14. Consequences of Distractive Driving - Scott Baseman

Today's guest is Scott Baseman. This episode is a sobering conversation, and it's one that must be had. As I was researching for this episode, I was shocked to discover that cellphone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year. As you hear in the episode today, any type of distraction while driving could change the course of someone's life forever. Scott's story is one of trial, but it is also one of forgiveness and of overcoming. We live in a society today where we all have these devices of distraction in our hands at all times, and it's so easy to think nothing of it when we pick up those devices while we are behind the wheel of a vehicle. This is a must-listen episode; Scott's story may even save someone's life.

Finally, my daughter called the police Department, and she says, was there a motorcycle accident within the last hour or so at the time? That's when the flight for life went over the house, there was a motorcycle accident and he's being airlifted to Wisconsin when I was in the hospital yet. And after talking with my attorney, I asked to myself, how is the woman doing that hit me. I understand she's having a pretty difficult time, and that's when I kind of okay. I can forgive her. When you talk about forgiveness and forgiven somebody, you're going to have a much better life if you can learn to forgive somebody. Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming back. It's another episode, and today's episode is a great episode, but a little Disclaimer. It may be difficult to listen to because it was done over the phone, but do not let that deter you because this episode is a sobering conversation, and it's one that must be had. As I was researching for this episode, I was absolutely shocked to discover that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year. Nearly 390,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused specifically by texting while driving. Now, believe it or not, texting while driving is 6% more likely to cause an accident than drunk driving. Those are shocking statistics. And as you hear in the episode today, any type of distraction while driving could change the course of someone's life forever. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Here we go. Hey, what's up, everybody? It's Erin, and it's another episode of the podcast today. I have a story that is quite sobering, but it's one that's very important, one that needs to be discussed. This really could mean the difference between life and death. Scott Baseman, thank you for joining me today. How are you? I'm doing fine. Thank you. So, Scott, your story is one of trial, but it's also one of forgiveness and of overcoming. And I think it's also a story that is so important not only for young people to hear, but for everybody to hear, because we live in this society today where everyone is so plugged in, we all have these devices of distraction in our hands, and it's so easy to think nothing of it when we choose to pick up those devices while we are behind the wheel of a vehicle. Exactly. There's too much of it. Absolutely. Well, first of all, where are you calling us from today? I live in Wisconsin central part of Wisconsin. Wisconsin gets pretty cold in the winter, doesn't it? Okay. That's pretty cold. I guess Montana can definitely get that out in the flat lands. Oh, yes. So can you start by telling us how the accident happened and the story leading up to that accident? Okay, basically what it was. I was on my motorcycle and I stopped at a four way stop sign. I was just checking my waiting to go and the girl behind me was on her GPS on her phone, and she rented my motorcycle, which broke my back and put me in a wheelchair for life. But that particular day would have been May 23, 2010 beautiful day, sunny, nice and warm. My youngest boy was at a birthday party at one of the local bowling alleys, and I thought, Well, I'm going to run on my bike, grab a couple of things and pick up my son because he had a piano resettle later on that he had to get to well, up to that point, everything was going good after. It was funny, because I stopped my parents on the way. I didn't even remember doing that until my father said something about it. Let's try to do stuff here, but I don't remember much after the impact was I think I came to in the hospital and I just kind of mould. So I was in the hospital. I had a drink, and I'm assuming I'm in a hospital. I said, all right, I got two and a half weeks or two weeks vacation, and that's what I was informed that my vacation was used up to that point. My son had called back the house and said they were picked me up. They couldn't figure out what happened, where I went and what I did. They go around kind of looking for me and they couldn't find nothing. They even drove through the same intersection. The accident happened, but they had everything cleaned up already. Wow. So they didn't know where I was at wow. Finally, my daughter called the police Department and she said, Was there a motorcycle accident within the last hour or so, and she put on hold for, like, almost 20 minutes. And at the time, that's when the flight for life went over the house, when they finally come back, there was a motorcycle accident, but we weren't able to identify the person because some final ID I found out later on, my wallet flew out of the pocket and ended up somewhere in the ditch or whatever. That's how I figure out who I was. So once they found out, once they come back, this is that there was a motorcycle accident and he's being airlifted to waste of Wisconsin because it's more of a trauma, better trauma center over there. But see that part? I don't remember a whole lot after that, because your body has a tendency to just kind of block out. So I wasn't about two and a half weeks later when things are starting to finally come around, and I started to realize what was going on and had a lot to learn there. So you're airlifted to the hospital, you wake up in a hospital bed. Did you say two weeks later you woke up in this hospital bed? Or at least that was the point where you sort of started coming to and realizing what had happened? Yes. Three and a half weeks later, when they flew me over, they put a drink in so I couldn't really talk to anybody I can just move towards because they kept me sedated at first pretty heavily sedated. And then as time went on, they just kind of started letting up on it a little bit. And I'd come around now and then. And that's when I kind of started putting two to two together. I was in the ICU for two and a half weeks. And finally, then they transferred me to a regular room. We went there maybe another week before I went down to rehab center to learn everything all over again. So there's a lot of things that I had to learn and finding out the hard way. At the same time, my oldest boy graduated from high school. A bunch of my friends went to his graduation for me because I couldn't go. So that was good to see. So how long were you in physical therapy? Physical therapy. I went in trying to think once here, I want to say it was probably in the middle of June, and it was like July 27 is when I finally got out of the hospital. Okay. Physical therapy that was being unparallelized from my mid chest down, my mid chest up. That's how I balance. So people who aren't in a wheelchair haven't been paralyzed, they don't even think about this stuff. It's just something that your body naturally does as far as balance and everything else. Well, you constantly got to be careful how your balance is when you're paralyzed because you could end up falling out with your or whatever day to day people out there. Nobody expects to have something like this happen to them. And so when something like this does happen, it's just a major reality check of just how easily and instantly something can happen in your life and just change the course of your life. Exactly. And the funny thing about it, too, is when I came because there's a corner I come around before I get to the stop sign, and there's a car sitting off to the one side going the opposite direction while that vehicle turned around, pulling behind me. And that happened to be the girl that hit me. Wow. So she pulled a UE and came up behind you. Exactly. It was just that fast. She was on her GPS, and they estimated her doing 29 miles an hour when she hit my motorcycle. And being that she was young, she said she hit the brakes to the car and parked and jumped out. I don't believe she did that, because from where the impact was to where her vehicle stopped was 100 and some feet. So if she would have hit the brake, she would have stopped a lot sooner than that than 29 miles an hour. My motorcycle stayed upright until the vehicle stopped, and then it just kind of fell over. There were stories that you ran me over that. I can't confirm. I don't know if that was true or not. I did have a compound fracture. My left leg, my right foot kind of got grown up a little bit on the asphalt, so I lost some big toe on that one. I had a couple of broken ribs. This car wasn't going 50, 60 miles an hour. This is just going 29, 28, 29 miles an hour. It does not take much speed with a heavy vehicle to change the course of someone's life. I mean, a vehicle is essentially a weapon in the hands of us, the citizens, and we need to take care when we're handling a weapon of that nature. Exactly. We've all done it. We've all been there. We've all done it at some point in our lives when I was 22, because my daughter used to do a lot of it until after my accident happened. Well, then that kind of woke her up, and then she kind of get upset with other people that were texting behind the wheel. Yeah, rightly. So. And you're right. I think everybody has done this, whether it's your phone or whether it's a third party GPS. It's so easy to feel like you're in control. And I'm not like somebody else. I can handle this phone while I'm driving. But, man, it just takes 1 second. It takes a half a second too long of being distracted to ultimately change your life and possibly change the life of somebody else. Exactly. It was like a bright, sunny day when I was out just for that little ride. Take the motorcycle night. A changing experience that much. The funny thing, too, is I took the back roads to go up there, so that because there's less traffic and I could just skip around town. I don't have to go right to town. And that sort of happened. If I would have decided to go the other way, everything would have probably been fine. So you're out of the hospital. Who knows what this young woman is going through after doing this? What's going through her mind? Because like you said, it could have been any one of us who was in her shoes. And if I would have done something like that, if somebody else would have done something like that, I can't even imagine the pain that it would cause that person to know that they had done something like that. What is her name? Muriel. Yes. Okay. So what happened to Muriel during all this? Well, the day of the accident, I understand that she probably forgot all the vehicle and was very upset after that. I don't know a whole lot after that, because when I was in the hospital yet, and after talking with my attorney, the woman doing it hit me. I understand she's having a pretty difficult time, and that's when I kind of okay. I can forgive her if she would have been on alcohol, drugs or whatever. And they hit me. It could have been a whole different story. She had nothing like that in her system. So before I even left the hospital and decided, I can forgive her, it wasn't, I think, three years after that, before we can finally talk to each other because of the court deal and all this kind of stuff. And that's when the fire Department decided to put this thing together and they asked if I would be interested in speaking at it. And if I had any problems with Mario? No, at all. So that was probably the first time I actually got talked to her in three years. Really? At this event, it was the first time that you were able to talk with her. Exactly. Wow. You say I forgave her, and not everybody would be able to do that. I mean, that is a choice. That is a conscious choice on your part that you had to make. And I can't imagine that a decision like that to let something go like that is easy. I don't know. For me, it wasn't that hard to do. And, you know, the thing is, the courts are coming down on her pretty hard. She didn't have no money, unfortunately, no insurance on her vehicle. So it's like, what are you going to get out of her anyway? She could end up spending many years in prison for causing what they call great bodily harm. So then when it was their court date, I was there and they asked me if I had any input on it. And I said, you know what? Why give her any jail time? What's that going to do? Why not go make her speak at the schools and driver's head classes and all that kind of stuff that's going to do more good than sitting in jail. So the judge did cut it down to 20 days in jail. She had what was it? $500. I think it was a community service, which was speaking at schools and driver's places. In some of those, I went along with them with her because then they can hear both sides. They can hear her side of the story because certain parts. But I don't remember. She can explain it. And then after I was in the hospital, then. Okay. Now I can kind of explain what happened. That's how we ended up getting together and going different places and letting people know about distracted diving. And I can see how important it would be for people to be able to not only hear your side of the story, but hers as well, because it humanizes her. And it helps people realize that it could literally be any one of us. It could be any one of us that would end up in a scenario like this. She's just like you, and she's just like me. Exactly. Yeah. But your request swayed the judge to give her less of a sentence. Exactly. I just felt as old, there's going to be more bird out of it if she went on and spoke to everybody about distracting driving versus sitting in jail, moving away from the accident for a minute. I just want to hear your opinions and thoughts on forgiveness and what forgiveness can do in your life, because holding resentment towards anybody in your life, it will destroy you far quicker than it will destroy anybody else who you hold resentment towards. And so being able to forgive in whatever circumstance in life, it's healing for you. And so what are your thoughts on forgiveness? Life is what you make it. I could sit here. I'll be upset with the lady for doing this and put me in a wheelchair very angry with her. But what is that going to get me? What am I going to get in life with that? If you can forgive her, move on and make a decent life, that's all you can do. I do see other stories of people are politics and they have a hard time dealing with it. Some of these people need to find something other than do worry about this person did this to me or that person did that to me because it's not going to get you anywhere. You're not going to enjoy life. Yeah. And having somebody like yourself, Scott, on my podcast telling your story, it could help other people who maybe in similar circumstances that you are being able to hear your story and being able to hear how you have moved on in this. And I've had quite a few people on the podcast up to this point, specifically from car accidents and motorcycle accidents. And just for me, personally, selfishly starting this podcast and hearing all of these stories and how people have been able to move on. One young man that's been on the podcast was in a car accident. He was in a coma for four months. They tried to convince his parents to pull the plug, but he did survive it. And now he's able to walk around with a Walker. But he lives such a full life, and he's using his life to raise money for nonprofits for other young people with traumatic brain injuries. And it's just inspiring to hear that. And your story of forgiveness could mean the difference between somebody's life changing who's hearing this episode right now. I would hope it does, even when we speak at the school, if we can save one life, we're doing what we came there to do. Absolutely. Case at that school, the fire Department put on a thing before they asked me to come in there. And it wasn't a week later, and there was two kids that were killed in a car accident. One was paralyzed, and I think the other one lost use of his arm. And that was a week before the problem. So that's why they decided now we need something a little bit stronger to get people to realize how serious this is. And even after talking at the school, there was a lot of kids that came up to us with tears in their eyes really woke them up. So we just don't want to see anybody else go through it. Yeah. You're friends with Muriel. Now, I know you both live very separate lives, but I know because of Kovid, you're not able to get out and speak. But would you want to continue sharing your story specifically with young people in the future if Kovid, once this whole crazy thing is resolved? Yes, I don't have a problem with it. Definitely. Is there any last thing that you'd like to share, turning this negative to a positive in your life and how this has impacted your life? Do you have anything that you'd like to share one last thing with the listeners? It could be about forgiveness, or it could be about paying attention while driving. Just any last thought. You know, when you talk about forgiveness and forgiven somebody, it takes a lot to do that. In some cases, it's going to be easier than other cases. But for the most part, you're going to have a much better life. If you can learn to forgive somebody, somebody lost their child to a firearm and they chose to forgive that person. So, yeah, it takes a lot. I get a lot of credit for these people that do. Then they can go on in life and their life is going to be somewhat normal. Again, they're able to forgive, move on. Life can be much better. Absolutely. Man. Scott, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Is there any way that people could reach out to you if they're interested in you speaking at their school or they just want to reach out and have a conversation with you? Is there maybe an email that people could reach you through? Yes. My email is Sbaseman B-A-S-E-M-A-N 500 at gmail. Com. Okay, so we'll have that we'll have the email in the show notes. So if anybody out there wants to reach out to Scott, feel free to do so and have a conversation with him. And maybe you feel like you would like to have him come to your school once Kovit is resolved and speak at the school, and maybe he can do something virtual? I don't know. But yeah, reach out if you'd like to. And when we're talking about forgiveness, I just want to remind the listeners that if you haven't listened to episode ten of the Simply Overcoming Podcast, the title of the episode is forgiving a murderer, a woman who had her husband brutally murdered in front of her, and she forgave the man and became friends with the family. And it's an incredible story. It's a story that if you need to forgive someone, maybe this story can help you learn to forgive. So, Scott Baseman, thank you so much. For being on the podcast once again. And God bless you in everything that you do in life. Thank you. And thanks for having me. And if somebody sends me an email, just put in there. Maybe podcast so I can kind of know that that makes sense. I'll delete him. All right, Scott. Hey, have a great rest of your day and thank you. Thank you. You too.