Coming Back from a Rodeo Wreck with Dillon Jacobs | Mar 3, 2024 001

Tucker (00:01)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Ranch Ramblin podcast today. I'm Tucker, your host and the cowboy gal behind the podcast. I am really excited to be bringing these episodes to you. And if you're new here, a little bit about the podcast is my goal is to bring ranch women, you know, wives, moms, or even the cowboy gals at heart, whether you live in the big old city or if you're doing the deal on the ranch.

I want to build a community where we support and inspire each other. We push each other out of our comfort zones. And you provide a place to share stories that encourage other people. And, you know, just continue on that kind of trajectory right there. So today I'm really excited because I have asked my brother to be

on the podcast and we've been talking about this for a while, so I'm excited it's finally happening. So I guess just to preface a little bit, I think that in the industry, it's really important to collaborate and learn from everybody that you can. And Dylan has a really cool story to share that I think is relatable, in a sense, to a lot of different types of situations.

I am really, really excited to have him share that with us today. Just as a quick intro, obviously I'm a little biased because Dylan is my best friend on the planet and I could go on and on about how awesome he is, but he's got a lot of really cool things going on right now. He's got an awesome little family and they are living up north, running a feedlot, a sale bar, and they just became partners on a horse sale.

and they're just doing the deal. And both him and his wife are just rock stars just knocking things out of the park. And so I'm excited to introduce you guys to him. And with that, Dylan, thanks for being here.

Dillon Jacobs (02:05)
You bet thanks for having me I'm excited about this

Tucker (02:08)
Yeah, yeah, heck yeah. So before we jump into the nuts and bolts of the story that I really want you to share, tell us a little bit about your growing up and that kind of leading to your high school rodeo, your trips to nationals. How did that go? Just tell us a little bit about what you feel we need to know.

Dillon Jacobs (02:35)
Yes. So growing up, we were heavily involved in the livestock side things, even more in the cowboy world than the livestock world. We were always day working for different ranches. We had cattle until our summer permit got kind of dissolved by the government when I was 16 or 17. So we ran our own cattle up till then.

We just went to day work for different outfits and took a lot of outside horses. We always had a lot of colts on the place. I was kind of primed for high school rodeoing. We roped and rode and everything. And Dad, he rode Bronx in high school. So that always kind of piqued my interest. Of course riding buck and horses is every little boy's dream.

and being good at is everybody's dream. And it took a long time to get there, but like I said before, I was primed for it. Grew up riding colts and, you know, so I rode a lot of bucking horses as, you know, as a young kid, you know, 10, 12, 13, 14 years old. Had a lot of colts and, I mean, you know, cowboy people all kind of have the same story there, but I rode bulls.

I rode calves, steers, and everything as a kid. And then when I was 13 years old, I got on my first bareback course. Never had any interest in the title Bronx, and I don't know why. But I always kind of was hooked on bareback riding. So I got my first bareback rigging and rode a bunch of steers in it as an 11 and 12 year old. And I turned 13, got my first bareback course, and loved it.

Tucker (04:08)
Mm-hmm.

I'm going to go to bed.

Dillon Jacobs (04:29)
I rode the horse and I guess I remember her name was Rose at Rice Canyon and that was the start of a long story for me. A long story but I wouldn't change any of it. So we progressed, I just kept riding, just kept improving and having some slumps just like everybody does. I ended up getting kind of good and I loved it.

Tucker (04:34)
Bye.

Dillon Jacobs (04:57)
So high school rodeo, you know, ninth grade, tenth grade, that was, I was still trying to figure everything out, but between my 10th and 11th grade year, I really, it really clicked for me. I started riding good. And bareback horses were what I was good at. Through all of this, the cowboy inside didn't stop. It just kept going, kept wrapping up with everything. So I wasn't ever just a plain rodeo cowboy. We always had cattle, we always had horses.

And when we ended up selling our cattle herd, like I said, I was day working for a bunch of outfits and riding colts. I did really well my junior year, I ended up, I can't remember, third or fourth in the state, went to high school nationals for the first time in Gillette, Wyoming. That was super cool, riding a bunch of the pro colts. And you know, at the national finals, it's a different...

It's a different feeling being at the high school national finals than it is anywhere else. Obviously, I've never made the NFR. I decided not to pursue riding bareback courses as a professional career, but it's cool. You're the best of the best at that level and you're riding with the best of the best. And that's so cool to be there with all of your buddies who are winners and, you know,

Tucker (05:56)
Thank you.

Dillon Jacobs (06:17)
you're uh... you're right with each other and competing against each other i think some really great friendships there that i would trade ice some still great friends of them to this day so that way that i end up i want to say twenty one in the world as one of the top twenty early missus short round by my junior year and uh...

Tucker (06:26)
Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (06:44)
I finished out that year hungry and ready to go back into the next. So the start of my senior year, I was, my buddy Cooper Bennett and I, we were tied for firsts at the first couple rodeos. We were splitting first and second every weekend. Not too long after that, we...

I had this high school rodeo up here in Vernal, which is kind of ironic because I moved there. I moved miles from Vernal. But the year before that, my buddy Briggs, he had a Saddlebrook flip over on him in the chutes there at Vernal and it broke his back. And it was a bad deal. And that was when it was necessary. I don't really know if that's, it was policy to tie in your bucking horses, to put a Necker up on them and tie them in after that.

Tucker (07:14)
Yeah.

Oh

Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (07:41)
high ups in the high school on the high school state board, they made that mandatory. So it was always kind of a weird feeling. I'd never been to the Vernal Arena, but I showed up there the first time and I got on this bucking horse, a big stud horse, and I was riding good on the top of my game and maybe I was a little bit too confident, I don't know, going into this. But...

Tucker (08:06)
Thank you.

Dillon Jacobs (08:08)
I got out on this bucking horse and I got bucked off away from my hand and when you're riding bareback horses and rigging the way that the glove and the rigging is set up, when you get bucked off away from your hand, it kind of folds over and you don't have a real easy time getting out. On top of that, the pick-up man riding green horses, which is another bone to pick for another day.

Tucker (08:29)
Yeah, don't get Big Sister started on that one. We're not open.

Dillon Jacobs (08:33)
Yeah, but anyway long story short, something popped loose on my bareback, curriculum cut me loose and I stepped free of that bareback course and as I did, he spun and kicked me with his back foot right in the head, right above my left eyebrow. And didn't knock me out, it knocked me down when I got back up and walked out of the arena and I stayed conscious for the whole thing and I'm not sure why I did because that kind of a hit.

by rights it should have killed me right off but uh anyway do you want me to go into this

Tucker (09:10)
Yeah, yeah, tell the story and then I want to pick it apart a little bit.

Dillon Jacobs (09:17)
Okay, so got hung up, got kicked, the bullfighters come over and, you know, grab me by the arm, whatever. We walked out of the arena and I knew something wasn't right but hell, I'd been hit before, been hung up before, you know, it was nothing new to me. And so I went back and sat down just like I usually do after I ride, you know, I just get my thoughts together, catch my wind and...

And everybody was kind of gathered around looking at me and I'm like, what's the deal guys? And you know, I didn't realize at the time that I had this great big softball sized deal on the side of my head. And my cowboy hat was sitting at a cockeyed angle off my head. I was wearing one of them straw hats, which is weird. I always wrote in a felt. Um, but I was wearing the straw hat that I had just got and it had kicked the brim of it and mashed it down in the side of my face. And it like, uh,

put the weave pattern of the straw on, like imprinted it on my head, on my skin. And anyway, so I kind of started losing control of my body, like my hands started curling up and my feet quit working, my legs quit working, you know, I couldn't do anything. And I just kept getting worse instead of getting better. So

One of my good buddies grabbed my rigging and got all my gear and stuff put back together and still got my riding boots on and my riding pants and everything. dad hauls me over to the truck, my buddy brings my bag and throws me in. It was kind of a scary deal. My dad doesn't get rattled. My dad and I have been in a lot of scary experiences together over the years between horse wrecks and...

We've been in a lot of predicaments and it worked really well together. To see him rattle rattled me, I really didn't at the time. I was kind of out of it. I didn't realize what was going on to the full extent. I knew I was hurt. So we load up to go to the hospital and in Vernal we go to the ER. Just before we leave my dad calls one of his friends who actually is the dad to the kid that got hurt at that same rodeo the last year.

and they came over and they gave me a blessing, a priesthood blessing, and put me on the truck and we drove to the hospital. And I got out, I mean, like I really wasn't improving, but I really did seem to be getting much worse at that point in time. But like I couldn't use my hands. And I remember I was hooking my hands on the cup holder on the door and was trying to prime my hands open because they were closed.

We get to the hospital, dad pulls me out, we go in and I vomit all over the fret room. And they took me in and gave me a, they gave me a CAT scan and put me in this machine, you know, if any of you have ever had that. They did a scan of my brain and of my head and everything and they figured out that I had some pretty serious skull fractures going on and a little anatomy lesson here.

There's a sac called a membrane that holds your brain. And that is watertight and airtight. And it protects your brain, keeps all your brain fluid in your head, and keeps everything else from getting in. So your skin is permeable, which means stuff can go in and out of it. And when it hit me, it fractured my skull in three or four different places. And it tore that membrane.

Tucker (12:30)
Mm-hmm.

Dillon Jacobs (12:50)
that is surrounding my brain and was letting air leak in on my brain. And for those of you that know, that's kind of a serious deal. And so they were, they got their first scan back and they're like, fire up the live flight chopper we're going to primary children's, I was 17 at the time. And they fire up the chopper and they get ready to wheel me out. The doctor comes running back and he says, hey, stop, stop. I just got off the phone with the doctor with the brain surgeon at primary children's and they told him that

Tucker (13:07)
Mm-hmm.

Dillon Jacobs (13:20)
that if I got in the helicopter, the altitude, the air pressure change would have killed me. So they wheeled me back inside, put me on a different journey, put me over to the ambulance, and they'd get me on the ambulance ride. They wouldn't let my dad ride with me. So it was me and a strange doctor. At this point, of course, they got me on morphine and got me on oxygen and got my breathing back to normal. For the time being, I was about halfway stable.

but they weren't sure how long that was gonna last. Everything had just kind of settled down, just settled back in place on my brain and my skull kind of fit back together. But when it broke, I had one going kind of at an angle up the corner of my eye and one going straight at the top. And then I had three little orbital fractures at the bottom of my eye bone, my eye socket. So we get to, on the road we get.

partway to primary children's and I guess that one ambulance, I don't know if they couldn't cross county lines or what the protocol was there, but I had to change ambulances once. So I remember it was, the rodeo started at three and the Buck Bearback course was very first at the beginning. So I don't know, 3.30, you know, four o'clock I got to the hospital and so it was starting to get dark, it's August, starting to get dark-ish and I remember

Tucker (14:22)
I think it was a county line exchange.

Dillon Jacobs (14:45)
They wouldn't let my dad ride with me and rather than argue and throw a fit he's okay and he looked at me and he says I'll be in that truck right behind you. And so yeah. So and I'm not sure why I needed to stay conscious through all this. I'm sure that'll play out later in my life but I was conscious. I never slept. I never...

Tucker (14:55)
Mm-hmm. I'm gonna cry. I'm like reliving all the...

Dillon Jacobs (15:14)
lost consciousness at all, I was with the whole time. And I remember as we changed ambulances and I got dark, dad's headlights came on and I could see the headlights through the back window of the ambulance and he followed me all the way, never missed a beat. And I don't know if, must've been a good thing he had a full tank in that truck because we jumped from the Salt Lake City pretty quick. And got to West Salt Lake City, got to Primary Children's. In the meantime,

Tucker (15:33)
I'm sorry.

haha

Dillon Jacobs (15:43)
I have more family than just my dad. And dad had made a couple phone calls and got my mom on the line, got my sister on the line and everything and kind of put them up to date as far as he knew. And so my dad's brother and his wife, So they picked my mom up.

because my mom wasn't in any condition to drive at the time. She's usually really cool in situations. I'm sure she would have been fine, but it's nice to have reliable family members. So shout out to Uncle Chris on that one. He drove him up to, from Southern Utah, where I grew up, up to primary children's, and they showed up about 20 minutes after I did. So they didn't miss a whole lot. Mom and dad were there, everything was good. And...

It was kind of a tense situation for a minute and I went through a few more scans and a bunch of tests right as soon as we got there and they had the brain surgeon team on standby, ready to do brain surgery and cut out that part of my skull that needed to be removed to let my brain swell to remove the chance of having any brain damage. So.

uh... happened whatever they were there they took a couple scams they're like nothing's changed and he's okay so we're just gonna let him be so they sat there and let me be for a couple hours well i'm sure they were running more tests and diagnostics and everything and uh... i remember they came in and asked me a bunch of different questions and uh... everything and then that night they come in about every hour

and would do cognitive tests with me to make sure I wasn't losing any brain functions because of the swelling. So at this point, my left eye is all swollen shut, you know, my head's all abnormal, but the funny part about this is they never took me out of my riding boots the whole time. I still have my bareback spurs on my boots as I was going through these scans and stuff. That was crazy to me. So finally I get back in the hotel, or hotel. It was like a hotel.

you've ever stayed overnight in the hospital. They'd get me back in the hospital room and pull my boots off and they're latched on tight. Like, I didn't want them to come off, you know, so they untie it, my dad unties them, pulls them off and I'm still sitting there in my little hospital gown, my Wranglers, and they came in and they'd read me a story, like a paragraph and a half or something, and I would have to recite that back and cognitive tests like that, that about every hour they'd pry my eye open and look at it and make sure I wasn't going blind.

because when I got kicked and chipped off a piece of bone back in the back it was resting on top of the optic nerve and the swelling in my brain was pressing that down and they were worried that with the more swelling would sever that optic nerve and I would have lost my right eye, my left eye. Anyway so long night at the hospital it ended up screwing up my neck so I was in a neck brace and they kept me there all that next day and they were like I can't

They were like, I don't know why this happened, but he's okay, like nothing serious happened and like nothing, no serious side effects or anything really should be a problem. So they told my parents to keep an eye on me and if I started leaking clear liquid out of my nose then to bring me back as soon as I could, but but

nothing ever really came of that and so they sent me home that evening and I got home and uh I was kind of a vegetable for a month or so and a little over a month and sleeping in a recliner with a neck brace on and uh because the because of the damage done with my to that bone chip on top of my optic nerve they gave I made me wear this two-eyed mask like a sleep mask

Tucker (19:38)
I'm going to go to bed.

Dillon Jacobs (19:51)
you see the rich folks wearing them, they're silk beds. And I had to wear one of those and I couldn't use my phone and I couldn't watch TV because they didn't want me stressing out my eyes because it would have enlarged that optic nerve on my left eye with the trauma that was there and it would have cut it. And then they didn't want me overworking my right eye because it would have done the same thing and ruined my right eye, just overstimulated it. So I was in the dark all the time. And thank goodness for Louis Lamour and Audibles.

because that got me through that time. I could basically only get up to pee for about the first month. I lost about 15 pounds. And if you know me or have even seen me, I'm a skinny kid, so I couldn't really afford to do that. So I was really weak coming back from that. And slowly over time, I was able to get back to...

Tucker (20:21)
Yep.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (20:48)
to go in and I went back to the doctor for a couple checkups and everything and eventually I got cleared, early November I got cleared for normal activity is what they said and they said that doesn't include riding bronze, that's not normal but I said normal and normal for me was good enough so that's kind of the story of my wreck and there shortly after and there shortly before. I'm happy to go into

Tucker (21:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, before we move on, I want to tell the My Side version real quick, just because this story... I made a Facebook post a couple of days ago and I said something, I was talking about praying and I'm like, if you don't believe in prayer, like, come hang out with me and you will. Because there are...

Dillon Jacobs (21:17)
Anything else?

Tucker (21:44)
so many things and like Dylan mentioned in our lives that by rights shouldn't have ended well and they did. And I know that a lot of you listening have also had experiences that just leave you with zero doubt of what's going on and I feel like that's an important thing for us to touch on throughout this story because that's a big, our face a big part of our lives and through this deal

That was really huge. So at this point in time, I had been living in New Mexico. Let's see, this happened in August and we got married in September. But I was living in New Mexico working at a vet clinic and like Dylan said, our dad doesn't rattle easy. We've never sugar coated anything with each other.

It's pretty direct communication, which I think is responsible for a lot of getting us out of certain situations or avoiding them. But anyway, so I was working at the vet clinic and thank heavens the vet happened to be gone that afternoon. And so it was relatively slow work. And I get a text from my dad that says. Dylan got in a wreck or he says he got kicked.

Dillon Jacobs (22:38)
I'm going to take a few minutes to get back to you.

Tucker (23:07)
in the head, he's not doing okay, I'll let you know when I know more. That's all I knew. For my dad to say that he wasn't doing okay, that meant something really bad. So I... Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (23:22)
Like.

rodeo scene or and your rough dark riders will understand this but you cowboys will understand it even better you get hit whatever you're okay you get up and walk it off and you're fine and we were raised to be tough we weren't raised to just oh I'm hurt and hold your arm and sit down like if you broke your arm tough shit kinda

Tucker (23:43)
Yeah, right, a little bit, yeah. And so I get this text and like, you get that gut punch feeling. And I just, I walked into the, there was a little room with two doors and that's where we would bathe the dogs or do different things like that. And I walked back there and just hit my knees and started praying. And I've...

I've prayed a few times that hard since then, but that was quite the deal there. I called Timmy, let him know what was going on,

I was just sitting tight kind of waiting to hear more news and so of course we're a little bit of a wreck and every update it was like what Dylan was saying when he left the ER it was they're gonna life

Dillon Jacobs (24:34)
So, I'm going to go ahead and start the presentation. presentation of the

Tucker (24:43)
you know, thank heavens the doctor's like, no, you know, this is not a good idea. And okay, well, then we've got the brain surgery team on standby at primary children's, like he's going directly into surgery and then he gets there and they're like, all right, well things aren't like, it was just one miracle after another that just kept happening. And a super cool thing on top of that is that is that county lion ambulance exchange,

Um, my, my mom actually had a cousin that was an EMT on that ambulance. And so that was kind of a really cool, like tender mercy there in the middle of that. And I'm sure that Dylan was, you know, morphined and concussed out and wasn't even, we didn't even, Dylan and I don't know this cousin. This is, he hasn't really kept in, you know, they haven't kept in contact with each other, but, um,

Dillon Jacobs (25:39)
No, I didn't before that and I've never met him since but I can tell you exactly what he looks like

Tucker (25:45)
Can you? That's cool. So that was a huge relief when he, I don't know if he was supposed to do this or not, but he sent my mom a text and was like, "'Hey, I've got your boy, he's all right.'" And I think that was huge for my mom. And like Dylan said, dad was there the whole time and just as these updates kept happening, it was like, okay, surgery now.

Dillon Jacobs (25:46)
Yep.

Tucker (26:14)
Alright, no, just kidding, this picture isn't showing like what we expected it to show. And there's no logical reason that it wasn't, other than God's hand is there. And anyway, so all said and done, Dylan lost a bunch of weight and was this little skinny dude in our wedding. And anyways, it was really...

Dillon Jacobs (26:42)
You guys got married in September and I was still on the take it all and I at this point I could get up and like I had ridden a horse a couple times just slow with a walk you know what it not even really at a trot but so I was still going real light real easy and You know limited daylight exposure. Well, I was still black-eyed up

Tucker (26:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, he's got a black face. He's got black eyes in our wedding pictures, like plain as day. Um, yeah, that was that was wild. Um, I, and that's what I don't know. I love it because every time I look at those pictures, it's like just a reminder of all the miracles that happened. you know, leading up to that. So there's the, you know, the

Dillon Jacobs (27:16)
Yeah.

Tucker (27:37)
tender, touchy-feely part of the story. So like Dylan said, he lost a bunch of weight. There was a super restricted activity level on him. And I mean, that's hard for any of us in this industry to do. And so Docs cleared him to be, you know, quote normal in November. So he goes and enters the Dixie Six, which.

Dillon Jacobs (28:02)
So,

So the Dixie Six that year was the second, third, and fourth week of November. And that first weekend was the rodeo school that I'd been to every year since it started with Caleb Bench teaching it. And I went up there and those were my first couple of bucking horses back. And I had been working out again. You know, I'd been eating right and I had been getting back into shape. And I'd been working physically, not just like working out at the gym, but like...

Tucker (28:15)
Mmm.

Dillon Jacobs (28:34)
going through life riding colts again and you know so I had been back normally I was feeling good and I didn't just jump right back into it you know I conditioned myself to get back into it just like any other athlete would and I have to say this my first horseback didn't even buck I got on and this one Vartee um Vartee Pro Rodeo

They supplied the stock and then for some of the advanced kids for the last couple years, Kayla Bennett had brought his own personal horses, his own personal practice horses for us to get on. And so that was super cool. But this one, Barty horse, I get on her, crack back, nod my head, she turns her front feet out and just stands there. And if anybody in that industry knows when a horse locks up like that, two things are going to happen. They're going to flip over and they're going to cut off.

Tucker (29:30)
Yep.

Dillon Jacobs (29:30)
and I'm like looking around and thank goodness for Cody Flinton and good Barty pickup man because those boys got in the shoot with me on their horses. I cracked out and got out and they rode me out away and potentially saved my life. The horse ended up not flipping over but you know potentially saved my life again so I'm like I'm sitting there on this horse like bearing down you know like shit and that was

Tucker (29:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (29:58)
That was the only thought I'm gonna die that I ever had after that, riding bucking horses. And I ended up going back to road in the Dixie 6. And I didn't do super good there. I did okay. I wasn't ever the same after I got hurt. I was a little bit off. I could ride good and I ended up making it back to high school nationals again.

my senior year after that but I was out most of the fall rodeos and I came back with a I was ready to show myself more than anything that I could still ride and that was and maybe that's why I needed to get hurt I don't know I believe everything happens for a reason and I still haven't figured everything out on that one

Tucker (30:52)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (30:58)
But yeah, I did get back in and everybody said it was crazy and blessed my mom for putting up with everybody. Nobody ever told my dad any shit. If you knew my dad, you'd understand. But my mom's a very sweet lady. And she put up with a lot of people. Why are you letting your boy do that? Why are you letting him do that? And mom knew how passionate I was about it.

Tucker (31:10)
Yeah.

Well, and even... Go

Dillon Jacobs (31:24)
You know what? And you rodeo people will know like, that's what you do, that's what we live, that's what we breathe. There's nothing worse.

Tucker (31:33)
Yeah, yep. Well, and even when the reg happened, and I know several of you out there listening probably can relate on some level, but my poor mom got a bunch of shit for, well, you should have had him wear a helmet. If he would have been wearing a helmet, that wouldn't have happened. And it just, bless her heart for not getting in their faces because I did.

But I think you had tried it in junior high when it was, didn't they require it in junior high? And you couldn't keep your freaking chin down with a helmet on.

Dillon Jacobs (32:13)
Right, so first my entire freshman year, my dad wasn't gonna let me ride my freshman year because I was so small physically. He didn't think that I was gonna be able to handle the power of a bucking horse. And I think deep down he knew I could because I had on colts. And I know colts are a different story than actual bucking horses. But a six-year-old horse that bucks is a six-year-old horse that bucks. And it's all the same. Long story short, I had to wear one.

all of my freshman year. State finals my freshman year, the short round. I drew the best horse in the pen and I'm just getting ready to put my helmet on. I got my rigging on, pulled down and dad says, hey, you don't need that. Wear your hat. Best ride I had ever done.

Tucker (33:06)
Yes.

Dillon Jacobs (33:08)
all of the success that I had in the rodeo world. Not that I won billions of dollars and won the world, whatever, but I had a good rodeo career that I'm proud of, and I credit all of that to being able to be free, kinda, you know what I mean? And maybe I'm describing that wrong, but...

Tucker (33:19)
Mm-hmm.

Dillon Jacobs (33:33)
I was a cowboy, you know, and I'm, you know, cowboys don't wear helmets. And, and I'm, but, but I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it. So, you know, I, I credit a lot to that day.

Tucker (33:35)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. So.

Right. So, you know, coming back from something like that, and I know for sure there are a few of you listening that either have had somebody close to you have a bad wreck on a horse, or it's been you yourself. And I mean, I personally have been in a number of wrecks.

You know, I never had a confidence shake until I had kids and I was starting my first cult after having my first daughter and I felt like a massive confidence shake and I was like, this is, this is strange. And you know, despite any of the wrecks and anything like that, I had kind of always just, you know, mind over matter kind of toughed it out and, and made it work.

And so that was like kind of an interesting feeling. And that was a whole process for me, which is a different story, but what, you know, what was that like for you and what did you do to kind of get, you know, keep the mind trash away, keep the head trash out and find that, you know, steel inside of you to keep going.

Dillon Jacobs (35:10)
Yeah, so at first it was really kind of confident shaky because I've never been the strongest person around I've always been the toughest person around but I couldn't physically do What I? Needed to do right after the wreck. You know what I mean? Like like I lost all that weight I had so much, you know muscle muscular dystrophy or whatever you want to call it at atrophy

Tucker (35:37)
Atrophy.

Dillon Jacobs (35:38)
it you know I was weak and that was that was my biggest confidence was my biggest confidence shaker was that I was weak I was no longer strong and so having to start over from ground level from floor one was kind of hard and it was more discouraging than confidence shaking

Tucker (35:49)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (36:07)
because I'm like saying, you know, I was here, I was at the top of my game, and I get dropped, cleared down, and most of what I did is I went over that ride when I got hurt. I don't know how many times I've gone over in my mind about what I did wrong to get bucked off of that horse. And I told myself that

Tucker (36:07)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right.

Dillon Jacobs (36:37)
if I ever drew another horse like that, that I got that same feeling from, that it wasn't going to buck me off. I kind of just used that ride and I analyzed it and I probably overanalyzed it trying to find my mistakes. I corrected what I thought I needed to correct and looking at videos and talking to pros and talking to my dad and talking to my buddies and everything.

trying to analyze it, you know, and taking it step by step from the time that I nodded my head. And once I had gone over that video enough, I'm like, you know what? It wasn't really anything I did. It just happened. And you watch the NFR, the best cowboys in the world get bucked off, and I got bucked off. And that's, it just so happened, like I got trashed, you know? And

Tucker (37:33)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (37:34)
And so once I realized that it wasn't, I mean it was obviously kind of my fault, but once I realized that I didn't screw up and need to change my behavior or change how I was doing things, I was really able to make my progress a lot faster because I kinda got rid of that mental block of I made the mistake, I made the mistake, and I did this and I did that, and I was like, no, it just happened. And sometimes things happen. So once I...

Tucker (37:48)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Dillon Jacobs (38:04)
got past that I was really able to make some more progress and I got determined again and I got mean again and I got hungry again and I hunted it as hard as I'd ever hunted it and I still wasn't the same you know and I got the grips with you know I got back to the top I wasn't as good as I was but I was at the top and something for me

Tucker (38:19)
Right.

Right.

Dillon Jacobs (38:34)
just was like, that's good. Okay, like that's good. And so then fast forward a couple of years, I was married at this point and I got the bug again and I'm like, you know what, just like every other ruffy does, I'm like, I'm gonna go get back on. So I practiced, I rode the spur board and I was working out, I shoot horses full time, I was in good shape and I went and got back on a few more soft horses and you know, I rode good, I rode good.

Tucker (38:37)
Yeah, yeah.

I'm sorry.

Dillon Jacobs (39:03)
better than I ever had. And after about four horses back, I was like, I don't need to do this. And it wasn't because I was married, because my wife was very supportive of it. She is a competitor herself and is a successful girl cowboy as well. And...

Tucker (39:04)
Right.

I'm going to go to bed.

Right.

Dillon Jacobs (39:30)
So that wasn't a part of it. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, you're married. You're gonna slow down and I was like part of me Maybe I was like no, I'm married. I ain't gonna slow down that line, you know, but That wasn't it. But I just I got off on the picket man on that last horse And I was like, I was a good ride. I got it good. I'm walking back and I'm You know, usually you're pumped up and like, oh, yeah next one next one. I was like, I'm good and I just again and

Tucker (39:34)
No.

Hahaha

Right. Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (39:58)
my rig and I still look at it every now and then and you know I pull it out put my glove on it cry I put it just put it in on the spur board I'm like okay I'm gonna do this again and then and then I just like lose all I just lose all determination to do that and I need to be a winner elsewhere in my life right now and since then and I don't know that was that was something we

was that was probably my biggest setback was March after I got hurt. I was an icebreaker February March and I'd been riding good all fall you know I've been practicing I've been going to buck outs and I've been working out and everything and I got on this horse and that was in the short round of the of the icebreaker and you know all sitting good sitting to place good and

I got on this horse, whatever, came out, I was riding him good and something happened. I just got bucked off again. I didn't even get hung up, I just landed hard and it cooled me. Knocked me out.

Tucker (41:05)
Oh, that's right. I forgot about that.

Dillon Jacobs (41:09)
and at this point I was this is where the um

the side effects of my wreck of when I got hurt came out to show. And up to that point I hadn't been hurt, I hadn't been bucked off hard. And when I finally did get bucked off hard and knocked me out, I forgot everything. I mean like I wasn't a complete, you know, dead head, but I was knocked out, whatever. I went back there, got myself back together. And one of my best friends...

Tucker (41:30)
Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (41:44)
at the time and I still say that we're very close friends. We kind of drifted apart. We just kind of took different paths, but my buddy Wade, he's riding pro saddle Bronx now and he was getting ready to ride and we were there for each other. We were really good friends. And I kept asking, I was like, hey, Wade, have you rode yet? You know, how do you ride? He's like, yeah, dude, I rode already. And so I packed up and went out to the truck and I'm like, I kept asking my dad, I'm like, hey, where's Wade? I'm like, where's Wade at?

And like half the drive home, where's Wade? Where's Wade? And I called Wade on the phone three or four times and he's like, hey buddy, he's like, I'm right here. He's like, it's all good. And he's like, you're all right, I'll see you next weekend and everything will be good. And I was like, all right, all right, cool. 10 minutes later, hey, where's Wade? Has Wade, did Wade ride? Can I see a video? And that happened and then I had forgotten very major life events. Our animals were very big in our life and I had for...

I was going back to times when I was 12 and 13 years old, talking about dogs and horses that we had, and I had forgotten that Tucker had gotten married, and my mom videoed part of it, and it kind of pissed me off at the time, but now I'm glad that she did, because it's kind of funny to look back now that I'm all good, but I'm like, and Tucker married Tim, and we liked him, and Tim was his friend.

Tucker (42:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (43:12)
And then there would be high moments like that. And I'd be like, and dad'd be like, yeah, we do like Tim and Tucker did marry Tim. And that was good. We're happy he's in our family and they live in New Mexico. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'd be like, oh, like, well, hey, where's JB? JB was one of our good dogs and a really good friend of mine. And I still tear up thinking about her actually, but. I'd be like, hey, where's JB? And dad'd be like, JB died, bud. And I'd break down and sob again.

What about Charlie? And Charlie was a horse that you'll hear a lot about. Like, where's Charlie? And dad's like, well, Tucker got rid of Charlie, bud. He started having some problems, and we had to get rid of him. I just break down and cry again. You know, and at the time, I was fixed on joining the Army, and I had a wristband that said National Guard on it. Like, I said, am I in the Army? And dad says, well, yeah, kind of. He's like, you're about to join.

And I said, am I a bad ass? And dad says, well, you were, bud. He's like, you still are. But he's like, I was like, was I good riding bucking horses? And dad says, yeah, you were damn good. And I says, am I still good? And he says, well, you're not as good as you were. But he says, you're doing OK. He says, you just got trashed and hurt real bad. And we're still having a hard time coming back from that. And I'd break down again and cry. And emotional roller coasters for a couple days, bringing.

Bringing memories and information back that I had since lost and I don't know if I got everything back or not I mean, I've done since then just fine but you know, maybe there's some detail and things that I've completely forgotten about but uh that was something that had to do with my wreck because when I got kicked at Damraged the Your temporal lobe, which is this part of your brain that has to do with your

Tucker (44:47)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (45:04)
your memory and your emotions. Emotions is another thing that I've had problems with up until a couple of years ago and I finally was able to get on top of it. Anger mostly was a deal for me. I've always been, I've always kind of had a temper but it got bad to where the littlest thing would set me off.

Tucker (45:07)
Mm-hmm.

Dillon Jacobs (45:34)
the biggest thing would be like, yeah, whatever. You know, something big and exciting would happen and I'd be like, I don't matter. Like, my emotions were just a little bit askew and...

Brain Sense, part of the company that we're involved with I credit a lot of my cognitive abilities now to what the Brain Sense has done for me, but I have made some big improvements thanks to that and thanks to my wife and my family who's like really been patient with me because looking back I can see how hard I was to deal with.

I'm not saying I'm the easiest to deal with now, but I feel like I'm a lot better than I have than I had been But yeah Very deal

Tucker (46:23)
Yeah, that's quite the deal.

Yeah. Yeah, that second knock on the head, I remember him calling me kind of on a loop like that also. Hey, I need a couple cinches for my new saddle. He didn't have a new saddle. His new saddle was several years old. He's like, I need you to make me some cinches. And about 10 minutes later, he'd call. He probably was alternating between me and Wade. But, uh...

Dillon Jacobs (46:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tucker (46:55)
Yeah, that was quite the deal. So what do you feel are, or okay, let me think ahead of phrase this question. How do you feel, you know, our upbringing and the experiences we had just with regular life? Do you think that they had an effect or an impact on how you handled recovery and coming back or, you know, like how do you feel like that integrated in?

Dillon Jacobs (47:24)
So, immediately what comes to mind is our faith, and I believe that God's hand is more powerful than everything. And

For some reason, God needed me to be here still. And if he didn't want me here, I've had plenty of chances to not be here between horse wrecks and car wrecks and rodeo wrecks and hunting wrecks, everything. I've had plenty of chances not to be here. So faith is what I'm gonna say first. But sticking off are my parents.

have put it in our minds to kind of just basically just not quit. Like we're not, we don't just give up. And you know, and I can't name out a key moment. It's like, oh yeah, when I was six, my mom told me XYZ, you know, I can't tell you a key moment, but something, we were raised that way constantly. It was never wishy washy. Our parents were very constant and consistent. And I feel like

Tucker (48:14)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (48:34)
Because of that, and because of the lifestyle that we live, we had to be tough, and we had to be gritty, and we had to be persistent and consistent and confident because lack of things, you couldn't make it. And I feel like had I been raised in a different life, and gotten to rodeo later on, I doubt I would have come back. But...

Tucker (49:02)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (49:03)
Everybody in this world nobody's immune to feelings nobody's immune to depression or nobody's immune to discouragement and I had as big of a chance as anybody in my opinion to go into depression and to give into it and to give into discouragement and quit and nobody would blame me if I did and You know there might have been a few naysayers, but nobody would blame me if I to give up them and

I feel like, I definitely feel like my upbringing had a lot to do with how I, had everything to do with how I came back and how I've had all the sense. Because to be honest, recounting that story feels like it was yesterday, not one day goes by that I don't think about it. And I'm not saying that there's not been other life threatening things happen to me or anybody else in the world.

Tucker (49:52)
Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (50:04)
That was a real deal for me and it's becoming more and more real every day. The farther I get away from it, it seems like the more real it is. And I don't know if that's just because I've realized how short life actually is, how short our time on earth actually is. You know, I believe if you play your cards right, life's eternal. You know, and...

Tucker (50:23)
Right.

Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (50:34)
that really is so clear to me every day. The... the events of that day and the events of the days shortly after. You know, they don't blur. And there's a few days that are missing there, but... uh... every day I think about it. And every day something happens to me that I'm like... Oh! I've been there. I...

I had to do this when I was getting better after my rec or I handled this when I was doing this with my rec and everything kind of correlates to that. Maybe I needed that as a confidence builder to live the life I'm living now. But yeah.

Tucker (51:21)
Right. Well, I, that's really awesome and I appreciate you telling the story because it is, it does end up being, you know, such a kind of a Tinder story for all, I can't talk about it without getting teary. I was actually telling, um, about a year ago I was getting my nails done and she was, my lady was telling me about her niece that was in a car accident and had a severe head

You know all the things very similar to what Dylan Just described emotions memory things like that and this person was having a really hard time and I was like hey like I all I said was like what Dylan said he started that brain supplement and Started having massive improvement and that's all I said was like hey my brother started that he had he was in a bad wreck

having some similar things and he found something that works. Literally my words, word for word, and I'm like bawling. And she's like, oh my gosh, what happened? And I'm like, that's how, you know, tender that story is. So, um, I appreciate you, you know, being willing to share that and, and the, your more vulnerable side of it where, you know, it was your mind, that was your confidence, your body, like your, your life, you know, and

So I think the story itself is really inspiring.

Dillon Jacobs (52:54)
I never felt like I've talking about I've never felt vulnerable like I've always I've always been super open about it and it doesn't.

Tucker (53:05)
Well, that's because you're a badass, but it is like a personal story. And I just think that it's really cool that the story itself, I think, is pretty inspiring and people can take a lot from it. But I'm sure we have listeners that have a spouse or a kid or maybe even themselves out there trying to get back to life.

Dillon Jacobs (53:10)
Yeah, very personal.

Eugh!

Tucker (53:33)
after some kind of traumatic event like that, what advice would you have for those people looking to step back into it?

Dillon Jacobs (53:47)
You know you got to find what and I've thought about this a little bit and You just got to find What pushes you? What's after like after everything is over? What's the one thing that you want? To have done or to buy or to own or to work for to give or whatever you want to do You got to find what drives you

Tucker (54:06)
Right.

Dillon Jacobs (54:14)
and find what pushes you because it's gonna, there's gonna be times when you're low on confidence and you're low on, you know, self-esteem and you're feeling really discouraged and you're down in the slumps and you just wanna quit. And you know, you just gotta find what pushes you and during those bad times, it's gonna drag you through it and it's gonna pull you through it. And...

I feel like this has really done a lot for me as far as being a parent because it's, I don't know really how to describe it, but I feel like it's made me who I am today and I like who I am. You know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not a fan of anything done and, or how I got there. And so not that I'm like.

Tucker (54:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dillon Jacobs (55:13)
in some place where it's really envious but you know I'm proud of everything that I am and once you hit rock bottom and you build yourself back up you'll get that confidence that is better than what you had before because you don't owe

Tucker (55:35)
Mm-hmm.

Dillon Jacobs (55:40)
As far as this goes, you don't own an explanation to anybody. You owe nothing to anybody. It's on you, and you owe yourself to get back out there and to work, and to get back to life as normal. And you don't have to answer to anybody, you don't have to tell anybody anything you don't want to, you don't have to take any shit from anybody on your journey back to the top. So that's what I learned on the.

Tucker (56:06)
Yeah. I like

I like that. I think that's really valuable. And everybody's story is different, but at the end of it all, we have the choice to choose how we react and how we think and the kind of person we want to be. And Dylan's been such a really cool example of that. And he was even before all of this. He was my little brother, but he's always been a really good example.

Alright you guys, well that will wrap it up for us and thank you so much for hopping on and spending this time with us.

We really appreciate you choosing to spend your time here. And if you liked the episode, please leave a review. I'm gonna leave in the show notes as always, ways to get in contact with Dylan and the Rantremling community. And just thanks again so much. And our hope with this is that through this story, you...

can find what it is you need, whether it's inspiration, motivation, support, community, maybe even just a little bit of kicking the shorts to keep trying, whatever it is, we hope you find it here,

Tucker Martin (57:30)
And with that, don't you dare cut your dallys on that dream, y 'all.