Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the first episode, the inaugural episode of the Phoenix Podcast.
Speaker: I'm Jason Bauman.
Speaker: I'm gonna be your host throughout the podcast, but today I wanna do something a little bit different and I want to delegate the hosting privileges to someone who I'm honored to call a friend.
Speaker: This man, Edward Casamy, is just one of the most talented people.
Speaker: I know he's an anchor.
Speaker: So I'm going to turn it over and we're going to talk a little bit about the podcast and kind of my story and we'll go from there.
Speaker: Yes, we're actually going to start this inaugural episode by kind of flipping the script.
Speaker: And your story is the one that we're going to share first for your listeners, which I found very, very interesting.
Speaker: And we're going to get into that in just a little bit.
Speaker: But I want to start prior to this pivotal moment in your life that really changed the trajectory of things for you, 2016.
Speaker: Let's take it back to even just the day before this pivotal moment.
Speaker: And we'll explain a little bit more depth about that pivotal moment in just a second.
Speaker: But for your listeners, explain who Jason Bauman was prior to 2016, August of 2016.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So at that point, I was an entrepreneur.
Speaker: I had worked in a couple of different fields, a lot of different areas, maybe.
Speaker: And people always laugh at me and say I have had every job.
Speaker: No, because as I was listening to like the jobs that you've had, I'm like, how did she go from this job to this job?
Speaker: And then there was one point in your career history, you went and you started a company, you filed the paperwork, started the company and went back and quit your job the next day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was right before this pivotal moment.
Speaker: And so I was an entrepreneur.
Speaker: I had started a marketing, a social media marketing and digital marketing agency in Chicago.
Speaker: I had been working there for about a year, year and a half before that moment.
Speaker: I had also was a DJ.
Speaker: You know, I think since I was a DJ.
Speaker: went through high school, I was a DJ.
Speaker: And I was kind of the mobile DJ guy.
Speaker: So the guy who went to parties.
Speaker: And I worked at some bars.
Speaker: And I loved that side.
Speaker: I kind of loved the entrepreneurial side.
Speaker: I had been around in the charity world for a while, too.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, I loved that kind of entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker: Talk a little bit about what your outlook on life was like up to that point in your life.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I think
Speaker: You know, at that point, as I look back in retrospect, things were about kind of like very success-oriented and thing-oriented.
Speaker: You know, I just bought a house.
Speaker: I had, I don't know if I'm proud of this, but I had an insane shoe collection.
Speaker: It was all about the things in life.
Speaker: So, you know, I wanted to buy a new car.
Speaker: I wanted to buy this.
Speaker: I bought this.
Speaker: You know, and it was about working hard.
Speaker: playing hard, spending hard to get everything.
Speaker: So I was a guy with all the toys and the gadgets.
Speaker: You were pretty happy in life.
Speaker: I was.
Speaker: And there was always that strive to achieve even further success.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: How much did this house mean to you?
Speaker: You said you bought a house.
Speaker: So yeah, I bought a house and it was just a few blocks over from where my grandma, who I was really close with, lived.
Speaker: It was in a great neighborhood in Chicago.
Speaker: It was in
Speaker: I had the Garfield Ridge area.
Speaker: It was the nicest part of Garfield Ridge.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love the house.
Speaker: It was... I mean, it was...
Speaker: Way beyond, like if you take a starter house and then you step like two steps up, that's kind of where I was.
Speaker: And I put a lot into it, you know, so I was really excited about the house.
Speaker: You know, of course, I ran a business out of the basement.
Speaker: I mean, it was, the backyard was kind of the fun place to hang out.
Speaker: So it was really important to me.
Speaker: How old were you at the time?
Speaker: 2016.
Speaker: 2016, you made me do math.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Mid-20s.
Speaker: Mid-20s.
Speaker: Mid to late 20s.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you had a lot going for you and a great outlook on life.
Speaker: And then we have this pivotal moment that happens.
Speaker: We're going to start just a couple of hours before.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You were doing what you love.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: DJing.
Speaker: I was DJing.
Speaker: And I'll never forget this person's wedding.
Speaker: And it was a good wedding, but it wasn't like it was a wedding that was the most amazing wedding of all.
Speaker: I'm sorry, Jim.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: No, it was a great wedding.
Speaker: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker: But the music was top notch, of course.
Speaker: The music was awesome.
Speaker: I remember they had a Blues Brothers band.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It was a big deal.
Speaker: Blues Brothers impersonators.
Speaker: That was a big deal.
Speaker: It was a group that you connected with when you DJ.
Speaker: And when you connect with an audience as a DJ, that's the best thing in the world because then everybody has a great time.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And when you don't connect, it's horrific.
Speaker: So you're in a high.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because you connect with the audience.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Great wedding.
Speaker: Close the wedding out.
Speaker: Drive home.
Speaker: I'm exhausted.
Speaker: I get home.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm not going to bring the DJ equipment in.
Speaker: I'm just going to go.
Speaker: I lived in a nice neighborhood, so I'm just going to go home, go inside, and pass out.
Speaker: You left the DJ equipment in the car?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You must have been very trustworthy.
Speaker: In Chicago.
Speaker: Yeah, I was going to say.
Speaker: It was a different time, though.
Speaker: I'm even concerned about leaving my city sticker in the car, let alone DJ equipment, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, it was, you know, in that neighborhood, people did it all the time, that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't very expected.
Speaker: And it was a while ago, so I think Chicago was a little bit different.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I wouldn't have done it now, but I...
Speaker: At the time, every other house on my block was a policeman or a fireman and someone.
Speaker: So you felt safe.
Speaker: You felt secure.
Speaker: Yeah, and it was a neighborhood that exciting things didn't happen.
Speaker: It's an interesting word to describe crime, exciting things.
Speaker: Well, no.
Speaker: I mean, I'm not just saying crime.
Speaker: I'm just saying it was a very –
Speaker: It was a very peaceful neighborhood.
Speaker: There was no much going on there.
Speaker: So it was quiet.
Speaker: I knew every neighbor on my block.
Speaker: Literally every neighbor, I knew them by first name.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Everyone.
Speaker: Everyone knew.
Speaker: You don't really know that now.
Speaker: And I probably had three quarters of a phone number.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you felt very comfortable, very secure in your neighborhood.
Speaker: But you're exhausted from this wedding.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You decide to go inside, go to sleep, and you don't even remember possibly even changing out of whatever you were wearing.
Speaker: I don't even know how I fell asleep.
Speaker: I'm sure I did, but I laid down, and I always say I don't remember even my head hitting the pillow before I fell asleep.
Speaker: So I'm not sure if I even fell asleep on the wedding.
Speaker: What time was this?
Speaker: It's probably 1 in the morning.
Speaker: The wedding probably went through like 11 or 12.
Speaker: Okay, so it was late.
Speaker: About an hour, hour and a half after that.
Speaker: So probably like 1, maybe 2.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: How did you wake up the next morning?
Speaker: So I woke up about three or four in the morning and I could feel it was really hot.
Speaker: And I remember it was a very average day, like fall day.
Speaker: It was like 70s or something like that.
Speaker: I'm like, why is it so darn hot in this house?
Speaker: I looked up and you do that thing like I...
Speaker: I couldn't see the ceiling or the ceiling fan.
Speaker: So I was like twitching my eyes thinking like, oh, maybe you know you got those things in your eyes.
Speaker: You can't see.
Speaker: You're crying.
Speaker: And nothing was happening.
Speaker: And all of a sudden, I smelt it.
Speaker: What did you smell?
Speaker: I smelled smoke.
Speaker: So I rolled out of bed.
Speaker: And I walked out of my bedroom.
Speaker: And I could see the orange flames coming up from the basement into the kitchen.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, wow.
Speaker: Crap.
Speaker: So let's give your listeners and people that are watching online just kind of a description of the room and what you would have been able to get out of.
Speaker: So you said you opened your bedroom door and you saw the flames right then and there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I didn't open the door.
Speaker: I just came out of the bedroom door.
Speaker: I mean, it was open.
Speaker: I didn't really close doors.
Speaker: I live by myself.
Speaker: So I came out of the bedroom door.
Speaker: I walked around the hallway into kind of like the main area of the room.
Speaker: It wasn't open concept, but it was pretty close to it.
Speaker: You could see basically the whole run of the house, from front to back.
Speaker: And I looked towards the back of the house.
Speaker: There was a staircase that went down to the basement, and you could see the orange flames coming up from the basement.
Speaker: From the basement.
Speaker: I was like, oh, boy.
Speaker: So I was trying to find my dog.
Speaker: My dog was hiding.
Speaker: I grabbed the dog, and I ran to the front door, and I kind of just tossed him out the front door.
Speaker: And then I ran back in.
Speaker: I don't know what the heck, what I was thinking.
Speaker: I ran back in, I grabbed my wallet and my keys.
Speaker: I was thinking that, actually the funny part of it, it was all in like a big like tumbler cup.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And there was like a bunch of change in there.
Speaker: It was just everything I took out of my pockets, I threw in this cup.
Speaker: Just said in there.
Speaker: So my family still gives me crap about it and says, you went back in to get $4 and change?
Speaker: I'm like, no, I needed my keys, my wallet, and everything that was in there.
Speaker: So grab that, ran back out, and call 911.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: and Nicole Answers.
Speaker: And the dispatcher's name.
Speaker: Beyond that,
Speaker: Nicole said, Jason?
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah.
Speaker: I'm like, my house is on fire.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: Send everybody.
Speaker: I'm like, send everybody.
Speaker: Who are they going to send?
Speaker: The SEAL Team 5 or whatever, or SEAL Team 6 or whatever.
Speaker: So she starts, she's asking me some questions.
Speaker: And then she said, wait a minute.
Speaker: She's like, are you going to be OK for next week?
Speaker: I was actually DJing her wedding.
Speaker: The next Saturday.
Speaker: Oh, Nicole.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So she just happens to answer the phone.
Speaker: And so, you know, I call her and she says, okay, don't worry.
Speaker: You know, I'm sending everyone out.
Speaker: Don't worry about it.
Speaker: We'll take care of it.
Speaker: And she's like, just be safe, whatever.
Speaker: So I get out, I call my mom, come from really close family, I call my mom and dad and said, you know, I'm on fire, you gotta come over.
Speaker: They lived maybe two, three miles away.
Speaker: And then I called a very close friend of mine who worked at OEMC, which is the reason why I knew Nicole.
Speaker: And he was just finishing up his block party halfway across the city.
Speaker: Mind you, this is like three, four in the morning.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So he's finishing his block party in Mount Greenwood, which is on the other side of Chicago.
Speaker: And he decides to run over and see if he can help me.
Speaker: And, um, at that point I grabbed a garden hose.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And at one point in all those careers that I've had, I had been a firefighter EMT.
Speaker: So I'm like, yeah, if anyone w as a firefighter, they would know that the worst thing they'd possibly do with the situation is to go into a fire unprotected with a garden hose.
Speaker: But to me, it was like, I have all these things in the house.
Speaker: I need to save this.
Speaker: And you're trying to save everything.
Speaker: I'm going to have to save anything, you know, computers, anything, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And as I get the garden hose around the floor of the house, I look up and I remember seeing the sky was filled with smoke.
Speaker: And you can start to see like red and blue lights reflecting off of the smoke.
Speaker: So you knew the help was coming?
Speaker: Some really weird memories that you get off some of these things, you know, the reflection of the lights off the smoke.
Speaker: But I saw it and all the neighbors were starting to come out of the house in the middle of the night.
Speaker: And I could hear the sirens.
Speaker: And a fire truck pulls up.
Speaker: That's the one with the ladder on top.
Speaker: All of a sudden, the engineer comes out of the side of the, he says, no.
Speaker: With the garden hose.
Speaker: He's like, no.
Speaker: And that's when you decided to let the professionals take over.
Speaker: And so I did.
Speaker: I let the professionals take over.
Speaker: And I was trying to explain to him things.
Speaker: But I remember I was just coughing up.
Speaker: stuff and and he said sit down and he had me sit on the bumper of the fire truck let's um let's pause right here and i want to go back but this is the nbc moments i know we're gonna we're gonna get to that but i want to go back in into the house for a moment because this is something that you wouldn't wish for anybody to have to experience so you're in your bed after a very long night and
Speaker: At what moment did it click for you that something was wrong, that this isn't just my eyes malfunctioning, I can't see the ceiling fan?
Speaker: When I saw the orange flames.
Speaker: So once you had gotten out of your bedroom and you saw the flames.
Speaker: It just seemed weird.
Speaker: I was like, what was going on?
Speaker: And when I saw the flames coming up from the back, that's when it was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker: And it's not like it's a little deal, like a little...
Speaker: I don't know, kitchen fires.
Speaker: This is significant because the flames were gigantic.
Speaker: We're coming out from the basement all the way up.
Speaker: So were the flames underneath your bedroom in the basement?
Speaker: Is that why your room was so hot?
Speaker: It was all open in that area of the basement.
Speaker: The front half versus the back half were open.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I mean, it was on the other side of the back of the house.
Speaker: And my bedroom wasn't on the other side of the back of the house.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Right on the opposite side of the back of the house.
Speaker: But it was all open.
Speaker: So, yes, it would have been.
Speaker: What woke you up that morning?
Speaker: It was...
Speaker: I want to say it was probably the smoke or the heat, one of the two, because what didn't wake me up is my smoke detector.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because right before that, as I mentioned previously, nothing exciting happened in my neighborhood.
Speaker: No one had home fires or anything.
Speaker: I'm like, well, of course not.
Speaker: I was watching TV and I'm,
Speaker: pressing the remote and the remote stopped working.
Speaker: So I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: I can take the batteries out of the fire, the smoke detector, and put it in the remote control so I can watch my TV.
Speaker: And so I did.
Speaker: So the only smoke detector I had in the house, I had the batteries taken out and put in the remote control.
Speaker: Which is not going to go off to alert you in case of a fire.
Speaker: And I think it had...
Speaker: I not done that.
Speaker: It would have been a very manageable fire.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But because it didn't, um, it ended up me, I ended up on channel five news.
Speaker: The whole house was, the house was burnt to, uh, it, it was uninhabitable.
Speaker: Um, fire had burnt through the floor to the first floor.
Speaker: Um, what about your bedroom?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Bedroom wasn't terrible.
Speaker: It was probably one of the safer places in the house.
Speaker: But you could see from the first floor into the basement in certain areas of the house.
Speaker: That's how bad it got burned.
Speaker: When you realized that your home was on fire beyond something that you could manage yourself in a garden house, what was going through your mind at that moment?
Speaker: You know, I was thinking like, oh my God, my, my computers are here.
Speaker: My TVs are like, I was thinking of all the things that were in the house.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, you know, my clothes, my shoes, my, this, my collection, sounds terrible.
Speaker: They keep my thing about the shoe, but they
Speaker: But yeah, this is everything I'm thinking about is, you know, my piano, my keyboards, my all these things that I had as a musician.
Speaker: So, you know, my keyboards and my piano and all these different things I were in my head.
Speaker: Like, I got to get one.
Speaker: I got me.
Speaker: I'm going to get my computers.
Speaker: Can we just go back in?
Speaker: Yeah, no, you're not going in the house.
Speaker: It's a big fire.
Speaker: We talked at the beginning, though, that you left the DJ equipment there in the car.
Speaker: Weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know why that happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So all of that was saved.
Speaker: I mean, this is one of your businesses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So now let's get back to the moment where you're being told to sit down on the bumper of the fire truck.
Speaker: And at that point, you're watching the professionals take over.
Speaker: And then you see the media.
Speaker: I remember an NBC van pull up.
Speaker: And right around the same time I saw the stretcher come out of the ambulance and a male and a female paramedic or paramedic and he come out and they put me on the stretcher.
Speaker: And I remember getting into being wheeled back into the back of the ambulance and I could see the NBC cameraman filming me being, you know, taken into the ambulance.
Speaker: And then I just remember a few seconds happening.
Speaker: I remember
Speaker: The doors closing, I could see, I could still see the camera guy and I could still see the house, my house was the second house in the corner.
Speaker: So I can, I can kind of see what's going on from both sides.
Speaker: And, um, then I remember the, the sirens and the sirens go on and, um, I start, we started driving off and off to the, um, to the hospital.
Speaker: Which hospital did you go to?
Speaker: The hospital, which is in Berwyn.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: You were concerned about a lot of the things inside of your home.
Speaker: Why were you not concerned about your own health first?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I guess...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I guess the first thing that went in my head was, oh my God, I'm going to lose this.
Speaker: I'm going to lose that.
Speaker: I'm going to lose this.
Speaker: And I don't know if it's an adrenaline thing.
Speaker: If it was, I cared most.
Speaker: I mean, I cared most about getting things out.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: I just, it wasn't in my mind.
Speaker: It wasn't even in my mind.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: What were you feeling like?
Speaker: Because you were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What did that feel like?
Speaker: Cause we hear about that all the time when, uh, if you watch the news and you hear that people were in a house fire and they were transported.
Speaker: I remember like choking and I could, and I was coughing stuff up and, um, I remember choking and they had me on accident and I remember like just coughing, coughing, I'm like not like almost like you're just can't stop coughing type deal.
Speaker: That's kind of what was going through at the time.
Speaker: Were you ever scared for your own life?
Speaker: I think when I was going into the hospital was the first time when I realized this isn't just a little basement fire.
Speaker: This is a lot more serious than I had thought.
Speaker: And it really kind of hit.
Speaker: And it was, I was scared, but I was so scared about everything going on.
Speaker: Like I had no idea.
Speaker: I mean, I had no idea what was going to happen next.
Speaker: And it was just all in my head and I am, and at the same time, I'm still coughing this stuff up and it was nasty.
Speaker: Trying to breathe.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: So, um, in, in my line of work, we hear about house fires a lot.
Speaker: Um, and this is a reminder.
Speaker: to change the battery in your smoke detector okay and your carbon monoxide detector for that matter but um we don't always hear about people making it yeah especially ones that happen overnight yeah where their smoke detector was not working where they were sleeping yeah um how lucky do you feel or do you blame it on something else
Speaker: No, I feel someone was looking out for me.
Speaker: I don't know who that was, but maybe I do.
Speaker: But I almost felt like it was...
Speaker: almost like a kind of a flare gun.
Speaker: I just went over above and said, Hey, you need to redirect.
Speaker: You know, we're keeping you around for a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and, and more to do here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and take it as kind of a warning sign.
Speaker: And so, um, my life changed dramatically that day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah, it just, everything, my whole perspective, um,
Speaker: on everything changed in that 20 minutes.
Speaker: There were some people that came to your aid, the American Red Cross, of course, and we love them for that.
Speaker: But there were people in your life that really stepped up and really helped make this life-changing
Speaker: horrible, horrible situation.
Speaker: Something that you felt like you could come out of on the other side.
Speaker: Obviously you called your parents first.
Speaker: Tell me about their response and then the other people that you called that really stepped up to the plate.
Speaker: I've always been blessed to have the most amazing family.
Speaker: My dad, my mom,
Speaker: and my three brothers.
Speaker: We're all very, very, very close.
Speaker: And they were there for me
Speaker: Instantly, you know, my parents rushed over.
Speaker: My brothers all came over.
Speaker: They all came driving from different places to be there.
Speaker: I remember kind of there was this like delegation of duty that was going on.
Speaker: And my one brother stayed back at the house because the fire department was there and police were there and the Red Cross was there and some board up company was coming.
Speaker: And I was taken away.
Speaker: So we felt like someone had to step in and kind of did that.
Speaker: So my family was there.
Speaker: Never forget that for them.
Speaker: I mean, they were every step of the way.
Speaker: My mom and my dad followed the ambulance to the hospital.
Speaker: My girlfriend at the time, who was just about to become my fiance, we called her from inside the ambulance.
Speaker: And she ended up meeting me eventually at the hospital.
Speaker: She was from the other side of town, too.
Speaker: I lived on kind of the far south side of Harlem Avenue, and she lived on the far north side of Harlem Avenue.
Speaker: So she got up and was headed over to the hospital to be there.
Speaker: So it seemed like I was very blessed to have... I've always been blessed to have a great family, but they jumped in and were there for me in a minute.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: One of my closest friends, Danny, the guy who worked at OEMC, he literally drove across town.
Speaker: He was there.
Speaker: He was kind of helping out with some of the fire stuff.
Speaker: And then next thing you know, OFI, which is the Office of Fire and Investigations, is showing up.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And Chicago police detectives are showing up.
Speaker: Everyone's doing their own investigations to see what happened at the house.
Speaker: They're sending detectives to the hospital, investigators to the hospital to talk to me.
Speaker: But I remember those groups of people coming in, my family, my closest friends kind of stepping up and kind of, you know, one of my other closest friends at the time,
Speaker: picked me from a hospital and he offered me, I ended up staying at his house for a couple months.
Speaker: Is he the one who started the GoFundMe?
Speaker: No, his younger brother started the GoFundMe.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: His younger brother was my first employee at my new company I just started.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So imagine all this going on.
Speaker: I had just started a new company.
Speaker: So when you start your own company, that doesn't come with like a payroll, right?
Speaker: I'm just like, I'm a company, you know, you're taking care of everyone else first.
Speaker: And now these people are taking care of you.
Speaker: If you get something else, if you get something extra, then you can take some, but no.
Speaker: And, um, you know,
Speaker: My only employee at the time, he started to go fund me, which I was really, really embarrassed about.
Speaker: And one of the things that got me was I went into work the next day.
Speaker: And so it happened Saturday night, Sunday morning, actually Sunday morning.
Speaker: I went to work on Monday.
Speaker: And I was released in the hospital late Sunday.
Speaker: I ended up going to work on Monday and he's like, what are you doing here?
Speaker: Like, what do you mean?
Speaker: And I'm like, well,
Speaker: I mean, all I'm going to do is sit in the stoop and cry about it.
Speaker: You know, I got to pay payroll.
Speaker: I got work to do.
Speaker: And if I don't work here, then the business won't survive.
Speaker: You know, it just, I kicked into this mode where I got to just...
Speaker: continue on and figure it out.
Speaker: So you had all these people that stepped up to help you, um, outside of your, your immediate family.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What, what, what is that like to see how many people cared about Jason?
Speaker: It's super humbling.
Speaker: Um, because I remember friends of our, our, our family coming over and like,
Speaker: I had an outfit on.
Speaker: I don't remember what I was wearing.
Speaker: But I didn't have any other clothes.
Speaker: Because whatever wasn't destroyed by physical fire was destroyed by smoke or water.
Speaker: And I couldn't even get access to it because the house was boarded up and we were told we were not allowed to go into the house even.
Speaker: So we couldn't even get in if we wanted to.
Speaker: So now all your belongings are there.
Speaker: I'm like, well, what do I wear tomorrow?
Speaker: I know it sounds stupid.
Speaker: Red Cross comes.
Speaker: I was super humbled.
Speaker: I didn't even know that that was a thing.
Speaker: They came over and they're like, well, do you need some startup money?
Speaker: Do you need some money?
Speaker: Do you need prescription?
Speaker: I mean, are you wanting any kind of medication where you need help with a doctor?
Speaker: Or do you need, they bring you a bag.
Speaker: It's like a toothbrush.
Speaker: It was Super Bowl.
Speaker: And they were like,
Speaker: what the hell is the Super Bowl?
Speaker: Like if you have kids, you know, like a little ball or something.
Speaker: I'm like, whatever.
Speaker: But they were very, I guess I was really surprised by the fact that there was this organization that came out and said, we're here to help you.
Speaker: You know, let us know how we can do it.
Speaker: And I didn't really take much up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I was humbled by the offer.
Speaker: And neighbors were coming out of the house, seeing what they can do to help, asking my brothers.
Speaker: And then in the weeks and months afterwards, I mean, people were coming up to me and they're like, can I buy some clothes?
Speaker: What can I get to?
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It was very hard for me.
Speaker: Because here I was a guy who...
Speaker: I had all the cool stuff, you know?
Speaker: You had a shoe collection.
Speaker: My shoe collection was gone.
Speaker: Multiple businesses.
Speaker: And I was like, well, you know, so I just had all these people come up to me and say, how can we help you?
Speaker: And that was very humbling.
Speaker: And that week, I called my insurance company.
Speaker: And the insurance company said, well, you got to call the mortgage company.
Speaker: And I was so confused by that.
Speaker: And I went back and forth.
Speaker: I couldn't get anywhere.
Speaker: And I ended up calling a friend of mine who was a lawyer.
Speaker: And not the lawyer that you think.
Speaker: You already read my mind.
Speaker: But a friend of mine who was a lawyer.
Speaker: And what she found out was that my homeowner's insurance was escrowed into my mortgage.
Speaker: And the mortgage servicer wasn't paying out the taxes or the insurance.
Speaker: So the insurance company was not going to offer any kind of support.
Speaker: And they knew what happened.
Speaker: And they still wouldn't offer any support.
Speaker: And I kind of understand the end of the deal.
Speaker: Because they weren't getting any money.
Speaker: We ended up going into court trying to fight the mortgage company, but the servicer went out into business after being investigated by several attorney generals for doing the same thing to other people.
Speaker: So here I had this beautiful house that I put a lot of money down on.
Speaker: It was all gone.
Speaker: I had a bill to pay.
Speaker: So the mortgage company was like, okay, well, you still owe your next payment.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And couldn't even go into the house.
Speaker: And I had to figure out what to do at that moment.
Speaker: And so everything was gone and I still had a mortgage to pay and I had nothing except this boarded up house.
Speaker: So it took a lot to figure out what to do and
Speaker: the like i said there was no relief coming anywhere in terms of like insurance people say oh we're house you get insurance it was all paid over and i'm like no that's not what happened and so i had to start all over completely all over so i feel like that day i started my life over and you know you had kind of mentioned in there the pivotal moments
Speaker: I don't think that the pivotal moment or moment was a fire.
Speaker: I think the pivotal moments were the steps that happened right after the fire when I started to pick myself up or allow others to help me pick myself up.
Speaker: And I think that's an interesting way of phrasing it because
Speaker: I look at it and say I was embarrassed.
Speaker: I was so embarrassed by having to ask for a friend to help me.
Speaker: And that wasn't my style.
Speaker: I would never receive anything like that.
Speaker: But then someone said to me, she's like, Jason, if you don't let other people help you, you're robbing them of the opportunity to do something special in their lives.
Speaker: And I really kind of thought about that, and I thought, wow, I never even...
Speaker: Consider it that way.
Speaker: And I had to rebuild everything.
Speaker: And I did.
Speaker: Was there ever a point where you thought that you might not be able to rebuild everything?
Speaker: Oh, every day.
Speaker: Every day afterwards.
Speaker: And I couldn't sleep at night.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I told you at one point I was a fireman.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I might be one of the few firemen who's burned down.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: Definitely probably the only fireman who doesn't have a working fire smoke detector in their house.
Speaker: But it was hard.
Speaker: And I battled
Speaker: really complicated depression and PTSD.
Speaker: And you don't want to talk about that either.
Speaker: You want to keep that because it makes you look like you're weaker or it can make you feel like you're weaker.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: And I think the fact that you can deal with that and elevate yourself and get back up, that makes you a stronger person.
Speaker: So it's not a weakness.
Speaker: The strength is the fact that you can get back up.
Speaker: And there are people probably listening right now that are at a point in their lives where they're not sure how they're going to get back up, whatever the circumstance, what advice would you have for them?
Speaker: I always say that you shouldn't define yourself by the knockouts.
Speaker: But, you know, I always think, and I'm not a fighting person, I'm not a boxing person, but I always think of like the boxing analogy where, you know, it's not about getting knocked out or punched and knocked to the mat.
Speaker: It's about you getting back up and fighting again.
Speaker: And I think that's something that,
Speaker: is the whole point of this podcast is to see those stories of people who said, I'm not going to let a fire keep me down.
Speaker: I'm going to let that fire, you know, kind of ignite a life of service to others, or I'm going to let that fire ignite something in me where I can be a better, stronger, um, you know,
Speaker: different person.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And a better person.
Speaker: And there was this huge shift in my life that, you know, I don't think I was a bad person before, but I think I definitely had different priorities.
Speaker: And right now,
Speaker: You know, my big thing is just doing things to help others.
Speaker: And I mean, that's, and people look at it like, why do you do that?
Speaker: And I think it comes back to, comes back to coming from a great family, but also that fire, that moment where I realized that I had to build myself back up and realizing that there are people by your side who will do that to help you.
Speaker: You know, people talk about loneliness,
Speaker: But I think loneliness is only, you know, going through depression and stuff like that.
Speaker: People talk about the loneliness element of it.
Speaker: And I think the loneliness element is not that you don't have friends or you don't have people to help you.
Speaker: It's just that you choose not to let the people who are there help you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I think that there's always people there.
Speaker: You may not know it, but there are people there who want to help.
Speaker: And whether that's...
Speaker: You know, a friend of yours, a family member, or whether it's a person on a phone line, you know, whether it's, you know, an EAP office or whatever they call them at the fire department, you know, you're going through something or a police department or, or, you know, wherever at school, you know, or at a workplace.
Speaker: There's programs out there that people are there to help you.
Speaker: You just have to take that moment and say, listen, I need that help, and I'm not going to see that as a sign of weakness, but instead I'm going to see it as a sign of strength because I am using what I can to raise myself and others up.
Speaker: The first people that you called were your parents after the call to 911.
Speaker: And you mentioned about your close relationship with them.
Speaker: Talk about how that relationship has gotten stronger since this incident and the help that they were able to provide for you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think right after that, my parents obviously invited me back to live with them.
Speaker: you know, everything I needed, they were there to provide for me.
Speaker: Um, although being in the mid twenties, you kind of want to early, I think it was mid to our late twenties.
Speaker: And I didn't really want to go back and move in with mom and dad again.
Speaker: Um, I ended up moving with them for a little bit and I ended up moving in with a good friend of mine for a longer extended period of time until I got back up on my feet.
Speaker: Um, but,
Speaker: anything I needed, they were there for, and they were helping me along the process.
Speaker: And I'll never forget that.
Speaker: I think since that day and other issues in our lives, it's just we've gone closer and closer and closer.
Speaker: My dad passed away two years ago, and
Speaker: He battled a really difficult Parkinson's disease.
Speaker: And one thing I'll say too is in his passing, I think even our family has got even stronger and continues to get stronger.
Speaker: So you look at these, you know, look at the fire moment, look at my dad passing moment.
Speaker: And it's those things that kind of give you that, that, that,
Speaker: push to really step up.
Speaker: And I think since my dad passed, my family's coming even more close, supporting my mom and each other.
Speaker: And I think it's just another fire example.
Speaker: So we talk about the fire, but then that's another, a whole nother story that can lead to that understanding the importance of people.
Speaker: So here you are almost, we're eight years since that incident.
Speaker: You bounced back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How, what, what would you want to say to your, your father and your mother for the, the support that they were able to get you?
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: If I wasn't crying, yeah, I'm going to talk, right.
Speaker: You know, I, I think, um,
Speaker: I feel so blessed and I'm just the luckiest guy in the world.
Speaker: We didn't grow up with a lot of money.
Speaker: We didn't grow up privileged per se.
Speaker: We weren't in need.
Speaker: We had what we needed to get through life, but we didn't have the extras in life.
Speaker: But what we had was each other and we were very close.
Speaker: And I think what my parents instilled in us as four boys and as a family,
Speaker: was that the most important element was the family.
Speaker: And that's so strong today.
Speaker: It's so strong.
Speaker: It was so strong eight years ago when that happened.
Speaker: It felt like the Bauman boys mounted up, you know, and we're there for you.
Speaker: So, I mean, thank you to mom and dad.
Speaker: And I'll never forget that moment.
Speaker: And every moment in between that really has been, you know,
Speaker: they've done, you know, that they've done that for me.
Speaker: So your father, um, has been gone for two years now, so he hasn't seen the last two years of your life.
Speaker: What do you want him to know about who Jason Bauman is today because of, of that incident?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I think, um,
Speaker: When my dad was in the hospital in his final days, I whispered in his ear, I'll always be there for mom.
Speaker: And I wanted him to know that.
Speaker: And I think he was like the perfect example of
Speaker: of a good father.
Speaker: And I have very close friends in my life who were kind of robbed of that opportunity of not having a good father.
Speaker: And I feel a little sad that I had that opportunity that others don't have.
Speaker: And yeah, so.
Speaker: Looking back at
Speaker: 2016 Jason and even earlier, what advice would you have for that Jason?
Speaker: Knowing what you know now and the importance that you have about life now.
Speaker: Just forget about the things in life.
Speaker: Even a shoe collection.
Speaker: Even a shoe collection.
Speaker: You know, it's so funny.
Speaker: I probably had 60, 70 pairs of shoes at least at that point.
Speaker: And for a guy that's completely crazy, maybe I have maybe 10, 12 now.
Speaker: But I don't want more.
Speaker: It's that important to me.
Speaker: I don't really care.
Speaker: To me, some of the proudest moments I feel in my life is I've had...
Speaker: I had a marketing company for nine years, eight years, nine years.
Speaker: I closed the company to take a position at a law firm, and it's been the dream job.
Speaker: I love doing it every day.
Speaker: I love who I'm working for.
Speaker: I love the company that I'm working for, the firm I'm working for.
Speaker: I love the people I'm working with.
Speaker: But... I forgot where I was going with that.
Speaker: What advice do you have for 2016?
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: When I closed my company, my closed box list, I laughed and people said, well, did it fail?
Speaker: I said, not at all.
Speaker: It was a huge success because in that nine years, I was able to mentor more than 100 interns and junior staff members and help them find their first jobs and their careers.
Speaker: I built amazing connections that led me to my current position.
Speaker: I built an amazing network of people throughout the state of Illinois, I would even say, because of that.
Speaker: So while that door closed of my life, I feel that I am where I am today because of that.
Speaker: And so I don't think it's about the failures.
Speaker: I think, you know, I had a restaurant for a short period of time.
Speaker: And I closed.
Speaker: And I was like,
Speaker: It was something I always wanted to do.
Speaker: It was something that I accomplished a lot while being there.
Speaker: And I learned a lesson.
Speaker: I got in business with a bad partner.
Speaker: I learned to be careful on some things.
Speaker: But I think all those moments, even if there's a small step back,
Speaker: that it's on a pathway to success.
Speaker: And I think you have to view it that way and that we should never let anyone else define what that success is.
Speaker: We need to design our personal success and create a pathway to that success.
Speaker: I think when I had Boxless, my marketing company, I always said that, um,
Speaker: the way our mentality was to see where we're at and see where we want to go and then create the path from the beginning to end.
Speaker: And I think that I've moved away from that business, but that
Speaker: that methodology or that journey should be the same in everyone's life.
Speaker: So see where you're at today and where do you want to be?
Speaker: What's that success in your life look like?
Speaker: And then plot your way to there.
Speaker: I also think it's really important to look back at where you came from.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you driven by the house, the neighborhood?
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: Probably three times.
Speaker: Since 2016.
Speaker: And what goes through your mind?
Speaker: It's hard.
Speaker: It's really, really difficult.
Speaker: The house is basically gone.
Speaker: They kept the front and the back wall, or the two sidewalls, and they gutted everything down and rebuilt it from scratch.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It's this huge monstrosity right now.
Speaker: It's hard to go back there.
Speaker: It's hard to go back there.
Speaker: Because a lot was lost that day.
Speaker: I have been involved with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for, I don't even know how many years, probably 20 something years now.
Speaker: And in my basement were pictures of all the wish kids I had dealt with at the time.
Speaker: That's all gone.
Speaker: My high school yearbooks are all gone.
Speaker: There's so many memories that are gone.
Speaker: So I think
Speaker: going down that street.
Speaker: I don't, I did a couple of times because I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know why I did it to be honest, but I really don't want to go by there because it's just, it's hard to see that loss.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So do you know, um, as of today, what caused the fire?
Speaker: So, um, yes, um, there was a water machine in the basement.
Speaker: Um, the water machine,
Speaker: I'll never forget this, but the water machine had shorted.
Speaker: It was one of those like heat, hot and cold water machines.
Speaker: And the fire department came out and they were asking me all these questions and they said, well, you know, for the burn patterns, we could see where it started and what was here and there.
Speaker: And, you know, they defined, they, they said that it was, um, in the lawn, in this laundry area, um, or there was a water machine and, um, and one machine was there because my dog was down there a lot.
Speaker: So I always, it was basically for him, you know, but, um,
Speaker: So that's what caused the fire.
Speaker: And when the police detectives come to me in the hospital room, I remember being on breathing treatments.
Speaker: I'm like, and they're like, what was next to the drive?
Speaker: Because it was next to a drive.
Speaker: And I was like, a water machine.
Speaker: He's like, well, you know, the fire department said that the water machine did it, but water puts out fires.
Speaker: And I'm like,
Speaker: Guys, you know, there's electricity that goes through, you know, but I remember that moment, but it was a water machine and it was in an area where it was laundry and there was chemicals down there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know, there was paint in an area.
Speaker: It was kind of like utility area.
Speaker: So it was kind of like the perfect storm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: We're certainly glad that...
Speaker: someone's watching over you and that you're able to share your story today and other stories with this podcast as well.
Speaker: For people that are listening, this is the first episode.
Speaker: What do you want them to get, not just out of your story, but of the stories that they're going to be hearing bi-weekly here on Phoenix?
Speaker: So this has been something that I've wanted to do for a long time.
Speaker: And I
Speaker: I want to share my story.
Speaker: I've been honored to befriend a lot of people who have similar stories or have equally inspiring or more inspiring stories to say.
Speaker: I want people to know that...
Speaker: there's brighter days for everybody.
Speaker: And even if you're feeling like you're in the dumps or things are working against you or whatever, that it's important to keep your priorities straight.
Speaker: And there are people there who will elevate you, whether you know there or not.
Speaker: There are people there who want to do that.
Speaker: And don't fall to the thought that,
Speaker: It's a you know that struggles are weakness, signs of weakness.
Speaker: Everyone has struggles.
Speaker: And I think that the strongest man or woman or person is that person who can take those moments of struggle and turn them into.
Speaker: the foundations for power.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very well said.
Speaker: We certainly hope people get that out of hearing your story and the ones to come.
Speaker: We can't wait to hear more of what's to come.
Speaker: Thank you for your vulnerability.
Speaker: And everyone, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: It's been really rough 45 minutes so far.
Speaker: I'm like, usually I do this completely audio and so it's different to have it in camera and of course the time you have it in camera I'm crying.
Speaker: So, but thank you for spending the day and kind of
Speaker: or certainly last hour or so doing this with me and hopefully this is something that will inspire people.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: We'll come back in two weeks for a very exciting story, an inspirational story that I can't wait to talk with the person.
Speaker: So I'm excited.
Speaker: I don't want to tell who it is yet, but it's an amazing story.
Speaker: So come back in two weeks.
