In our active intruder response classes, we often have students make comments such as, “I would have been dead,” or “I died.”
As instructors, we always disagree and reply that they may have been wounded, but they survived. We don’t teach people to fail!
You never quit, you never give up. Countless people have lived through gun shot wounds, knife cuts, and severe blows by different objects. Our attitude and mindset can help us live through tremendous trauma.
I want you to have the mindset that you will survive. You won’t quit and you won’t accept defeat. You will go home to your loved ones each night.
I’m not living in some Pollyanna world, and I realize that people get seriously hurt and killed. It can happen to anyone. But we must not have that mindset. Our mindset must be that of survival and winning. Because that mindset just may be the difference!
A perfect example of how mindset and faith can help a person survive is the story of Navy Seal Sr. Chief Mike Day, who was shot 27 times and survived.
Mike Day was serving in Iraq’s Anbar Province in April 2007 when he came face-to-face with four heavily armed Al Qaeda leaders inside a 12 x 12 foot room while searching for a high-level terrorist cell.
Despite being shot 27 times at close range, Day was able to fight off the men, clear the rest of the house and walk under his own power to a medevac helicopter.
He told Fox News that he opened the door on the night of April 6 and the terrorists beat him to the trigger, shooting his rifle out of his hands and hitting him 16 times in the arms, legs and abdomen.
The remaining eleven shots hit his body armor, which amazingly absorbed multiple strikes despite not being designed to withstand that level of force.
Here is an interview, courtesy of Fox News, with Navy Seal Sr. Chief Mike Day, a true hero who exemplifies never giving up.