A FEW YEARS AGO, I WAS FLIPPING THROUGH LUKAS HUFFMAN’S BOOK IR77 WHEN A PARTICULAR STORY JUMPED OUT AT ME. THE PIECE WAS A LURID ACCOUNT OF AN UNPROVOKED, VIOLENT ATTACK ON THE FOUNDER OF LIFETIME, REID STEWART. HERE REID RECOUNTS THIS EXPERIENCE. CLICK “CONTINUE…” TO READ ON.
I went to see my parents for a week or so a few summers back to recuperate and get my bearings after the stressful and busy times we were having at work. It was the perfect opportunity for a road trip: to listen to some good music, take photos, hang out with friends, barbeque, go swimming and just enjoy the summer. I hadn’t had a chance to do anything like this in sometime, so I was excited to make the solo trip through the mountains. Having driven the Rocky Mountain highways many times, I wanted to take this trip slowly and allow myself to ‘smell the roses’—as on the numerous trips before time had always been of the essence (snowboarding was much more important than highway-side attractions and historical landmarks).
The entire trip took roughly twelve hours but when I finally arrived my parents’ house I received a warm welcome from my folks, grandmother and brother. It was the welcoming everyone always wants when they haven’t seen people they care about in a while—lots of laughs, drinks, food and good stories. I settled in and made some phone calls to friends to organize a get-together downtown at a local pub we all used to hang out at—the type of place where if the album is good they’ll play the entire thing from start to finish.
The night was going well and my good friend Bob, my brother Morgan and some other friends and I were enjoying every minute of it. It seemed nothing could hold us back from our dreams and we were on top of the world—or so we thought. Discussions of politics, music, debauchery and life were in full swing.
When it finally came time to leave we decided to stop in on our good friend Leo who lives nearby and, having gotten too drunk early on in the night, was already home sleeping. It was a beautiful night from what I can remember, and Bob was on top of his game, cracking jokes as the center of attention. Bob and I were walking at the back of the pack, when suddenly I felt what I thought was a punch to the back of my head; the type of punch that comes hard and fast and without warning. I tried to turn my head but another punch to my mouth cut my lip open and I fell unconscious. At this point the night becomes a haze.
In all attempts to protect a good friend, Bob fought the person he thought had just taken me out. By all accounts he did a number on the attacker until another one approached him from behind. The second attacker punched Bob in the side three times—except, as we later found out, these weren’t punches at all, but stabbings. I came to after the two pathetic humans had run off. Bob pulled himself up to make sure I was OK before we all noticed the blood coming from his abdomen. He lifted his shirt and his guts were everywhere. For a moment I could only think of my grandfather and what he must have witnessed when he was in WWII. The scene felt surreal; the type of surreal you usually experience only in dreams—almost like it wasn’t happening.
Luckily my brother was lucid enough to come to Bob’s aid: He held his small intestine so it wouldn’t pop out like a string of sausages. The ambulance came surprisingly quickly and Bob was taken to the hospital for surgery. I was taken there shortly afterwards for stitches and a long morning of waiting in the emergency ward for the results of Bob’s surgery.
Bob is one of my best friends in the world. Thankfully, despite everything, he survived.
The point of this story isn’t the occurrence itself; rather, this is a call to focus on the individual moments that form the series of events within the bigger picture. These moments last for split seconds and are gone for the rest of our lives; you never know when these experiences will end. To share them with such special people as our friends and family is a privilege. Many people on this earth don’t get to experience these moments with the ones they love. Sadly, it always seems to take drastic experiences, like the one just told, for us to realize how precious life is.
Tags: ir77, Lifetime Collective, Lukas Huffman, Reid Stewart
