Nine Miracles: Brody Young on Surviving the Unthinkable and Choosing Hope

Brody Young, a Utah State Park Ranger and author of Nine Miracles, shares the night he was ambushed and shot nine times, and the “choice point” that helped him survive. A powerful conversation about resilience, purpose, fear, and forgiveness.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When the odds are stacked against you, when life is slipping away, there is a message I want you to hear today. Stay in the fight. That's the heartbeat behind today's conversation in this episode of the Stand for Kind podcast with guest Brody Young. After being ambushed, shot nine times, and left for dead while on patrol in rural Utah, State Park Ranger Brody Young survived against impossible odds. But this story isn't just about survival. It's about purpose, resilience, and what happens when someone chooses not to give up. From river guide to ranger to living miracle, Brody's journey is a powerful reminder that even in our darkest moments, there is still hope and a reason to keep fighting. Welcome into the Stand for Kind podcast. I am so glad you are here. Stand for Kind is all about bringing hope to the community. And these are stories about hope and resilience, overcoming impossible odds. And that is what the conversation here today is about. I'm so excited about our guests. We've got Brody Young who is here with us today. Brody, okay, let me give this introduction. You are a state park ranger. You're a father, you're a comedian on most days. And um, let's say you are a walking miracle. Did I get it all right?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah. You summed my whole life up.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

I summed the whole thing up. Uh Brody, I'm thrilled to have this conversation. I have your book here, Nine Miracles. We're gonna be talking about that in just a minute. But I want to tell people a little bit about our connection. You and I go back what, 10, 11 years, 12 years?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Um Brody actually took me down the Green River.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Colorado eventually it joined up, but yes, the Colorado into the green.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Into the green.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Which became the Colorado.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Okay, it was probably one of the most incredible river trips of my life. Um, but this guy's a prankster, by the way, on top of things. Um, you you took me down. It was me, me and five guys, which I don't know how I ended up on that trip to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

You were one of the guys.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I was one of the guys, basically, but it was for the outdoor show. And um and I had this incredible opportunity to see Utah in a way that I have never seen it before. This is your passion. This is what you do.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yes, I river guided in the 90s. I love taking people down the river and then to get a stage job to patrol it to help people stay safe, check it for safety equipment or whatnot. But occasionally we get to take some VIPs down the river.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

He called me a VIP.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Cataract Canyon is a special place. It's the stretch between you know Moab and Lake Powell and Class 4, Class Five Whitewater. It's pretty impressive, pretty fun, and it's in the middle of nowhere. Like what we have with us is all that we have, and help is far away.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Really, there is nothing out there. We took, we packed in everything we had to for food, water, and and you guys fished. We did we spent five days there, basically four or five days. Um let me tell you a quick story here. This guy's a prankster, by the way. Um I guess I'm the only girl on this trip. And I'm one morning, it's like probably like 5 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

It was early.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

It was early. And I go to wash my dish after eating breakfast, and the guys are like, hey, Sarah, make sure you wash really well. And I'm like, okay, I did. And they're like, no, no, no, get in there and get the brush. And I'm like, okay. I reach in and pull out the brush, and a snake is attached to it. I scream bloody murder and flew back so fast. And apparently you do this to everyone.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yes. Uh the truck resides in my truck. My patrol truck, the snake, sorry, resides in my patrol truck and I pull it out actually often. Uh you're so mean. To people I know.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

You're so mean. Anyway, best trip of my life. But that that's why we want to talk about this today. I had no idea as a young journalist. I was on that trip because we were we were filming a show, that the person I was with had gone through I had I knew that you had been through something extraordinary and over and really come through it. But I really didn't know until I read your book. So I would love if you would take us back, because this conversation today, Brody, is one about purpose and one about making a choice. And I would love for you, if you would, tell us about the choice that you had to make that night. And then let's walk back to that night you were shot.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Well, as a as a ranger, we train a lot. We train hard. Specifically because we're alone a lot. Like a lot of my patrols, it's me. And backups 10 to 30 minutes away, sometimes hours away. And so I was it was ingrained into me early on to really be able to be independent, take care of yourself if it was ever to hit the fan, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

If I was ever to meet someone. And so I'd always prepared and trained for it. And I'd always thought about what to do before and during like your worst day, you know. Yeah. And so that night was like any other night. I'd had a thousand contacts that ended up normal, walk away, shaking hands.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

And before you get there, I want you to explain. The Brody Young I know is this fun, loving, personable, you call yourself the hippie, or people call you the hippie cop. Is that what they say?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

The hippie turn cop. The hippie turn cop. I'm wearing my tactical sandals.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

You're not you're not a confrontational kind of guy. I've never once not seen you smiling. So that's that's just not you. So uh to be upset or angry or or confrontational. So knowing that, hearing that about Brody, I want you to keep that in your mind as he's telling that the story. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Well, we're always taught to talk nice, think mean, right? There are these terms, headlow, knife sharp. Like we're the friendly ranger, like there is an aura about rangers. We're different, we're treated differently than cops. You know, cops are typically hard-nosed and letter the law, and that's just not how I roll. And so I'm a real optimist, so I like to think people better than they are, and that's how I've treated everyone since I was young. So this gentleman was was no different, you know, treat everyone the same. And little did I know, he was had different a different view in mind of me and and tried to end my life that night.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

So you were at Po uh Spy Poison Spider Trailhead?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Poison Spider Mesa Trailhead.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Poison Spider Mesa Trailhead. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

It's one of the most difficult trails in the other areas. So I was checking trailheads just to see if people had gotten off the trail that day.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Before we get to what happened in that contact, uh contact, tell me how you view um how you view life. How how do you view uh choice and life and and just how you decide to live it?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Well, life is really good. Yeah, even on your worst day. We all have moments, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

We're we're guaranteed to have hard moments, hard times. And if we can just look past it, view what's beyond the moment. It really helps me in how I treat others, how I drive down the road, how I get up in the morning, how I treat my own kids. I've woken up in anger, you know. We all do it some days, and it wasn't their fault, it was my own. I chose to be negative, or and so it really is a choice. And it's hard work to stay positive and and realize man, when that sun rises, like it's a good day. It's gonna be a good day.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Okay, so you let's go back. So what was the date? Let's it was I'll ask you. You have I know you have it memorable memorized, it's ingrained in your mind.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Uh the day of the shooting, yeah, November 19th, 2010.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

2010.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Just before Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah. So you walk up to this silver vehicle sitting in this parking lot, and tap on the window, and this gentleman is sleeping in the back seat, and he kind of startles awake, and you get his name, and he gives you a fake name, and then take me from there.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, the name he gave me was Michael Orr. Which we we know from the blind side is the movie had just come out, so I'm I'm redheaded, left-handed.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

You didn't know who that was.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Little did I know I was about to get blindsided, and so I wrote it down, and so my goal was to go back to my truck and verify who he was, who he says he was. And so I never made it to the truck. As I turned to get in, he uh came out shooting. So I'm left-handed. He hits me in my left arm first and just shatters my humorous. Like I knew it immediately. In fact, I yelled out, Oh, I've been shot, and I turned away from him. And as I turned away and looked over my right shoulder, I just see muzzle flash and him advancing on me, like one round after the other, and it's fast and furious. And I believe when I turned away, three more rounds hit my back. I was wearing a vest that night. Bullet resistant vest. It's made to stop most bullets, low, lower caliber bullets, but 40 caliber bullet. My vest was uh we they usually change out these vests every five years. I was four and a half years in. I was about to get a replacement vest, but one of those rounds went in and just right into my vertebrae, still resides there today. And so I believe at that point I went to the ground and he just came and stood over me and kept shooting. Fired away. 15 rounds, hit me with nine of those. My matrix moves were not very good. I wasn't dodging, I was I was taking a lot of hits.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So you lay there on the ground, and what is going through your mind at that point?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Really, no emotion. Um it was just fast and and dirt was flying around me. It was dark, you know, after sunset, and finally he stopped and he'd run out of ammunition. He only had one, it turns out, one magazine of 15 rounds with him. And so I was presented with this choice. Um it was either lay down and die or get up and fight. And boy, I'd never trained to die. It was not an option, and so I jumped up and did what training taught me to do. I ran to the back of my truck, he ran to the front. We played this cat and mouse game, and I'm trying to figure out why my left hand won't work. It's lifeless, loseless. It's kind of as I turn, it would swing up and hit me in the face. Like it was just my fingers would not move, and so I finally realized I had a pad, a pen, and a flashlight in this hand. And I told myself, you idiot, like get rid of those things and use your non-dominant hand. And so I trained to grab your gun, shoot, reload, do all those things with your non-dominant hand. But it took me took me some time to And when you say time, we're talking milliseconds.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Seconds, yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

But it felt like an eternity. Felt like an eternity.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

I I want to read this here. This is such a powerful moment in your book when you got shot. He fired 15 rounds and hit me with nine, as you mentioned, including the slug that was embedded in my wallet, tucked as usual in the right cargo pocket of my uniform pants, where it gave its life to save my femur. Everything in my life came down to the choice I would make in the next moment. I could let go, check out. I mean, I was good as gone, right? Surely no one could blame me if I chose to then slip to the surly bonds of my wrecked body and proceed to the next realm, to whatever lies in store for us at the end of this life, or I could push back against such a sad fate and see what happens. It was a choice in that moment. What do you think drove you to make that choice?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I had it. So there were um four other officers who were killed that year, 2010. I went to half of their funerals like they were not up here. I I just had the choice and I took it. It's really that simple. If you're still living, like there's a survival instinct within each of us. We want to live. And so the fight was on. And I was not going to die. I was convinced if I could still breathe, I could still win. It's a mindset, but um yeah, we all have that ability.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

So uh kind of walk me through what played out. You did fight back, you shot back, um and and what happened?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I shot back, threw my vehicle at him. I was on one side, he was on the other, and then he eventually retreated to the front of his car and raised his hands. And so I moved up towards the front of my truck, and he said three words, you got me. And then at that point I started to lose consciousness. I think my adrenaline had run out. I was shot internally, like when I was on the ground, a lot of rounds went up and in and bounced around, and I was just running out of energy. And so I went unconscious, retreated to the back of my truck, and just laid down firing rounds. And I think he thought at that point I died, and so we got in his car and left and went down river, down the highway, away from civilization, ditched his car, hiked about a mile, leaving a blood trail. And yeah, I think he thought the cops would be coming after him, and so he set up in this boulder field to ambush is what it looks like. And then for some reason before the sun rose, he left his backpack, rifle, and such and disappeared.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

When you're but so you go unconscious on the ground there, but again, another choice came into play because you did regain consciousness.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yes, um, approximately eight to ten minutes um later, just on the time frame of things. And I wake up, um, it's dark. I look down my body. At this point, I'm on my back, and I see he's gone. And then I realize no one knows I'm there. I've got to get to my truck. So this was next to the Colorado River, the canyon walls. We didn't have radio reception typically, no cell service, nothing. This is out where you can disappear and leave without a trace. So my only lifeline was gonna be that truck radio. I was wearing a handheld, but um, I was shot in my right arm too, and it was just I felt really weird and numb and and lethargic, like someone had poured concrete on me. And then a really uh remarkable thing happened. I started to see my family in my mind, wife, three young kids, you know, six, three, and nine months at the time, and seeing their faces, it was like I need to get up. I need to get to them. I've gotta get to that radio. And so what I would do is grab my arm that was kind of there and roll onto my stomach and take some breaths, roll onto my back, and eventually I made the rear bumper and then readjusted and rolled down the side of my truck. And I get to my truck door and it's open. I'd always had a strong premonition to leave that door open. You know, I'm not on a highway, I've got that liberty or luxury. Thank goodness it was open. I wouldn't have been able to reach the radio, and so I kind of used my truck and pulled myself up to grab the mic and called for help. And then at that point I just laid back down on the ground. I didn't know what to do after that. What I did too was I'd read some research on breathing and how you can slow your vitals and give yourself time, and that reach research just I don't know, it was like a light bulb, it just came into my mind, and so I just started focusing on my breath. If I could still breathe, I was gonna live. And so was focused on that until you know two officers first arrived 10 to 12 minutes later.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I remember reading in your book, you said, if I can just link one breath to the next, I know I can live. And you and it I that that's that stood out to me. Just one breath at a time. If I can link one to the next, you were gonna live.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

That belief 100%.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Which sounds so simple, and yet when you're facing that life and death situation, is so powerful, you know, and and it worked.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

It worked. What I trained, I did so that's what I had to rely on training. I certainly got a lot of help from above. Yeah, but what I trained, I did. What we train and do physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, it's what it's just what we do when life gets tough. Like we rely on that training.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Um I know that in the what came next was a flurry of amazing miracles that happen, right? The the right people in the right place at the right time to save your life, the people in Moab at the medical facility, the life, you know, the helicopter ride to Colorado, everything that came into place after that was simply I I I don't know how you're here today, honestly, Brody. How do you how do you make sense of it?

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Why did I get so favored, you know? Like I went through uh survivor's guilt for a while. Like I had to learn how to cope with that. And what I learned was that if I can live the best of my life to honor those who, you know, don't make it, couldn't make it, didn't survive. Um that kind of became a real purpose. It always been there before, but it was really focused. Like if I can honor them by living my best life, then that took away the guilt.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah. One thing I wanna I wanna bring up is you know, you talk about agency in your book. You said I had no choice in the matter. I did, however, have the agency to choose how I would respond to the attack. And your core message in this was the lesson you wanted to get most across is that we are all born with the superpower, the ability to choose the way we respond to circumstances and to adversity. You you I go back to choice, I think, throughout this conversation, because through every step of this, choice comes into play. Um what do you think the biggest uh choice was you had to make?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

So there's a lot of chatter between the ears. Uh if if you know what I'm talking about. We love to tear ourselves down. We love negativity, just human nature. And the choices to fight against that negativity. So what's remarkable is we um created, we create most of the suffering in our life. And that's a good thing because if we have the power to create it, we have the power to dispel it. And so if we can train and tell ourselves, you are worth right, you are worth a good worth, high worth. Um we can we can dispel the negativity that you know that we sometimes tell ourselves when we're alone, when we're we've made a mistake, when we get down, like we can drink, just the opposite. Like we have that ability to eliminate a lot of suffering in our life, honestly. So choice. That's really most important. And because I make that choice, I want others to taste the goodness of life. So that's why I've written this. That's that's why I travel and and and talk about it, because man, we're all worth we're worth so much more than yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

You could this is such an experience that you could you could not share it. It it it's deeply traumatizing, and your family has been through a lot, um, but you choose to share it because you want other people to feel that hope and and the choice that you made to continue to live and to continue to fight. Um one thing when you were going through your recovery, um, I mean, first of all, the injuries were so extensive. Um I uh reading your book, hearing the doctors talk about how they just couldn't believe every moment you just continued to come through and and and things just continued to like certain bullets missed certain arteries. And it was just incredible that the work that was put into you to save your life. Um tell me a little bit about how you dealt with the anxiety coming out of those injuries, because that's real for a lot of people, whether it's trauma injuries, emotional injuries, you know, that comes in a lot of different forms. How did you personally handle that?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

When someone tries to end your life, it I woke up so scared, like so scared. And um, I begged for peace. So in the hospital alone, right? I can't talk. I've got tracheostomy, you know, they're they're doing everything for me, and I'm laying there and little beeps and the buzzing, and it's dark, and and you're alone, and I was just full of fear. And I hate that feeling. Like the way you dispel fear is you run at it. And that it dissipates, it goes away. And so I couldn't run. I'm in a bed. So I just the only thing I could do was beg for it and pled for it. And then I received this peace that can only come from a higher source. And after I received that early on in the hospital, I really started to heal. Like I just, I really started to heal, but there was another factor in play. I'd felt a strong premonition eight or nine months before this happened to get fit, like cardio, push-ups, sit-ups, run, kind of the CrossFit craze. And um, this premonition was so strong I couldn't ignore it. And so it was like, all right, I'm gonna do it. Like it was that strong. And because of the girth I had, the shape I was in, I was just started to heal.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Like and I Incredibly fast.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Three and a half weeks in a coma, and I only spent two weeks in the hospital, and they they kicked you out of the hospital. They had this fine idea to send me home Christmas Eve, which is they kicked you out of the hospital and you drove back to Utah. It's about the worst day to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

When did your wife?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

It was it was a shock.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Miracle for the kid. You were home for Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

But I called her and said, hey, they're letting me out. And she's like, what drug are you on now? Like I know. I want to speak to a doctor now is what she said.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

I want to say this real quick. Your wife is my hero throughout this book. You're my hero too, but your wife is my hero throughout this book because the strength in her, the determination in her to be such a pillar in your family. I it'll make me cry talking about it. So I can't. Wendy, I love you. Anyway, um, I want to read this really quick. You said I was gripped by the intense oppressive fear and anxiety I couldn't escape. During my night terrors in the ICU, I would shout at the scepter of a gunman in my mind, the specter of a gunman in my mind, thinking I was awakening and unnerving my fellow patients. I was alone in my room, but here's where I want to get to. But I found relief in forgiveness. Brody, that to me was so powerful. Tell me about forgiveness for you, because I feel like that is a major theme in your book and how we are here today.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

So that that piece was was forgiveness. I found I could forgive Lance and um it changed everything. But I could think clearly, I could heal, I could move on. It was so liberating, and it's possible for anyone. But I still have people I need to forgive today, you know, and I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Like, I'll forgive you for the snake.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Thank you. I got you. Thank you. I didn't even have to ask for it.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I forgive you. But forgiveness is what allowed you to move forward.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

We can't move on unless we achieve it or we're gifted it or seek after it and like we it's just such I just healed so quickly and and fast. I spent a year in physical therapy, but I could heal. I could move.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

But the the healing for your mind. What for you tell me about the power of that for your mind.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Really liberating. So when I could um drive again, this is like eight or nine months later, I was on some, you know, pain painkillers for a long time, so I couldn't drive. But once I got relieved of that, I drove out to Poison Spider alone at night in my car, and I just shook. Because we have to face our fears. As soon as I could get past the shaking, you know, you you relive trauma like over and over. And if it consists, it's post-traumatic, right? Yeah. Stress disorder. If it lasts more than 30 days, I had to get through that and passed it and was facing the fear. I had to know if I could get back to being a ranger again. That was really a major goal.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

My kids seeing me in uniform for the first time, they're like eating cereal. And I walk down the stairs and they look at me and just like a mid, you know, mid-stop, they're like, What are you doing? I'm like, uh, I'm gonna go work today in the office. Few hours in the office. And they're like, okay, and they go back to eating. Like, that was such a day. Yeah. But that was months of sitting with them, reliving it with them. They had to know. I had to be really honest, straightforward with them. It was really a healing time.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Brody, it's incredible the ability to sit here with you and to share your story. And I thank you for that because I don't know anyone who has been through what you've been through and can articulate the things that you have done to sustain those kind of injuries, to make the choices you've made and to find the forgiveness and to move forward is truly inspiring. If someone is out there listening today and they hear your story, what is the one message that you hope that they walk away with?

SPEAKER_00 27:27

My hope is is four things. And it's the thing these things we take with us when we leave this life, right? It's it's our relationship with our family, our friends, our enemies, um and with this higher source. That's all we take. And if we can look at every day and how we treat each other and things we come across, if we can treat them in a better light, that it's just a moment and it will pass, as the U2 song says. Like we can get through it. Here's here's one thing that the Bob Marley says. Okay, this is the hippie coming out on me, but you've got to love the life you live to live the life you love. And if you can achieve that, life gets better.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Test it. It just does.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

It does. From somebody who's seen it at its worst. Yeah. You can tell people it does. Absolutely. Brody, thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. Where can people get your book? I'm telling you, I devoured this. I was sitting on an airplane, and I told Brody in the middle seat, crying, laughing, hoping the people next to me weren't judging me because it was so good. It took us on a journey. And the fact that I know you and that you're here in our state, and yet you're still working, and people can come across you and they they can know what you've been through, it just means so much that you share it with us. So, where can they find it?

SPEAKER_00 28:53

So uh Amazon, Walmart, Target, like Simon and Schuster is the distributor. So if you go there, that has all the links. Okay. Or online on my website.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Like go go see his book. And if you're ever uh out in rural Utah or down in the Moab area, you might come across Brody.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

You break a lot. I might see you.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

But it'll be over with a smile, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

You're gonna get a smile.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

You're gonna get a smile. Brody, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Thanks for joining us on the Stand for Kind podcast. You can learn more about StanfordKind on our website, standforkind.com. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok. We also hope that you'll subscribe and share the show with your friends and family. We'll see you next time.