BJ MILLER: There's a commuter train that runs across the
path and it was just sitting there off hours and there's a ladder on the
back, you climb it like you would a tree or a jungle gym. We really didn't
think we were getting into anything particularly nuts. But I happened to be
the first one up the ladder and I had a metal watch on and I got close
enough to the power lines and the electricity arced to the watch. And that
was that. OPRAH: It's like thousands of voltage. BJ: 11,000 volts.
Enough to move a commuter train. OPRAH: Wow. BJ: Mm-hmm.
OPRAH: Shot through your body. BJ: Yeah. OPRAH: What does that
feel like? BJ: Not good. OPRAH: Not good. BJ: Not good. I can say
-- OPRAH: Can you remember the feeling? BJ: I just say I really don't
remember the night. My first memory is about four days into the whole
ordeal -- actually, my first memory was that night being flown to a burn unit
in New Jersey. There's just one burn unit in New Jersey. Saint Barnabas.
OPRAH: So what was burned? BJ: So with electricity, you burn from
the inside out. OPRAH: Oh. BJ: It enters your body and then tries to
get out and it tends to incinerate where it enters and wear it exits. So it
entered my arm and then blew down my feet. And as your leg tapers, all
that current slows and the energy gathers and it -- at some point, your flesh
just can't take it. So you burn from the inside out. OPRAH: Whoa.
BJ: But I don't remember that night really except for when they were
loading me into the helicopter. I remember being too tall. I was like 6 --
almost 6, 5. I remember they were trying to fumble with my feet where to
put me in this helicopter thing. I vaguely remember that. Then my first
memory's about four or five days into it. OPRAH: What do you
remember? BJ: This is a -- I kind of like this story, Oprah, because it's
just a feeling -- a strange feeling. So you know that feeling when you wake
up from a dream and it was a not a good dream? OPRAH: Yeah.
BJ: And there's a moment where you realize and you look around --
OPRAH: Oh, that was a dream. BJ: -- and you say all right. That was
just a dream. Okay. I'm okay. Everything's cool. OPRAH: Yeah.
BJ: You know, it takes a little minute. You can kind of feel it happening.
OPRAH: Yeah. BJ: So I woke up in the burn unit and had that
sensation. I said, oh, man, oh, cool, that was just a dream. It was a
horrible dream. Everything's cool. Everything was so clearly not cool. I'm in
a burn unit ICU. I'm intubated. I've got lines in my jugular. But somehow I
still managed to look at this whole scene and think of it as a dream. So I
extubated myself, took the ventilator out. Pulled the necklines out because
I had the feeling I needed to go to the bathroom. So I did all this stuff. Get
out of the bed. At that point, I still had my feet. They hadn't been
amputated surgically yet. That was the next day. So I get out of bed, stand
on my crispy little feet and start heading towards the door to go to the
bathroom. Still completely clueless. And then the -- the catheter line ran
out of slack. And that -- so the way a Foley catheter works is a little ball
that's in your bladder, and that keeps it secure, but when you pull on it, it
doesn't go anywhere. So -- mm-hmm. So that -- I fell to the floor. And in a
second, the same reverse happened. I realized, oh, this was all real. This
was real. In that millisecond it became extremely clear what had
happened. OPRAH: Whoa. BJ: Yeah. OPRAH: Whoa. BJ: It was
intense. OPRAH: Where you feel filled in that moment with, what?
Regret? Horror? Why did this happen to me? Oh, no? BJ: You know,
one of the great things about -- I never really had the why me?
OPRAH: Really. BJ: Really not. And that's not a credit to me. That's
mostly a credit to my family. My mom -- and I grew up with a mother who's
disabled. She had polio and she has post-polio syndrome, so it's a
progressive illness where she's progressively disabled. And so much of my
childhood was spent with her navigating the planet from a wheelchair. And
I was so very in my bones sensitized to disability as an idea, as a
construct, as a concept. And I just knew it happened to good people. So
there was no part of me that was surprised that this had happened to me.
And in a way, I feel so fortunate because I got to side step -- I watched
some of my peers in similar situations having to go through a couple of
years hating themselves practically. Hating their lives. OPRAH: Yes.
Yeah. I've talked to lots of people who went through that. BJ: Yeah.
OPRAH: You did not go through that. BJ: Not really.