Tim Medvetz

speaker

173 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard Apr 2025

Tim Medvetz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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We're Out of Time · How Tim Medvetz Turned Pain Into Purpose | The Heroes Project · 22 Apr 2025 podcast

I'm the exact way. I have the exact same feeling about the military. I cannot be of service to them enough because, man, I was so stupid as a child and I was raised by wolves. I had no clue about the military. Like I never gave it a thought. You know, and plus I was so ravaged by drugs. Yeah. You know, I, you know how that is. Yeah. Okay.

Do you know what I love most about that is, about that story? These people didn't think they could do anything. No. They thought their life was over. Yeah. They would never be the same. They'd never get another girl. Yeah. They'd never have kids. They'd never be able to do what they used to do in life. That has changed their whole outlook on life.

If you can climb Mount Everest with a stump, okay, there's nothing you can't do. That's what it tells them. You have changed their entire lives. You understand this, right? Does that make you uncomfortable? It doesn't make me uncomfortable.

I, you know, I had, for me, when I was going through, when I got out of the hospital bed and I got out of the wheelchair, you know, the squeezing the ball thing didn't work for me. You know, the rehab units didn't work for me. I had to take it into my own hands and go climb a mountain and put myself on you know, in harm's way, right?

And that was my vehicle to getting from the hospital bed to being a man again, to get my life back. And my vehicle was climbing mountains. So I just figured, well, if that worked for me, maybe I have something to offer these guys because, you know, I broke every bone in my body, a metal everywhere. I said, but no comparison to losing a limb or two limbs. Some of these guys I've worked with.

So that I can't compare with my injuries, but I can relate. With what it's like going from the hospital bed and being pushed around in a wheelchair and people holding the door for you after I just would, you know, walk into a bar, you know, and...

be on top of the world or walk into a restaurant and just being on top of the world and being a bouncer and, you know, and riding the Harley, you know, and being all doing all the tough guy. Right. And next thing you know, I'm in a wheelchair and people are feeling sorry for me. And so here's this kid who joins the Marine Corps. He gets out. Right. And, and he's got the buzz cut.

He's back home for a weekend, you know, home and, And he's used to carrying an M60 around the battlefield. He's got a platoon of guys under his command. He walks into a bar. He comes out with 10 phone numbers from every hot chick in the bar, right? And next thing you know, boom, steps on IED. And now he's in a wheelchair, missing legs. And everybody's feeling sorry for him.

And that's the part I can relate with. And so... I figured if this is my type of rehabilitation, maybe this might work for them. And a lot of these guys, like there's a lot of worthy organizations out there, fly fishing, therapeutic fly fishing and horse therapy and, you know, all this like adaptive golf and like all these things. Right.

But some of these guys, they just, it doesn't work for them. And the only way to really truly rehab these guys is you have to put them back on the battlefield again to truly heal them and get them back to be the Marine they were. That makes sense to me. Let me ask you a question.

You know any... Any of these veterans or military people that were addicted to drugs at the time? All of them.

Let me say that. I'm saying that loosely because when I meet most of these guys, you know, they're coming right out of the hospital. You know, they got them on gabapentin, all these nerve meds and pain pills and, you know, all these. How do they get off of that? Well, interesting is that they can't go up Everest on an opioid. Exactly.

And that's always the first conversation I have when we start training. I'm like, we got to get you off this because these types of narcotics, they affect your respiratory system. And that's the last thing you want at 20,000 feet. That's that, dude.

You think you're doing great and you think you're hauling ass and you're moving in slow motion like you're on Thorazine. It's like there's no... That is... It just doesn't make sense to me. So how did these guys, how do you get these guys clean before they're training to go up to Everest?

I put them back in harm's way. I put them on a mountain and then they realize at, you know, even small mountains here in Southern California, 10,000 foot mountain. And then they realize I don't even have to, like I give them the whole speech about the drugs ain't going to work and the nerve meds and all these pain pills.

And you get them at 10,000 feet and they're like, you know, on their knees gasping for air. And just falling apart, going, oh, this ain't working. This doesn't work together. This ain't peanut butter and jelly. Drugs and climbing mountains and the outdoors just doesn't work. And so it's a natural evolution of it. And so the therapy that I give these guys, you can't get from the local drug dealer.

You can't get from CVS and Walgreens. My therapy that I give these guys is simple. is giving them outdoors, natural endorphins, right? Do you know who it helps the most? Who's that? Who do you think? The man upstairs? No. Who's it helped the most? Their friends and family, everybody around them?

God, man, you are such a hero. You don't even know what the hell I'm talking about, do you? Clueless. You're the one that benefits the most. Yeah, I mean... No, no, listen to me. You're the one that benefits the most. Because you can't think about yourself when you're helping others. It's impossible. Okay? And that gives you meaning and that gives you joy.

One of the hardest things I had to do this whole journey is tell people that I can't help them because... I can't afford to house them. I can't bring them out to Los Angeles. All my programs are here in the local mountains in California. I need to build a retreat center. So I start reaching out, come to find out there's not one retreat center in the entire state of California.

So I approached the Forest Service. I find this great piece of land up on Mount Baldy, which is literally an hour from this podcast studio. That's where I train a lot of the guys. I train them. That's the first step before I get them to the big mountains.

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