 - Living with the "New Normal" & Chronic Pain
28:01 - Life Lessons: Finding Perspective after Tragedy
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SPEAKER_02

And I just had this eerie feeling over me like something bad was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01

I demolished my take me through the day.

SPEAKER_02

So when I threw the roll-up, I stepped up with my right foot, and my right foot slipped on the plastic. My momentum just took me. I'm kind of riding it almost on my belly, I guess you could say. And I knew I'm reaching for stuff that's not there. This is the last thing I remember before going over. I just kept being on the no-no no, and I honestly didn't have time to think. As soon as I went over, it was like the impact. I broke the tibula and fibula on both legs. I'm still recovering. This didn't just affect me. The recovery is what is the hard part.

SPEAKER_01

What is it in our industry that the roofers just refuse to wear the harness?

SPEAKER_02

You can think it's not gonna happen to me, but all it's gonna take is in the middle of lip, the felt to give way. You gotta be careful out there, because this is one of the most deadliest things out there.

SPEAKER_01

Hey Jason. Like your beard, man. Look at that. How long did it how long did it take you to grow that?

SPEAKER_02

God bless me with a good beard because I don't have head hair anymore. So he took one, but it gave me something else to compliment it.

SPEAKER_01

Love it, love it. I already love your story, and uh I actually never ever did this kind of story with anyone. So I think there's gonna be lessons for everyone. This is my personal goal out of it. So if people can listen to your story and be a little bit more careful out there, that'll be awesome. So let's start right away with uh your story, your background. How did you get into roofing brother?

SPEAKER_02

Uh graduated from high school in 2001. Um my dad had a friend that had a smaller roofing company, um, you know, just did home improvements, but did a lot of roofing. So worked for him for two years, did a lot of nasty roofs, what we all call pigs, uh, cedar shake, you know, two-story 1212s, just crazy stuff that I cringe about, you know, now that I even did. Um, and then uh worked for him for two years, moved from him to a uh huge commercial contractor, worked for them for uh actually 23 years. I was a I was a roofer for them for six years, and then moved up uh in the company, got my CDL, started drive being a roofer, truck driver, then moved up from there being a roofer, truck driver, crane operator. And for the last 15 years of my career there, I uh was a crane operator, but still got on the roof every now and again to help out and do stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

So all right. Uh, when did you realize that you are in love with the trade and this is what you're gonna do for the rest of your life?

SPEAKER_02

I tell people all the time, I don't think any one of us wakes up, looks outside, and says, sees the guys roofing across the street and says, I want to be a roofer. I think you just kind of fall into it, and you know, you just at some point in your career you decide I'm either gonna stick it out or I'm you know, I'm I'm done. Like a lot, it's it's hot, it's dirty, it's it's it's not it's scary, it's it's not for everyone. It's not for everyone.

SPEAKER_01

You're in Wisconsin, right?

SPEAKER_02

Huh?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Wisconsin. Yeah, in Wisconsin. Yeah. So I see. When you started, uh name of your company is QR uh what's name QRS? Like how services.

SPEAKER_02

QRS services.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. What was your vision for starting a company? You wanted to be an owner operator, you wanted to grow bigger, you wanted to be just self-employed.

SPEAKER_02

So, you know, just like any one of us being working for somebody else, everybody does side jobs, and it just it kind of snowballed from there and just uh eventually got bigger and bigger and bigger, and um two so 20 20 September of 2024, you know, me and my wife decided that it was time like the business was doing well enough that it was time for maybe me to to try it on my own. So I walked away from a job that I worked 23 years at and tried it on my own.

SPEAKER_01

How big is the company today?

SPEAKER_02

Uh last year we did almost a million.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so you're not the biggest player, but it's it's good owner operating site. Um, so did you ever have a you've been in business for like in a trade for over two decades. Have you ever had a fall before September 2025?

SPEAKER_02

Never. I've witnessed one guy when it early on in my career walk backwards off a roof doing ice and water, uh, ironically, and he was okay on a side job. I watched a guy slide right off a metal panel roof and hop right back up, and you know, you know, but I've being around this trade and being working for a huge commercial company, you know, I always heard the stories of people falling, whether we're all around the country, but there was never a face. There was never we didn't know them personally, so it was kind of one ear and out the other, you know.

SPEAKER_00

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SPEAKER_01

Well, let's talk about the fall. Take me through that day. What do you remember? How did it happen? What was different that day?

SPEAKER_02

So ironically, this was my cousin's house.

SPEAKER_01

Um it's not a job job, it's not for fire. Yeah, yeah. So you're not even getting paid.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So this is my cousin. Um, I took a friend of mine with me. They had put an addition on their house, so we were just going in there to temp it in, uh, ice and water it and paper it. And it's it's not even steep, it's a six-pitch, so it's a it's a walker to all of us. Um, two-story.

SPEAKER_01

Two-story, oh wow.

SPEAKER_02

Two-story. Um, so we we do the one side, six feet of ice and water. We jump, we're about to jump to the other side that I fell on. And um, I actually minutes before I fell, I took a picture. I was standing on the ridge just taking a picture of what we did. I was gonna end up showing my cousin, just like you know, a little progress stuff, and I just had this eerie feeling over me like something bad was gonna happen. But being a roofer, being trade guy, you just always do what you do. So we go on the other side, I we put the first layer on, and I threw the roll up, and there must have been just a little bit of the plastic still hanging. So when I threw the roll up, I stepped up with my right foot, and my right foot slipped on the plastic. Basically, I saw I was about six feet up from the roof line. Um, there was no gut around the house at the time because obviously it's new construction. So my momentum just took me. I'm kind of riding it almost on my belly, I guess you can say. And I knew I'm reaching for stuff that's not there, you know. Um my last ditch effort. I this is the last thing I remember before going over, is I tried to finger grip the ice and water that was, you know, there, and I just kept yelling, no, no, no, and it didn't, it it was probably less than a you know, it was less than a second or two from the time I went off to the time I hit the ground.

SPEAKER_01

So you realize you're going down. You know, I think all humans have these dreams where we you know, we're dreaming and you've fallen down. Was it like that? Like it's always scary, and then you wake up, or it was too fast.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I think everybody asked me, like, what was I thinking on the way down? And I'm like, Nothing from from the time I fell, like, I honestly didn't have time to think. As soon as I went over, it was like the impact. And I tell people like I might have been dazed for a second, and I kind of can't like you know, I I realized what happened. Ironically, I I wasn't in a ton of pain. My cousin's husband saw what happened. He came running around the house and said, Jason, Jason, you uh you alright? You need an ambulance? And I was like, I don't know. I tried to stand up, but I couldn't.

SPEAKER_01

And oh wow, you you tried to stand up?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. I tried, I tried to like push myself up, but my legs, you know, obviously, and I wasn't in a lot of pain. Um paramedics came like by the time he was on the phone, and so they called 911.

SPEAKER_01

Were you unconscious?

SPEAKER_02

And any more no, no, never never lost conscious. They called it.

SPEAKER_01

So you you let you landed in your feet on a two-story fall, and obviously a lot of doctors will say this miracle, right? Like you you you don't usually land. Uh do you remember? Were you trying to land in your no?

SPEAKER_02

I that's the crazy part. I must have just went down straight down and landed on my feet. Like the best. It's I have nightmares, like people say you have flashbacks and nightmares. I don't have flashbacks and nightmares about what happened. I have flashbacks and nightmares about what could have been. Like, what if I had to gripped that ice and water just enough where my leverage took me just enough to go backwards, and now I land down my back and my head, or just a little bit to the left or a little to the right. It was like I landed as perfectly as you can land. You know, doctors, I think I put in the message, they I demolished my ankles, but my knees, my hips, my back, my neck, my head, everything was fine.

SPEAKER_01

So you protected the probably internal organs, but you broke your legs. How many broken bones do you have?

SPEAKER_02

I broke the tibula and fibula on both legs. Um, so in my left leg, uh 25 pins, three plates. The right leg has 15 pins and three plates.

SPEAKER_01

How much metal is that?

SPEAKER_02

I I can I'll send you the pictures of it. Like, yeah, it's a lot. It's like few. Even when I found out a month after the surgery, I was asking how much hardware did they put in me. When she told me I had 25 pins in my left leg, I when the doctor came in, I was like, hey man, I didn't think you know, I didn't think I was getting all this hardware. And he kind of joked and said, How much did you think you were gonna get? And I was like, I didn't think that much. So like my right, my right leg, the I like to call it the bones were sitting on the pedestal of my ankle. It almost came out of the front part of my foot. You the bone was touching the skin of the foot.

SPEAKER_01

So I got you you have said that the fall was the easiest, easy part. Can you explain that? Because how long was the recovery?

SPEAKER_02

So I'm I'm I'm actually so we're so March or September, October, November, somewhere, November and March. So March 12th will be six months to the day that I fell.

SPEAKER_01

Um, I'm still recovering. I'm not it's still very like Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, I wake up every morning, but three months.

SPEAKER_01

So you're working because we even today when we were trying to book this, we were going back and forth. You were telling me you have a job. So six.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I wasn't I was I was going with a buddy to oh, I see. So you just get out of the house, like you know, you know, I'm still not yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to be moving, be doing stuff. But three months of basically bedridden. Uh December came, the doctor allowed me to wear the boots and the crutches. I think I sent you that that video or that picture, so it was a month of that. Um then four months to the day, which a lot of people are amazed by four months to the day of the fall, or surgery, or from the fall, he let me put shoes on and start walking.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. What kind of strategies or support uh you got through all of that? Like who helped you, who was on the yes side, how much time you spend at the house versus hospital? Because people don't think about this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So that's that's kind of my thing. Is this didn't just affect me. The fall didn't like affect my life. My wife, luckily, my wife's an entrepreneur. Um, so she she wasn't obligated to a nine to five. Um, at the time, my son stepped up. I you know, he's 21 now, he was 20 at the time. My daughter was 15 at the time, so I have older kids that could help me before school, after school. Do you know my wife in between the support I had from my neighbors, friends, old colleagues, like you know, the my job that I used to work 23 years at my old boss told me at one point, like, if you need if you need your snow shovel, we'll come over there and do it. Like, you know, it's my wife tells me all the time, usually when something happens to somebody, you know, people are around for two or three weeks, and then everybody kind of just it wasn't like that. Everybody just consistently kept asking, what do I need? Do you need anything? You know, and it was it was five days in the hospital. Um and then I had to wait a month for surgery due to the swelling of my ankles. They can't ankles are I guess really delicate, like they gotta be able to pinch your skin enough to to to suture you back up, and they won't risk it because of the infection um that can be caused by that. So I was told multiple times, we may tell you to come to the hospital and have surgery, but you may get sent home if we don't, if the pinch isn't good enough for us. So and I don't know if I sent you a picture of those pictures, uh, I mean, with the expediters on my leg, those things that were drill into my heels and my shin for a month, you know. So that's why I always tell people the fall is the easy part. I'd do the fall all over again if I knew I could just get up and walk away. This the recovery is what is the hard part.

SPEAKER_01

I see. Um, how long have you been in a wheelchair chair, like before you start working again?

SPEAKER_02

So I had to be in a wheelchair for basically three months. So from the first time I got in the wheelchair was September 17th. I think I was able to not use the wheelchair December 12th or something like that. That's the day he left said I could use crutches and boots. Like so I had to walk around with two walking boots, which you know, people always were like, I I seen people with one boot. How do you get two boots? And I'd be like, Well, I fell off a roof 20 feet, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Do you remember what uh shoes you were wearing? Like, and do you blame shoes or anything else?

SPEAKER_02

So I had on brunt boots, but I I don't know if those things help save my life either. The cushion of it, I don't know. But I had on brunt boots at the time. So I do think like, oh, if I'd have just maybe had on some tennis shoes, would it have been different? But I've worked in boots for the last 23 years, so it's like it's just so yeah. I I actually wore the boots not too long ago. I put the boots on that I that I fell in on for the first time about a week ago, just to put them on.

SPEAKER_01

Not to get too spiritual, but how did this affect your faith in general?

SPEAKER_02

And you know, oh no, I wake I thank God every day that I'm alive, that that I'm not paralyzed. You know, I've heard I know a lot of stories now where people aren't as lucky as me. You know, my wife actually, her landlord at her building where she rents from told her her husband fell 14 feet and is paralyzed from the neck down. So she said, Tell your husband he's super lucky.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

I knew another guy that told me a story where a guy only fell eight feet, but when he fell over, his head hit a rock dead.

SPEAKER_01

You know, so I I've been covering stories like that for the past eight years, and we have a story here a gutter company owner, uh, same thing. Eight foot, fall over, like we were doing the gutter, fell over, died on the spot, devastated the company a hundred percent. It's let's talk a little bit about that because people don't realize. I you know, I have a company before. I've done like I remember I have this guy, Jesus, and I I would purchase on a regular basis every safety equipment possible, safety harnesses, pockets, made them wear it. And guys are stupid, right? They're I don't know if it's ego, I don't know what it is. Like I remember Jesus was telling me to make sure I fell off the roof like 17 times in my life. Like he would come in like limping, like fell off the roof one more time, and I fell off the roof one time, but it was in the snow. We were doing um ice dam removal. And what is it in our industry that roofers just refuse to wear the harness, no matter if you provide it, no matter like it's just it's inconvenience. Like, what is it?

SPEAKER_02

I I just think we all think it's not gonna be us, you know. And I I went and talked to my old colleagues and I kind of told them, like, you know, I even the way I fell, slipping on that piece of plastic. I if you doing the roofs where I said, like, you know, being on a 12-12 pitch, my foot's between you know, roof boards back way when I was younger, and the crazy stuff, I could have thought of a million other ways that I would have felt. Like, I could see myself falling, like it would have never just been on you know a piece of plastic, and here I go down. You know, it I just think our mentality is it's not gonna be us, and that's why I told him, I said, now you have a face to go with. You now you can say you knew somebody who fell. You walk now. You're seeing when I spoke to him, I was in my wheelchair. I said, You guys, because I talked to a bunch of them, because this was on my family, basically. I said, So you'll see my progression, you'll see me go from wheelchair to crutches to walking. And I said, I don't know what I look like in six months. Do I limp for the rest of my life? I don't know. And right now I do have a limp. Like, I'm working every day to try to to become normal. You know, this is this is every day I wake up out of bed, I do feel now like I'm 80 years old. Like, you know, I have to mentally prepare myself just to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Like, because it's like this this these first 10, 20, 30 steps are gonna hurt. Like, you know, I walk around like a zombie because my my ankles don't flex yet like they're supposed to yet, you know.

SPEAKER_01

So what are they saying? Will you ever be back to 70%, 80% of old Jason?

SPEAKER_02

Or I just saw the surgeon uh a week ago yesterday, and he just asked me how I was doing. Everything looked good as far as x-rays, you know, everything was holding. And he just asked me how I was doing. I said, you know, once I get moving, I'm pretty good. You know, like people will think maybe I'm just have a slight limp. But I said, when I get up in the morning or I start driving or you know, sit down for 15, 20 minutes, it's it's everything tenses up. And he said, Well, I'd be lying to you if I told you you were gonna be a hundred percent. And I said, I already know that. They they can see in the x-rays already that the arthritis is already forming, so I've been warned about that, and it's just this is gonna be my new normal, you know. It could be bit he told me like you should get better over over you know the course of the year, like things will start to progress. But I'm anticipating for the rest of my life, every time I wake up, I'm gonna I'm gonna feel it.

SPEAKER_01

Are you planning to get back on a roof? No, I'm I'm I'm are you down with the roof yet?

SPEAKER_02

I was just with somebody the other day, and we were just like looking at a roof, and it was a steep one, and I said, you ain't never got to have me worry about me ever going up there again because it's not worth it to me. Plus, if it god forbid if I ever felt like it. Now I got all this heart. Who knows what happens now? Like, you know, you're gonna have pins and it it would I'd be scared they'd have to cut off my leg. You know, that was even brought up that these with the infects, the possible of infections that that the surgeon warned me, like, oh, you know, if it gets bad enough, we would have to amputee your leg. And I like freaked out, like, what? And she's like She said, it's not likely, but we have to let you know this that's a possibility. Which is even more crazy because once you see these pictures I send you with the pin sites, I had I've been dealing with an infection in one of these spots for five months.

SPEAKER_01

Oh really?

SPEAKER_02

It wouldn't heal. I had to see wound care specialist, and then I was cleared of it February 6th, and then it reappeared again. I actually pulled a piece of bone fragment out of it last week. Like I pushed on it and a piece of bone fragment came out. So we're hoping that that's the end all be all. I have an MRI scheduled, but it's just this thing is it's not resolved itself a hundred percent yet.

SPEAKER_01

So I know you would not go back on the roof, but are you completely out of roofing business as well?

SPEAKER_02

You would no no. I you know, I this is what I know.

SPEAKER_01

This is so you're still gonna run a roofing company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you're just not gonna go on a roof. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh is there anything you would do differently the day you fell going backward? Like, would you be more careful?

SPEAKER_02

Would you use a I can I the one thing I know the right thing to say is wear the harness. You know, that's the that's the right thing to say. Um I honestly don't uh I don't know. There should should we have put a it we still had to put the first one in. Could we have done something off a ladder and put rift jacks in at the bottom? There's all kinds of scenarios. I just you know it it the right answer is to wear the harness.

SPEAKER_01

Of course. Do you uh how do you deal with the safety now with your employees? What do you tell them? And is it uh yeah, they're all tired, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, this is yeah, it's that's that's that's standard now. Like, no, and then it uh obviously it shook it shook people that knew me, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I see. Uh what would you say to every roofer watching this right now, um, who thinks it won't happen to them, or who maybe not taken safety seriously, or whatever the case is.

SPEAKER_02

You can think it's not gonna happen to and you can you can have it, but all it's gonna take is a shingle to slip, the felt to give way, you know, to not have enough staples in it, the ice and water maybe. It the fall's gonna happen so fast that you know you're not gonna have time to react. Like it's it's not like wearing a harness is gonna prevent it, but even then, you're you're still subject to probably I I knew a guy that fell from a harness and he had all kinds of impact injuries. He had something, some crazy thing that formed on his back because of the impact, and you know, so there's still repercussions even falling with a harness on, like, so it's just you gotta be careful out there because this is like roughing is the probably the most besides ironworking is one of the most deadliest things out there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would agree with that. Uh, I have last seven questions, um, rapid fire questions. You can uh uh answer them as fast as you possibly can, or you can take your time if you want to. What's harder? Um, physical therapy or uh mental therapy after the fall? What was harder for you, like would you say, like mentally to adapt?

SPEAKER_02

Mental physical therapy. I can tell everybody this. My cousin, when this happened, and I told him I was gonna have to do physical therapy. He said, treat it like your job and you won't have a problem. And I my physical therapy was not to say they were scared of me, but I was pushing them to like everything they gave me was too easy, and I wanted more, I wanted more, but they're like, We can't, the doctor won't allow it, you know. So I I I was determined to walk. Mentally, I fell on Friday, Saturday morning. I called my therapist and told him on Monday I need to talk to you, and this is what happened. Because I knew mentally this was gonna be, you know, it'd be like you. You're I I see you moving all the time, and and now you have to become stagnant immediately. So that's the hard part.

SPEAKER_01

I see. What does independence mean to you?

SPEAKER_02

Independence means it means everything, and this is gonna sound crazy. The biggest thing I took for granted was peeing standing up. Like the day I was allowed to stand up and go to the bathroom meant a whole lot.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, that's powerful. The scariest moment of my life was the fall, like the fall, it was the scariest.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, the I don't know, having my daughter come see me the day after because when I fell, um I told my wife one, I told my wife to go to her photography that she had that night. I was like, I'm gonna be okay, you just go do what you gotta do. And then my daughter I knew had a volleyball tournament, so I told her, I told everybody, do not tell my daughter until after the tournament. So she didn't get to see me for almost 24 hours after the fall. So when she came in, the look on her face like it crushed me.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, that's so powerful. Finish the phrase.

SPEAKER_02

My wife Rochelle is my everything, like she picked my chin up every time I had my chin down, every time I cried, every time I wanted to give up.

SPEAKER_01

Success without health, health is failure. When you're healthy, you want a lot of things in life. When you're sick, you only want one thing is to get your health in life. Uh fallen twenty feet taught me what is what the biggest lessons for you.

SPEAKER_02

Cliche, but not to take life for granted. Like you know, it it could have my life could have been over at 42 in a glimpse. Like it it it made me appreciate life more, it made me appreciate the little things like going for a walk, go walk into the refrigerator to get something to eat, to go to the bathroom, it taking a shower, standing up, it made me appreciate every little thing that every one of us takes for granted every day that we do normally.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you, brother. Um I'm a contractor myself for many, many years, but I also uh I can relate to you because the hardest thing in my life that ever happened to me was on the second year in business. So I opened my company in 2013. In 2015, I was playing soccer and I tore in my ACL. And uh I was on crashes for three months. I waited for surgery for two, on crashes for three, eight months rehab. I mean, it was the hardest thing. Like my whole body to this day, I did not never have allergies in my life, but the problem was my body just shut down from the surgery. It was so much stress on my body that even what I eat to this day, I became allergic. So my allergy doctor started asking me what happened 10 years ago, and I could actually only backtrace it to that ACL replacement. I have a screw in my face.

SPEAKER_02

I've found out I was allergic to like dust and dust my all this stuff, but since the fall, it's I run it, I've been breaking out in hives around my like yeah, you know, it I've been having a lot more breakouts of yes, and I don't know what it is because I'll I'll try to I'll eat something and I'll be like, is it tomatoes? And then I'll eat something else that's tomatoes, and I'm like, it's not that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, here's the thing. So I'm allergic to like for my listeners, the first time I publicly uh share it, but I'm allergic to strawberries, tomatoes, all nuts, gluten, milk, all of that, right? And never ever in my life I have that chocolate. I'm allergic to chocolate. So I started doing these blood tests, and they're like, hey, you're sensitive to gluten, you know, like tomatoes. Who is freaking allergic to tomatoes? Like I would eat it. I don't have like you know, severe allergy per se, but my body creates inflammation, so it's you know, like I cannot eat strawberry, like I cannot eat milk. I still will have it every once in a while, but I cannot have chocolate. I did not know it. And they're like, what happened to you? And then pollen, dust, cats, like you name it, like freaking everything you can be like. That was me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, dust my cat. I had a cat for 17 years or my entire life. Exactly. I moved out, and now I'm allergic to them.

SPEAKER_01

Because your body with with the major stress reacts to it, right? Like now it fights everything, like your immune system just shakes up. Like, that's what people don't realize. When you have like major events like car crash, severe like injury, your body, your immune system just destabilized. Like, anyway, that it's very hard to get back to normal. Anyway, I want to finish with this. Uh, uh, you still wear you're walking right now, right? Like you can walk. What uh shoe size are you?

SPEAKER_02

10, 10 and a half. Depends on what kind of shoe it is.

SPEAKER_01

10 and a half. I'll get you some 10 and a half. So recently I have this new partnership with uh, in my opinion, one of the best shoes actually in the roofing industry. I'm wearing them right now. I'll take one shoe, I'll show you. So they call contrast, and I'll send you a pair. So these are amazing. And the reason I want to bring it up to you because I actually start wearing them. If I go on the roof, this is the shoe I wear on the roof. And I always been a shoe person, so I used to wear CrossFit shoes, and for the past eight years, I've done like four or five video reviews on the best shoe for the roof. Because for me, that's safety, and these are the best that I found for the roof. So they actually have replacements, they're similar to uh cougar pas, so they have the pads, so it'll come with the three pads one for metal roofs, one for shingles, and one for just every day. But they're freaking phenomenal, super light. I actually love like I wear them daily. I did not even plan this. I'm like, I want to do something for you.

SPEAKER_02

I'm like, you know, so buddy when I started walking, he bought me some Burke shoes, and he's like, Man, these are you you're gonna like this. You need a good, he's like, you're not who cares about style anymore? You're gonna need a good walking shoe. And I I told him, I said, it's like walking on pillows.

SPEAKER_01

I think they look good. My daughter last night did not let me wear them to her basketball games because they're not draped. So I put them on, she's like, No, you're not wearing those. I would wear them, but they're like, no, you taking those. And they still lost because I did not wear my shoes. That's I blame them. Anyway, but you get you're gonna like them. You're gonna like them. And I'll uh I'll I'll ask for your address and you're gonna like it. But brother, thank you so much for sharing your story. It's it's such a lesson. We're all the same. Like, men don't think about stuff like that until it happens. We still think we're unbreakable. But thank you for being humble about it. Last question, really quick. You don't have to get into details, but financially speaking, um how far back did it set you up? Like, were you able to do any insurance claim or it was all out of pocket?

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah, it it business-wise.

SPEAKER_01

If you if you put a number on it, how much did this cost you financially?

SPEAKER_02

A hundred grand, easy plus hundred grand.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, easy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I can I can see that lost revenue with medical bills, with everything. It's yeah, it's you know, I had to pass off some a lot of stuff to other people because you know, even that's the thing that gets me to this day is just even something smaller, some something I could do, I can't even do it anymore. Like just a small repair. I can't even go do it because something I could go out and just be like, oh yeah, I could make this easy money and you know, by myself, I can't even do it anymore. I have to rely on everybody else for everything, like you know, with the business aspect of it. So it's it's it's you know, and I'm gonna pay for this for the rest of my life, you know. I'm only 43 now. You know, let's just say I live to 83.

SPEAKER_01

I got 40 years of dealing with my ankles, and you know, life is life, life is not uh over yet. You'll be fine. Uh you're gonna exercise, you're gonna keep moving. It is what it is. Like, I I feel very bad. Like, I'm the same way. Like, when actually, when my knee got you know surgery and stuff, I thought I'll never squat. And to this day, I'm still paying for it. When I squat, I'm compensating, but it's actually brought me to CrossFit. I'm actually squatting more than ever. And my left knee is still making this freaking noise that scares everyone, but I'm the fittest I've ever been because of me. So there's a blessing in the skies. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit more for you, but I think you'll be fine. It's all power of will, man. Thank you so much for reaching out, sharing your story. I'm pretty sure our audience will appreciate it. And speedy recovery, brother.

SPEAKER_02

I'm good, man. It's good to meet you.

SPEAKER_01

All right, brother. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Later.