you guys are about to witness the first
camp stand-up comedy routine ever
congratulations huh
actually I want to tell you a little bit
about myself how I was injured and of
course my best friend and five years ago
the tender age of 23 I had a tragic
accident that left me paralyzed from the
neck down I broke my neck the c4 c5 and
c6 level and because of that I have no
sensation from my shoulders down in fact
I can’t feel my armpits and well as that
I only had use of my biceps and no
triceps and life of a spinal cord injury
can be very challenging extremely
challenging in fact just about every
aspect of my life
I need a helping hand in one form or
another whether it be eating food
getting dressed showering getting up out
of bed everything I need a little bit of
help with that and when I broke my neck
not only did I lose the ability to do a
lot of easy tasks everyday tasks I lost
a lot of friends it was kind of a lonely
time for me in fact it’s kind of a sad
story but when I broke my neck and I was
in the hospital
one thing I was looking forward to was
my girlfriend was talking hey don’t
worry try this we’ll get through this
together we’ll do this but about a month
that she was planning on moving out of
here about a month after I got injured
and this is baking closer and closer I
started hearing hearing from her less
and less and five days after she was
supposed to be here
she changed her relationship status on
facebook in a relationship with somebody
else and that was when I really hit rock
bottom
I felt I felt yeah what I’m going to do
and and luckily I had a helping hand
my new best friend came into my life and
I want to take that opportunity to
introduce you guys to her everyone say
hello siggy oh oh she’s a little shy
stay a little softer with you hello
singing there she is
ask the party animal and so the first
what does she do for you and the answer
is she can do a lot she’s trained to do
a series of complex tasks such as open a
water bottle put a straw in it for me
but really if the day goes well I don’t
have to ask her to do anything in fact I
just want her to be the happiest
healthiest monkey that she could be but
a year after I had her out I ran into a
very precarious situation in fact that’s
when she really earned her keep see I
had developed a pressure sore on my butt
while I was in the hospital and because
of that I ended up having to be in bed
quite some time when I finally got out
of bed I was able to go in and hang out
with the Stig muffin she or I I was
leaning back to do a pressure relief and
my chair malfunctioned and because it
malfunctioned
I couldn’t lean back or move it written
in me completely immobile
and and so obviously I added try and get
help so I tried to use my phone and call
my sister but when I hit my phone it
felled the ground fell in pieces my
battery went one way the phone one
another and that’s when I was really in
trouble because as I tried to yell for
help my sister wasn’t answered there’s
no way she could hear me and I knew that
I also knew that she wouldn’t come
looking through me for another five or
six hours because after all they’d just
gotten in there to hang out my little
little buddy and so that’s when she he
just jumped in the action she jumped
down she’d grabbed my phone she brought
it up she put it on my lap I said
alright girl let’s get the battery now
fetch she jumped on down she got the
battery she came back up and she’s
trying to put it in my hand I moved my
hand out of the way she slipped it in
the phone and I was able to turn it on
and give a call out to my friend come
down and tell my sister I needed help
and right then there I knew that all the
hard work that all the people I helping
hand really paid off and now helping
hands they started in 1979 their mission
was raised and trained capuchin monkeys
to assist with people like me with
spinal cords another mobility
impairments and the the the goals of the
program would provide gifts of
companionship dignity and most
importantly hope and when I needed that
when I when I needed a boost most I
remember that day came when I found out
that my girlfriend wasn’t coming out I
thought about the ultimate escape life
and I at the time I had no use of my
upper arms at all I drove around the
chin joystick I remember driving up to
the Cal where I’d spent many days as a
child running around swinging fishing
for product and a thought what stopped
me why don’t I just drive off in here
and just and at all what’s the point and
that’s when I remembered about that seed
that was planted in my head way back
when I was in the hospital the idea that
there there’s things like ciggy out
there that you know life may be worth
living for and it and obviously I
considered all the love and support that
all the people had shown you when when
my accident happened but that wasn’t
enough and the thought of singie in
those darkest times illuminated
okay a pathway to a more fulfilling life
and without that that thought was what
made me back away from the edge and it
gave me a strength to work through my
issues and face my challenges and over
time I had it took me another four years
to make that happen in order to make
that happen I had to get XY and Z
together I had to get my life back in
order I had to have their environment
that’s conducive to having a monkey
helper and fortunately after four years
I saw my opportunity they jumped at it
and sure enough I got the house I moved
out of my parents house and now support
myself with the help of my wonderful
sister Stacy and um it’s it’s changed my
life I’m a very happy person and over
time I found that happiest people in the
world don’t have the best of everything
happiest people in the world make the
best of everything
and now people often people would often
say in the beginning they would say
don’t let the wheelchair define you and
sounding good at all but you know if I
were to rob a bank tomorrow and the cops
came over and talked to the witnesses
and asked why hit what does he look like
well you’d probably say well he was in a
wheelchair and so you know but that
being said i think george RR martin said
it best you said never forget what you
are for the world will surely not make
it your strength then it can never be
your weakness arming yourself in it and
it can never be used to hurt you so here
i am sharing my story i did forget to
tell you how it happened but i’ll share
that with you now um actually I was out
drinking with some buddies I had walked
excuse me um I was trying to be a
responsible adult left my truck at home
and on the way back home a guy that mean
to beef Jerky’s that I couldn’t climb
this building myself take that bet why
not well a drunken munchies why not
and sure enough I climbed to the top of
that building but once I got there I
said if I’m not back in five minutes
wait some more and so on the way back
down I slipped fell straight onto my
neck and in that moment my reality and
all those around me changed forever you
imagine the call my parents got at 1:00
in the morning
this is a mich sorry to inform you but
your son’s been an internal accident and
to my parents credit they’re incredibly
human being
on many levels my father Phil what they
make and my mother daily a rage my dad
quit his job my mom she worked she
started picking up overtime shifts in
fact there’d be times where she would
work five 16-hour shifts in a row all to
take care of me
and I felt guilty about it but at the
end of the day all that love and support
showed me that at numerous valued of my
life and I can’t make them all enough
but now that I have seen you I realized
that dream and I can’t can’t be happier
fun happy yeah I mean I get to hang out
the monkey all day a walk right how cool
is that and so with that being said I
already used up two good quotes and got
nothing to close with now well hey I
appreciate you guys inviting me out here
and sharing my story and I hope that you
guys will go check check out the video
online that they made of us and helping
hands dot-org dude check it out
that was amazing
oh we actually have a special surprise
for you guys
we brought out all the way from Boston
the trainer and program director of
helping hands
so come on Ave again so we just want to
ask like two quick questions about this
cuz super cool so how long does it take
to train one of these helping hands
monkeys typically once the monkeys come
to training in Boston it takes about
three to five years to train each monkey
and all monkeys are different just like
everybody in this room so we really
tailor the monkeys training to their own
individual learning styles
siggi is particularly bright and
motivated like trav I heard there is
like that C was special in one way do
you want to explain that yeah Ziggy
isn’t special in a number of different
ways we’re not supposed to have favorite
monkeys around helping hands but some of
us think stick he’s pretty awesome but
she’s a she’s a survivor just like trav
she actually had a bout with breast
cancer had a tumor that we removed with
our awesome veterinarians and she’s been
cancer free now for over ten years so
she’s she’s doing great that’s super
awesome
well everyone give her a round of
applause once again for Travis and Megan
thank you guys [Applause]