The Leonard's have a famous family story involving electrocution and a giant Christmas tree. What started as a tragedy for all slowly grew to become a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation style comedy for everyone in the family, except for one.
The Leonard's have a famous family story involving electrocution and a giant Christmas tree. What started as a tragedy for all slowly grew to become a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation style comedy for everyone in the family, except for one.
It's Thanksgiving in 2011. Half of the Leonard children (now adults) are home for the holiday weekend and get to work decorating the massive pine tree in the front yard for Christmas. And then something strange happens. It changes everyone's perspective on life, death, and the super powers of parents... and electricity.
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Rashomon is produced and hosted by Hillary Rea
Original music in this episode is by Paul Defiglia. The version of "Silent Night" in this episode is performed and recorded by Kevin MacLeod. Theme song is by Ryan Culinane.
Podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner.
A huge thank you to the Leonard Family: Bill, Denise, Lauren, Blaine, Colin, and Grant. Denise, Lauren, and Bill all had colds during our interviews and persevered with congestion and coughs!
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New episodes return on May 28th. Stay tuned.
Bill [00:00:01] I like darkness. I'm really comfortable outside at night. Anywhere, I don't need lights. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I can sit out in the dark and listen and look and have a moon and stars. I will walk up the road up here in the county without a flashlight and light and watch things move. I went out one night last week and and I situated myself so that I could see the big lighted outside tree to my left. I had my fire with my beer, and I had the moon to my right and made sure the other lights were off. I like the idea of the tree, the lights in the darkness, which I like inside too -- everything off except the lights and I don't know what it is. It's just a feeling. It is sort of to say it's a beacon is too poetic, but it's just something that I like the sense of the light in the darkness.
Hillary [00:01:21] You are listening to Rashomon, a podcast where one family tells every side of the same story. I'm your host, Hillary Rea. It's been a while. Hello, I'm back, and this is the first episode of Season Two. This is the Leonard Family.
Hillary [00:01:48] It's the day after Christmas, I hopped on an Amtrak from Philadelphia and ended up 25 miles west of Harrisburg, P.A., in a small rural town. I'm with Lauren Leonard at her parents house. The house is filled with Christmas decorations, there's wreaths and Christmas stockings, nativity scenes and angel figurines, there's even this cuckoo clock that's holiday themed that chimes a different Christmas carol on every hour. And I know that outside of the house is decorated, too. But it's daylight, so it's hard to see that. I'm visiting Lauren and her family to hear every side of one particular story. And it happens to be holiday themed.
Lauren [00:02:29] Probably our most famous family story is when my father was electrocuted Thanksgiving weekend, it was 2011. And I know that because I just looked at the back of a photo to remind myself what year it was.
Hillary [00:02:43] There are tons of family photos all organized by Lauren's mom, including ones taken just before her dad's electrocution. Lauren helps to set the scene from their front yard.
Lauren [00:02:55] So it happened in front of my parents house, our childhood home, which is a yellow ranch style house. So we used to have this really big, beautiful pine tree in the front yard. It was kind of like a very symmetrical, just like a storybook kind of pine trees.
Hillary [00:03:12] The tree was off the front porch and it was the centerpiece of the yard.
Lauren [00:03:17] I don't know if you've ever seen The Nutcracker, but there's a part where the tree grows. And this tree, like when I think of this and I go back through this memory, it's like this. The tree has become this sort of force, this creature that's now like out to get everyone. It is not there anymore. My mom had it cut down shortly after the incident.
Hillary [00:03:38] Lauren was an adult when this incident happened and so were all of her siblings. Not all of them were there for the actual event. But each member of Lauren's immediate family is part of the story in some way.
Lauren [00:03:51] So there's mom and dad, and then there's Grant, who I will refer to as Big Brother, and then it's me. And then there's Blaine, who I call Middle Brother. And then two years after Blaine is Colin, who's little brother and the baby.
Hillary [00:04:07] As the kids got older, Denise, mom, and Bill, dad, started their holiday decorating right after Thanksgiving. This way, most of the kids would be around to help.
Lauren [00:04:17] This decorating time it was my dad, me and my little brother Collin. Mom was here, but she was in the house and I think she was getting ready to run some errands or something.
Hillary [00:04:28] They started with decorating the big tree outside. Lauren and her dad and Colin would lay out all of the lights in rows and plug them in to make sure that they all worked. And once they were checked, her dad would gather them all up,
Lauren [00:04:43] Sort of like you would take a cord like your vacuum quarter, an extension cord or something, kind of like do the wrap around where you're holding your hand, wrap it around your elbow, that kind of looping thing. So you would do that and then I would actually just put them around my neck, like over my shoulders, like a giant necklace. And then that way I could unwrap them over myself and keep feeding him light. So as they're moving around, I'm moving around and handing them enough light so they can keep putting them up. So you basically just rotate around the tree while I'm peeling the lights off to hand them the slack to put it up.
Hillary [00:05:14] That year, Lauren thinks she was wearing four full strands of Christmas lights.
Lauren [00:05:18] Not heavy, but also a lot of lights to be wearing around your neck.
Hillary [00:05:21] The tree was so tall they needed both a ladder to hang the lights and then something to reach even further. Bill always rigged something up.
Lauren [00:05:30] We have an above ground pool and you have like a pool vacuum so you can get the scum in the dirt that settles. We would take the like vacuum head off of it and just use the pole and extend the pole but it's round at the end so you have to put something on it that can hold the lights. So that's where the the bent wire hanger came in. So you bend it into like a U shape and then tape it to the pole. So it's a very precise process, very scientific.
Hillary [00:05:55] Lauren remembers her dad on the side of the tree closest to the house. He wasn't using the ladder. He was standing on the ground, but he was using the pole. And then something changed.
Lauren [00:06:06] I wasn't aware of what happened but I kind of like I sat down and I remember feeling strange about like how did I sit down? Like like why am I sitting down? I'm certain that I didn't lose consciousness or anything, but it was quick. And then I got back up and my dad was laying down kind of laughing and he he said, Are you OK? And I said, I'm fine. And I wasn't sure still what happened. And then he got quiet and was just laying on the ground. He had his knees bent and he sort of like almost like he was doing a crunch. Or like a sit up was sort of like, are you OK? And then he just started laughing. And then he laid, like, reclined. I mean, he was absolutely conscious the instant after it happened before he wasn't. But yeah and then he was out.
Hillary [00:06:49] Lauren doesn't remember a specific thing that made her feel strange or made her dad fall to the ground. But there he was, lying on his back.
Lauren [00:06:57] And I still am not thinking much of this because my dad was always, I guess, a little bit of a prankster. We would play a game when we were little called Monster, which was just sort of like tag. But Dad was the monster and he would kind of play dead or pretend he was sleeping and then you'd get just close enough so that the monster would come alive and get you. So for my dad to kind of be playing dead or some kind of terrible joke would not be that out of character. So I just thought, this is what what Dad is doing. And then he wouldn't wake up.
Hillary [00:07:21] And then she realized something else.
Lauren [00:07:24] He wasn't breathing. I don't remember. I think I touched him to see like like shake him. But then I remember very much like stepping back and screaming and just being like, what is what is happening?
Bill [00:07:42] Well, I planted the tree in 1981 or 82. It was a blue spruce, one of the first things we planted. As it grew, Lauren arrived pretty much simultaneously. And in about 1988, when they're both six or eight years old, she got big enough and the tree got big enough for she and I to decorate it for the first time. We put one string of lights on and we did that every year for almost 30 years. So we started doing this and the tree grew with her and we went from doing it on the ground to doing it with chairs and then stepladders and then stepladders and extension's.
Lauren [00:08:24] I don't know how it happened, I just remember thinking I'm sitting down and then getting up and seeing my dad lying down and him asking me if I was OK and laughing. I don't know when I realized that it was an electric shock. I'm not sure and I don't even recall if Colin knew that's what it was. Again, I think my dad knew because of looking back on his response...
Bill [00:08:48] A pine tree like that will extend up roughly two feet a year. And as the years went on, it grew up to the power lines that got closer and closer to power lines, not considering how big it was going to get. And it became a probably bad idea to decorate it as time went on. We got more and more careful and I actually got to the point where I was going to discontinue doing it for three reasons, it was too big, really got to be a problem with the lights. I think at the end we were probably putting about 15 strings on it. Also it was too close to the power lines. And all the kids had grown up and were here, there and everywhere.
Hillary [00:09:33] The year that Bill decided to stop decorating the tree, his neighbor came over and said that it was something that his daughters had looked forward to every single year, and he wanted to know when the Christmas tree lights were getting turned on.
Bill [00:09:47] I thought, oh, well, now I can't quit.
Hillary [00:09:49] So that Thanksgiving weekend, Bill is back out decorating the tree with Colin and Lauren.
Bill [00:09:55] So we got set up with a ladder and the extension, which is actually the extension for the pool cleaner, which we rig a wire on the top. And it is metal, which is a bad idea in retrospect. And we started and we decorated and Colin was youngest and by far the strongest. So he was at the top on the stepladder. And I kept saying, be careful, be careful. When you come in from the side will move the ladder and come in on the other side. We have fun. We go very slowly. We laugh and cackle and drink beer and eat cookies and generally make a circus of it.
Hillary [00:10:28] Everything was going well. But Bill says Colin took a break because his arms were tired.
Bill [00:10:33] And I'm standing there with the pole and the one strin of lights had dropped down and I looked at it and I put the pole between the power lines and caught the line and pushed it up. And the next thing I saw was a ball of electricity, bright blue, rolling down the extension towards me. And I looked up and I thought, oh, my, that's not good.
Hillary [00:10:58] Bill pitched the pole, but he didn't let go quick enough. So the ball of electricity got to him.
Bill [00:11:04] And I'm old enough to remember the old TVs where the picture went crooked and you had to straighten it. And that's what my picture went crooked in my eyes. And I was walking backwards laughing. Apparently. That I don't remember. But the kids told me I was laughing and I remember saying to myself, keep breathing, keep breathing. You'll refocus. And apparently I didn't keep breathing.
Hillary [00:11:29] The next thing Bill remembers is his wife, Denise, leaning over him and asking him who he is and what happened.
Bill [00:11:36] I said, Unfortunately, I remember everything.
Hillary [00:11:39] Bill asks his wife if he can get up.
Bill [00:11:42] She said no. And then I started hearing the sirens coming from all directions and I thought, oh, my God, I felt like an absolute fool. I've got all this EMS emergency people coming. I said, look, let me get up, we'll go and sit on the couch, watch a ballgame. We'll be OK. Of course, that didn't happen.
Hillary [00:12:00] When the EMS crew arrived, Bill tried to get them to leave immediately.
Bill [00:12:05] I said, OK, now we're done. And they said, oh, no, we're going to load you up in the army to take the hospital. So they deliver me to the hospital in the emergency room, which of course, I'd never done before, took me up and hooked me up to every kind of machine. I didn't even know what they were.
Hillary [00:12:20] They did a bunch of tests and once they were all over, he was ready to go home.
Bill [00:12:24] I said, good, then I can leave. And he said, Oh, no, you got to stay for several more hours. And I said, why, I said, well, he said when electricity comes in through your arms like that, it goes down through your body and out your feet. I said, OK. He said, Do you know you have holes in your feet? I said, No, I didn't.
Hillary [00:12:41] Bill had holes in his feet.
Bill [00:12:44] They were totally painless, didn't even know they were there. Until he showed me, he said that's where the electricity goes out. I said, Oh, OK, that's probably not good. He said, What we're checking for is to see if you burned your organs up on the way out.
Hillary [00:12:58] Bill remembers being at the hospital for a few more hours to run more tests and observe his organs. And then he was cleared to go home. Bill, Denise, Lauren and Colin all got home and then it was over.
Bill [00:13:14] It was like I told my wife, it is if you roll your car down over the bank and flip twice and when you stop, get out, realize there's nothing wrong. Well, then it's just gone. It doesn't recur. It wasn't bad luck. And no matter how bad they are, if you get out of them, they're over and you move on. I've been able to do that all my life. When something's over, it's just over.
Lauren [00:13:51] I don't actually remember where Colin was as it was happening. He was behind me somewhere, but we both star just started screaming for our mom.
Colin [00:14:02] You could always see the old tree at the end of the driveway whenever we were driving, and so sort of that sort of signals that the christmas season is coming up, coming on, and I go home every Thanksgiving, and that's when the tree is decorated, so...
Lauren [00:14:18] He ran in the house to get her and I stayed out with my dad. I think I was just sort of standing there. I wasn't really doing anything other than screaming. I don't even know at that point if we knew that he had been electrocuted.
Colin [00:14:40] We we got done with what my mom would consider the dangerous part standing on top of the ladder with a 20 foot pole, which doesn't make much sense, but it's a family tradition. We're down on the ground. My dad had the pole extended pretty far and he hit the power line that goes into our house and saw big white flash. I remember it being a shock. I'm not sure if I actually saw the light flash, but I remember hearing like a jolt and laughing because there was no way I expected it to actually be shocked by the power lines. I remember Lauren jerking, throwing the lights off her neck and my dad laughing. And then shortly after he laughed, he collapsed to the ground and was not laughing at anymore.
Hillary [00:15:27] The thing that stands out to Colin the most still was his dad's laugh.
Colin [00:15:31] It was like a laugh, like that was that was a close one sort of laugh. Like a nervous and got away with that sort of laugh. And then he sort of stumbled and went went back on his back.
Hillary [00:15:45] Like Lauren, Colin thought his dad was joking, but then it quickly became apparent that it was not a joke, so they both screamed for Denise.
Colin [00:15:55] I ran inside called 911. My mom, who happened to be home, ran outside, perform CPR.
Lauren [00:16:02] She had thought initially someone fell off the ladder.
Hillary [00:16:05] She saw Bill wasn't responsive. And so she started to do CPR, which she knew how to do because Denise was a registered nurse.
Lauren [00:16:13] She's an R.N., so she just knew what to do, did CPR. And then he came back to and then he had a seizure, which was probably the worst. I've never seen someone have a seizure or an animal have a seizure. It's just a really kind of violent, terrible thing to watch. So he came back to after that and Colin had called 911 and was sort of pacing up and down the sidewalk.
Hillary [00:16:36] Colin's call with 911, seemed to go on forever because they couldn't find their house address in the system. It was so rural where they lived that none of the roads had actual street names, just a series of numbers and letters. That has since changed. Colin remembers still being on the phone with 911 when his dad came to, but as soon as the call was over, he ran over to him.
Colin [00:17:00] And I remember my mom and I just calming him down and then he laid there until the local EMS and fire department came. And the funny part is some of the the EMTs and firefighters were kids my age that my dad coached in Little League.
Lauren [00:17:18] The ambulance came and they got him in the back with my mom. And then Colin and I followed them to the hospital. And I'm pretty sure Colin was driving and I was in the passenger seat. But I'm I'm not entirely certain. I do remember very vividly I was wearing one of my dad's hunting sweatshirts. So it's like that bright I just learned this morning. It's called Blaze, but it's that like fluorescent safety, orange color. So I have this huge sweatshirt on like sweatpants and sneakers that may have not even been mine or fit. And so we got in the car and we're on our way to the hospital. And I called I think I called Grant, who's our oldest brother first.
Grant [00:17:57] It was quite a while ago. Did they give you a specific date? Did anybody have the actual date that this happened
Lauren [00:18:03] And told him what was going on but had no information other than like Dad was electrocuted, died in the front yard on the way to hospital? Everything's fine.
Grant [00:18:23] I was visiting my my wife's family and we were having a big campfire outside. It was getting towards late afternoon, at least in my recollection. We were clowning around enjoying story time around the fire with her cousins and her parents. And my sister called me. So I answered and she gave me what I thought at the time was an absurdly short synopsis of what had happened at my parents house.
Hillary [00:18:49] Grant remembers Lauren saying they were on the way to the hospital because their dad had been electrocuted.
Grant [00:18:55] And that was basically all she said.
Hillary [00:18:57] Grant started screaming at her, asking if Dad was OK, where are you now, what is happening?
Grant [00:19:03] And she simply said that she had to go and hung up the phone without even telling me if everything was all right. So maybe it was because she didn't actually know everything was alright yet. But at that point, I was kind of in a panic and I'd walked away from where the camp fire was into a field.
Hillary [00:19:18] Grant hated talking on the phone in front of other people, so he had gone for a walk. And on that walk, Lauren and Graham were yelling at each other on the phone and one of them hung up.
Grant [00:19:30] I'm prone to rash and ridiculous reactions to things like this in moments of high anxiety. So I did a logical thing and I hurled my phone in frustration into the field.
Hillary [00:19:42] His phone was out of sight and now he had to go back to the campfire and tell everyone what happened,
Grant [00:19:48] So I walked back to the fire. Everybody became... they switched their mood instantaneously from friendly family gathering. To what in the world is Grant talking about?
Hillary [00:19:58] Grant told everyone what he could about his dad, but they all decided to get up and they journeyed into the field to search for his phone so they could call back and get more answers
Grant [00:20:10] As it was happening. It reminded me of like movie scenes where you have people looking for missing people walking through the woods because they are all in the line. You're fanning out and everybody has a specific area they walk through to try to find things.
Hillary [00:20:22] The phone was found and Grant called back Lauren a few times, but she wasn't picking up.
Grant [00:20:28] In the back of my mind. I'm starting to think that maybe something awful has happened. But I did end up getting a hold of my sister again, offered a couple of choice words about how pissed I was that she had hung up on me and given me such little detail. We actually hung up on each other again.
Hillary [00:20:42] But then Grant called back and got confirmation that his dad was OK. So everyone goes back to hanging around the campfire and there's a dog there, a whippet that belongs to Grant's wife's cousin.
Grant [00:20:54] And as we're sitting around, kind of in awkward silence, the dog somehow got a stick lodged in his mouth in between the roof of his mouth in the base of her jaw and couldn't get it out. So then everybody threw into a panic about the dog choking and gagging and vomiting on the ground.
Hillary [00:21:10] It was a bizarre occurrence. And Grant's memory of it is like a page straight out of Peter Pan.
Grant [00:21:16] Is like watching Captain Hook throw a stick in between the alligator Ticktock's jaws, you know, so you can't bite. And that's what the dog had done on its own somehow with this stick.
Hillary [00:21:26] But eventually someone was able to get it out.
Grant [00:21:29] So the dog was fine. And then everybody could have a good laugh about that. And then later when I found out my dad was home and was just embarrassed that he had gotten so much attention from the local EMS and the ambulance ride and all that stuff, then we can start joking about it. At least I could.
Lauren [00:21:52] And then I called Blaine, he was at a friend's house watching, I think the Alabama Auburn maybe, I don't know, it was like a national championship football situation.
Blaine [00:22:03] I picked up the Alabama fanhood, and I am maniacal. I wear an elephant on my head on every Saturday, which I had on when I received the phone call of this whole thing. Everybody who knows me knows not to call for those three and a half hours. So that's why I thought the whole thing was strange.
Lauren [00:22:18] He was like, I'm on my way, where are you going? And but he he had been drinking so I was like you can't leave you have to you have to stay there.
Hillary [00:22:29] Lauren wasn't the first one to call Blaine.
Blaine [00:22:31] So I found out from my younger brother first.
Hillary [00:22:35] Colin called Blaine, but then Blaine hung up the phone without responding because he thought Colin was joking. So then Grant called.
Blaine [00:22:42] And then got a call from my older brother asking me if this was serious, which I had to inform him that I wasn't home and didn't know what was happening. And finally, probably, I don't know, an hour after the whole thing happened, my sister called me and told me this and they were afraid to tell me what was actually happening originally because they knew I would most likely get in the car and attempt to come see what was happening.
Hillary [00:23:03] None of them wanted Blaine to drive because he had been drinking while watching football, but his drunkenness turned into determination.
Blaine [00:23:10] I'm pretty aggressive and the go getter type human. So I was going to come apparently try to save my dad. I don't know what I was going to do. I was going to make sure that he was all right, even though it didn't make any sense at the time.
Hillary [00:23:21] Besides the alcohol confusing things for Blaine, he didn't know what to believe about this story because of the lifetime of pranks that all of the siblings and Bill had all played on each other.
Blaine [00:23:32] I could never tell who's screwing with who in our family, especially among the siblings. So that was something to definitely be a joke that was told that dad electrocuted himself off of a ladder, putting up Christmas lights.
Hillary [00:23:41] So Blaine stayed put. And even though he was never at the house for the actual incident, he feels like he was.
Blaine [00:23:48] I still have my own vision of what actually happened due to the stories that have been told by Colin and Lauren and my mom, who were all there, but being my dad the way he is, I envisioned this giant ball of electricity coming down. I've always wanted to know if he thought anything before it hit him, because the way my dad is and his sarcastic nature, I wonder if he actually thought to himself, this is one hell of a way to go.
Bill [00:24:18] Yeah, when I came when my when I refocused on this thing, I guess when my eyes opened and Denise said, Do you know who I am? A spontaneous sense of everything being OK. And I knew I was OK. I thought I was I didn't know medically. And I said something to her to the effect of was I gone? And she said, yes. And I pretty much instantly thought, that's interesting. That struck me as that's curious. I didn't think about it in depth right at that point, I did later, but I instantly thought that's interesting, that I was gone and I didn't have any sense of it. There were no angels or devils. I'm Catholic, which is not specifically relevant, but I'm fairly religious in a sense. I have a powerful belief there's a God, I'm not sure what else, but I do. And of course, I think we're all if we have any thoughts in our head at all, wonder what happens next. I've asked priests about it and got sort of a mixed response. I said, Father, how long are you dead before your soul leaves? And they pretty much laughed and said, We don't know. But I was gone to some degree, I guess, terminally, and there was no sense of anything wrong. I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel or anything supernatural. There was nothing. It was just a guess for lack of a better term, a void. I just wasn't there, which I can accept as being OK. The whole idea of managed to do something to yourself and survive it, which people do every day. But to actually be out and think, damn, that was pretty close and I'm OK, then I guess you also think of why am I OK? Because Denise didn't have to be sitting in the living room when I did this. And had she not been, I wouldn't have been OK. I said, would have I come out of it myself? And she said, No, you wouldn't have come out of yourself. Not a chance. So I don't know there's I guess there's this sense of predestination that it apparently wasn't time for me to be gone no matter what I did. And I've always felt that that's true for people, that people survive things because there's a reason for them to still be on the earth. You learned your time isn't up for good or bad reasons. I I think about it occasionally not in a morbid way, it didn't affect me that way at all. I think we are too tied to materialistic aspects of life. It just isn't that good. We are here for a little while. The Earth has been here for eons. If there isn't something else, there's really no reason for us to be here. And mind you, we cling way too tightly to our physical lives and have a terrible time letting go of our physical lives. And for that reason, other people's deaths bother us too much. Which to me is almost a lack of well, hell, it's a lack of faith. It's a lack of faith that there is something better. Or just something.
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Hillary [00:31:16] All right, now let's get back to the Leonard family. The night of the incident, Lauren is back at her parents house and was getting ready to say good night to her dad and she noticed something weird on her hand.
Lauren [00:31:30] I had realized I had a little like blister between my fingers. And I guess whenever you're electrocuted, it exits somewhere. So for my dad had exited through his foot, he had burn marks on his foot. And I had this tiny little one here. And it was kind of the first time I I mentioned and realized, I was like, Oh, I guess I got electrocuted, too.
Hillary [00:31:49] When the shock happened, Lauren said she felt strange, but she didn't put two and two together.
Lauren [00:31:55] Because it didn't hurt me, because it didn't there was not like a physical reaction that impacted me. In a way, I I guess I didn't really think much of it. And I also felt like my dad's case was so severe that it was like, no, I'm fine. Like, I'm totally fine.
Hillary [00:32:10] Lauren went back to Philadelphia the next morning.
Lauren [00:32:13] I remember I had a friend who picked me up and he just asked how the weekend was. And I just remember I just opening my mouth to talk and just having a complete meltdown and breakdown of just like that terrible like that crying you do when you just have to, like, get it all out. And there's no talking, there's no nothing can happen except for crying. So I did that in the car and then it was really just business as usual.
Denise [00:32:44] It always brings it back. Every time I look out there and see those lights on that tree, that's what comes to mind.
Hillary [00:32:50] The what happened in 2011?
Denise [00:32:53] Yeah, yeah.
Denise [00:33:02] It all started on that that day. It was November the 26th, I remember very vividly 2011. We have this sort of tradition since my kids all went away to college. And, you know, it's really hard to get everybody home at the same time, you know, to do preparations and stuff for the holidays. So whichever kids were home, usually it was my youngest son, Colin, and then Lauren would come home and we had this huge spruce tree in the front yard that we always put Christmas lights on just for fun. It was just sort of a tradition and it got to be a huge tree. It was probably, I'm guessing around 35 feet tall. It was really big.
Hillary [00:33:45] Denise remembers everything from that day down to the weather
Denise [00:33:49] It was nice outside. It was really pretty sunny day. As I recall.
Hillary [00:33:53] Denise was planning to leave the house and go Christmas shopping.
Denise [00:33:57] And looking back on it, it's like it was sort of an intuition. I don't really know what it was, but something just kind of told me to stick around, you know? So I was sitting at the computer and I was just looking online at different things. And Lauren, my daughter, and Colin, my youngest son, were out helping Bill, my husband put the lights on the tree. I remember hearing this sort of wailing sound. It was Colin my youngest son saying, Mom, mom. At first I didn't think anything about it because, you know, they often did these silly things, you know, just to get my attention. I thought he's just, you know, messing around. And then I could tell there was something different in the tone, you know, in his voice. And I just got up and I thought first thing that went through my mind was somebody fell off the ladder. So I went to the door. I don't remember anybody really telling me what happened, but I just looked out and I saw Bill on the ground in front of that tree. And, you know, it was very obvious that something wasn't right. I you know, I don't really recall how I got the details of what had happened. I just know I walked out and he was on the ground and obviously unresponsive. And I just I just sort of kicked into gear. I do have a medical background. I've been a nurse for 30 something years. And, you know, my instinct just sort of kicked in and I just went over and, you know, assessed them and realized, you know, that he was unresponsive, he wasn't breathing. And I remember putting my head, my ear down to his chest. And I didn't, you know, didn't feel hear a pulse or anything, or a heartbeat. So I started just immediately doing CPR and, you know, just seems like a blur now when I think back on it. But I don't know how long it took or how long I was there. I couldn't have been that long because, you know, I just went out immediately when I realized, you know, there was something wrong. I remember thinking when I was doing the compressions and, you know, I didn't know if this was, you know, really a bad situation. Worse than I thought. And I just remember thinking, wow, is this how it's going to end? You know, after that point, we've been married thirty one years. And I thought, wow, you know, is this how it's going to end. And that was the only thing, I think in sort of like an out of body experience, sort of when I think back about it.
Hillary [00:36:16] Denise doesn't know exactly how much time passed between Bill getting shocked Lauren and Colin and screaming and her running out to the front yard.
Denise [00:36:24] There's a period of what medically they say is about a period of about five minutes where, you know, if the heart stops, you know, the blood's not pumping. So you're not getting oxygen to your vital organs. So there's a period of about five minutes... They call it... I think they call it twilight time. But it's that's a very critical time where if somebody's their heart stops or they stop breathing or whatever, if they don't get assistance, then the the likelihood of their being, you know, not being able to respond or not having, you know, brain damage or, you know, is more likely if it's after that five minute period.
Hillary [00:37:01] Denise also doesn't know exactly how long she was doing CPR.
Denise [00:37:05] Maybe a few minutes, but he did start to respond and was breathing. You know, it was shallow breathing. And after he came around a little bit, he had a seizure. And that really, really, really did alarm me because I thought, yeah, you know, if he does survive this, you know, I don't know if he's going to have brain damage or, you know, what's going to happen here. So anyway, he did respond. And then however long it took, like I said, I don't recall it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. He opened his eyes and he just kind of looked around and he was very dazed. And and I remember I kept asking, I said, Do you know your name? Do you know where you are? And he just kind of looked at me and kind of stared at first, just kind of looked me in the eye. I said, Do you know who I am? I kept asking, do you know who I am? And he just said, You're my wife. And as soon as he said that I was like, oh, you know, I think he's going to be OK. And then, you know, gradually he got his senses back and, you know, we were actually having a conversation. By that point, I remember I think I said, you better not die on me. I'm going to come back and haunt you if you do or you're going to I'm going to kill you if you die on me or something stupid like that. I don't remember exactly what I said.
Hillary [00:38:20] Denise said that even though she had to give CPR to her husband, the fact that it was him didn't change things. She felt the same way that she felt when she did CPR at work.
Denise [00:38:32] After it's over and then the adrenaline kicks in and then you're a mess. You know, you're shaking and you're you know, you're thinking about, oh, did I do it right? Did I do you know, did I do what I was supposed to do? I remember going through the motions. Just can't you just kick in and then whatever the outcome you felt and then you fall apart and then your legs become spaghetti and you just stand there and shake.
Hillary [00:38:57] The next day, Denise was just happy to have her husband back and be with the family and to move on like it didn't happen.
Denise [00:39:05] Now, you know, looking back, I think it's been really hard for me over the years to even talk about it because it was really a, you know, very upsetting situation. And, you know, one of those things that you just don't expect to happen, you know, it just makes you think about life and, you know, how fleeting it is and how suddenly things can change. You know, unfortunately, this time, you know, it was for the better. And there's not a Thanksgiving that comes around since then that I don't think about it. And we've since had the tree cut down, not because of that, but because the tree started to die. It was just, you know, it was a pretty old tree by that time for that type of tree, we planted another one a little bit further down, a little bit further away, you know, so it's not near the electric line. Every time I look out there, even when I saw the tree before we cut it down, I think it's been about two years that we actually had the tree cut down. And, you know, I don't even walk on that part of the, you know, the ground where I don't think about that. That's pretty much the story.
Hillary [00:40:05] I wanted to know if the Leonards ever finished decorating for Christmas,
Bill [00:40:10] We didn't decorate it for several years, but then we started decorating it again and we decorate it up until the year this summer, it died off and I had to cut it down. But we still decorated it up until the time and thought much more carefully.
Hillary [00:40:27] In the six months post incident, Lauren remembers having dreams about it. They weren't necessarily nightmares, but they weren't pleasant. But eventually the story turned into one that the family would joke about.
Lauren [00:40:38] So it took a it took a little while before we started talking about it. And I don't know how the boys will feel and when they realized it was funny, but I think it was probably made my dad really set the tone for it, knowing that dad was fine, set the tone of like, OK, that was terrible, but we're OK. And then eventually it became funny.
Blaine [00:41:08] Our father is a little different and he does things that don't make sense fairly often, and he's also pretty much Superman. He's been sick like twice in our lives that I've ever seen. And we always made jokes about how he could probably just, like, jump off buildings and walk away. And it was kind of fitting that he, Clark Griswold himself putting Christmas lights up, electrocuted himself off the ladder. We used to watch it every Christmas Eve. That was always the thing we'd always fall asleep to on the floor was watching National Lampoon's and the scenes where he's always trying to get the Christmas lights to work. And that's why this is so amusing. Even though I wasn't here and I can see him trying to hang it with his homemade pool skimmer, with the clothes hanger on it and the power lines that I'm actually looking directly at right now through the window. And I can definitely see this actually happening and how amusing it is now, the fact that he's not actually dead, but how amusing it would have been to actually see it.
Lauren [00:42:05] Like we love the Griswold's, we identify with that family and their sort of bizarre behavior, and my dad's not accident prone, but like funny things will happen to my dad.
Blaine [00:42:16] This is literally a Clark Griswold thing that my father would do. My friends, everybody who knows me knows my dad is Wild Bill. And he still runs half marathons for no reason in ninety degree weather outside for the heck of it. And still, bench presses his body weight and he's invincible. And we always figured he would live to be 300 years old. And if he died, this would be the most fitting way that Bill Leonard would die. And now he's actually more of a legend among all of our friends, because obviously we grew up in the same place. We all hang around the same circle of friends. And this is the Bill Leonard story and still gets told every time we pretty much have a holiday.
Hillary [00:42:50] Every year around the holidays, the Bill Leonard story becomes a catalyst for many a joke. And all of the siblings agree that Grant was the first one to turn this tragedy into a comedy,
Grant [00:43:03] We'll send text messages sometimes whatever the lights up for the holiday season. Hey, remember when Dad died doing this a couple of years ago? You know, these kinds of things, which I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't want. I think a lot of people cope with humor when things are kind of serious. So I remember I think it was Colin and my dad a couple of years ago, re-created, the scene in the front yard and took pictures of and it around as if it had happened again to make light of it.
Hillary [00:43:31] Colin remembers Grant acting like Spider-Man, but with electricity shooting out of his fingers instead of webs. He would also reenact holding a pole and shaking violently like he'd been electrocuted. Lauren and Blaine would joke as well. But Denise never did.
Grant [00:43:49] So yeah my mom doesn't joke about it as much, because for her, I'm sure it was much more personal since she was actually giving CPR to somebody whose heart had stopped.
Denise [00:44:23] I can now laugh about it. It's taken, it took me a long time. Probably took me years before I could laugh about I didn't even want to talk about it because I guess I'm superstitious. I just felt like, you know, if I make light of the serious situation that is going to jinx that are, you know, something worse could happen. You know, for the longest time, I just couldn't talk about it because it was so personal and it was so serious. And the kids sort of laugh about it, you know, and they would say that now their dad has superpowers and then all the silliness and and I wouldn't laugh because I thought, I didn't think it was funny. And we have Bill and I have talked about it very few times. You know, I guess it's hard for him to talk about it too.
Hillary [00:45:05] And throughout the years, Denise has held on not just to memories, but to one particular artifact from that day.
Denise [00:45:13] And I still have the socks.
Hillary [00:45:15] These are the socks that Bill was wearing when he was decorating the tree. They have burn holes in them from where the electricity exited his feet. She keeps them in a little pouch.
Denise [00:45:26] It's actually in there. And it's going to sound kind of corny, but it's in like a little thing with the crucifix.
Hillary [00:45:32] The crucifix is intentional.
Denise [00:45:34] It was a religious experience to it makes you think about things in a whole different perspective. And I guess that's why I gave it that little place. And I keep it in my dresser in my bedroom is where I keep it. It maybe morbid to some people, but it's just kind of a reminder, you know, you think about what happened and what could have happened.
Colin [00:46:01] I think it's I think it's affected all of us and all our holidays could have been one less family member at the at the table. I think we all we all think about a little bit. I don't think it's dramatically affected us negatively or positively.
Blaine [00:46:30] I don't think of things too seriously very often, but every once in a while when I do, I always thought that that would have been very a very weird way, going totally off the deep end here for my father to die from putting up Christmas lights while I wasn't home, that would have been really strange.
Grant [00:46:49] Oh, man, this just like it's a it's a surreal thing, because if you look at it at its foundation, the whole incident and my father was literally electrocuted. And it killed him. He had his heart, it stopped beating and had my mother not been there, you know, but the worst case scenario is obviously that he's not around anymore either. So that's a big deal.
Lauren [00:47:24] It was the first time that we'd ever probably thought, like, oh, parents die like people, accidents happen. And again, had my mom not been here, I think that it would have been a very different a very different story.
Hillary [00:47:52] Like Lauren and her dad and her siblings said, if Denise hadn't been home that day, this story would have a completely different ending. But Denise doesn't actually take credit for the ending that it did have.
Denise [00:48:04] I think that's part of the reason I don't like to talk about it, because I don't want to sound like I'm giving myself a pat on the back because I, you know, saved him or whatever, you know, it was just something, you know, it's the way I reacted and I would have reacted that way no matter who it was, you know. But I don't feel like a hero. I just feel like I'm just thankful that I had the knowledge to do it because it would have been a whole lot different story.
Lauren [00:48:31] When we were younger, the house was set up a little differently. There was a fish tank that we had for years and we had these waffle blocks growing up. They were just like big plastic building blocks. But they're kind of shaped like puzzle pieces. So you can build like little houses and forts and stuff. And we were in this room and Colin threw one just he was quite small and just sort of like how kids flail and throw things threw it. And it hit the fish tank and the fish tank cracked. And I remember mom sort of running in from the kitchen and like moving him out of the way, getting towels down, having a bucket to catch the fish in. And it was just the speed at which she did it. It was like, how how are you doing all these things? The fish survived and we took them to the pet store and they, I guess, rehomed them. And like, those are the things that she would do. Like then you put all the kids in the car and take them to the pet store. You don't flush the fish, you know, and then you clean up the living room. And, you know, my mom is a nurse and she's always been a nurse and she's sort of worked her nursing career around raising us. So working weekends in the hospital and then going back to school to become a school nurse so that when we were all in school full days, she was a school nurse and worked in our school district. So she had hours and the same schedule that we did. So she always managed to be home and work, which as I get older, the more I think about that, the more I really admire the idea of, like, not having it all, because I think that's kind of a myth. But managing to still have a career and do it with four kids. But we never saw her in nurse mode because she was never our nurse. In fact, we were never kids that got to stay home from school like you didn't skip school. And if you were sick, you better have a fever. And Mom would confirm that you had a fever. This wasn't like sweet bedside manner. This was like real medicine. Like, you are not sick you're going to school.
Hillary [00:50:19] This incident happened when Lauren was 29 and this was the first time ever in her life she witnessed her mom as a nurse in action.
Lauren [00:50:29] There was like this switch that was flipped that she went from like mom to like nurse mode. Looking at it now, it almost seemed like it was a movie and it was just like a medical scene. And it was just these two people, one is unconscious and the other is administering CPR.
Bill [00:50:55] I don't know that there was a story. There is sort of an awareness that it happened always be sort of a what I think now, as we said, was obvious, a sort of a humorous Christmas reference for the family.
Lauren [00:51:13] We have all kinds of stories about like, you know, mom's kind of a superhero, but to sort of watch her literally save my dad's life was a whole different level of like, wow.
Hillary [00:51:32] Rashomon is produced and hosted by me, Hillary Rea. Original music in this episode was by Paul Defiglia and the version of Silent Night you heard was played by Kevin McCloud. And our theme song is by Ryan Culinane. Our wonderful podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner. Thanks again to Story Worth for sponsoring this episode. A huge thank you to our Patreon sponsors, Jeff Smith, Connie and Steven Rea, Sonja Shrier and Ted Passon. Please support the podcast on Patreon. It's Patreón Dotcom Rashomon Pod. I send out a monthly newsletter and depending on your level of support, you get bonus audio or a shout out like the one you just heard. You can also follow Rashomon on Instagram and Twitter. The handle is at Rashomon Pod. And if you were listening to this on Apple podcast, please, please leave us a review or even just click the stars to rate us. Every single one counts and makes it easier for people to find the show. OK, that's all. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on May 28th for the rest of season two.