Hard Truths, Real Recovery Surviving Spinal Cord Injury with Daniel West

Comfort can feel caring—and still cost you your future. We sit down with Daniel West, a rule-breaking physical therapist who argues that “slow and safe” rehab keeps people stuck, while blunt truth and early, focused movement produce real functional gains. Daniel brings hard-won perspective from his own car accident and years of hospital work, including a devastating story about a 25-year-old who died after being encouraged to stay in bed. His point lands with force: informed consent means telling patients the actual risks of immobility and the physics of recovery, not wrapping them in reassurance that backfires.

We dig into the culture of labels that can quietly define a person’s ceiling—“complete” injuries that supposedly can’t improve—contrasted with cases Daniel has walked back to function in days. He explains why he rejects gimmicks and tech theater in favor of precise load, leverage, and relentless intent, and why he caps his practice at ten patients to protect outcomes. Expect friction around incentives too: if a protocol delivers results in hours, months of billing vanish, and that resistance is real. Daniel’s bottom line i

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💊 Ready to Deprescribe Your Psych Meds?

Psych meds have harmed us—and we’re not just survivors, we’re deeply educated in psychopharmacology, psychology, and nutrition. As hosts of The Gaslit Truth Podcast, we guide people safely off psychiatric medications with strategies grounded in science and brain health

🔥 You’ve been harmed. You’ve been dismissed. It’s time to take your brain back—with guidance from people who’ve been there and know their stuff.

Chapters

• 0:00 Raw intro, mission, and CTA
• 1:04 Meet Daniel West and his origin story
• 2:25 Mental health, labels, and ruthless accountability
• 5:19 Hospital complacency and the cost of “comfort”
• 12:30 The 25-year-old who died from bed rest
• 16:44 Informed consent vs “fear mongering”
• 21:37 Incentives, honesty, and why systems resist speed
• 26:00 Why Daniel caps at ten patients
• 29:36 Cases, timelines, and who he won’t take
• 33:49 Labels, identity, and ignoring diagnoses
• 37:44 Self-rehab, common sense, and movement rules
• 42:36 Social media rehab and exoskeleton hype
• 46:38 Replication, sacrifice, and the missing ingredient

Transcript

Jennifer Schmidtz: 0:00

Disruptors. This episode of the Gaslit Truth Podcast contains adult language and unfiltered conversation. Our passionate guest brings raw honesty and strong opinions to the table, which may not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Rehab isn't slow, safe, or passive. It's a broken system keeping you stuck. We're cutting through the bullshit and showing you what real recovery after spinal cord injury looks like. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, Dr. Terralyn and therapist Jen. And this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Before we crack this wide open, hit the like, smash, subscribe. And if you're on YouTube, ring that bell so you don't miss a thing.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 0:47

And for all you disruptors that are out there listening to us, just remember that Dr. Terralyn and I, we have another hustle, and that's deprescribing. We help people get off psychiatric medication safely for the brain and for the body. So if you've got that on the docket, it's something that you know you want to do for yourself, make sure you reach out to Terry and I and we'll get you hooked up.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 1:06

We're here with Daniel West, a physical therapist who's been breaking the rules of rehab for 30 years. After surviving a devastating car accident in 1997 that left him with a TBI, broken bones, and a ruptured bowel, Daniel proved his doctors wrong by getting back to work and rugby months ahead of schedule and discovered firsthand that slow and safe rehab is often just wasted time. Frustrated with a system more obsessed with billing than results, he created the Yeats SMD Accelerated Rehab Protocol, where patients see functional gains in hours, not months. Daniel doesn't buy into gimmicks, tech toys, even Google spreadsheets, or cautious timelines. He delivers real results fast. That's why he calls his business No Bullshit Rehab. Welcome to the show, Daniel. Thanks, guys. Yeah, that was quite an introduction. And by the way, we found you on TikTok about a year ago now. I think it was about a year ago. And I sent the video over to Jen and we were swapping videos back and forth of you going, we need to get this guy in the show. A year later, here you are, because your no bullshit approach is so intriguing to us, especially being in the mental health field, because I'm guessing we're going to talk about that today, too.

Daniel West: 2:25

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's that's a subject that's pretty close to my heart as well. It all it all ties together in pretty uh closely. I think there's there's three aspects of anyone's health there's your medical health, your functional health, and your mental health. And these two down here, if your mental health is fucked, then it doesn't really matter what these two are doing, because that that sets the platform for everything that you uh the whole reason you're living. If your mental health isn't where it should be, then um, you know it doesn't matter what the doctor tells you, it doesn't matter what the therapist tells you, you're not going to be believing it, following it, doing it. So I've always thought that someone's mental health is is of primary importance. That being said, I don't give a fuck about anyone's mental health. You do things my way, you do as you're told, yeah. Deal with that bullshit.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 3:16

There you are. Good morning, Daniel. There you are.

Daniel West: 3:19

When you're doing the rehab, it's all about your rehab. There's no other distractions, there's no other whatever, you know, that don't expect me to be nice to you, don't expect me to be worried about, you know, how your day is going, whatever. Is simple mathematics, it's simple physics, it's simple physiology. That's all I can deal with. I've got enough fucking shit on my plate. And but I say I I I do that with with my heartfelt like please go and sort it out. It's important to you. I I do the best I can to be to be supportive, just just knowing that you know, if if someone needs to call me 24 hours a day for the minus little, you know, the well, not the minus, but but but any any issues that they're facing or any questions they have, I'm I always answer my phone. I have a policy, always answering my phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It doesn't matter if you're some if it's spam call at 2 a.m. in the morning, I'll answer it, tell the guy to fuck off, but I'll at least answer the phone, just on the off chance that it's one of my mates saying, Hey, uh, need someone to talk to for five minutes.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 4:16

Yeah.

Daniel West: 4:17

Uh yeah.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 4:18

That's uh you're uh so I want to just ask you a little bit. Like, can you go back into your story and how you got to this no bullshit place? Because did you used to be like a regular, you know, physical therapist, and then you changed your mind about it after your accident? Or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel West: 4:37

Can you tell us about that story? I I was left scratching my head, just uh, I I I've always been pretty observant and and sort of like if someone told me something, I'd I'd probably also have a bit of naivety as well. I would believe it and go, yeah, no, no, this is you know, if they they told me it's got to be true. I mean, why would someone lie to me and not tell me the truth? Or and at some point I sort of worked out, and especially after being banged up, I sort of like go, hang on, you know, everyone's telling me they care about me, but I actually get the feeling that no one gives a fuck about me in in my you know uh community. Some of the stuff that was was done to give you a very simple example. I've got a bloody great big scar on my stomach from where they had to cut me open to to repair my bowel after my car accident. So for four weeks, I was told just lie in bed, just stay at that angle, it's nice and comfortable for you. You know, that'll that'll be great, you'll be comfortable. So uh finally got back home and I went to stand up. I'm like, fuck, I can't fucking stand up. All the scar tissue has left my body bent over like this. Why the fuck didn't someone tell me that while I was in the hospital? And then I would have laid fat on the bed rather than spending my whole time. I don't say I've been a therapist for three years, and I probably should have known this, but again, you don't necessarily understand the the reality of of things versus the book knowledge of things. And I was pretty fucking dirty about that, like saying all it would have taken was someone just to come in and say, here's the consequences, mate. You don't fucking lie flat. When you go to get up out of bed, however long it takes, you're gonna fucking have a hell of a time. And because of that tightness that developed, I ended up having another bowel constriction, needn't be in hospital again and having it done again. And trust me, you don't have to tell me twice. I was out of that bed the first fucking day, even though, oh no, no, you need to be lying in bed. No, get the fuck out of my way. I'm gonna be standing up. I couldn't give a shit what you tell me. I've been through this before, I know exactly what I what I want to be able to do. I'll deal with the consequences if I'm if I do it too too too quickly to be better. But I'm not gonna deal with the consequences of you being too nice to me and just telling me, and then as soon as I realize I've got a problem, go, well, hey, it's not our problem, you know, we're discharging you, leave the hospital, you know, okay. And and it was many little instances like that to sit me and go, but everyone is very happy to say, hey, we care about you and and we want that, and but the moment you have a problem from what their good intentions may be, it's like, well, hey, it's not our fault, it's your body, or it's your problem, or you, you know, don't blame us. That people will people will disappear, you know. And it it in in my you know, world of of trying to come up with an anecdote of of putting it in the reality because it's like having all the friends in the world, and then you've got to move house, and you call everyone on your fucking list. Hey, can you come over tomorrow and help me move house? And one cunt shows up, and all of everyone else in my fucking list of friends gets tossed out the window. I'll never fucking call them again for anything ever. If they need to call me, I'll tell them to fuck off. That that is that's how simple my I want my life to be.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 7:30

This is the mental health stuff that I was actually referring to in the very beginning. Is the we now live in this world of coddling everything. Everyone is coddled down to their mental health, like, oh, you're not feeling good, so just lay here. It's okay to take a break. It's okay to do these things. It's okay to feel sad and unmotivated, it's okay to lay in bed while your bowels are being, you know, ripped apart by you or your uh scar tissue is healing in a way that it shouldn't, right? It's okay to do that though, because that is where your comfortable place is. And you're about bringing people out of their comfort zone like 100%. This this is not about being comfortable anymore.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 8:16

Yeah, it's not. You said I'm not gonna deal with the consequences of you being nice to me. I love that.

Daniel West: 8:23

That uh yes, Daniel fucking said that. I'm not even fucking drunk, you know, we're not getting out of it.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 8:30

I mean, but that I think that encompasses exactly what we're talking about here. And as as therapists, uh Terry and I take a bit different, I think, of an approach when it comes to this because there's a certain space of, okay, we're done validating now. We're we're done normalizing the shit out of something right now. We're done saying, yes, I understand. And it's more about we've got to empower you to get to solution, or you're not, you're not gonna heal. You're gonna, you're gonna there will be consequences if we just keep doing that repeatedly and just being validating, continue to be nice, continue to say it's okay. We're not you're not pushing yourself at all.

Daniel West: 9:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I'm very lucky that my I have a very unvalidating family. Um that that you know, where did this come from, Daniel? Like that it is, it is. I I I don't uh I think it's the best thing in the world. It's also like I know when I left to go overseas and and live overseas, it's sort of like, you know, my dad gave me, you know, the talk at the airport. Son, if you ever get into really bad trouble, give us a call, we'll be there 24-7. In saying that, don't ever get yourself into fucking trouble this year. Yeah, don't don't don't make us engage in that at all. Yeah, don't do it. And and and and and and that is that is how I've always thought the the the responsibility is is on me. I've had some pretty rough times and and have called up my dad and had a chat. And at the end of the chat, dad will always go, you know, there's nothing I can fucking do to fix your problems, you know. And like, yeah, dad's go, yeah, just just you know, I'm not here to fix my problems, that your problems, you need to fix them, you know. Good luck.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 11:00

So tell us how this then shaped your career. So after your accident, you had some some really hard truths that came to you about the fact that I don't know, essentially you weren't helpless. Your healing power was things that you needed to take control of and take charge of. How did that then build into what you're doing now? Because you said you initially had been uh you were had been doing rehab for about three years, right? And then your accident happened.

Daniel West: 11:29

About three years when I've had an accident. I I I I don't know. I for some somehow it just and still even now I sit there and go, it's just it's just common sense to me. And like, like and it it it is the accumulation of everything that has gone on in my life. And again, all those moments where someone told me what I wanted to hear, not what I needed to hear. And me at some point remembering that and and like 20 years later thinking, You fucking can't. Why did you tell me what I wanted to hear? Why didn't you tell me what I needed to hear back then? And that would have saved me a lot of aggravation now, 20 years later, when I was sort of like thinking, you know, that what she said was true, and now I realize it's not true, and I've and I've made a bad decision based on what I thought was truth, and I've carried with me for 20 years. Why can't people in the world just be fucking honest with each other? And and it's funny in the medical field that the number of times that other therapists who sort of thought like me or whatever, and they have been told, yeah, I've just been chastised by the the head of the department or by administration for for telling the patient the truth. You know, I I had one therapist who told me that that she had gone and told a patient, if you don't get out of bed, you'll get bed sores, pneumonia, or you know, you'll you'll get atrophy. The patient didn't want to hear it and complained. And so the therapist got reprimanded. And I was just like, you've got to be like, talk about fucking giving me a green light to go and tell it to every fucking patient that I have now, just begging for a confrontation with some administration official to come and fucking tell me. So I can go, so you would rather have the fucking patients get a bed sore, get pneumonia, and die because you didn't want to hurt their feelings over the fact that you were telling them exactly what the truth is. And I cannot come up with a better example of of of that, of the absolute consequences of that than this episode, which fucking nearly destroyed me. Went to see a young guy, kid, 25 years of age, and he had come into the hospital just not feeling well, just walked in, you know, just having a, you know, don't know what's wrong with me. Okay, send him up, put him in ICU for some reason. And a he was he was about my size, six foot, you know, odd, you know, 220 pounds. A little tiny therapist had gone in and seen him the day before. And she'd our job in a hospital is to get people up, get them moving, you know, prevent the problems that they could have. And so she looked at him and went, Oh, this guy's bigger than me. And she said, literally, it's okay for you to stay in bed, you know, don't have to do much. He's sort of like, you know, again, being being as most people are, oh, I can have a bit of sympathy. I don't feel very well. It's okay. You can just stay in bed, you know, whatever. Fed right into it, do exactly what he wanted to hear. Great. So the next day he was on my list. I went into him. The nurse is like, please, Daniel, can you just get this guy moving? He's 25 years of age, and he's really, you know, doesn't want to go to the toilet. He's saying, I go in, mate, you're getting the fuck out of bed. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get up, walk him to the door of the room. Oh, now I don't feel really good at all. All right, and I'm so like, yeah, this is not normal. A 25-year-old kid is laying back. So, okay, mate, let's turn around to get you back to bed. Turn around, he takes two steps, dead on the floor. He had developed a blood clot in 24 hours of lying in bed. That went straight to his lungs, killed him. He was dead before he hit the floor. His head smacked against the linoleum and it went crack. And I got pulled down on top of him, and I and he didn't even when when his head cracked the floor, and I just went, fuck, he's dead. Nurse comes in, what the fuck are you doing with him? I'm like going, he's dead. He's fucking dead. Got him on the bed, did everything they could. Yep, he he was he was gone. 24 hours of laying in bed. And I did some some you know, a bright one, I did some research. If you go on an airplane, the FDA or the CDC or whoever is what says, do not go three hours sitting in a chair in a plane without getting up and moving or whatever. You can go to a hospital and you can be told, hey, lie in bed as long as you want, but for fuck's sake, don't get on a plane and sit in the chair for three hours because that could fucking kill you or have some serious consequences. And I dated a nurse once who did that on a flight to Hawaii, got a blood clot five hours from a flight to Hawaii. She's now on blood fitness for the rest of her life, and that gives her dizziness. You know, she gets up too quickly. If she bleeds, cuts herself, she can bleed prevalently. So the consequences now of that sitting in the chair for five hours is now lifelong and whatever. And I just take those two episodes, those two moments, and anytime when I was working in the hospital, I would go and see a patient. I don't want to get out of bed today. That's fine. Let me just fucking take five minutes of your time to tell you some stories. Every single fucking patient gets out of bed after I told them that story.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 16:01

That's like in I think that's called informed consent, actually.

Daniel West: 16:05

Like what it's called. It's fucking what I do.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 16:08

Yeah, you got your own terminology for us. It's like, okay, Nick, here's the deal. There's a huge risk.

Daniel West: 16:14

Yeah. No one is. Goodbye. I'm quite happy you're staying in bed. I'm going, no, no, no, please come back, help me get out of bed. No, no, no. No, no, no, no. I change what the fuck I want. Like, don't do it, help me. No, I don't care. You can do whatever the fuck you want. Okay. I'm just telling you what the consequences are. Please help me. And so I I laugh every time I read online about therapists saying, Oh, I had a hard time getting patient out of bed. Or I'm like going, hell, it's a fucking piece of cake. It's the easiest thing in the fucking world.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 16:38

This is actually, and some people, okay, so people will call this like manipulative, like language fear mongering. You're fear mongering. You're telling people that they're gonna end up having a blood clot if they don't get out of bed. We get this in our world all the time. Oh, you're you're telling somebody that a child's gonna have a birth defect if their mom's taking certain meds. It's not actually fear mongering. This shit happens.

Daniel West: 17:02

This is true. Everyone fucking take it up with God because God fucking created the world this way if you want to go that far. So it's not my fucking fault. I'm just fucking passing on the news. Go and fucking get pissed at God for fucking inventing blood clots. What a fucking cunt. Who wants to invent who would fucking invent blood clots if you were a fucking rational human being? Yeah, yeah, lay in bed for a couple of hours and you could fucking die from that thing. It's not my fucking fault. It's like it's like you get mad at me because say, yo, don't go to Africa on Safarian Africa and fucking don't take a gun or whatever because you could get eaten by a lion. Oh fuck, what sort of fucking moron would not go? Oh gee, thanks. You know, that's that's that's good advice. Okay, but when it comes to medical, suddenly everyone's like, well, hang on. No, no, my my my my feelings are involved. Fucking medicine, medicine has nothing to do with a person's fucking feelings, apart from the mental health side, uh, you have a fucking hospital. It's got nothing to do with fucking rehab, it's got nothing to do with your fucking your your feelings about anything.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 18:29

Daniel, tell us about this idea that feelings are not facts.

Daniel West: 18:34

I I don't know, it's that's just common sense. I don't know how fucking anyone is not thinking of that. So so I can't I can't fucking explain it. I mean, there's there's some section that I and again that's I'm happy that that's how I got raised and was taught by whoever it was, whether it was my family, my parents, or just or just fucking life in in general, you know. You say there are there are certain things we believe. Like I'm sure at one stage I believed all politicians are fucking good. Now I believe there's not a fucking single politician who's fucking useful, who's fucking worth anything. They're all fucking useless cunts, you know. So, you know, at some point you just sort of like if you keep your eyes open and fucking just pay attention, you fucking learn shit. You don't have to be told shit, you just see it. And and that sort of, you know, if you can't believe your own eyes and just think, well, hang on, I sort of, this is the way I thought things were, you know. But if I'm seeing something different, then I need to pretty much go, right? Yeah, it's quite possible I was lied to it because someone didn't have the, you know, hasn't a lot of world experience. The person who told me this actually had never, you know, left their hometown. So how the fuck would they know about anything about world or international affairs if they've everything they've gotten is from the news or they've never left what they were told by their brother, their uncle, or their father, who also never left their hometown. So how can I trust actually what they say? I did for 10 years. Now the mindset is saying, well, I've got more experience in most things of how this world works than probably 99.9% of the of the fucking planet. So maybe I should start trusting myself rather than fucking trusting what I'm told.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 19:56

But Daniel, your truth is so abrasive.

Daniel West: 20:01

Is it? Again, I thought this is just common sense. I'm literally, this is just fucking common sense.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 20:07

I'm I'm I'm poking fun at the system because like if you come to somebody and you're like just very blunt and truthful about what's gonna happen. If you sit in this bed for five hours, you're likely gonna get a blood clot, and that blood clot is gonna kill you. End of story. So you have a choice. You can get up or you can fight that, right? You can, or you can stay here and you can risk a blood clot. People would say that that's an abrasive truth, right? Like that's just too harsh. And I think we've turned in this in the medical community and mental health of being soft and dancing around the problems and you know, not getting to the actual truth that could save somebody's life, literally, literally save someone's life.

Daniel West: 20:53

Well, well, I I I think part of the the issue is is because the longer things take, the more money that can be made. So the longer you drag things out, whether it be, you know, psychological problems, like like I say, if if there was someone out there who could fix someone's psychological problems in five minutes, okay, would someone who's like had a patient for 10 years refer all their patients to him and say, hey, fuck this guy, go fix it in five minutes. I can't, because you've been here with me. Like, no, no, but now I'm losing money because I don't I can't do with this person, and this is what this is what you know, what what I have again. My my attitude is there is no one in this fucking world who cares about you should care about you more than yourself, and there is no one who cares about you. And if you don't give a fuck about yourself, then trust me, everyone else cares less about you than than than you do. So you're really fucked. But I get people all the time, therapists, hey, and this is the I do this just to prove my fucking point over and over again. And I and I'm never gonna change. Oh, hey, can you please tell us how you get such remarkable results with your smile core patients and your TBIs? Because I've got a patient here like that, and I want to be able to help them, you know, get them all. And I always go, sure, refer them to me and I'll help them. And they all go, oh no, no, I'm not gonna do that. So you really don't give a fuck about your patient because I can help them, but you don't want to refer. You want their business so that that's that's what it's about. It's not about helping the patient, it's about, oh, well, I want to know what you so I can get more business, whatever. And I'm gonna and I just say, fuck you, you know, I'm I'm just your patients fucked. I'm not gonna pass on what I know. I did the fucking hard work to learn it. Sorry if that pisses people off. I treat 10 patients, that's fucking it. You know, I've just proven that you actually don't give a fuck about your patients. And at the core of what I do is I give a fuck about the patients. That's why I can only give a fuck about 10 patients at a time. I don't give a fuck about the other 8 billion people on the planet. I will fucking bend over backwards for 10 fucking people. It's fucking hard. It's a 24-hour day job. I don't go to bed without thinking, how can I help this person? I can't stand seeing them in the condition that they're fucking. I will do everything. I can tolerate 10 people doing that because I've got my own fucking shit that I have to fucking deal with. And it breaks my heart every day to think I'm here helping these people and there's no one fucking helping me with my fucking problem. There hasn't been anyone for 15 fucking years who has done jack shit to fucking solve my problem. So for me to help 10 people, I'm a fucking saint. And that's my fucking limit. Okay, and that's just the honest fucking truth. I'm I'm sorry, people go, well, that's not fair. What he knows is fucking, I've got someone said what you know could revolutionize the help for millions of people. I don't give a fuck. I've told everyone that from the fucking side I care about fucking or bother to care about 10 people. If you fucking I'm so worried about these millions of people, you go and fucking do the work and learn. Think it out yourself. Yeah, if you don't fucking care, you'll do nothing, which is what you've done, you know. So I'm pretty pretty much if if if helping helping these people is because I give a fuck and I'm working, and you can't do that, then it doesn't matter with what I tell you. You fucking don't give a shit about these people, you know, you haven't for years, and so it's never gonna fucking work. You know, that that's that's I can't fucking stand. I've had a TBI, I've had a fucking my next few years because of fucking spinal cord injury. I fucking was shit scared. I know what it's like going, knowing fuck no one's gonna care. No one's gonna care. I'm just gonna kinda fucking I make sure that 10 people in this world don't feel like they're a fucking statistic in the fucking medical field. That's all I need to do, okay? And I can get fucking amazing fucking results from that.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 24:10

Tell us about that. Well, hold on a minute. I want to add in there one last thing about this too, because I we can go in so far as family members or the person themselves reaching out to you and saying, you know, how can you help me about this? And it's like, hire me. Hire me.

Daniel West: 24:26

Has to be the person. If a family member contacts me, I'll go, why the fuck isn't the person doing this? Fucking correct doesn't work. I've had I've had plenty of people who've like, oh, we want to help this person. I'm like, get them to fucking contact me. Oh they're feeling a little bit like yeah, goodbye. Don't fucking, if he's not interested in fucking, if he's not reaching out to me, if he's not fucking taking the lead, fucking it it is it is a waste of fucking time. I have already learned that. Took me again, something that I didn't learn in school, or if I thought, no, no, everyone deserves fucking help. No, they don't. Sorry to tell you, no, they don't. There are plenty of people who do not deserve any fucking help at all, and we waste our time fucking helping people who do not want or will not benefit from what we do. In fact, that's when 50-60% of medicine is wasted on people who fucking are told, stop smoking. No, I'm not going to. Well, fucking never come back to the hour again with your fucking complaint of emphysema. You know, fucking, you've got the power to fucking change it, you don't want to change it. It's a waste of time fucking doing anything for you.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 25:17

Yeah, we don't we don't do that though. That's not the approach that we take.

Daniel West: 25:20

Yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 25:20

Yeah, we we actually don't do that.

Daniel West: 25:22

Because it makes more money to do it the other way. It makes more people always normally go, like I've had mates who are in business. How are you gonna scale your business? I don't want to fucking scale my business. Fucking 10 people are enough. I don't want to fucking, you know, I don't want to trust that I'm gonna hire someone who's gonna do a less good job than me. I will feel fucking guilty going to bed. I'm not gonna fucking feel guilty. I'll feel happy just seeing 10 patients, let someone else go and deal with it their way without involving me, so I don't have to fucking deal with the thing, the worry of hang on, now I've got to deal with making sure this person's doing a fucking good job, knowing full well that no one on this fucking planet gives a shit about anyone else. So I already know this person's not gonna be doing a fucking good job as me. Because even though I don't give a shit about anyone on this earth, I have a fucking strong motivating factor to give a fuck about 10 people. Okay? That's all it is. I actually don't give a fuck about the 10 people, but I need to give a fuck about those 10 people for an even more powerful motivating force than giving a fuck about them as human beings, okay? That's the only thing that fucking drives me. It's got nothing to do with being a nice guy or whatever. I'm a fucking cunt. I'm quite happy to say I'm cut. I do this for a very fucking selfish reason. All my patients know what my selfish fucking reason is. And when I tell them, they all go, oh fuck, can you bleed my therapist for the rest of my fucking life? I don't want anyone else to fucking touch me because I know that even though you don't care about me, you are fucking in my corner.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 26:33

So Daniel, tell us about what you what you do. So the patients you take on have severe TBIs, correct?

Daniel West: 26:40

I I I got a few main main spinal cord, mainly spinal cords come out of all the rehab centers and been told, yeah, you're never gonna walk in, never gonna function. Go on to some place that's gone, yeah. Well, we'll do our best. We don't believe what they say. Oh, we still can't get to working. So I get the fucking crappiest of the crap.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 26:53

Yeah, hold on. Because I want to direct people to your TikTok account because you have videos on there of people who couldn't move before and now they're moving. And you know, they they may not be jogging right now, but they are moving. And okay, you said you get the crappiest of crap cases, right? Like the hardest cases that people can't crack essentially come to you. Is there ever a case aside from their will, right? Like their will and want to do it. Is there ever a case? Like, does it matter how long ago they had the spinal cord injury? Does it do those factors matter at all?

Daniel West: 27:32

Yeah, people who said, Yeah, I had a spinal cord injury, you know, 27 years ago, whatever. I'm like, you know what? I've got some, I've got 10 people who contacted me. I've got someone, you know, a 15-year-old boy who had his, you know, six months ago. You know, sorry, mate, you know, I I I maybe there is something that could be done. There's so many possible complications, so many risks extra taken with that, you know, I I I would never uh uh bother to try or whatever. It's an interesting thought. There's fucking all these people who make millions of dollars from fucking spine cord research. Go and fucking take that cunt under your wind, see what you can do with him, fucking, you know, see if see if if after 27 years of being a uh spine cord patient, he can you could you could you could get get improvement. The problem is there's all this fucking money spent on spine cord research that doesn't fucking do jack shit, never done jack shit. It's not about fucking actually helping the field, it's about making money for research. $100 million spent on spinal cord research fucking every year for the last 20 fucking years. No one still has any fucking idea about what they're doing. I have this much idea about what I'm fucking uh doing, but it's still fucking a shitload more than the the millions of dollars of uh copped up, and that was purely from a little bit of fucking elbow grease and a little bit of fucking attention paid to a fucking couple of patients way back in the day, uh, and a couple of like little like going, hang on, I I wonder again here here here you go, here's the here's the fucking key to my motivation. So 16 years, 16 years ago, I went to see a patient in the hospital, he was paralyzed, complete paralysis, had been a diving accident, and went in and he's and and his father was in the corner crying. 25-year-old kid, you know, father's like, you get to see on his face, I can't help my own son. Okay, my kid was just about to be born. And I looked at the dad, go, fuck, I never want to be in a fucking situation where my kid is lying in a hospital bed and I'm as fucking helpless as as as this guy. For anything, I mean I mean, the funny thing about the world is there's not much that fucking matters when you're fucking sick or you're in hospital and you're sick. Whatever you think is is is a big fucking problem. You know, it's not uh I could you know with all the the these the mental health problems that you guys deal with, ask your fucking patients, would you swap all your mental health problems being solved in a heartbeat? In return, you would have to become quadriplegic. Would you swap those two things? I bet you you'd get no fucking take it. You know, so your fucking problems aren't that big of a fucking deal, then, mate. Okay, because there are people who deal with fucking quadruped who have quadruplegia, and you know, that's a fucking bigger problem than than your problem. So, so just be wary about about how the world works. So I was literally just fucking my heart was just going, fuck, I never want my kid to be in a situation where I can't. So I was like, I need to to help this this kid. He sort of said, stand me up. And I said, mate, uh I'm a physical therapist, my job is to get you into a wheelchair, you know. Long story short, I'm not gonna tell you the ins and outs, but that guy walked up a flight of stairs two days later. Walked him back to the room with his family. His family followed us as we as we walked with with the wheelchair. Doctor came in, and this is again, I'll be honest, I didn't even know what a fucking complete quadriplegic was or complete spinal cord injury was at that stage, because the doctor came in and we said, How's he doing? And they said, Oh, we just walked around the the floor and he walked up a flight of stairs. Me, the mother, the dad, and the and the patient. And the doctor goes, What are you fucking smoking? He's a complete paraplegic. He can't do that, he'll never be able to do that. Okay, stop being fucking idiots with me, otherwise I'll just fucking leave. No, no, no, no. We all were there. He just walked up a flight of stairs, fine, and he walked out of the fucking room. And I sat there like going, again, this was my my third injured patient that the spinal gluten patient that I had, all the other side just basically trained to be in a wheelchair for that. And I sat there like going, fuck like, is this medicine? Is this this guy didn't believe four people who were all like going, fucking wow. You know, he had it in his fucking mind what he thought he was, and anything other than that, he just rejected. And I was like, gee, I wonder how fucking often this happens. And that's what made me start going, let me just fucking check out what goes on with all the other. And that's when I was like, holy fucking hell, this is this happens every single day, 99% of the fucking time. Okay.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 31:54

When we when we limit our expectations, well, can we limit the expectations? Yes.

Daniel West: 32:00

That's what he went to find. Simply find the butt. You know, Irishman, you know. One moment, phone's right. Irishman, Irishman's at a pub, you know, points outside to a to a brick fence. See that? You know, Patty built that brick fence. They don't call Patty the fence maker, you know. See that road over there? That was built by Mike. They don't call Mike the road maker, but you fuck one little dog, and you're called Bill the dog fucker for the rest of your life.

unknown: 32:38

Jesus Christ.

Daniel West: 32:39

Okay. I can't even remember now what how fucking why that joke you know came up. But that is, you go, either. I remember I remember now. I remember now. You get AIDS, okay? You HIV. You put HIV on your on your fucking medical chart. That's all anyone will see when they look at the thing happens in mental health. Now we got to the point. Yeah, we got to get in handy, mental health, schizophrenia, whatever. You get you get quadriplegic, or injury on your fucking fucking chart. That is what you are. Guess what, everybody? I am a fucking quadriplegic. Okay. Do I look at the phone? Your expectations of life are now. That's what my fucking medical chart says because of my neck fusion. Okay.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 33:16

Yours? Yeah. Yes.

Daniel West: 33:17

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It also says I've got a TDR. It's also says I've got this, all these other. So every time I go to every time you go to a doctor's office, you fill in your medical history. All that is just to do for them to go, oh, we can now play into that. Oh, you poor thing. Look at all the things. So I don't fill it fucking in. No, no, I'm fucking fine. Where do you get all these scars from? I thought, I fuck, I don't know. Jesus Christ. I don't doc. I don't know what the fuck happened. I just went to bed last night, fucking woke up with all these fucking scars. It's not fucking important. I'm here because my fucking eyes fucking, I got red eye. What the fuck does my broken arm and my fucking scar and my stomach fucking? What does that matter? Okay. Well, no, no, I just want no no fucking you pay attention to fucking my problem because don't try to fucking get more money or fucking smooth me or whatever. It does, I just want to fucking deal with this one. That is what you know to me, a medical. So when you asked me before about that, I don't know. I don't ask my patients what their fucking diagnosis is. I don't care. I just know that blah blah blah like I've got a couple days like they're always asked by someone that oh, how did so and so hurt themselves? I have no idea, actually. Not interested in fucking finding out doesn't feel like that. People hate that doesn't matter.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 34:20

People hate that when I say that to them in my practice as well. I've got bipolar, I have major depressive disorder, I have ADHD, and I'll go, okay.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 34:28

I don't care.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 34:29

I literally will go, okay. I I don't, I don't, I don't care.

Speaker: 34:34

Yeah. And you put your fucking pants on the same way as someone who doesn't have a lip you fucking make your coffee the fucking same way.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 34:41

It doesn't actually have that big of an impact on who you are right now today. That label put on you 20 years ago clearly has nothing to do with your functioning today. You're talking about that too, like being labeled as a paraplegic. You you clearly look like a paraplegic, Daniel, right now. I mean, you're not you're you're you're completely bed regulated.

Daniel West: 35:00

But there are a lot of people. You have be amazed how many people love the fucking labels on themselves.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 35:05

Oh no, no, we know. We know.

Daniel West: 35:07

Oh I forgot who I'm speaking to. Yeah, yeah, no, no.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 35:12

Yeah, don't yeah, check yourself there, Daniel.

Daniel West: 35:14

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but but sorry, I I'm normally speaking with fucking people off the street, but but yeah, and and and you don't and and trust me, trust me, I fucking went through this myself after my car accident. I was the fucking biggest sack of shit, you know, and and I still hate myself for the fucking you know four months that I was like that, just going, just just being disgusted at what at at how much I've bought into that.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 35:40

Tell tell us tell us what happened because you ended up getting sick of being of being like stagnant. And I'm assuming did you rehab yourself then?

Daniel West: 35:52

Yes. Wow, I did I just did it myself. I just that's you but that's it. And it was my mum, mom and my family, my dad sort of going, your mom sort of gave me, you know, you start a journal so you can write down your progress, whatever, but you know, get off your fucking ass and and get moving. Don't expect us to four months.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 36:11

So you followed standard like Western medical advice for about four months, is that what you're saying?

Daniel West: 36:16

No, I I I I okay, so I had a broken arm, okay? So I was in the cast. So I've been told since day one, don't move your arm, okay? Even though, even though my break's down here, you don't want to do that because you may, you know, don't keep everything safe. That's why you're in a cast. So you make sure that's that's healed. I've got a fucking piece of metal in there. So if the doctor didn't do his fucking job, I'm pretty sure the things are gonna move. So in the cast, I would just wiggle my wrist like that to keep it moving, despite being told, never do that. You do not want to fucking do that. Okay, when they finally took the cast off, okay, my hand was like that. Everyone normally takes the cast off and they're like, oh, now I can't move my hand. And I sort of knew that. I thought, hang on, why would we be telling them to do that if I know that it's gonna get stiffer? So if I do that and just keep it a little bit looser, let me see what the result is when I get it out. It was it wasn't quite as good as it's probably to there, and so I had to push it just a little bit more. But I was like going, oh fuck, at least I'm starting off way, way better than all these people I normally have been told I need to treat them. So I thought, why the fuck wouldn't you tell them, hey, be very gentle, but just keep a little bit of movement, make sure that no, oh, because the patient may not be compliant. Well, if they're not fucking compliant, it's their fucking fault. Okay, if you give them instructions, they don't follow the instructions. What do I give a fucking shit? Okay, that's better than me telling them what technically is probably the wrong thing to be doing. No, no, don't do anything with it. And so now you're gonna end up with a big problem that I can now make money off because I can now have to treat you for six, eight months to get the range of motion back. Okay, it's a good thing I'm a really fucking cheap bastard as well. I don't want to fucking go spend money on on a fucking doctor or a fucking physical therapist or a psychologist, you know. I've I've I've I've I've had to go see a psychologist several times from work, being told to my by boss because my and for EAP, I'll get six fucking visits. Trust me, I'm cured in six fucking visits every single time. The moment is, oh, we need you to come back, you know, and then self-pay. Yeah, mate, I'm good. Fucking thank you very much.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 38:00

I bet HR loves you. Like HR probably just loves you, don't they, Daniel?

Daniel West: 38:04

I I I don't know. He doesn't have HR anymore. He has his own HR.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 38:08

You have your own HR. I wanted to I wanted to bring this part up because on on social media, there's a lot of young people who are quadriplegic now or paraplegic now. And they're young. And I follow their stories, and they were like, I don't know, motocross people and they're very active young men typically. And it's like suddenly they're now in a wheelchair and getting all this adaptive device so they can assist to stand. And, you know, what do you think about all that going on in social media? Because every time since I come across you on social and then I come across those people, I'm thinking, call this guy. You need to call this guy right now because what they're doing, like I even see them in rehab, and in rehabs, they're just like attaching them to these, like I don't know the right terminology, like like exoskeletons or whatever that's holding them up and causing them to move, or the physical therapists are moving them, moving a leg for them, right? For them, right? What do you have to say to those guys? Like, if you could give them a message, what do you think the message would be?

Daniel West: 39:21

Get fucked. Of the 10 people that I treat, I don't give a fuck about you.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 39:24

Yeah, okay.

Daniel West: 39:27

Good luck, good luck to you.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 39:29

How about get your head right? Yeah, yeah.

Daniel West: 39:31

I I I I couldn't care less. I laugh, I I go through it, I get a good chuckle out of watching it, but but I just sit and go, yeah. What do you think about the care though? What do you think about the the care that they've received? Again, not my fucking problem. Not I'm not here to fucking change the world. They can do whatever they want. Fucking people are always saying, Oh my god, if the fucking, you know, the the they make so much money, if they find out about you, they'll they'll fucking no, they won't, because I'm not gonna fucking treat any more than 10 fucking people. I'm not gonna fucking be bothered. I don't want to change the fucking world. I've I've had, you know, yeah, I I the that the that's that's part of the reason why I act like such a fucking cunt. There's nothing more that will scare some big institution off to go, oh my god, we want to know what this guy does by seeing how I act. Oh fuck, that will be so I don't it's it's a it's a way of of protecting me from getting bothered, you know. I I don't have fucking time to this because I because I know they don't want to know, they honestly don't want to know. If if I told them, hey, I've been able to get three complete paralyzed spinal cord interview patients walking upstairs in two days, okay, why would anyone want to fucking know how to how that could happen or that could be done? Because that means this the million dollars a year that it costs to look after a person that will evaporate because these people won't need to go to rehab or won't need to go to get or maybe even if it's 10%. There are 17. I did the math once. 17,000 people get spinal cord injuries in a year. If 10% of those people, which is about the number of people that I've been able to rehab super quick, didn't need a million dollars of care every year. What's that? 17,000 by multiplied by a million. That's one big strong point out. Whatever, yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:06

Yep.

Daniel West: 41:07

But people care more about that than they do about the fucking, oh, we're gonna help people. Because again, they're not they're not people, they're this, they are insurance numbers and they are whatever. They are not no one, as I just want to say, no therapist who ever said, Hey, can you tell me what you do so I can help my person? I said, No, send it to me. Oh no, I'm not gonna do that. So you really don't care about that fucking person, you know? Right, it's it's it's it's simple. You know, fuck if my if my if if my mother was fucking sick and I didn't fucking know, I would be anyone who fucking, you know, could help. I wouldn't give a fuck, I wouldn't give a fuck how embarrassed I was about the fact that oh my god, aren't you supposed to be the world's best spinal cord injury fucking rehab and you couldn't help your your fucking mother? I don't give a fuck. It's about my fucking mum, you idiot. It's not about fucking me, you know? Right.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 41:49

Right. Do you get a lot of pushback from other physical therapists and things like that? Do you get everyone?

Daniel West: 41:54

Yeah, sure. I get, I get, I get, I I get I I have had a I have had a couple, some some guy from Venezuela sent me a thing, hey, I've tried to copy what you do. I know you're a fucking cunt. You won't tell me what it is because you've asked you, he's asked me several times. Like you might go, no, fuck off. I do not share uh what I do, but I've I've I've ordered your book and I've I've I've watched what you do on videos and tried to, and this person who's been a couple of years been uh complete paraplegic. I've managed to get her starting to improve uh in the last three or four weeks. It's great. Please can you tell me again? And if you don't, thank you, I'll keep on trying to do what I can do. So I was like, great, mate, good, good, good on, keep on. Unfortunately, I don't give a shit about someone in Venezuela, you know. The the as much as I don't give a shit about the lady who lives next door to me here, you know, she's not in my 10 patients, you know, she's not my girlfriend, she's not a member of my family. It's sorry, uh not my fucking well.

Jennifer Schmidtz: 42:40

There is a capacity we you're talking about each anybody in a field of helping people, right, has a capacity to which they can only perform to, right? And to give the best care, the capacity for you is 10 people. And I I wish more people would think like that, actually, because then I think people would get better care.

Daniel West: 43:01

It's it's not about it's not people sort of think, oh, like what's the magic thing? It is 30 fucking years of me going, I've graduated the bottom of my class and I'm the dumbest cunt in the fucking world. Okay, I'm gonna get caught out pretty fucking quickly if I don't start learning and paying attention. And that's all it fucking took. And if I can fucking do it, then I would imagine anyone can fucking do it. And if anyone can't do it, it's because you don't give a fuck. And if you don't give a fuck, even if you knew what it was, it still wouldn't matter. So if I've proven that it can be done, then anyone else should be able to go out and do it as well. If you can't, I'm sorry to tell you, as much as you say, no, no, I care, you don't care. You don't give a shit. Because I can tell you, at the bottom heart of it is you've got to fucking sacrifice something of yourself. And that's the one thing there's not a fucking single fucking cunt out of eight billion people that will fucking do. There is no one who'll go, hey, I'll give up something of myself to fucking help someone else. You know, there were some people in the military who give up their life. You know, maybe you want to go and see someone who's in the army for fucking for your rehab versus someone who's your your fucking doctor or your or your therapist, because those people are willing to give up something of themselves for a greater cause. Fucking people aren't in medicine aren't like fucking that. But I can tell you, that's what it fucking takes. Because every single fucking day I go to bed hoping I don't wake up in the morning. Every morning I fucking wake up going, I'm alive again. Okay, I don't want to fucking have to live through another fucking day. And then I go and fucking help 10 people.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 44:27

No. What you do is pretty powerful.

Daniel West: 44:30

And it fucking crosses me going, here I am helping them, and for 15 years I've been begging for fucking help for my fucking problem, and not a single fucking soul in this world does anything other than, oh, we feel sorry for you, but yeah, there's nothing we can do. Fuck. I can fucking help people who've been not helped by anyone else on the fucking world with fucking recovering from paralysis, and you can't fucking and my problem doesn't even require fucking a miracle. It is simply having people not be fucking lazy and do their job. That's my fucking problem. Okay, and and every time I say that to people, that's why I'd mention about here's is the the the go and tell your patients, hey, would you swap your problem for being a quadriplegic? And all of them would say no. I tell all of my fucking patients, here's my motivation for why I'm doing this. Would you swap, if I could stamp my fingers, would you swap taking my problem into your life and the quadriplegia or the paraplegia going away? Would you make that swap? And they all go, nah, nah, I'm better off as I am.

unknown: 45:27

Yeah.

Daniel West: 45:27

And I go, yeah, I'm at the fucking bottom of the pile when it comes to fucking problems. And they all know it's not because my problem is fucking it inherently difficult. They know it relies on someone else having to sacrifice something to fucking help me, and they know no one's gonna fucking do it because they've already seen it themselves, and they know fuck he's sacrificing for me, okay, because of what he's going through, he's willing to fucking help me. So I know fucking there's no one else who's gonna do that for him. So yeah, I'm fucking better off who I am because at least I've got one fucking person who's gonna fucking help me. He's got no one.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 45:57

Yeah, and you sound like you've turned it the pain, the bullshit that you've been through into into motivation. It's a motivator for you. It drives you.

Daniel West: 46:05

Yep. Yep, it drives you. Yep, so so so so so. My goal is that someday someone is gonna say, mate, we desperately want you to fucking, you know, tell us what you've done. And I get to go, go fuck yourself. When I needed fucking help for 15 the last 15 years, you weren't there, honestly, couldn't give a fuck about the 8 billion people. If everyone became paralyzed in the world, and I was the only one who could help them, I would pretty much laugh my fucking ass off.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 46:31

You've got probably the strongest self-boundaries of anybody I've met in my entire life, Daniel. I need to learn from the phone. I do too. And with okay, and with that, we're we're right at time. So, Daniel, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you so much. Wow. Yes, it's been great to you again. Thank you.

Speaker: 46:49

And for those of you who are gonna get to the patient, all right.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 46:52

Those of you listening, Daniel has 10 patients and he has to get to one right now. So we're gonna wrap up the show. We are the Gaslet Truth Podcast. Please make sure that you get on YouTube and subscribe to our channel. Go ahead and give us a couple of reviews, only five stars. And for all you disruptors out there, we'll see you next time.