Dr. B.J. Miller Lost 3 Limbs in an Accident: I Never Had a "Why Me?" Moment | SuperSoul Sunday | OWN

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. 

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Keywords: Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network YouTube, full episodes, Super Soul Sunday, #supersoulsunday, SuperSoul Sessions, SuperSoul Sunday, super soul sundays, oprah super soul sunday, brene brown, spiritual, Religion, God, Faith, Dr. B.J. Miller, Lost 3 Limbs, Lost 3 Limbs in an Accident, Accident, Why Me?, Moment, hospice, palliative care specialist, palliative care, palliative, specialist, reveals, felt self-pity, self-pity, horrific accident, horrific, triple amputee, season 7, clip

Id: j54TQ2EniCA

Length: 4min 24sec (264 seconds)

Published: Sun May 07 2017