The Man With Another Mans Arms | Our Life

[Music] i did not know what i wanted to be when i was growing up it was either police firefighter chef was in there at one point when i was 12. yeah that was all over the place [Music] with a lack of direction and young adulthood fast approaching john took a step down an unlikely path at first i wanted to be a fighter pilot and the first thing i went to was air force and they told me i was too tall so i was like bye i left the next one was the navy and we were sitting outside of his office the navy recruiter and uh didn't show up on time the marine recruiter was right next door we started talking about what i want to do and kind of just went from there signed up for the marines [Music] i kind of felt like this was like my first step in the right direction kind of changing my life around doing something for the good it wasn't like i was like gun hoe about it but i was excited to be able to do this in 2005 john began recruit training for the united states marine corps you know i was a six foot one tall dude i was very excited that's our going away party with the playboy bunnies how would you describe yourself back then i mean i'm standing next to play by bunny so all the confidence in the world drinking women [Music] typical united states marine in 2007 john was sent on his first tour of duty to al-anbar northern iraq right there that's me my big goofy self you gotta understand infantry marines were kind of insane in the membrane we are definitely not all the way there most time i wanted to make sure my junior marine had the proper equipment on at the time i had to make sure his stuff was working i know it wasn't probably the best thing to do but it was fun do you look back when you turn the marines with like for fondness well yeah marines were my buddies rings were my friends marines were my brothers and kind of good times and bad times two years after returning from iraq john's unit was sent on its next tour of duty to hellmann province afghanistan we were conducting a dismounted patrol i decided to be the one up front doing the minesweeper i picked it why did you pick that uh because i thought i was more experienced finding ieds apparently i am they were tasked with winning the hearts and minds of each village they came to whilst searching compounds for insurgent fighters we knocked on each gate and if there was nobody there we had to get permission to enter thankfully all the all the houses we came to had people inside them we just kind of said hey you know we're here to help you please let us know if there's anything that we can do for you or anything like that we need him to unlock the shop the last compound they came to appear to be deserted i go in because i'm the first person with the minesweeper to my guys they found battery and loose wires there was nobody even around this house which is a very bad sign [Music] so we started to do a more thorough sweep next thing i know i went to go turn around with my right foot and i'm being blown through the air [Music] sergeant mendez starts calling out names [Music] everyone's responding you're watching me eventually gets to my name he's like peck and i don't respond eventually they hear from this hole in the ground john had triggered a pressure plate on an improvised explosive device and sustained catastrophic injuries from the blast right away they see my right leg is amputated my left leg is amputated [Music] right arms amputated above the elbow and left arm is what's called a degloving incident where the skins pulled off the flesh with john's patrol desperately trying to save his life the helicopter was called in for an evacuation i can feel the rotor wash hitting me and next thing i know i'm being put on the helicopter i keep blacking in and out of consciousness i thought i was saying in my head i don't want to die here i don't want to die here apparently i'm saying this out loud but it's a lot more graphic and next thing i know i'm waking up two and a half months later in walter reed john was kept medically sedated for over two months completely unaware of his injuries [Music] and that was that's me heavily sedated super sedated this one doctor told me he's like when you came in you were screaming at us saying let you die let you die i think the very first few memories i had was like there's a blanket on me and i couldn't move and when i say i couldn't move i could not move any part of me my mom had to tell me that i lost my arms and legs because i still felt them after losing both arms and both legs to an explosion in afghanistan marine sergeant john peck had been medically sedated for over two months a lot of people that cared for me when i was on my travels my sick travels like i was taking a vacation one of the nurses messaged me and she's like hey i'm so glad you're alive i'm like wait what she's like yeah you died you were actually dead like dead dead not coming back despite the best efforts of the medical teams john's injuries appeared to be too severe to survive at one point i actually like flatlined and the doctors were you know kind of like time of death [Music] my arms are all wrapped up in these bandages to add to the seriousness of john's situation doctors discovered he'd contracted a life-threatening flesh-eating fungus i did have a left leg it ate my left leg all the way up to the hip uh it also ate my first layer of my abdominal muscle my fasciitis and then it also ate my left bicep i had to keep going back in and cutting my left leg because of the fungus they were trying to cut it out of my system in addition to his injuries john also had to contend with the collapse of his 18-month marriage leaving him isolated and alone i just became secluded i stopped going to therapy i said every swear word in my dictionary and i just started going down my little dark spot i came up with an actual plan to commit suicide a guy without arms and legs trying to come up the plan that was great that's when my creativity comes into play i was gonna open up a door to the stairwell throw myself down a flyer roll my wheelchair down a flight of stairs and hopefully either i would die from the stairs or the wheelchair would fall on me and break my neck one of those days i got back from therapy i asked to be placed at the window of my hospital room and closed the door and there was a guy sitting on a bench and he was looking towards georgia avenue where the main road is and he got up and he was missing two or three limbs i couldn't tell and uh he got up started walking towards traffic i thought he's going to go throw himself in traffic and uh this little girl comes up grabs his hand and i was like oh like he can you know he has a kid next thing i know wife comes up dog or wife girlfriend whatever comes up and um i was like oh this double or triple amputee can find love i was like why can't i so within the next week i um i start going down to therapy and instead of it being conversations about like me trying to commit suicide or me saying screw you screw this it's more of like i actually asked my therapist kyla at the time like how are you doing like actual being conversation or having a conversation like i really did not want to die determined not to be beaten like fellow veterans he began the arduous road to rehabilitation think you can stop now that's 200 by the way over six months john progressed through different levels of prosthetic limbs until he was eventually able to walk again it was a demanding and full-time occupation leaving john detached and fatigued if the internet wasn't around i don't think i would be alive the internet definitely helped it was like well not just the internet social media was definitely the driving force [Music] oh hey morning afternoon evening i guess it depends on where you are in the world the internet allowed john to reach out to the outside world and break his isolation here we go here's how i play clash of clans for all of you weird people out there as john's followers grew so did the messages of support and appreciation prompting john to start a page documenting his journey i hope that everyone will join us tonight at 8pm eastern for a live q a on the john peck journey facebook site please share sharing his progress online not only helped john connect with the world again but it also inspired others the reason why i keep the journey site going is because hopefully it'll help somebody who's kind of down in the dumps or depressed now john's following has grown to over 15 000 people just the other day there was a guy who used to be a cop and he sent me a message and he's like you dude like i don't think you understand like you keep me going but he's like paralyzed and stuff like that so like i know it i know it helps people if the 200 people have watched this and one person's an amputee and they get answers that's all i care about while john was helping others he was also struggling with his own mobility with prosthetics life wasn't perfect i still needed help plus wearing a prosthetic all the time kind of bruised up my left arm one day whilst researching treatment john stumbled across news of a man in spain who received a double leg transplant i got on my computer and i was looking for this guy in spain so i typed in double leg transplant or leg transplant and immediately came up with brigham and women's brigham and women's in boston is one of only a few hospitals in the world to carry out this groundbreaking new procedure vca vascularized composite alloy transplantation or what we think of as hand transplantation or transplantation of body parts is a type of surgery that's come to bear over the last probably 15 20 years whereby we can take a part of a body from a deceased donor and transfer it to somebody who's living and needs that body part the hospital has only carried out four of these procedures since starting in 2011. john approached us he called us by phone to see what we were doing we talked to patients about you know what's involved and make sure they understand all of the details of what they're getting themselves into john was invited to boston to undertake an extensive round of mental and physical assessments transplant's not for everybody transplants for a small group of patients who really understand what they're going through and are willing to undertake the risks in order to get some of the really profound benefits after months of assessments the doctors had come to a decision they finally sat me down they're like hey look we can't do your left leg there's nothing there to attach we can do your right leg but how about the arms first all right so today is august 27th 2014 wednesday and officially 11 06 a.m this dude sergeant john pegg what what just got listed for a double arm transplant [Music] i think mental and physical resilience go really strongly together and john's background in the military gives him actually both this dude is going to get his arms back so for that first week i did not leave my phone at all while i was on the waiting list like the phone was like glued to my side every time i'd come up with boston massachusetts number i'm like oh my god is this this is this it and it just be like the case manager elaine would be like hi john i'm like yeah she like this is elaine the case manager i just wanted to see if you still want to be a candidate i'd be like oh elaine um that was frustrating john found a distraction while waiting for news of a donor match [Music] he joined a dating website and met someone apparently just saw my profile and she found it extremely sweet like the and then also very funny like there were things in there like you know i'm a blast to be around and then there was just like sweet things that were like hey by the way i'm not here for you know games i came across his profile one night and it was really funny and i don't laugh out loud when i read things and i kept laughing it's like the opposite of my time john's the opposite of my type i dated somebody who was like on paper my exact type and it was terrible and i went to the anti-jessica type which is john because there's a little goofball and that's the one that worked out in spite of john's physical limitations they were both determined not to let that hold back their flourishing romance you know just did have to help me with like uh driving like she did have to drive us to the dates and everything like that did have to help me get dressed and a few other minor things here and there but it wasn't like babe help me do this help me do this help me do this five months of dating we built a strong foundation but for the new couple things were about to change it's right about four o'clock-ish and i look down at my phone and it comes up with this weird name and it says doctor but then it comes up with like almost like an indian name i cannot pronounce it i can't even remember what it was and it said boston massachusetts i'm like this is it and i knew that this was it because i was not expecting a call i answered the phone and it's dr talbot he's like john i'm like yep that's me he's like so we think we have a match i kind of like lay on the couch and i start break down crying because i'm happy but my mood switches and i start to like actually cry for the person who just died [Music] i felt bad for him and i felt bad for his family even though i've never i don't i didn't know their names i didn't know anything about them i just felt bad for somebody out there that i never met because they're they're willing to donate their son or their husband their boyfriend's arms and that's all i knew that's all i knew at that current time within 24 hours of the phone call john was in boston ready for surgery the transplant will begin by joining jon's bones to the donor arms using metal plates next dr tolbert and his team use microscopes and precision instruments to connect john's arteries and veins when blood starts flowing john's new hand should turn pink with new life they then repair the muscles and tendons before finally connecting john's nerves to the donor arms hopefully in time giving him sensation and function the level of his amputations um definitely makes his case a little bit more challenging than others the worst case scenario there's a potential with this degree of surgery and this degree of medical intervention that someone can die from this [Music] i i don't know something my brain was like marine time like no emotion stone face i was fine for john's loved ones it was a bittersweet moment i didn't want him to do the transplant at all it's not that i didn't support him doing the transplant i didn't think it was worth the risk because he could have died during the surgery it was his choice to do the transplant i stood by him it was just more like i don't think it's worth you dying for you can't do an operation that's of this magnitude without having some complications along the way [Music] i pretty much kept it together until they actually took him into pre-op when he went around the corner i lost it apparently when i turned the corner she actually like broke down like crying and she couldn't remember who was holding her or anything that's actually kind of when i started breaking down too i got to the actual operating table there was this one nurse and she put her head against mine because i was like don't let me die on this table with preparation and testing complete john is finally sedated for surgery to begin i was in surgery 16 hours total it was a long day well not for me for jess it was two surgical teams were required to transplant each arm simultaneously john's transplant had somewhere between 10 and 20 people in the operating room now about half of those people are surgeons and the other group are all of the people that make it possible what we do in the operating room with tissue in the donor arms deteriorating with every minute that passes a delay in the procedure could result in the transplant failing that part was scary and i didn't sleep the whole time he had the surgery but somebody was in the operating room every two hours they would send me an update that helped because with it being that extensive of a time period that somebody's under um it just helped everything's still okay everything's we move on to this part after 16 long hours the 20 strong team have completed john's groundbreaking arm transplant [Music] all they can do now is wait for john to come around from the anaesthesia [Music] initial signs were good but as the drugs wore off things began to change all that stuff that was blocking the pain from my body was starting to wear off and the pain got so bad that i was literally seconds away from paging the nurse and saying hey i need you to call the team and amputate my arms again it was so bad that first night i seconds away and i started thinking about my donor i was like i can't i can't like go through all this and then donor died and um and then just have my arms amputate just because a little pain like i've handled worse like i can do this i think that the view of the public when it comes to hand transplantation is that this is a huge operation and certainly can have a lot of things go wrong but that the operation is the end of the story really the operation is the beginning of the story for these patients people think that you attach the arms and it's like oh bam you got your fingers back you can go do whatever you want like you're gonna go use them like how you used to use your hands no within days of receiving new arms john began intense physiotherapy from a dedicated team of specialists we're asking a lot of these patients we're asking them to risk some of their well-being having a major operation and we're asking them to go through rehabilitation which is daily at the beginning it's an enormous ask of anybody to actually go through that kind of process and he the person undergoing the transplant isn't the only person who has to adjust the caregiver and the family members for these patients are unbelievably important oh when he first had the transplant done we couldn't really be apart more than you know 15 minutes couldn't drink anything he couldn't scratch your nose couldn't put pressure couldn't eat couldn't go to the bathroom yeah she had never ever helped me with more personal things i would never ask a girlfriend to do like toy going to the bathroom number two couldn't do that the family member of a transplant patient is a critical part of success there's no question that going through this without that person would be nearly impossible jesse's commitment and john's determination started to show results get them fingers open very first time my fingers wiggled that was december 28 2016 so that was um three months after transplant was that a huge day for you john oh yeah i mean you can see the smile [Music] [Laughter] [Music] when you don't have anything just a little bit of function is incredible i couldn't turn my nails at the time when you get an arm transplant it's not guaranteed to work it's not it really isn't when the fingers wiggled like that it was a good sign that things could possibly potentially work out a good thing over the next 12 months john worked daily to increase strength and control it's hard for us to understand just what it's like to completely devote your life to something like getting back your limbs that five years earlier you had rookie john shared his achievements online with his growing social media following these are your first push-ups these are my first push-ups without a yoga ball in true marine spirit jon started to get a little competitive brandon morocco he was the very first quad from the iraq afghan war he was doing pull-ups at 18 months and i wanted to do pull-ups before him john's now making huge strides he's far far further forward than i had anticipated i mean that's extraordinary that somebody can get to that point this early on his newly found strength also translated into day-to-day skills affording him more independence and freedom at first i couldn't brush my teeth it took me like almost a year to be able to do it you know i was always like hey babe hey babe can you do this can you do this i just felt bad because i was asking her for everything i mean jess can go away for like a weekend and i'll be perfectly fine by myself now i just stabbed myself in the eye of the brezzle i feel like i still have more to do they still can progress further and further it's just all about like strength in the hands my main challenge is at the moment like you know believe it or not it's like holding certain items um like a bottle um picking up like burgers believe it or not it's kind of hard opening this lid it's kind of hard i'm not going to get frustrated at it i'm not going to hulk smash it i use my teeth for a lot of things as you see hair gel tastes good yum [Music] it's not strong enough to like for instance like right there i wasn't really wasn't really like squeezing it out it was more of like gravity was helping me it's all about like using the hands more and increasing my strength i got any big globs of hair gel on my hair you got a tiny one here right here yeah yeah that's what i thought john's limbs are working well but there's another advantage to a transplant over prosthetics sensation when people have a hand transplant outsiders people have not had a hand transplant we tend to focus on the motor function on the fact that now i can pick up a glass of water and drink we tend to forget a little bit about how important sensory feedback is how touching a person is a connection to that person or how holding your food is a connection to what you're eating and those are the things that we we often forget about when we're talking to patients about how how they'll feel after having a head of transplant it's going to be in a bag there's hope that john's sensation will improve as the nerves grow down the donor arms at a rate of one inch per month until that happens the arms are vulnerable to injury we're at whole foods and i put my arm my right arm up against the cabinet and there's a steamer tray a stainless steel steamer tray and i actually burned myself it's because i couldn't feel that i was burning myself so when we got home we took off my sweater and it was a big old blister by the time we were done although the kitchen involves risks cooking is still one of john's greatest passions yeah my hands are starting to get sore it gets hard to kind of stir so i need jazz just helps me out john's attending one of his regular occupational therapy sessions to see just how well his sensory function is improving all right any numbness tingling no lots of sensation increase sensation holding something hot something cold right now yeah cause my hands are frozen yeah let me feel one or two two right now we're testing the um sensation here so we're using this device to see how he can discriminate between one point of contact versus two points of contact one or two uh one i didn't even touch you i have one other patient who came in one day and he said you know for the first time in years he felt a raindrop on his hand now to you and me that's not a huge big deal but to somebody who hasn't felt that for years that's you know that's a real emotional thing ow that's too okay the nature of john's original amputation has a major impact on the success of rehabilitation the higher up your amputation is the further the nerves have to grow the longer it takes for those nerves to grow into the hand the poorer his function will be one two three four this is working on his sensory discrimination and trying to find the difference between the small beads and the poker chips yeah i can't feel it you feel it can't tell the difference yeah i couldn't feel it yeah i can feel a tiny beep but i can't feel the difference between the poker chips and the beats yeah so john will continue to gain feeling but there are no guarantees that he'll ever reach a full range of sensation when i went up to brigham for the initial testing for the arm transplant they told me you'll never be able to feel the difference between like on a tv remote like the difference between the one and two button because because it's that it's that close to each other i wouldn't be able to tell which button i have i was like so wait you're telling me i can hold a remote my goal is to give somebody function that allows them to do basic everyday activities hygiene cooking in the kitchen driving a car things that you and i take for granted but for somebody without hands is incredibly disabling the extra tag that we have is it just for the front door or is it for the elevator as well [Music] thanks to a fully adapted car john is now able to drive totally independently [Music] i know as i use them more my strengths will start to increase which means i could do more like driving i've always been independent [Music] although life is improving there's still one key concern hanging over john rejection rejection is when um the patient's body attacks the part that we've transplanted so when their immune system tries to fight off the transplanted lip so it's morning four of those are immune suppression one of those is a steroid one of those is a antiviral we always have to be dampening down someone's immune system so that their own body doesn't attack the hands that we've transplanted and you have to take those every day of your life every morning for ever forever immunosuppression is um is a two-inch sword all of our patients need immunosuppression so that they don't reject the limbs that we've put on but at the same time that immunosuppression weakens their immune system and weakening your immune system means that you're susceptible to just routine everyday infections like colds but also to more serious infections and also to things like cancer and so um it's not trivial that we put patients on immunosuppression but we need to do it and that's part and parcel with having a transplant you can't just kind of sugarcoat this you can't sugarcoat and be like oh things may not happen i'll never have rejection blah blah blah like you're going to have rejection no matter what you do you're going to have good days you're gonna have bad days it's it's yeah it's just stuff that you have to be aware of i mean does it bother me that at some point during my life i might get my arms re-amputated yeah john's body is fighting his new arms and with the visible appearance of skin lesions it appears to be his worst bout of rejection to date looks worse yeah it looked pretty bad over there i have a great team and they know what they're doing it's just this particular rejection episode they're kind of like scratching their heads and that's new here correct this is that appears now this is dryer this isn't new this rejection has been ongoing for a long time in normal rejection the it's your immune system is too strong and it's fighting the foreign material so they put you on a steroid to knock down your immune system but his immune system is very very very low so they can't knock his immune system out anymore it almost looks like there's damn pimples inside of them if you get close there's all these like little same here yeah those three all right whenever we transplant limbs our hope is that those limbs are going to last forever but we actually don't know we know that they can last 20 years we don't know if they can make it through 30 or 40 years it's two issues he's having rejection but he's also having an immune problem i'm still worried now today like it's still kind of a big deal like there's a chance that could not work and i just have to go back to being a quad amputee without an arm transplant but with his body's immunity levels at an all-time low there's much more at stake for john if you don't have an immune system and if say they did have to re-amputate he wouldn't make the surgery [Music] despite the ongoing risk of rejection john's not putting his life on hold i think my hardest battles have been fought in one i think accepting my quad amputation accepting what happened to me going through the arm transplant i think finding love were probably the four hardest battles the rest is just kind of like a cakewalk for me we just have to deal with it one day at a time [Music] john's attitude towards the person who planted the ied has changed since the incident there is a little bit of hatred towards him but i've let go of that hatred and everything now i feel like i'm actually here for a reason off the back of the success of his social media profile he's decided to publish a book about his journey so far in the hope that he'll inspire others okay so this is from the people today we are looking forward to this afternoon with you and jessica i had a couple of quick thoughts i will introduce you to the team and would suggest that you then spend some time just sharing your story from the beginning in addition to the book john is also hoping to take up public speaking are you a natural speaker john would you say no in high school i absolutely hated getting in front of the crowd in front of the class i still do i still get very anxious i think that's a good thing though means that you're not not over confident johnny's meeting with executives from an agency that represents politicians business leaders and top military figures in the hope they'll represent him that's why i see him [Music] are you feeling anxious this no now i am thanks nope i just gotta be myself stop with the sweaty hands take your sweaty hands and your sweaty pants away from stop ow that hurt you stabbed me with those nails you ready to get started let's do this all right i feel like i'm here for a reason i feel like there's a bigger purpose for me to be here to help somebody through tough time or help somebody get educated on the arm transplant yeah so i just feel like there's a bigger purpose i'm gonna forget probably all your names i became aware of john seven years ago and have been told by people ever since then who knew what i did for a living that i needed to meet him we entered a compound and everything was fine went up to individual rooms got as close as i can i took a side step to my right next thing i know being flung through the air it's uncomfortable for people to talk about themselves especially when it's something so traumatic immediately my right arm was amputated my right leg was amputated i flatlined about twice and then i caught a flushing fungus that ate my left bicep and it also ate my left leg all the way up to the hip he's not somebody that's a household name yet and so in order for that to work people are going to have to start to become aware of his story i got on the arm transplant waiting list on august 28th of 2014. when i first woke up my arms were basically like like this up higher than my head and i started screaming at her because i was like they gave me baby arms i thought he did a great job today john is unique for sure he is exceptional in every which way you could be as a human i'm not here for fame i'm not here for monetary reasons the reason we decided to go through the book is because there's people who have said like dude like i almost committed suicide like you have your story of what you've been through has helped me out the challenge for him is going to be to figure out what of his story is the most relevant to each particular audience but i think he's going to get good at it i really really think he's going to get good at it i think it went well danielle said like i need to figure out a way to basically telling that within 15 minutes i think that's probably the hardest gonna be the hardest part i know she's like too much detail just get to it just get to the story john's plans for a new career are likely to raise his profile and the public's interest in his story do you see yourself as you know say your hero do you see yourself as a viewer i don't use that term and i hate when people call me that i absolutely hate that term it's like don't ever call me a hero like what makes me a hero because i stepped on an ied like no that doesn't make me a hero my definition of hero is somebody who paid the ultimate sacrifice and that doesn't mean just military that's first responders cops anybody that's hurt in the line of duty like those are heroes not me i stepped on an id i stepped on well stepped on one rolled on another one that doesn't mean i'm a hero that just means i'm good at finding ieds in the worst way possible but not everyone shares john's opinion [Music] you know john is an incredible success story john went from having a profound disability to someone who can now be relatively independent and take care of himself independently and i think by itself that is an incredible success john's come a long way since the surgery two years ago but now he can look forward to an independent life thanks to the generosity of one total stranger [Music] what do you feel when you look down in your arms i feel compassion i feel respect and love and i feel yeah just all those because without his families without his family's donation i wouldn't be here [Music] you

Channel: True Lives

Views: 7,098,744

Keywords: our life, documentary, world documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, history, john peck, quadriplegic, arm transplant, hand transplant, medical documentary

Id: Qv-fg3zbEQQ

Length: 43min 12sec (2592 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021