Ben Askren Almost Died. Then He Wrestled Again

Mark Bell (0:00)

Do you know what it's like to almost die?

Ben Askren (0:03)

When I woke up, I was in a hospital in the dark with no recollection of anything that happened or what happened to me. Someone has to die, they have to find the match, go retrieve the organs, bring the organs back by flight, and then install the organs all within 12 hours. Hey, we're all going through hard things sometimes, and we just gotta keep moving forward and being grateful for the life that we do have. I lost 57 pounds when I woke up. I was really scrawny. I lost almost all my muscle. This five pound weight, this is actually hard for me to curl. In wrestling, there's all these kind of unique strengths that I think it's impossible to get in the weight room.

Mark Bell (0:45)

Awesome, man. So, kind of the first question I want to ask you right off the bat is, do you know what it's like to almost die, or do you not know what it's like to almost die since you kind of didn't remember having your surgery?

Ben Askren (1:03)

Ha! That is, you know what, no one's asked me that, and I've had that thought to myself many times. I would say I don't really know, because to your point, when I lost consciousness or memory, it was when I was walking into the hospital the second time, and at that point, I didn't really think anything was wrong with me, and then when I woke up, I was in a hospital in the dark with no recollection of anything that happened or what happened to me. So, yeah, I think that's a great question. I haven't had anyone ask me that.

Mark Bell (1:39)

That's just absolutely wild. I mean, you see that in horror movies, right? Like somebody goes to the hospital for this little thing, and next thing you know, they wake up with, you know, no leg.

Ben Askren (1:49)

Yeah, for real.

Mark Bell (1:50)

In your circumstance, you went to the hospital, you were having some pain in your back, I think, and you went to the same hospital, you went back a second time, your wife suggested, hey, you really need to go get it checked out, and you thought it was just your back, and then you don't remember anything after that.

Ben Askren (2:07)

Nothing. No, yeah, so I woke up in the dark.

Mark Bell (2:09)

Do you think that your years, I mean, wrestlers are just different, you know? I've had a few wrestlers in my time in running a business. I've had a couple of wrestlers work for me before, and it usually works out pretty damn good, because they have great discipline, and a lot of times they have a great mindset.

Did you find that your mindset really helped you through a lot of this? I mean, you still must be going through some things as well, because it's going to take a long time to really recover from this.

Ben Askren (2:40)

Yeah, I mean, I would say my life is, I'm going to say, normal-ish. At this point, I'm a little over a year out.

Most things have returned close to normal, but I'm taking medicine daily, which is probably not great for my body or my performance or anything like that. But for sure, the mentality definitely helped me out a lot. Having been through so many hard things, essentially self-inflicted before that, growing through a grinding wrestling practice for season after season after season, for sure helped me because every single day was hard for many, many, many months, every single day was hard getting up and just even just doing the small things that were necessary.

Mark Bell (3:21)

What do you tell yourself when you're in that situation? My mother-in-law just had triple bypass surgery, and she's only one week out from it. She's 78 years old.

So what's kind of encouragement you can give to somebody like that, who just like you said, she's having a hard time just standing, having a hard time just walking, her heart rate goes racing through the roof. And it seems so far away for her to just walk or to go outside and do something enjoyable.

Ben Askren (3:52)

Yeah, I would say that for me, the thing that really helped me so much was just focus on one day at a time. And that's it. Like, I wasn't thinking about where I'm gonna be in three months or six months or a year. It was very literally, what can I do today? Or what do I have to do today, right? I have to take my medicine. I have to try to get a workout or rehab of some sort in which, you know, in the beginning was as simple as like, I gotta try to stand up 20 times or, you know, something to that effect, make sure I'm eating healthy.