Life to the Max Podcast

Burned, Amputated, Isolated — Now Marc Fucarile is Leading a Disability Revolution

• The QuadFather

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@marcnetworkinc

A chance encounter at the Chicago Abilities Expo led to one of our most powerful conversations yet. Marc Fugarile, a Boston Marathon bombing survivor, shares his journey from the devastating moment when the second bomb detonated just feet away from him – instantly amputating his right leg, setting him ablaze, and leaving him fighting for his life.


With remarkable candor, Marc reveals the profound isolation he felt during recovery, describing how it took three and a half years to find the appropriate prosthetic socket for his needs. "I missed three and a half years of my son's life because I wasn't able to be standing up," he explains, his voice carrying both grief and determination. This frustrating experience sparked the creation of the MARC Network (Mobility Awareness Resource Community) – a free mobile app connecting people with disabilities, their families, and service providers in one digital space.

What truly distinguishes Marc's vision is his recognition of untapped power within the disability community. "We are a community made up of 60 million people that control a trillion dollars in spend every year," he emphasizes. Yet this immense potential remains fragmented by systems that divide people by specific conditions, diminishing their collective voice. Mark passionately argues for unity, noting how the disability community consistently bears the brunt of economic downturns and policy decisions made by those unaffected by the consequences.

The MARC Network represents more than just technological innovation – it's a movement to reclaim agency and create sustainable support systems. As Mark explains his public benefit corporation model that channels resources back into community needs, we glimpse what's possible when tragedy transforms into purpose. This speedcast episode may be shorter than our usual format, but its impact will stay with you long after listening. Download the MARC Network app today and join a community that's redefining what's possible.

Download the MARC Network APP:

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/marc-network/id6467240921

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.disciplemedia.marcnetwork&pli=1

Speaker 1:

What's up, guys? As you can see, we're not in the studio at home. We're actually at the Abilities Expo in Chicago and this podcast is going to be a little different. It's going to be like a speedcast. The sound is not going to be as great because of how wide open this space is, but I hope you guys enjoy it. Please enjoy this. Lif to the Max speedcast.

Speaker 2:

Classic Mark Fugariel, who chooses hope.

Speaker 1:

Right, he chooses hope Right person that was actually a survivor of the boston marathon bombing and I'm super blessed and happy to have on the podcast it's mark. Thank you so much for making the time to come on yeah, man, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me and thank you for being out here at the abilities expo what brought you out here?

Speaker 1:

are you a vendor? Yeah, I.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I started the MARC Network, the Mobility Awareness Resource Community, m-a-r-c. Yeah, it's a free mobile app, so I'm out here promoting that to the community. April 15, 2013,. I was at the Boston Marathon supporting a friend of mine who graduated high school right around the same time I did. We worked together, we were friends and he was a Marine, is a Marine. He had retired and he decided he wanted to participate in the Boston Marathon. So I was 35, never had gone to the marathon, never cared to go to the marathon, but because he was there, I wanted to support him and thank him for his service and sacrifice that he made. So, a group of our friends, we all went and the rest became history. We witnessed the first bomb go off and 12 seconds later, the second bomb went off, right next to me.

Speaker 1:

Jesus.

Speaker 2:

Christ, yeah, a few feet away.

Speaker 1:

I'm really sorry that happened man.

Speaker 2:

No man, I appreciate it. You know I was blessed. It took a lot of people that rushed in to help people that they didn't even know they put themselves at risk. My right leg was amputated through the knee instantly. I was on fire. I was. I watched the surveillance tape from the forum restaurant.

Speaker 1:

You're on fire yeah.

Speaker 2:

The flash from the bomb lit my clothes on fire, blew him off my body, jesus, like the pants from the waist down were pretty much just disintegrated um 80 percent of low half my body was burnt um. The cop first cop on scene actually went to me first and put me out. I watched that happen. Then he looked and went to a child that he picked up and got out of the situation and then I witnessed two other people put me out. Yeah, because I kept reigniting the flames.

Speaker 1:

It's a blessing you're here.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy you're here 100 percent. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. And you know how it with your situation. You know how it goes. We're not prepared for these incidents to happen. You know, and as I was laying in that hospital bed, missing my right leg and fighting to keep my left, and, you know, dealing with the burn and skin grafts and stuff, you know I didn't know what my life was going to look like moving forward. You know, I was really worried about that.

Speaker 1:

It's like a paradox. Yeah, yeah, it's upside down, you don't moving forward.

Speaker 2:

You know, I was really worried about that and it's like a paradox yeah, yeah, it's upside down you don't know what's going on so that's kind of why I created the mark network, because I started working with non-profit organizations veteran veteran organizations, camp where kids were missing limbs and limb differences, and another organization called granite state adaptive sports, and I started learning from families that I wasn't the only one that felt that way, you know, like alone afraid.

Speaker 1:

I was just talking about that with someone else. Like the disabled community, we feel alone, but there's a community. It's huge, right. Yeah, the problem is we're not in's huge, right yeah.

Speaker 2:

The problem is we're not in one location, right yeah. So that's why I created the MARC Network, the Mobility Awareness Resource Community. It's a free mobile app where individuals facing challenges of all types not just mobility, but disability challenges and life challenges they're loved ones in the community that services us, like physical, occupational therapists, wheelchair providers, prosthetists, and the list goes on mental health, drug rehabilitation to engage in conversation, share information and share resources. It's a. It's a free app. It's an Apple Google. You can download it, create a profile. It's the same thing as Instagram and Facebook kind of marketplace.

Speaker 1:

Download the app everyone.

Speaker 2:

The Mark app.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it download the app everyone. The Mark app.

Speaker 2:

A-M-A-R-C. Yeah, it's just a great opportunity for people to be advocates, right To advocate and say, hey, I use this product, man, it's amazing. I recommend it for everybody.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's just kind of like a lifeline, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it can work in so many different ways where physical and occupational therapists can learn about our community and see what we're capable of doing, so they can see how hard to push us Right. And then also so they can actually gain information about products, so they can make recommendations to their customers and people that they're caring for. But then it's also a great advertising platform for products and services to advertise directly to our community, so we know they exist and we don't have to come all the way out to an expo to see it. You know, but it's so that we benefit from that. Yeah, you know. So we benefit from that, right, of course, if there's a great new software that's coming out that you can control with your eyes, you want to know about it, right, of course? Well, there's no way for them to advertise to you. So that's why I created the Mark Network, so that's the place that everybody should be at, sharing information and share resources.

Speaker 1:

You get it. Yeah, I like that man.

Speaker 2:

Call me Mark Zuckerberg, but it's Mark Fuquero.

Speaker 1:

Dude, that's awesome. Have you had success with the app?

Speaker 2:

So right now we just launched I mean we're just launching, it's 900 community members. Right now we have a few foundations on there, a few company and products and services. The app. We have gamification within the app because a lot of things we want to do and activate in the app, but we need the community to get on board, start sharing and helping each other. It took me three and a half years to find the socket that I'm wearing on my prosthetic leg, um, and I missed three and a half years of my son's life because I wasn't able to be standing up like not that, not that I missed his life, but I just couldn't partake in things that sickens me, because I mean, like when we have the resources and we're like the richest country in the world and you can't even get a prosthetic leg to someone that survived the Boston Marathon bombing, or just in general like that's just completely and utterly absurd.

Speaker 1:

That makes me upset.

Speaker 2:

Us as a community. Look at us. Look at how many people are here in this room, right, yeah, thousands, okay, and we're waiting and relying on government and insurance to fix our problem. It will never, ever happen. You know what I mean it will never, ever happen. You know what I mean. Like we need to take action and we need to create opportunity and businesses for ourselves.

Speaker 1:

I realized. I realized when I was disabled, when I got disabled, that the community that gets hit the most like when something happens, the stock market crashes or anything like a rift in the waves it's the disabled community.

Speaker 2:

Because the people that make the decisions that handle our taxpayers' dollars. It doesn't affect them. So that's what we need to start relying on others. We need to do it. We are a community made up of 60 million people that control a trillion dollars and spend every year Medicare, medicaid and private insurance subsidizes another $500 billion a year. Globally, we're 1.8 billion people affected by mobility disability and we control $13 trillion in spend. We don't need anybody we can create. So if I had every drug and mental health so mental health and drug rehabilitation facility across this country there's over 400,000. If I got them on my app to advertise for $20 a month, which is nothing to their marketing budget, that would generate $8 million for me to give back into the community. I'm a public benefit corporation and by federal laws I'm required to give back to the community a benefit.

Speaker 1:

Dude, I hope that happens because, like you, could help people get prosthetic legs and stuff.

Speaker 2:

All day and every day.

Speaker 1:

Because I interviewed this guy, Matt Ream. I don't know if you've heard of him, but he was trapped under a bridge during Christmas in his truck Frostbite. No, his leg was stuck into this truck.

Speaker 2:

On the firewall of the yeah.

Speaker 1:

I have a podcast on it, like if you want to know the super long story short he had to wait.

Speaker 2:

It takes a long time. I mean, there's a lot of things in our community that just doesn't make sense to me. When I had to get fitted for my wheelchair man, I had to wait two months to get measured Like I can measure anything in two minutes, like you know why does it have to take two months? And then you got to wait eight to 12 weeks for the wheelchair to be manufactured and made. That's crazy, that's wild to me. But that also comes down to you know, like we talk about government, right, let them break it. Um, you know, our manufacturing got shipped overseas, right, because politicians took pay, you know, took back to a paid time, um. So you know, that's. That's insane to me. That we have to wait that long for things to be built, made and produced. It's wild I can.

Speaker 1:

It is wild and I I'm very blessed because I'm with the va, yeah the va like takes care of me, but I've heard the horror stories.

Speaker 2:

I mean you think about it. There's like my wife has no arms and legs and she, um, you know her insurance company will pay 30 000 or whatever it is, for this big wheelchair that you know comes up and down and this and does all this crazy stuff that she doesn't even want. But they won't buy her an $1,800 folding wheelchair, right, like that she uses every day, like her power chair that she got through insurance. She used it for one day and now it's in the garage.

Speaker 1:

Money.

Speaker 2:

Money, but why? And now it's in the garage. Money Money, but why? And I'm going to tell you. You know, we always go and get the cuts. Like you said, when things happen, it's because they, on purpose, they've divided us as a community. Right, so you're a spinal cord injury? Right, I'm an amputee, so they want you to join the Spinal Cord Association.

Speaker 1:

We're going to talk to amputees.

Speaker 2:

And they want me to join the Amputee Coalition. And then they want the blind to join the Blind Coalition. So what they're doing is they're really dividing us by our disabilities, which makes us smaller in numbers, so we have a smaller voice.

Speaker 2:

We need to come together as a community under one location and be that big community and that big voice again, because that's what the ada was formed at, you know, when we were a bigger community. But then they noticed we need to divide these people because we need to not listen to them, and we don't have to listen if they're small in numbers yeah, and it's not all about just parking and like you know, like going into restaurants, it's about treating us like human beings. And.

Speaker 1:

I totally agree with you, man. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. I want to get your information so we can do a full podcast. I'll fly you out and everything to Chicago.

Speaker 2:

We would love to partner up with you and get you on. We have what we have called the Mark TV, which is like YouTube, podcast channels that are just linked out to what you're doing. We'd love to have you on as a resource for people with mobility challenges.

Speaker 1:

Well, definitely, I'll do it live to the max, and myself will be there for sure it's a blessing.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for your service and your sacrifice. Thank you for your service and your sacrifice.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for your service and uh your sacrifice man yeah you've been through a lot and, uh, I, uh, really appreciate this interview yeah, man, I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much everybody.

Speaker 1:

If you like this content, please comment, like it, subscribe. As always, take a breath for me, thank you.