The Mick & Pat Show
Hey, Kin! Welcome to "The Mick & Pat Show," your home for candid discussions that explore the many layers of life's tapestry. We're Mick and Pat, two guys who are a lot like you—balancing work, family, and the complexities of modern existence.
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Who Are We? We're two modest guys incredibly fortunate to have life partners who find our idiosyncrasies endearing. Mick enjoys the analytical side of things—like diving deep into data sets and puzzling out complex policies. Pat, on the other hand, revels in life's big questions and spiritual intricacies, often finding solace and wonder in philosophy and faith.
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What Do We Discuss? Our podcast serves up a rich menu of topics, from probing political debates and the latest in AI to crisp beer reviews and deep dives into pop culture. We're not shy about fatherhood, relationships, and the human experience either—expect the raw and the real.
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Why Listen to Us? Think of us as the friends you didn't know you needed. We deliver the goods: no-nonsense conversations laced with insight, debate, and of course, laughs by the barrelful.
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Where Can You Find Us? We're broadcasting to all major podcast platforms from a hidden valley in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
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When Do We Air? New episodes drop like hotcakes every Tuesday morning, ensuring your week starts off with substance (and maybe a little nonsense).
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Got a burning question or a beer you want reviewed? Don't hesitate to reach out.
Pull up a chair, tap into our conversations, and let's make sense of this wild ride called life together.
The Mick & Pat Show
The Mick & Pat Show - EDC and TCCC Training Review
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What happens when your emergency response training suddenly feels all too real? We recently participated in a "Stop the Bleed" tactical medical training for our church security team, and the results were eye-opening, humbling, and occasionally terrifying.
The stark difference between watching YouTube tutorials and facing a simulated active shooter scenario became immediately apparent. During one particularly intense moment, team members providing medical care to a "patient" became so focused on their tasks that they failed to notice the patient drawing a weapon. What followed was a chaotic struggle where two team members mistakenly fought each other for control of the gun, resulting in one drawing his weapon and "shooting" the patient. Most troubling? Neither participant realized what had actually occurred until the debrief session later.
This episode explores the critical gaps between knowledge and application that only reveal themselves under stress. We discuss the phenomenon of tunnel vision, where your brain filters out seemingly non-essential information that might actually be critical to survival. We also break down how communication completely deteriorates in crisis situations, along with our recommendations for medical gear that's actually practical for everyday carry.
The harsh reality we discovered is that all the gear reviews, YouTube videos, and theoretical knowledge in the world doesn't prepare you like hands-on, high-stress scenario training. Whether you're part of a formal security team or just someone who wants to be prepared for emergencies, this episode offers crucial insights about the limitations of self-study and the irreplaceable value of realistic training.
Have you ever pushed yourself beyond your comfort zone with scenario-based training? We'd love to hear about your experiences and what you learned about yourself when the pressure was on.
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I've been experiencing the project from hell. It's our real first home improvement project. Oh yeah, have I told you about our sinks and swapping them out and stuff?
Speaker 2Yeah, briefly, because you were about the marble, or faux marble, countertopping.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, we had three sinks in our house, replacing all of the like guest bathroom ones and stuff like that right in our in our master bath.
Speaker 1Um, and the first one we did. You know, I was in the midst of it when I was telling billy gene. While doing it I was like you know, this is how this is gonna work. This first one. It's gonna be a little frustrating at times but for the most part we're just learning. It's okay if we have to redo things over because we're just learning, and then the second one is gonna go way faster because of everything we learned from the first one it's typically true.
Speaker 1And I said and then the third one is going to take the longest likely days, if not weeks. And she's like what do you mean? And I was like it's just the way these things work. Yeah, it's just the way they work. And with the third one, we found when we removed the old sink that it had a yellow. It had yellowed in its perfect rectangular shape. Because did?
Speaker 2the first two go the way you thought.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, first one like was the one where we had to redo a couple things and go back and forth and undo. Second, one went way faster. Third, one's still not done. It's over a month later. Um, and the issue is that it was, you know, know, the silestone, which is like a quartz composite.
Speaker 1It stained yellow underneath the sink for some reason, but the sink was sealed and so I don't know if it just yellowed from lack of air, but nothing we did was taking that stain out of it. But nothing we did was taking that stain out of it. There's, we tried every single thing that people encourage you to try. Nothing was removing even like a hue of the stain. The stain was so light that it was just enough to notice. With the light on that there was a color differentiation and I tried sanding stuff like that just to see if I could get any color to come out of it. Nothing tried.
Speaker 1And it'd be people like, oh, you got to try xyz, and I'm like, shut up stuff like that just to see if I could get any color to come out of it. Nothing Tried. And people are like, oh, you got to try XYZ. And I'm like, shut up, shut up, I did, I tried everything. If you were saying that right now, this is Mick telling you, shut your mouth. I tried it the toothpaste, the vinegar and baking soda, the bleach, the what is it? Clr.
Speaker 1I mean, I tried everything man under the sun and none of it works we even reached out to silestone the manufacturer and was like hey, how do, what do we do with this?
Speaker 1they never responded so um yeah, I poop on them, yeah, um. So anyways, what we settled on doing is getting a cord of marble, sorry, a cut of marble, and it's just like a marble slab that you would put in a restaurant or something for like food to sit on. You know, like you have your pastries of the day sitting on it for sale, right? And it's food grade marble, which means like it's not supposed to stain if you leave like gooey jellies and jams on it or whatever. It's been kind of sealed. So I just drilled a hole through it.
Speaker 1But getting the drill parts to drill through marble is an insane task in and of itself, because I got the cut for it to cut a circle in. But then it didn't come with the chuck and of course they don't sell the diamond-tipped chuck at Home Depot when you buy the diamond-tipped hole drill. So then it's like, all right, then I guess we're doing this without a chuck, tipped with diamond to center it. And so we set up a rudimentary jig where I grabbed a two inch and one eighth hole saw and drilled that through a piece of wood. Then I put the wood over the marble, you clamp it, and clamped it down, and I had already drawn on the marble with a Sharpie through the faucet I mean mean not the faucet, the sink drain hole of where it would go right. So I knew where I had it to drill and it was perfectly circled.
Speaker 1And then I taped over that and circled it again, so that way the tape's there to kind of keep the marble from chipping or like cracking, right, um. And then I started drilling through man and I drilled through that hole and my buddy uh, I'll just call him jonesy he was standing by me with the with a hose just running the water in the hole the whole time, so that way the drill bit didn't melt and we drilled through and it was pretty. You know it wasn't perfect. It came out the other side and it chipped a little bit On the underside. Yeah, but that's okay, because that will just be covered by the sink, because the sink will go on top of this. Right, and here's another reason.
Speaker 1People are like, why didn't you just buy the sink big enough? Well, because the sink that was here was offset. It was an offset hole. So the hole is offset from the stain because the sink was an offset shape. It was weird and you can't just buy like we looked everywhere. They didn't like people just don't make offset sinks. I was like, where did this even come from? So, anywho, all that said, we put the marble down, uh, and we sealed it, uh, with you know, the marbles quartz stone sealer that you do. And then we also did the um, what's it called? Uh, silicone underneath it just to help it stick and stay in place with the weight and not scratch the silestone. And now we go to put the faucet and sink in. Yeah, and the. The water lines that came with the faucet aren't long enough to reach the old ones, so now we had to buy water line like extendos male, female extendos for tomorrow. So it's just like one more day, every single time man and I'm like I'm losing my marbles.
Speaker 2Dude, now you're gonna have one more spot for it to potentially leak and the extender yeah man, which I've been doing good about that.
Speaker 1I've been putting paper towels down in the old sink other sinks after replacing their water lines and stuff and just leaving them there for a few weeks to make sure that we're all good. And I check on them to make sure that they're they don't got water staining on them. But yeah, no, it's one of those things where it just makes me like so irate and like I'm losing religion to this sink and there's many a times where I'm under there swearing up a storm um it's home ownership.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's becoming an old man right there.
Turning 30: Health Challenges Emerge
Speaker 1Yeah, dude also here you go tmi massive hemorrhoid.
Speaker 2I have a massive I have to go to the doctor for this oh no, dude, I want you to look at my thumb.
Speaker 1Yeah, imagine that just hanging out your ass oh my gosh yeah dude, it's pretty brutal, that is.
Speaker 2I've been taking some like third-party medicine for it, like, like from homeopathic stuff that's supposed to like open your veins, or if it came from like a different country I also had to tell doc.
Speaker 1He just was like hey, get this, you know hydrocortisone, put it on your finger, shove it up there, bud, it should help relieve it until you can get in to see a real doctor real doctor.
Speaker 2Even like a 20-day appointment, I gotta wait for goodness they called me.
Speaker 1They're like uh, do you really want to meet with this doctor, or could we schedule you earlier for it with a different doctor? I'm like, well, I really want to. I prefer a male doctor. Yep, and they're like okay, all right, then we'll leave you with them. Yeah, I don't really want a chick doctor doctor going back there. No, nothing against female doctors, but it's just me, as a man, has some pride that the only woman that sees my butthole is my wife yeah, and even then I don't like her to see it.
Speaker 1Yeah, even then I try to hide her from that oh my god shelter. It was funny we were getting. We were talking with a friend recently and we were just joking about how, like girls, the moment you get married, usually don't care at all and they'll just change in front of you or whatever which is great. I don't want my wife to be. You know what's the word Not aware, but what's the word Self-conscious, self-conscious.
Speaker 1I don't want her to ever feel self-conscious in front of me. Me as a man, though, I don't feel safe bending over with my butt out yeah.
Speaker 2It goes against all god's nature.
Speaker 1Okay, yeah and uh. I also don't think that I have much as much of a beautiful feminine figure. Okay, there's probably some fuzz and hair around and probably a little bit of like discoloration from like the the boxer lint on my gooch, okay. So I just don't.
Speaker 1I don't think I need to expose that to the world vulnerability yeah, yeah, here's the thing too, though I've never, like, looked at myself in the mirror. I've never looked at myself in the mirror and been grossed out, yeah, but I can objectively be like, hey, this is way grosser than what a woman looks like. Okay, this is, this is pretty like gorilla. Ish, apish, like I should. I should have some discretion and not expose her to that. Oh my gosh, which you know, billy jean, god bless her. She's so sweet, she's like. You know, you don't have to go change in the bathroom. I'm like oh, I know, but you don't know what this looks like exactly.
Speaker 2You know what I mean so anyway, that's uh, that's unfortunate hope they get that, we get that resolved yeah, I'm not too worried about it.
Speaker 1Now I've been doing the hydrocortisone cream and I've been taking this. It's called uh something horse. It's called horse chestnut. It smells, smells earthy, and it's in a pill, you know, but it's like definitely like homemade made capsules. Right, it's like natural groceries or sprouts. There's that one and then the other one called like goku something are you sure it's supposed to be taken orally, just just put yeah, all right.
Speaker 2It says take by mouth, all right just putting pills in the wrong spots. You know, well, it's the same thing. Hey, you never know. And the hydrocortisone cream did come with like a the.
Speaker 1Hydra Cortisone Cream did come with like an attachment to screw onto it. That was like a long nib, like a nib probably as long as like the tip of your pinky, if not longer, and it was ported like a compensator to like screw on the top of the cream and shove up there and squeeze, and it just squeezed it out in all directions.
Speaker 3Oh no, I didn't do that.
Speaker 1I was like I need to know if this thing's getting smaller. I need first-hand contact. So I've been using a lot of dude wipes lately yeah, dude wiping and trying this hydrocortis anyways. Turn 30. I don't feel any older, other than that that's the only thing that makes me really feel older. Yeah, like that's. The only thing that is absolutely different than my 20s is that now I'm getting hemorrhoids that is.
Speaker 2That is a is different and it's a, it's a life interrupter for sure.
Speaker 1I will say it brings me a lot of pleasure. How much laughter has brought my friends recently? Yeah, I've talked about it with many a man, and many a man, has found it hilarious and I've just nodded like you just wait, you just wait for years.
Speaker 2And I'll say like I mean I I only until recently didn't even know what that really was like.
Speaker 1I've always heard it well, a lot of people don't know. A lot of people. All right to clarify out there a hemorrhoid is not an open wound on your butthole. A lot of people think it's an open wound. It's not an open wound. It's literally just a kink in the hose that's not letting blood flow back out easily and so it just looks like a honestly just looks like you got a extra little dingleberry just attached there, you know what I mean, oh yeah, it's pretty much like the same.
Speaker 1I will say this it's the same color as your butt cheeks. It's not like purpley or anything like that. Yeah, because I looked up I was like what is this? When it first happened, I was like what is this thing? Because he and the images were not what I was seeing in the mirror. The images were a lot more horrendous and horrific and I think they're usually images of like people who have left them untreated.
Speaker 2Well, that's the problem with all like web pictures, like med pictures, like it's always like the worst cases. Can I see the medium, the medium mild cases.
Speaker 1Why are my elbows itchy? It's like you have eczema and psoriasis. You're like, well, what is that? And they just show like the person who has a skin infection 110% psoriasis on their body. Oh yeah, and they're like some people kill themselves. It's so bad. And you're like, oh my God, like what should I do?
Speaker 2Is there any intermediate thing I can do before, you know, just going to the big party in the sky? Yeah, you know, just going to the big party in the sky. Yeah anyways, Speaking of the gorilla-ish appearance, I don't know if you know, but while we were slapping chest seals on you with your shirt up oh yeah, On the stage of the old-timey church we were in. I took a picture of you.
Speaker 2Oh really, just because it was funny, my happy trail out. Yeah, just your full shirt, just to be standing up like I'm pretty hairless To be in like a very traditional looking church. Oh yeah, just with your Just lifting your shirt. It was for education. It was for educational purposes. Which kind of brings us to what we're, and good thing we didn't do any. You know, part of our first aid training did not involve a butt cream. Yeah, because that's not a.
Speaker 2I don't think I had the hemorrhoid then. Yet that's distracting, not life-threatening. You know, as we learned, yes. To not address the distracting things but the life-threatening things. And so, yeah, no butt cream. But yeah, so we got to and we talked about this maybe this morning or this podcast or two ago that we were going to do a first aid training with our safety team.
Speaker 1It's more than just first aid.
Speaker 2Yep, yep, it was. You know an emergency response type of training at our church with our security team.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was essentially the stop the bleed training that they give first responders and military, you know, not training us to be EMTs or EMS, but training us to keep people alive and give them the best chance possible until you get them to EMS.
Speaker 2And it was a good time it was about. You know, there was about 12 or 11 of us that came and trained together and tonight we're going to kind of break down Some of the stuff we saw there, what we experienced, what we learned, and then also maybe go over some of the Gear pieces that we are incorporating In either everyday, carry stuff Over to more of like a, you know, in our IFAC or med bag stuff and we a few episodes ago we did kind of a pretty exhaustive breakdown of first aid equipment and this will be.
Speaker 2You know more of a flyover of the actual applications or the yeses and nos, but you know kind of what we've landed on of what we're now. You know applications or the yeses and noes, but you know kind of what we've landed on of what we're now.
Speaker 1You know either carrying with us or having our truck and that sort of thing yeah, and if you got any questions about the gear medical gear because you haven't seen that episode yet, you can always head back to the episode and see the breakdown with time stamps as well as links in the description to all the medical gear that we pretty much recommend, or our guests Mac and Rice-A-Roni recommend. So, which was also pretty cool, because when we did this first aid training, this stop the bleed, it was pretty cool to just see that the instructor Ty pretty much emphasized you know, the same stuff that Rice-i was going over of. Like you know, what he said was to have in your kit, not in your kit, what to have on you for others to use on you, versus having on yourself to use on others if need be.
Speaker 2Yeah, so yeah, so the uh, and I was thinking, yeah the that, um, yeah the that. And with that training we also did, we ran through some like live scenarios and stuff, and so I think towards the end we'll probably like break down kind of what we saw and where we did good or where we fell short and that sort of thing. But I was thinking we talked about starting off with just a EDC pocket dump and people out there, you know, some pocket dumps are pretty outrageous. You got all sorts of things in there. So we were going to give you the honest pocket dump, which may be underwhelming, and then we might get into a few pieces of stuff we sometimes carry at other times or, depending on where we're at, or a little piece of gear we think are cool, and then we'll break down those scenarios.
Speaker 1Yeah, so we're doing EDC now.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think we could start with our simple what do you really have in your pockets?
Speaker 3Then we can look at some of the other stuff Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? I'll go first.
Speaker 2First and foremost, we've got our addictions.
Speaker 1I'm trying to quit Zen. Yeah, the three milligram.
Speaker 2I'm a quitter Lying to myself because you get threes but you buy them at a full log at a time when you're buying logs you know you're not a Same price Exactly. But logs, you know same price. You know same price exactly. But um, but my weak stomach can't handle the sixes, I don't know why. So you know, like the other night I got a call from my sister who was giving birth very quickly at her home in her garage.
Speaker 2It was pretty. It was pretty, um, like you know, wild um, and that's a whole nother story for a different time. But I'll say, when I hopped in my truck at 1 am I was, I said to myself this is why we have these, just just 24 7 it's ready. So I've seen. Yeah, because you know I, I got in the truck and I didn't have in my pocket, but I did have in my uh, center console. I always keep those, keep a couple extra. And so I didn't have it in my pocket, but I did have in my center console. I always keep those, keep a couple extra. And so I grabbed that, threw it in and put the hazards on and trucked on down. Or, you know, bad day at work, stub your toe, smash your finger with a hammer, you know, throw one of those in there.
Speaker 1Throw one in.
Speaker 2You know there's basically you know we could go through the long list of all the reasons and times to put one in which kind of comes to all the time which you know. Maybe we should, maybe I need to regulate that a little.
Speaker 1You gotta have a schedule, man, you know. That's why I only toss them in, and at nighttime, before bed, for sure, I I do that, or if I'm having like a mid afternoon dunk and I really need to make sure like I'm like I'm like in a rush like let's say I'm at like target. No one wants to hang out in the target bathroom, so I'll throw a Zinner or two in just to make sure, the just to expedite the poo.
Speaker 2For sure, for sure. Sometimes you got to, and so, moving along, though you know, obviously we got wallets. Mine's pretty thick. I've actually made leaps and bounds in getting less thick. This is a small business owner wallet for sure. Got everybody less. This is a small business owner wallet, for sure, and so everybody's business card. This used to be a lot fatter. I got it down, but this wall. I've had this wallet for um over uh 10 years now and it's still kicking. It's really strong, really durable.
EDC Pocket Dump: What We Carry
Speaker 2But me and my buddy in college we got some leather and sewed them ourselves oh nice and uh, it's uh, I like this thing, it's a and it's, over time, smooth, nice leather but anyway. So we'll see how long that thing lasts. But in the past I was going through all it's probably every like yeah, two years, like kind of blowing them out. You know. But this one, you know, I like it, I like and I don't like the new money, like the new clips or like the ridge stuff I was gonna ask would you ever rock just like a classy money?
Speaker 2clip maybe at some some point, but I just there's too many different things I like to have on me between like, like personal credit cards, business credit cards. I do like to carry cash, um, I'm, I think it's like crazy to not carry some cash which really I rarely need it. But I like to have and then hunting licenses, just keeping them in there all the time, and just fishing license so you're not getting caught with your pants down. And then, um, you know, yeah, so then it just you end up. A couple other things. You know a crazy Carl's gift card that's been in there for like five years. It has $7 on it. I haven't used that sort of stuff. There are some of that stuff too. But, um, you know, moving along, we've got just some. You know some AirPods, we just some. You know some airpods. We got the. I roll with the evil empire and the apple world, yay, but they are. I do. I love them with the um.
Speaker 2For you know, obviously people like their headphones headphones have come such a long way and like battery life and all that now and how fast they charge, how well they work with their. You know it switches between my phone, computer, whatever, um, but then also running in. I'm always on a ladder in a crawl space in an attic and so if I have these on I can take calls um, and they also they do have some noise cancellation. They have some noise cancellation. That is does give you some uh ear pro on there. So when I'm running some power tools and stuff, it does help some with that. So if I'm, if I'm running some big stuff for a long time, I will still grab my ear pro to protect myself, but this just does give you that extra layer of um. I was gonna say, you know, there, it's not for guns, it's not for running like an angle grinder for 10 minutes.
Speaker 2But if you got it, if you're just, you know, making making a running here and there, saw cut drills, whatever like it is, it does cut out some of that stuff. You do have to be careful on the noise cancellation, like you get run over by a car.
Speaker 1You can't hear anything you know coming through on you well, I met someone who was using them and they're like yeah, I just used the noise cancellation of my airpod pro for at the range. I'm like you do know, the noise cancellation is actually not canceling noise it's just plain noise to try to cancel out the other noise.
Speaker 2So the decibel piece.
Speaker 1You're still receiving the full decibels Right.
Speaker 2And I think the way that these work I've got to look at these. I think the way these work is they actually, when they're in the non-transparency mode or when they're transparency mode, they actually amplify noise. And then when you do go noise cancellation, I don't know if it adds noise on these or if it just doesn't let noise through, so gotcha, so it feels. But um, anyways, yeah, not a full purpose ear probe, I like them for that. Being able to talk on the phone kind of get addicted to those. Um. And then obviously, you know that goes with the phone. Just you know, simple, otter box, love that. And in this town, you know I that goes with the phone. Just you know, simple, otterbox, love that. And in this town, you know I am a slave to it. But you know it's time for a new phone. You know we got some cracks in there, but hey, get a Droid, get an Android. I don't know if I can convert man, it's so hard.
Speaker 1It's not, it's so easy.
Speaker 2It's like hard for one day, oh for sure For sure, and then I always have some force form of writing utensil, usually a Sharpie, for what I'm doing. You know I can, that's good. You can sign a check with a Sharpie, that's fine.
Speaker 2You always have pens and pencils and I stopped carrying a clicky pen because so many times I'd look down and I'd Blew out, Bled it through my pants. I'm like I'm done with that, you know. And so obviously pen for all sorts of reasons. And then I do like to carry a little pen light flashlight and it's just utility.
Speaker 2You know, I'm always looking in dark places, and then it does come in handy, you know, for all sorts of things. Uh, I feel like once you start carrying a flashlight, you're screwed, because then you, just when you don't have it, you're so bummed out and, yes, your phone has one, but it's not quite the same, um and so, even like I was at the hospital this last week, um and my daughter had a procedure in her mouth and all the nurses and ENTs didn't have pin lights. They were using their iPhone lights. Oh wow, which cast way too wide. That's crazy, and so they really weren't able to see. It's like somebody with an MD is like hold on one second, gets out their phone, turns on their light and I'm like I already have this out of my pocket.
Speaker 2I'm looking in her mouth and actually able to examine what I'm looking at. That's crazy, because I remember all doctors used to have the little pen light. That the pen light was the doctor like, yeah, like the little, and back like it was an actual bulb, little bulb back in the day, I know pen lights. So, and when you the old pen light would work by, if you, you know, click the top, like the clip, it would contact and then it would go through. So you'd love to have a light, um, and then I've always got some sort of blade, um, because I'm a construction guy, um, usually lots of times blade is this, um, you know, just a razor knife um, and some days if I'm not working, I'll show you I carry a different knife, but usually that's what I got going on.
Speaker 2It's still it works for, you know, almost all utility things I want and need for opening stuff and getting what I need done. So that's that's really like. That's the simple pocket dump. You know that's that's what I've got on me most of the time, and so this is the EDC, regardless.
Speaker 1No matter what this is, this is always pretty much what's on, that's in the pocket.
Speaker 2That's what's on, that's in the pocket. That's what's going on, you know. And so the um, and I'll grab my a couple things here. You know, when I um, if I'm out and about, if I'm not, not at work, then I do.
Speaker 2I love this cricket knife. Um, it's pretty big, you can see, and so, like, chunk, carrying double knife is a no-go, but um, um, it is so big. But what I like about it, with this one in particular, is you don't always have to get out this honker for um, for what you're doing, because with the seat belt cutter in here you can do so. You can open cardboard boxes, cut string, whatever, um, actually sometimes even more precisely um, and not have to like, especially like in public or whatever, like you're whipping out a knife, whatever, like I can get this out and just use it for little things. This is like the, maybe like the ems version or something on it where, but it has a you know seat belt cutter and then a glass breaker on it. But, um, yeah, this knife, it's a little big, but I do like having a larger knife if I'm carrying something around, um, and then you know the then, and so that's that would become sometimes swapped out for the, the razor blade. But the two other things I'm gonna pull, two other things that I do carry.
Speaker 2Um, you know now I going to kind of move into some other, if I'm in other situations, what I'm carrying around. So if I am in a spot where I feel like it's a little more, there's people who might need to be protected, taken care of, whatever, and I don't want to carry the gun. I have been rocking this blade you got me, which I do like this K-Bar is sweet. It's a little punchy knife here and it's pretty concealable and you know it's been nice, nice for you know, there I do go places where I don't carry my pistol and so this just does um, you know, obviously not end all be all or, but it just gives you that extra little little something in there and I've been. It's pretty comfy and you can, you can hide it even almost better than some of these other. It's the same size as my pocket knife but when it's in the waistband, so I think that's been a pretty slick addition to what we're doing. And so, yeah, have you been carrying yours around?
Speaker 1Yeah, pretty much every day. Yeah, I've been messing around with it and I will say it is a pain in the ass to move that clip. The Allen wrench and the screws are god awful like it's a minimum 30 minutes to swap it around and decide orientation, and that's and the only thing.
Speaker 2I don't know how long this clip was gonna last. Have you know, have you felt that or noticed that yet?
Speaker 1um, I definitely have been pretty rough with it, but it hasn't blown out on me yet.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's not all the way out yet, but it's starting to get a little, you know. So we'll see, but, like I said, it's not all day, every day for me, so but like that, you know, and then you know we can, and then I think that's, I'm going to stop there. Let you do yours, and then we can move into.
Speaker 1Wait, wait, you never carry a gun.
Speaker 2Well, I was going to say we can, let's all get mine out once you get to the end of yours, get yours out the end. We can touch tips and compare a little what we've got going on All right.
Speaker 1Well, I mean, yeah, mine's going to be a lot easier. Do you ever have an? Hey, we just did medical training. Are you carrying medical ever?
Speaker 2Oh, that's a good point. We do have, that's yep. So when we're I'm also throwing a tourniquet in my back pocket lots of times and then you know, spare mag in the front pocket is where we've got stuff going on. So there's lots of days where I'm rocking kind of this full setup. But you know, this is more that.
Speaker 1You're only picking one knife, though you're not carrying three.
Speaker 2Correct, correct, yeah well, I would retarded if or gay if you're carrying three knives. If I carry this, I do have one of these still. Oh yeah, for you know, because this is this isn't coming out for anything, right?
Speaker 1that's coming out to like kill a dog, kill a person.
Speaker 2It's coming out for one thing only this stuff's coming out for cleaning my fingernails and all that sorts of stuff. Yeah, um. And then, as far as pockets go, one thing I have been throwing in my pocket oh where'd it go? Is at the uh, um, the gauze, the gauze, this, this north american rescue cheap gauze it's like like $1.50 or $3, is. I pair that with that tourniquet and then I have a pretty. You know, I've got some real good head start on stop-the-bleed stuff, and so, you know, this isn't always with me. But if I'm at a place where I feel like people might need to be taken care of or there's you know a lot of you know spots that have lots and lots of people going on, or spots that might be a higher target threat risk, you know, then we go with that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah Cool.
Speaker 2Some days the pockets are loaded down. So how about you, sir, Sir?
Speaker 1what do you got going on? Get this stuff off the table, bro, all right, all right, get this stuff off the table, bro. Get this stuff off the table. I don't want people mixing my EDC with your EDC. This is one of the things, though, like a lot of people take a ton of pride in, I've never cared. I've never cared, like when someone's like bro, you're not carrying this, I'm like, no, I'm like you're're gonna die in the streets and like I'm just like dude.
Speaker 1Uh, you know I I highly disagree. But okay, like you know, I mean like just because there's never in my life have I ever seen someone have to use any of this gear other than the phone or the wallet. You know what I mean. Right Now people are reeling and screeching. They're like well, mick, what are you saying? We should have carried guns or knives? No, of course not. That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm just saying the likelihood. You know what I mean, but I do live in a philosophy of it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Speaker 2Which is oh, go ahead. One more thing is the Garmin Instinct Solar. I love this thing.
Speaker 1I don't care that. I don't consider that EDC, though it's on your wrist.
Speaker 2Yeah, all right, but it's on me every day. Watches are part of EDCs. You know, I don't if it's if it.
Speaker 1if it's something that doesn't get a pocket watch, exactly I'm saying like if it doesn't fit in pockets, or like waistband, like if that's not where it goes, then it's just like it's it's clothing, all right, it's accessory.
Speaker 2All right, weigh in folks, weigh in, no, that's all right, but like people would be like oh yeah, my edc is my like twenty thousand dollar.
Speaker 1You know, whatever watch and I, no, it's not Shut up. I think watches are. I love my watch, I think it's a necessary part of like you know, and there's a lot of function and utility out of watches. I just pretty much treat it the same way as I treat a hat, right, like, I mean, I'm always EDC in a hat, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2But I don't consider it, does your? I will say, like, as far as one, one thing this one has is yours. Watch my habit too, and lots to do. But is I can, if I hold a button, it's sending my location to three folks? Oh no, mine doesn't. It's. It's sending my gps and my heart rate to people out there. So huh, so if I'm, it's nice in the woods, whatever, but also like any emergency situation, I can hold this button and it calls out so that's got sat cap capabilities I kind of yes, it can, it works through your phone, oh, you know.
Speaker 1So that's yeah, I think mine could do it through the phone too, but I don't have a separate like sat uh sim card in right, you know it can it, it does.
Speaker 2It can access satellites for gps though as well, so like even if your phone was offline, though, yep, okay, cool.
Speaker 1I mean, that's kind of cool, I don't know, man, because I think like, oh yeah, that'd be nice to have an emergency, but what if I'm running through the, the hills of san francisco, the, the redwoodines, and they're trying to geolocate me so they can drop a?
Speaker 2drone on me. That's true.
Speaker 2That's true, you might be getting some signals, or like we were actually at when we did a training years ago, when we did a retreat training, we were doing some shooting and my watch went off. Oh, I remember this story, remember my watch went off while we were doing it because I accidentally held the button too long and my wife knew I was in the woods, knew I was shooting guns, and it sent an emergency response. And then I had to go get to where I had cell service to call it off.
Speaker 1Yeah, we were in the middle actually of our sweat lodge man-on-man orgy.
Speaker 3And.
Speaker 1I remember that was a real mood killer when you were like, guys, I gotta go call my wife and learn. I was so inactivated.
Speaker 2I was like we did fit like right now 10 10 guys in a two-man sauna and it was sweaty it was sweaty.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, I yeah, yeah, all right, anyways, all right. Mix edc first and nice good old black powder Matt, 10 rounds of 38, or, if it's real black powder, 44 Cal with a 20 gauge under barrel. And yeah, I keep that, just so I could kill the horses that the men ride and then finish them after they scratch the ground. No, I'm just kidding, but I always do love to show off this little replica. This is a replica. It's a great replica, all right, well, I guess. First and foremost, let me double check to make sure there's nothing on my keys that are going to give me away. Okay, yeah, I don't think so. Library card number coming for you.
Speaker 1I guess my gym membership that I don't use All right. So first one, right when I'm leaving the house is the keys here.
Speaker 2And I got a lot of keys.
Speaker 1I think it's loaded up, yeah so this is the key to my wife's Subaru, our Subaru. But the latch broke and so she made a sick like I, you know, made this pocket blueprint for it. I was like, yeah, use the paracord and then sew it in and cut out little holes for all the buttons. So it's like leather, leather face, it's like the Texas.
Speaker 3Chainsaw Massacre of keys.
Speaker 1It does look like that now, and then I got a little wipey wiper for my glasses, like Cabela's one, and then I got my new Belgium bottle opener and that's pretty much it on the keys. Everything else there is just for the house or previous places I've lived. I keep those keys because if they don't change the locks and I ever need to break in, then I can, and so it's like what? And I'm like, and I'm like, actually serious, like um. Up next is probably the longest running multi-tool I've ever had. It's a gerber Super Gerber Suspension. Next, it was the one that was like, you know, the first one that had Bear Grylls like face on the Patch like this is my Gerber, but I really Like it a lot.
Speaker 1It's the clip is totally blown out. It falls out of my pocket Constantly. But it's the rule of cheap it's like sunglasses and watches and anything else that's cheap is that the cheap stuff falls off of you and it won't ever go away. It gets found.
Speaker 3It just gets found or someone returns it.
Speaker 1The moment I spend $60 on a Leatherman, or actually probably $80 these days, or more it's gone.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, that's why I'm not carrying a bench made around. Yes, you know, because that thing's just gonna disapparate, um, but anyways.
Speaker 1and this has got a knife on it and scissors that aren't really good anymore because the spring's worn out, but I use the file and the screwdriver a ton. I use probably the screwdriver and I don't know what this is. It's just like a flat and it's not a can opener, but it's just a flat like shim that's angled but it's not sharp enough to really cut. It's not as sharp as a knife, oh yeah, but the tip's worn down because of how much I've used that tip to just pop lids without having to chip the tip off my knife.
Speaker 2And it's like sharp enough to like whittle kind of you know like scrape something or like you know.
Speaker 1I genuinely think the concept behind it is that you could use it to you know. You know, hold it up to the cam a little, but I think the concept is like you could put it on wood and then just like rock hammer. That.
Speaker 3And it's like such a wide wedge that it would give you like a splitter or something?
Medical Training for Church Security
Speaker 1yeah, like you can kindle pretty easy without having to use your knife. All right, I don't really know. Yeah, but I use it a lot. I use that one more than anything else. Um, so there we go, that's one, uh.
Speaker 1Second knife is my cricket, and I can't remember what this one's called. It's called the cricket something. I got to be real careful actually deploying it so I don't cut myself, but it deploys off of this corner up here and that corner catches on your like the corner seam of your jeans, uh, like the corner seam of your jeans, mm, and it uh pushes the blade out like that, right, and it essentially friction locks in a like base. It's like similar to like a locomotion train wheel. Um, but this is my like sit in the pocket, uh, scoop out and deploy in one motion and uh, punch people or dogs. Um, now that I walk a dog like three to five miles a day and I see how bad all the other dogs are, my number one thing is like I'm probably gonna have to kill another dog. I don't. I'm more likely to have to kill another dog than another person because a lot of people just are awful at training their dogs, which is just a sad thing nowadays.
Speaker 1I have no desire to kill a dog, but if it comes between your dog running up and biting mine or me like dude, I'm not going to wrestle your dog for a minute while it's throat locked on mine.
Speaker 2I'm just going to cut your dog. Minute, while it's throat locked on mine. I'm just gonna cut your dog. It's a. It's a, yeah, it's a. As someone who's been attacked multiple times by dogs, yeah, you know, I think, uh, it is, it's a. It's a reality that you know you got to watch out for, especially like little kids, yeah, little kids and and bad dogs is, uh is bad, um, you got to keep an eye out for them.
Speaker 1But anyways, there's my second knife. All right, I like it.
Speaker 2It's like a.
Speaker 1Do you?
Speaker 2also like it Because it looks like a velociraptor's Talon. You know, claw.
Speaker 1Here's my third knife. It's the same thing that Pat pulled out just a minute ago, but it's a little more worn on the scuffed because I I keep it on my back side, um, and I keep it like this, so that way the clip is on my belt and this is flash flush against my back, but it's there so I can reach back with my left hand and grab it, and grab it like I'm reaching for my wallet, so. So that's kind of my like. I guess if I got someone who's got the drop on me pretty good and I'm like dude, I don't know if I could clear my appendix holster quick enough I could grab that toss wallet and, in the motion of handing the wallet over, start going to town and start punching.
Speaker 2Would you ever just give the wallet and get out of there?
Speaker 1For sure, depending on the situation. Right like, you want options, you want options. Here's my biggest thing is like, if they're willing to threaten my life for my stuff, that's enough for me to believe that they actually mean it would be willing to take my life after they got my stuff. But you know, let's say it's Billie Jean and I and someone who just looks like they want to jet, and if it's in a position where I'm like, ooh, I can't really clear Billie Jean from being behind me or my backstop, then I'll probably do what I can until I have a pretty good opportunity.
Speaker 1If the good opportunity never arises, then you know, you just cross your fingers and pray to God that you're fast enough in the moment if it looks like they're going for it. But all that is like one of those things where you just pretty much got to trust the moment. It's pretty bad to draw on a drawn gun. Your only hope is really distracting. And the one thing I've seen work really good in a lot of actual use cases, especially in like Brazil, and all that is homies just grabbing their wallet and fumbling it, tossing it on the ground and then they either just go to town with a knife or a gun like the attacker and it's just pretty good.
Speaker 1Most attackers don't think to tell you to pick it up. They go to pick it up. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2Because they want it so bad?
Speaker 1yeah, because their next hit is their next I need that for my heroin, exactly, anyways, uh, but if you guys will notice, I was just making fun of pat. I was like what? What gay retard carries three knives um, I said that I will never insult someone if it's not something I'll insult myself about. Um, so there we go. Uh now, uh right side pocket. So I'll say this uh, keys hang off left side belt loop, uh like just actually on the like very left side of me not on my back, not on my front.
Speaker 1This is a back left pocket. This is on right pocket Front, like right side pant pocket. This is behind my back left back pocket. So this is like just above that. This is other stuff in the right side pocket Some Zemos.
Speaker 2I love me my Zemos, all right. I don't know if I've heard of those yet.
Speaker 1Eight milligrams. Oh wow, they're heavy 20 pouches, eight milligrams for like $.99. Wow, yeah, suck on that. Zen zen's also like eight bucks now dude.
Speaker 2Yeah, today it was insane, it was 9.50.
Speaker 1No, no, dude, you used to be able to buy three cans for that. I know I love these. Right here I have a bag of 10 and this is just the same pair I've been using for a long time. I might actually only have nine now, because I think I put them on a buddy because he's like I can break out of those. You cannot break out of these.
Speaker 1But these are basically like nylon shoelace lock cuffs and this plastic blue piece here. If you pull it through, there's no way to undo it, there's no way at all to undo. So once, once you tighten it down with whatever's in these loops, uh, you have to cut it all right, which is also a nice thing to have multiple knives. Uh, to cut right, because if you're like, okay, well, I've, I've assessed the situation, this person is not a threat, so I'm going to cut them loose. So I can, you know, deal with whatever else, right, um, which we'll go through a couple scenarios, I guess, of how that actually almost played out. Uh, at the church security thing, uh, but zemos love them. Nice, beautiful nicotine logs. Um, my phone is recording, um, so it's up there. I actually don't walk around with headphones most of the time. I only have headphones if I'm out walking the dog, but if I'm leaving the home I don't usually bring them. And then nice, big old fat Carhartt leather wallet.
Speaker 2You got a fat one going on.
Speaker 1Yeah, but it's like it's mostly fat because of all that cash. Left side is like all the business cards I've received. Right side is all my like membership cards and stuff, and then it's got a like second compartment mini wallet oh yeah so when I don't have pockets for the big one, I just bring this one with like a credit card in my id.
Speaker 2Yeah, I like that, I like that and that's you know, like the because people sometimes give me, give me flack for having all that card in my id. Yeah, I like that, I like that and that's. You know, like the because people sometimes give me, give me flack for having all that stuff in my wallet. But I'm, like, I'm not the type of person who's gonna like, if I'm going out of the house, like have the plan for the day that I might like I'm gonna go to like the library and the gym and the grocery store, so I need to like bring that gift card I got and this membership, it's like.
Speaker 2No, I just have that in my pocket because when I get somewhere and I don't have that thing I like want to freak out yeah you know. So I gotta stay stacked and lots of guys give me flack for it. But I think that part of responsibility as a man is just being ready for what's coming up, and lots of stuff in your wallet can be very helpful like getting that discount from king supers at the gas, exactly, um, all right.
Tunnel Vision During Emergency Scenarios
Speaker 1This thing, though, this is actually the thing I carry the most. I carry this more than anything else because I have a rule. My rule is, if I'm putting pants on pants on gun on, all right, um, and a lot of people are like, yeah, but like you know what, you can't do that all the time because of sweats or whatever. I'm like, no, no, I can't do it all the time because I am rocking an enigma. Oh yeah, for people who don't know, the enigma is a separate inner belt that, uh, you can place on um, so you're wearing this like magnetic latch here, and that allows you to essentially wear this when you're wearing sweats or shorts or swim trunks, whatever, and you can tighten this yourself on your inner lining, right over your boxers and like an undershirt if you want, and that allows you that you don't have to wear a belt on the outside or like some kind of reinforced sweats or whatever, um, and so I really like it a lot, and this holster I have is the holster specifically for just the tlr1 um light. So you can see, here I got my shadow systems and this tlr light, though I can put it on myX-45, which is a much bigger gun and that can go and fit in this holster just as well, with the trigger covered tight On the back of the holster I have a Velcro pad and a nice soft Protect my Nuts pillow, because, if you think about it, this pillow is like going next to my nuts or my balls and, uh, it angles the gun out away from them.
Speaker 1It is also just nice and comfy to have that on um and then so also, people know our firearms. We have our dry fire mags in them, which I imagine is what pat wants to kind of show off together. But this dry fire mag means there can't be an actual round in the chamber because the magazine's not a real magazine and it just helps reset the trigger which I.
Speaker 2I think, though, if you do have, you can have your gun go off if you put a round in there and then put the dry fire mag in and pull the trigger. I think it depends on the gun right, but just for the you know.
Speaker 1Oh sure, just for you know it's like I don't think you can put a nine millimeter round with the mag for the glock style. Oh yeah, I don't think the I think I think the spring will get in the way of it going yeah, which is good, but either way it's still, you know you clear it and you go dry fire.
Speaker 2but what I like, so like also with that pillow it's pushing it back into you, so this seems like your printing is so minimal too, since this top is pulling it in from the outside on your belt.
Speaker 1If you imagine, my jeans belt loops are going over this with the leather. You can see I wear it all the time. It's super warning. These are backup mags. They are the legal limit, YouTube. They are the legal limit, YouTube, don't worry, YouTube. Uh, they're what I'm illegally allowed to have. They're only loaded up to the legal limit YouTube. Um, but I keep them in a um, oh. What's it called? Uh, blue alpha, not blue alpha, Is it blue alpha?
Speaker 2Yeah, the blue Larry Vickers company.
Speaker 1I think it's blue alpha. Um, but it's Blue Alpha, but they're like stretchy nylon pistol bag holster. And then I'm walking around with this other 15-round magazine running some Norma silver hollow points. Because of the werewolves in our neighborhood They've gone bad. So you're hitting four mags normally. No, I'm running.
Speaker 2Sorry, this one's usually okay in there, all right, and then?
Speaker 1these are on my backup, okay, um, but I have been playing around with the idea of throwing an extra liner right here, next another holster right here to hold a tourniquet, um, but I'm not sure I like that format more than the tourniquet on, like in a pocket outside on the waistband you know um.
Speaker 1So all that said, because I also think like if I have the tourniquet and I'm shot and I need someone to get it to put it on me, I don't want them to panic if they see my gun you know and not help me so there's.
Speaker 1There's some scenarios of that I'm playing through, but that is my edc, uh, sans the phone. Um, I don't think. Yeah, I don't think there's anything else mick usually carries. Let me check real quick. Oh, I got a dog bag here, that's empty yep but, nice, usually edc and doggy treats in here. Oh nice, I'm a big dog owner now I'm a dog, dad, you went all in um, yeah, so I think that's it.
Speaker 1And then I have my uh, I become a pretty regular backpack, one strap sling backpack guy just because you can honestly just carry so much more, um, and like I have my laptop in there and all that, which is great. But the number one stuff, like number one things I have in there that I really appreciate the sling bag gives me the ability to carry, is a little bit of body armor, especially if I want to hand that backpack off to someone else, like Billy Jean, you know, to keep them bodied, um. And then I have, of course, my IFAC in there with enough, you know, medical stuff to use on me, but also, um, a little bit of extra space for, like, um, if I want to have medical stuff staged to put on other people, um, and then I have most days, um, especially if I'm like actually going into town and rolling around.
Speaker 1I got the Flux running around inside with a couple backup mags and it's all secured in their compartments, essentially commuting um and having like compartmentalized stuff for like your gun in one part, pocket your ifac in another and then your daily usage stuff like keyboard, laptop, notebook, charging cords all that in another. Yeah uh, it's called the vertex commuter 2.0. If anyone's interested in it's a great sling bag. So far I really like it. The only thing is if you do use it daily it is going to wear down a lot faster than I think you might expect. So I already got some sewing I need to do on it to like secure some stuff.
Speaker 1Nothing like detrimental, but, pat, you can see here like it's just oh yeah, at the most high stress points some of the weaker threadings coming in on dead. Yeah, but the only thing that's doing is just keeping the foam inserts covered. Yeah, so, but anyways, it's a pretty great backpack. I like it a lot and I've walked like probably 12 hours with it on at most and it's sore. But you put on the support waistline buckle and it totally shifts all the weight to your waistline. You're just not going to get to it. You're not going to swing it around and get your gun out as fast, but also if you're walking around 12 hours a day like that, you probably don't know.
Speaker 2you're ready to whip it quite so fast?
Speaker 1Maybe. Yeah, I was in DC, so I was like, oh, there's no gun in here, anyways, yeah I maybe. Yeah, I was in dc so I was like, oh, there's no gun in here, anyways, yeah, um I, I had my knives on me for dc so, but anyways, all right, that's, uh, that's mix edc. Yeah, I will say, I'm not cheating here, because I would like to be carrying medical on my body all day, every day, and I just haven't done, I haven't started carrying it every day, all, all day. It's pretty much always on me whatever I'm taking the backpack.
Speaker 2And that's you know. That's where at some point you do have to kind of. You only have so many pockets and so much. You know that you're it's. You want to prepare for the scenarios you could encounter, but it does. At some point it gets a little difficult to, like, you know, have, you know, have your hundred foot of P cord in your back pocket just in case you got to repel down something. You know which is why someone hears me say that and says you can't do that P cord but we actually, in college, we designed a sick repelling system with P cord and we tried it out and it didn't break.
Speaker 2I don't even know what P cord is, parachute cord five five, 50 cord like you're got thin stuff, but um, anyways the I always just call it bear cord.
Speaker 1Um, I will, but anyways, like my biggest thing, the way I say that is like I do carry the gun everywhere, every day. My big philosophy is if you're gonna have your concealed carry license and it's gonna be on you, my rule is that wherever the license goes, gun goes too, because I don't want to be caught flat-footed, someone taking my wallet and seeing my concealed carry license in it and then turn around and blow my brains out because I didn't have my gun on me, or just laughing at you and insulting you, being like I don't care man dude, if they insult me and I'm not dead, that like they open it up and they're
Speaker 2like you don't even have, like I'm insulted that you didn't come to party.
Speaker 1Again. At the end of the day, all I care about is going on live. They can make fun of me as much as they want, but I would imagine here's my thing If I'm stealing from you and I see that you handed me your wallet and it's got your CCW license in it, I'm going to shoot you in the face because I'm not taking any risk today with you trying to be a hero or something. You know what I mean, yep.
Speaker 2Yeah, no for sure, and the yeah, so the that's where I've. I don't carry all the time anymore and a big part of that being like, did you ever carry daily? There was a point in time. But then, like, honestly, like working construction and crawling around all the time, like crawling around in a crawl space with like a pistol on you one I'm in people's houses all the time like I think that's like a. I do think that's a little bit of a violation of trust in some ways.
Speaker 1you know to be like, you know going in people's homes that way, yikes, I mean, you know I go in everybody's home that way, you know I say that more as like right me, like violated people's trust but like I'm talking like sometimes 10, 15 houses of strangers a day.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's for real and so I get it and then some people are like well then, how do you protect yourself? I'm like well, I just, I just let them rate me, you know it you just know it's going to happen when you sign up for sure.
Speaker 2And so I, I I'm not a everyday, all day, but um, I do, um, I do, yeah, I, I, I have it when at other times you know, and yeah, so really, with my job, my job, it doesn't feel, it feels like it actually be in some ways less safe and you know to be crawling around in attics and everything and whatever else.
Speaker 2So especially, you know like I wouldn't want like the maintenance man like carrying a hot piped pistol, like while he's doing like gyrations and spider monkeying in the attic over my kid's bedroom. You know like just it's kind of so that's that's. You know that's part of my stuff there. But yeah, when I'm carrying my holster is pretty simple, I might upgrade at some point, you know, with to something a little more that I can, a little more adjustable and fine tuning, and then also I don't have a light on right now that I'm actually gonna also have to get a upgrade at that point. I figured I'd get something nice once the light. That's also what I want to start daily.
Speaker 1I used to always edc a flashlight, yep, and then I my flashlight died on me. It was a. It was a pretty nice surefire that just like combusted itself. So I was like, all right, well, I don't know what to get now, and I just had like buyer's hesitation and I never bought another flashlight, right, so I really should. I just don't, and there's no excuse. I know I should have a flashlight because the issue is a lot of people like, well, I got a flashlight in my gun. I'm like, yeah, but what if you need id something? You don't want the gun? Point that thing.
Speaker 2You know what I mean? Yep, because there's that's one thing. There's lots of videos of cops like using their flashlight and like, uh, like there isn't a threat, there's nothing going on, but they're pulling out their gun and and just how to have it pulling their gun and spotlighting something like yeah, over top of a patient, or something like there's someone on the ground hurt, or whatever, trying to find something like so yeah, that's where I do, like the, I do have a light, my pen light comes in and then I do, yeah, we'll get something on here. I'm looking at the TRH eight, seven or eight. It's like a just a little little.
Speaker 2You know the smaller version for this guy, um, just a p365, uh, x macro. Um, I do like the size of this carry and the. You know the old 365s have that shorter grip. I do like the. You really kind of a full size ish grip with as far as length goes and then, but just that, that lower profile for for walking around. And I do think that if you're going to carry, you should, whatever you're carrying, you should get get something you feel comfortable carrying in, because you will carry more. Like, yeah, if you have something that's, you know, super inconvenient, then you're gonna, you're gonna make the decision to not carry that day based. You shouldn't be making a decision based off of comfort. Yeah, right, like you can. If you have other reasoning, fine, but you know, if it's, um, uh, if it's a comfort thing, then you don't want to do that. But so it's usually. You know this guy, I just carry one spare mag and potential capacities of this 365 mag, two of them. You could have quite a few rounds if you wanted, you know.
Speaker 1Here's what I think, man. I started like role playing scenarios in this game called Ready or Not, and the first level of the game is a couple armed robbers at a gas station and it's a SWAT game where you're supposed to go in as a SWAT team, but you can just set it up, so you're just going in with your sidearm. You get to set how many mags you want if you got any body armor. And I will say I realized in a shooter situation, like in a gas station or something like that, having one mag or two mags is a fucking nightmare. Oh yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1You're just like okay, maybe if there's one person, right, but like there's a couple times I've seen videos of like three or four guys knocking a gas station off, yep, and I'm just like holy shit, like one mag is certainly not enough, like I'm not I'm not john wick, I'm not getting all head shots, you know what I mean. And like also, two mags didn't feel like enough. So for me, I'm always like, whether it's this or the fnx 45, um, I'm always going out with three mags, yeah.
Speaker 2Or the flux, the flux, I'm always rolling out with a couple four mags yeah just because I can do store it in the backpack for sure, and that's where, like the, you know, and at the time at, at this moment in time, my capacity is completely okay. In the future it may not be, you know, sure, so so, and that's a different story. But you know, with um, I've got buddies who have like a, they carry pistol with like a seven round mag. Right, I'm like, yeah, you should probably have more, because they carry three mags and my one 17 round mag is basically just as much as they have, right, so the um, you know what 34 rounds, you know, I don't know I don't know so it's not quite that you know's.
Speaker 2I see where it could be. Here's the deal. It would the at the. You know. Obviously, at the moment when it totally runs dry and you wish you had a third one, yeah, that's that moment you've realized you messed up. But for the time being, I keep the, I keep the one spare. Um, and I do also. I actually keep my uh whenever I I keep this where I keep my gun, I keep my tourniquet actually on top of it, Because when I pull my, when I put my gun on, I put my tourniquet there for one, so I don't forget it.
Speaker 2But two, as a little bit of a mindset thing to go like what is the purpose of this tool that's coming with me today and it is supposed to be a life-saving and protection tool? You know, and so and that's sometimes how we see guns you know, just depending on, you know where you're at with everything, and so this is just a gut check, mindset, check that when I if and when I'm carrying I've got I'm, I'm going to, if I'm taking something to take life, I'm also taking something to save life. It's just like a little thing in my, in my mind, to just just sets my mind right of like. You know, this isn't my road rage thing.
Speaker 2It's not coming out to show that I got a big old wiener, you know um why, is this here, it's for a purpose of protection specifically of others. And that's one of the thing, too where I've said this before, I think, on the pod where I really part of why I don't carry it all the time is I don't carry for self-defense, which I know sounds weird.
Speaker 2I carry for typically defense of others, right and that's where lots of people's mindset is too, but that's a part of you know where in general. That's kind of where my mindset sits on some of these things and obviously I'll protect myself, you know, but the main reason why is for those around me or what's going on around me. So that's kind of where I fall with those things. But yeah, that's what. I've been carrying this for a while. I like it. I like this little guy. Were you putting it in the tourniquet? You're putting it, not when I'm carrying it.
Speaker 2No, Like in my safe. Yeah, okay, this is sitting on top of it or in the slot where I have it. It sits in front of me. It's like this is what I see first. Sits in front of me. It's like this is what I see first.
Speaker 1I put that in my pocket and then I, then I load up, you know. So when are you carrying that church usually?
Speaker 2yes, okay, all right, yeah, so that's like you know, like that's where, like you know.
Speaker 1I just was wondering, like what are the scenarios that you're? Deeming it like okay, I'm bringing this with me today yeah, you know there's certain like.
Speaker 2You know, if I'm going out with my family somewhere, or to, or to spots where, where I call like target rich environments, meaning from the perspective perspective of a bad guy, you know if and um perspective of a bad guy, spots where people they'd want to. You know lots of people are gathering and uh kind of mass, uh, you know threat type stuff. So um and then or and or. You know if if we're going long drives in the mountains, whatever, then it's it's coming in the car you know that sort of thing too yeah, so yeah sick.
Speaker 1Well, people, let us know what your edc is, um, and let us know why ours is gay and dumb. Um, I will say, definitely, check out these dry fire mags. Show the bottom of them. We're not sponsored by them right now, but they did offer to sponsor the show, which is kind of cool. But essentially they allow you to pull the trigger and it resets the trigger for you, which I think is pretty sick and a great dry fire trainer. And you can tune that spring reset to be pretty close to the weight of your trigger as it breaks, um, normally. So anyways, big fans of dry fire mag, you can get, you know, thousands of thousands of reps in for basically cost of nothing, cost of the dry fire mag and and for certain models of guns they've come out with the sweet new one with the laser.
Speaker 2So when you shoot it puts a little dot where you're. You know generally where you're going to be hitting.
Speaker 1Yeah, I really want that one.
Speaker 2Yep, and they didn't have it for the 365 yet I think they do have it for the Shadows and the Glocks, but it is more money.
Speaker 1You know More mon, I was in the clocks, but it is more money, you know, but more monies. But it is a nice little tool. So I'll say this I know where my bullets are going. Oh yeah, they're going wherever I'm aiming. Yeah, um, anyways, uh, all that said, the edc stuff.
Speaker 1Full circle back to training for stop the bleed at the church. Right, we were doing our training, which a lot of it, you know. We encouraged our security team at our church to, you know, come prepared to learn, but also, like, bring stuff that you would have on you usually, right, so that way we can go over this and hopefully you learn what you have on. You's probably not Um, but also, like you know, okay, if I had the turnkey on me, how would I use that? You know, gauze, chest wounds, stuff like that, um, so all I said we had a individual come out to teach us. Uh, he goes by tie and tie.
Speaker 1Um is a search and rescue guy. Um, he's been tasked on those teams for quite a while and he also attends attachment, just like our buddy Rice-A-Roni, but he just does some pretty cool, badass tactical medicine up in the mountains and he pretty much came and taught us for free. We of course tipped him for his services because we were so thankful for his time and all that. But the dude was very generous. He came out and just did a very thorough presentation on items, um, regarding you know, the stop, the bleed course, uh, and kind of a lot of the official materials and how they apply in a combat setting, which of course doesn't apply usually in an emergency scenario in church. But then he helped us adapt a lot of that training and how it could be used for a scenario of, like, an active shoot at church or, you know, a horrible accident.
Speaker 3And Pat kind of mentioned one of the big things that we learned was you, the difference between, uh, life threatening and distracting injuries, you know, and not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything, not everything not everything.
Speaker 1So for the best you know and get them to the emergency services as soon as possible. So, anyways, all that said, it was a really great training, but I think the thing that I learned the most was from, honestly, because all the medical stuff was stuff I already knew. I did know, I did hear from a lot of our guys that they had never heard or gotten that kind of medical level education. And for those who don't know, like imagine cpr and then ratchet that up to like you know, a level in which you're applying medical, life-saving knowledge for like a mass mass triage, like Boston Marathon bombing, which was also a lot of the examples of right is like how are you doing triage for a scenario like this? As like a citizen who's prepared, but not a nurse, not a doctor, not an EMS. So I know a lot of guys said that that was phenomenal, but the thing that I thought was certainly most valuable for me was the scenarios that we were running at the end, where we'd have three people on our team step out and then everyone else in the auditorium or sanctuary for the church would be given a role of what to do, um, and then the three coming in would have to freaking, immediately assess what the hell's going on and who's shooting who? Or is the shooting over? Uh, okay, who's who needs help where? And who's just in the way? Who's a distraction? How do I control the distractions? Um, and so those were all really good and I think, pat, you know, I'm curious to hear your opinions. I think, pat, you know I'm curious to hear your opinions. But I think the number one thing that I saw that I think most people were aware of at the end, the thing I saw that I thought was most detrimental, was 100% like that tunnel vision of zeroing in on like oh, there's someone on the ground who's hurt, or oh, there's someone with a gun, and just tunneling in on that and not being aware of everything else around you.
Speaker 1In the scenario, like I know, when I was running in, I honed in on a guy who was apparently our good guy with a gun in this situation. I drew on him, gave him commands, told him up against the wall, took his gun from him. Wasn't the real shooter and the real shooter was over by the wall, just shooting us. Yeah, yelling bang, bang, bang, bang. Uh, we were all dead. I don't think anyone shot him. Um, which was crazy because I just honed in so hard on that one guy with the gun and, of course, we had a buddy who was pretending to be dead next to him, and so I I was like, oh my gosh, like what is going on here? Is this guy going to switch on me in the last moment? I need to secure this weapon. In reality, you know, I guess you would have I would have still heard banging from the other side of the room, gunshots from the other side of the room, but it only takes one gunshot to like take your lights out. So it was one of those things where I saw it for myself.
Speaker 1Everyone on that run, though, didn't spot the shooter. Everyone zoned in on doing medical triage for the people who were injured, um, and there's a couple other ones. I saw, like people really really honing in on the work with their hands, whether that's putting um a tourniquet on and not being aware of a gun laying right next to them, um, or being aware of a gun still on the person you're trying to take care of, yeah, um, or I think a big one was. There was someone who's running around trying to get asked, like trying to help out, and he wasn't aware that he was flagging his gun on a lot of people and he was like, do you need help? And he'd put his hand out or talk or something, and that gun would be like pointing at the head of the dude who's trying to stuff a wound.
Speaker 1You know what I mean? It's just like, oh man, like so there was so much to learn from it. Um, and I think everybody walked away being like whoa, there's a lot here that, like, I need to think about and start, you know, playing through my mind and have a better idea of, like how to be more situationally aware, but also, like, more prepared for how to handle it when I have to. You know, oh my gosh, there's a lot of blood. I need to start packing this guy's wound or applying a tourniquet.
Speaker 2I also need to secure my weapon and not just set it on the ground so definitely, and I think that when I had very similar situ, similar reflections, because, um, the, the devils and the details on all this stuff, where you have, um, you go through, there's like there's so many different parts, so many different things to train on, that you then, in a scenario, have to activate all at one time stuff, and then, um, crowd control, um, and then, uh, medical, you know, attention, medical skills, assessing, determining, you know who needs what, when, how, how fast, um, priorities of care, and that too, and then also, uh, communicating with your team, and all those things are, um, all those things are need to be trained individually and and a lot and then and then put together into one because on the first run through the fellows who came in, um, they just didn't talk yeah, there's no communication?
Speaker 2yep, and so basically the way we ran the scenario was two guys came in first and then a third guy would come in, respond, as you know, a couple seconds later. So by the time this the second way, two guys come in and the second guy comes in. He's like looking around, like what's going on, who needs help? Like where what's happening? Is the shooter down? He doesn't know what's going on. And then, and basically like he was trying to communicate, but he just wasn't being very loud or forceful, yeah, and so nobody was hearing him and the other guys really technically wouldn't even know he was there. Um, and so even just something, something as simple as communication, once that communication breakdown happens, um, it all, you know, it went, uh, silos, yeah, it can spiral downhill fast, and so the I think also too, like the first couple ones, a lot of people not moving, like the injured.
Speaker 1You know it wasn't until, like I think, the third scenario. I saw people picking up and moving people out of the pews to try to be like oh all right, we got to put stuff, got to put stuff on these people, we got to move them Cause there's no way to. It's so hard to triage when they're like laying on a pew or in between pews?
Speaker 2Yep, no for sure. And when? When I ran, I think as, as far as the scenarios go, I ran it three times, if I remember right. The first time was actually my best run through as far as, like, awareness, awareness assessment, assessment, communicating to the team, directing people and making calls, and then it actually it broke down from there and I'll go through those others in a second, but yeah, the first time I did feel like I came in.
Speaker 2You know, it was like all right, I'm, I'm and I I feel like are some of the trainings we've been doing recently because we've done a little cqb run through and things like that. I was able to um, approach it with that um, not having to be top of mind, like it wasn't taking all my bandwidth, and so I was able to clear, walk in, assess and then um, um and then and then also find my voice and give commands. That's part of like. Similarly, with the communication piece, that's what we saw with a couple weeks ago was probably the main breakdown. At the beginning too, it was guys just not talking, not saying anything.
Speaker 3Was it QB Yep.
Speaker 2Nobody knows what's happening, and you might as well not even be holding weapons. Yeah, if you're not talking or using your radios correctly, or talking correctly, you're not. Your weapon's not even going to help you. All it's going to do is get everybody hurt. Um and so, um, I was able to do that, the first run through some you know and direct, and then you know, and then doing the hands-on, uh, applying the you know, tourniquets, chest seals and that, and uh, it's, uh it was. What was surprising, though, was at the end of it, I, my heart rate was up, I was amped, I was in it.
Speaker 2You know like yeah and, uh, a little bit of motor function, a little bit gone, just like even rushing trying to put a tourniquet on. Help, help the situation, you know, go where it needs to go. And so, um, one thing I do wish we need to figure out a way to be able to use radios for training. But I think it was a good call not to this time, because you don't want to be throwing out on airwaves, it could be going everywhere.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Words like shooter, I'm shot, it's people injured, call 911, all these things you know. So we opted to not use our open radio communication to you know, for any nearby. Like you know, people with hardware store would be freaking out.
Speaker 1We should make our own. We just got to encrypt our own channels?
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure, and I think that you know that would. That'll be another layer, because in communication is one thing, then adding radio communication on top of is a whole nother.
Speaker 1Next level difficulty that, yeah, that that's one thing I want to emphasize. That too is like I've even been finding in a couple few trainings I went to, we were doing like entry control, uh points and like how to control those?
Speaker 1uh, I guess you could say entry point control, uh. But a lot of people like just have no confidence on a radio because they've never had to use one before, and so they like hit the button and hold it up to their mouth and like, oh man, what do I actually say? And they just speak plainly at first, or they they kind of mimic what they think it should sound like right like um, uh, pat, uh, this is mick.
Speaker 1No, I mean mick uh, mick. Hey, pat, uh, you, can you come here, yeah, and then they stop it, then they hit it again over you know what I mean and like it's like one of those things are like people who just had no experience on radios, just don't know the kind of like real, like best form of communicating when you only can communicate one way and it's very easy to like cut someone off accidentally, so for sure and uh.
Speaker 2So you have that first scenario. You know went well and then, but are and then the? The second scenario we did messed me up, I think, because I'm not saying I did perfect and it was all this, but because that first one went well. The next time I ran it and we'd been running a few times through, we were also, I will say we were using our real firearms, but with them either broken down or completely cleared or dry fire mags in.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think everyone either had a dry fire mag in or a dummy round in.
Speaker 2Yeah, we had, and we had double man empty checks Just cleared everything, no ammo on site, so it was safe. But that being said, I was. We did run into the scenario again and I was second man in, really third man in, so like two guys went in and then there's loud pops and bangs going on.
Speaker 1That was me stomping on some poppers.
Speaker 2Well, and so what happened? So, but right, but as we went in there, I did I basically broke scenario.
Speaker 1I basically broke scenario, like I mean like cause I was processing in my brain is is the worst thing happening now, which is someone accidentally shot somebody? Which is a training, a training, a training situation gone awry with either one.
Speaker 2You know, you know a couple of things going on. One, yeah, somebody's we messed up. Someone has live ammo to somebody from the out. Somebody walking outside heard and it's kind of like, you know, because it's you know, the walls aren't that thick on our church. You know where someone walking by outside could hear someone yelling stop, get to the ground, whatever. All this stuff like what is going on. And so the I did not perform well on that one. And then, and our instructor, even he kind of was like you know, he's like he was laughing, he was like man, we got you on that one. I was like, yes, but that's because I was processing to like the point of being like what, and because you were in the stairwell, yeah, that was coming. And I'll say, going back to the point where you're saying you know we would probably hear the bang, the real bang bangs, and like see the shooter. Yeah, in that room.
Speaker 2I'm not so sure because it sounded because, because the way that room's designed, it was coming from the top floor, like like the upstairs, and coming off the stage psych this big yeah thing that echoes sound back, and it was like I was trying to locate it and I could not find what was going on. That's crazy. And so there was, like I did um, I was, I was for a few seconds, I was really trying to figure out what is actually happening right now am I going to continue a scenario, yeah, or is this like we have to?
Speaker 2like you know, how did the other guys on your team?
Speaker 1respond because, of course, yeah, I didn't see anything. I was in the stairwell pretending to be dead, I was just stomping on poppers.
Speaker 2That's right, they had already gotten you at that point. No one got me. Well, when you were, no one got you. Oh right, right, because you got killed by a good guy in the church, right, but they were still clearing. But I was just because I, because I'd came in behind them. They had already, like, seen it or known and whatever, but I had no idea and those things smelled pretty smoky. Oh yeah, they did. I was like, and so, anyways, it did, it threw me for a loop, so I did um, I guess in some ways I I dropped the ball, but also in other ways I was like I did not know this was gonna happen.
Speaker 1It was awesome what he pulled about, and so we'll get them.
Speaker 2Good, I was like, oh yeah, so as a part of being like I'm kind of responsible for this, like seeing what's going on, like anyway, so, um, uh, but you know that run through, um, some of the things, you know, other things we had happen was one time, a couple times, we killed the good guy, you know right like um, because, because you runam Because you run into this situation.
Speaker 2You run into this room and there's guns going off, there's people all around and chaos going on. And we did our role players, our guys. People were screaming, some people were yelling, hollering. We were playing heavy metal music on phones all around the room. It was pretty disorienting.
Learning from Live Training Failures
Speaker 1One of the dudes that we have on our team is an actual cop. Um was walking up behind us with this phone and his flashlight on. Just be like. I don't think you're doing that right, just harassing do you? Know what you're doing, do you? He was just like, literally just trying to be like one of the most pestering bystanders, not cooperating like the youtube videos you see of people like harass like just like name and badge number.
Speaker 2Name and badge number dude's trying to like save somebody's life and so, but you know you run in there and reality is other people carry, you know. And so if you get in these situations where you know you got to determine what's going on and we improved as we went on that where it's like alright, we're not just going to just blow everybody away, we're going to approach this a little differently.
Speaker 1I do think it was pretty realistic though, and especially for a lot of those guys who I know are a little bit less experienced in the rehearsing and role-playing concept and practice. But I know for a lot of them they were like, oh shit, I totally just killed Mick and Mick was playing himself. Or like, oh, I totally just blasted pat and pat was actually a good guy here in this situation. Um, and then, as like time went on, they'll like the enunciation and clarity was a lot better, which I think I got to a point where I think every one of those guys now, when they're sitting in service, are probably mentally in a place where they'll announce themselves. If something happened and we ran in right, they'd be like oh yeah, it's me, it's, it's rice, it's rice, don't shoot. And be like, oh okay, you know, I mean, because then it's like, honestly, the person who's probably most likely to respond to that threat is one of us who's not serving that sunday in the auditorium yeah, while the rest of us are kind of patrolling around.
Speaker 1Yeah, because we're only we're fluxing in and out a lot of the time, but that's also because there's usually, like I don't know, 10 people each service who are probably packing.
Speaker 1So it's like one of those things of like someone's in there who's probably going to respond to the threat and there's other areas of the church that are a little bit more higher priority, um, but it was cool to see everyone rehearse that entry and positive identification as well as, like people on the role play side, getting an opportunity to rehearse the like, self-positive identification of like hey hey, it's me, it's you know, your friend, the shooter's done we're good you know um, but anyways, the one that really shook, shook me and I think you know what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1I think so was I involved in it, yeah, yeah the one that like shook me about just like how zeroed in we can get.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, was pat and a couple and two other guys were providing triage because at this point we had the shooter was down, shooter was gone and there was only one guy left to take care of yep and so he had three dudes trying to stuff his wounds with cloth or not cloth, but like with gauze, as well as um did he have any tourniquets? That you guys had to put on.
Speaker 1It was tourniquets and chest sealing there was noodles there that were supposed to simulate his arms, and I remember seeing a couple of guys trying to stuff the noodles Yep, you know what I mean. So, like pool noodles for people who don't know, pool noodles are great because they got a hole in them, so it kind of functions as a channel in an arm or a leg and you get to really pack it tight.
Speaker 1But anyways, the injured individual had a firearm on him that no one noticed while they're like attending his wounds For a few minutes, oh yeah, and he was being like a little semi belligerent, which is, like you know, just uncooperative patient, you know and he was like reaching his hand up and grabbing for the wound packing or the chest seal or the tourniquet every once in a while, and you guys were like hey, buddy, hey, keep your hand there, keep your hand on your chest, keep your hand. Like giving him the good, friendly commands, like hey, I'm trying to save your life, keep your hand out of the way, right.
Speaker 1And I thought that was all great and good until this guy goes for his gun and his gun was on his like three o'clock on his right side he starts drawing it out of the holster and people were like keep your hand still, keep your hand still. And then I don't know who noticed the gun first, but someone was like gun, gun, gun and two pairs, sorry, three pairs of hands were on the gut. At one point, pat, you had one hand on the barrel of the gun, another guy and I was pushing it into his body.
Speaker 1So he couldn't pull it out. You were pushing it against him. But another guy grabbed the gun and started pulling on the like grip of it away, and so the patient who had just pulled his gun out actually released it. And it was just Pat and this other guy trying to provide triage. Both of them focused on two different parts of triage, trying to secure the weapon, without realizing they were pulling against each other, and so you guys were doing like a tug of war back and forth. And then what happened? And then Pat thought, damn dude, this guy's really trying to shoot us with his gun, like I'm'm gonna stop him. And so pat pulled his gun out and shot this dude in the chest, killed him yeah, killed, killed the patient. And what was crazy was like end scenario was called, and still you and the other guy weren't aware of what happened. You guys still didn't know because there's no other third eyes to tell you.
Speaker 1You know what?
Speaker 2I mean Yep, yeah. Until we debriefed, I didn't know that's what had happened.
Speaker 1And your expression when we were doing debrief, trying to explain to you what just happened, you and that other guy on the team were gobsmacked.
Speaker 2I still don't believe it's real in my. Not that I don't trust you. What I'm saying is in my memory.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's not what happened it was the most insane thing I've ever seen in my life. Like it would in a role play scenario. I'm like this like we want. I wanted to yell. It was a car exit, bro. I wanted to scream stop, stop. Like you're fighting over the cat. It was just like and I remember ty putting his hand on my shoulder just like, let it happen like let it play out, let's see where this goes and I smoked him dude, it was crazy, it was unreal it was uh, not uh, yeah, that was uh, um, and yes, it was from my perspective, because it's funny, it really is.
Speaker 2Like my memory. I have no memory of the other guy's hand on it, just me and the patient, and basically what we had gotten to was like the training was if you see a gun on somebody, you know, you just kind of, hey, sir, you know, do you mind if I see a weapon? Do you mind if I remove that for you? Keep us both safe? And um, I saw the gun and then I start. It registers in my mind okay, gun. And then I'm like, then I start in my mind, just like as I'm starting to process, what do I say?
Speaker 2oh, and I'm like as I'm supposed to say, sir, and he's reaching, then he reaches, then he pulls it, he's pulling it out so then I put, I did put a hand on it, push it into him and from my perspective, the rest of the time he is just fighting me and fighting me and I don't think I told him to drop the gun I don't, I don't know, dude, I was so.
Speaker 1I was so in the moment everybody kind of like tunnel vision did. I took whatever they were focused on.
Speaker 2They saw, but they didn't see like the whole thing and it's like, but yeah, so I was like I was just what I was trying to do was push down so he couldn't get it out. Yeah, and then, um, and then, yeah, I did, uh, I had to draw across my body and I actually had a scrape for like a week on my belly from getting my gun out because I was bent over forward. Yeah, and I ripped it out hard and just pinky jammed it contact shot.
Speaker 1For those who don't know, I feel like we could do this here with the lamette as an example. The patient had pulled the gun out like this and was leaning it up towards Pat and Pat grabbed the barrel and the other person providing triage had reached over like this and pushed the patient's hand off. And then Pat and this guy are zigzagging back across and the patient's not even involved anymore. It was unreal. It was probably the most insane thing. It is one of those things where, like you see that, you're like wow, wasn't that crazy? And then you're like holy smokes, like what else happens in? Like the?
Speaker 2moment.
Speaker 1Funny, but not funny.
Speaker 1Because, then you watch some body cams and you see that happen with police, where, like one police officer is recovering their weapon off the ground but because it looks like it's next to the dude and people get hands mixed up, the other officer's like gun, gun, gun and draws and shoots the dude. You know, I mean, it's just like it's crazy stuff like that, with like shadows and lights and lots of noises and lots of different things requiring your focus and it's. It's actually super easy to make that kind of mistake and I and I think that's why also, no one was like dude, you idiot. Like all of us watched it and all of us were like no one is dumb here.
Speaker 2Like this happened because it could happen to literally anyone right in that heat of the moment oh yeah, and we had, uh, there was, like I said, we had one guy on a camera phone recording like you know, like being like a guy who's like pretending to record you. We had a. Our instructor was had his strobe, his like five billion lumen strobe going on.
Speaker 1He was like am I helping? Am I helping? Do you guys need light?
Why Training Matters More Than Gear
Speaker 2yeah, and so all these things going on and yeah, like in my memory of what happened, it was exactly not what happened, you know so funny. So it's uh definitely eye-opening to see how that, how those scenarios play out and the um and and just so proving too. I'm like, uh, how you know and people know this, but how you talk about eyewitness reports being so skewed and non-viable, you know, you ask two people, get two totally different stories.
Speaker 1Yeah, I wouldn't have believed it, had someone said it and I wasn't there, I would have been like that didn't happen yeah.
Speaker 1But all that said too, I can't remember how many times I did it, but at the end of the day, I found the scenario was very valuable and that was just so cool to see everyone post scenario. Like the behavior of the room before we did the scenarios was like, wow, this is really cool, learn a lot, man. That's some pretty gory imagery, but we did like we know. We had everyone practice stuff and noodles and everyone was like, wow, it actually would be pretty hard to pack a wound and we had people practicing tourniquets on each other and be like, wow, okay, so this thing needs to be really, really tight. Yeah, way tighter than you think it needs to be. We were screaming and I had bruises after.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, me too, dude yeah, um, and like the nice bruises, like the green line around your leg, um, but uh, it was when the scenarios happened where I saw it click for everybody you know and and post scenarios. We did the debrief and everyone was just like dude, this was the best training I've ever had when it comes to medical stuff. This is the most like informative stuff I've received and I just thought that was pretty sick. Uh, and it was really cool because that guy, that who did our training tie, I know he he really wanted to provide something that was valuable to everybody and I tried to let him know like hey, there's no one here who's like a tier one operator, right, but I think he came in still thinking like I mean, I don't want to waste these guys times and I feel, like everyone walked away thinking like dude, especially for the cost of free 99.
Speaker 1This was amazing, yeah, um. So anyways, all that said, uh, I do think training is the most important thing when it comes to actually learning skills, and I don't think training is reading a book. I'll be honest, training is not following a PowerPoint. Training is putting your hands on stuff, rehearsing, doing some role play. Live action. Role play is the best thing you can do. Yep, seen, doing some role play, live action. Role play is the best thing you can do. Yep, um, and so, all that said, I found that to be super advantageous and it certainly changed. Like I said, you know, I am still playing around with the method for the daily carry for these medical supplies on body. Um, I think I might go for the boot ifAC, like the boot belt IFAC. It just seems like probably the most effective way to have it. I got all my pant legs can go around it. It's easy to actually put that in your boots.
Speaker 2Especially as we enter warm season, when you're like you know, in the winter we got you know vests and coats and everything. You're squared away. But, yeah, as you enter into you know, you know warmer season, getting all that stuff on you, yeah, and I think that and it's not that much extra stuff to have on you if you're already in the game yeah, you know, it's like and uh, back to where I was talking about you know, like, kind of like, why we are putting that tourniquet on top of my pistol before I put it in.
Speaker 2It's like like you know, um to speak to what you carry, and training would be you know, know why you carry what you carry, know how to use it. You know, have a, have an understanding of it, um, and then, if you're going to do it, you should take it all the way to having, you know, having the, the, the gear and the stuff that is going to um be helpful in one of these situations, if you find yourself in that situation. And then finally, yeah, larp with it, live action, role play, run through scenarios, and because I'll tell you what, I've spent a couple thousand hours watching gun tubers and med videos. Yeah, I'll tell you what. They barely helped.
Speaker 1Yeah, the scenario. They didn't do a shitload for us. I can't tell you how many hours of CQB I watched and then when we did our CQB training, I was like this didn't fucking do shit. It didn't translate at all.
Speaker 2Then that too, being like, if you want to be a guy who rolls around strapped and carries all this stuff, you know, be a, be somebody who can use it and have the mindset to use it, because you know the the super cliche, you know you, you know you rise to the level of your training or whatever you know there's um, you know it's definitely overused phrase, but I think it's true that being said.
Speaker 2I think that um, that um just cause you you could carry, you could roll up, looking like you know Russell from up, you know like you could have every piece of gear in the book, um, but if the tags are still on it and you've never put your hands to it and really understood how to use it, and try to use it in the most real situation to make the situations as real as you can that's why we had poppers going off and and loud music and people screaming and things and um, make make things as as stressful and real as you can. Then it's gonna actually benefit you so much more. Um, and so the yeah, you gotta, because, as case in point of the final story where you know I blacked out and smoked the good guy, you know it's like, you know it's a, you got to, you got to train up to it.
Speaker 1Oh, dude, I think every single one of us again I just want to reiterate, like every single person I know would have done the same thing Right. That was just. It was unreal, like the way the dominoes fell on that. It really was like watching a train pile up. I was like it won't stop. It won't stop unless we do something. Um, it was so funny anyways. Uh, ken, thanks for joining and listening. We appreciate you, we appreciate your comments and we appreciate you giving us feedback and suggestions on what to do, what you want to see, what you like don't like. Um, so, thanks again so much. We hope you're enjoying all this. Uh, you know, emergency preparedness and training stuff that we've been doing lately and posting. Uh, please, please, continue to take it and, you know, apply it to yourselves and improve upon it and become better prepared individuals as well. But with that, pat, you got anything for us.
Speaker 2Till next time Ken.
