Hey, everybody. This is Jeff Revilla. Welcome to my guest tonight.
Episode number one. This is the most special episode we will record
because we can only do this one once. And I got a great guest,
Kenny Barnwell. We're going to hear his story tonight and I'm going
to leave you. I'm going to open up with what he sent me to really
pitch himself to be on the show. And I love this opening story because it's
going to hook you for the rest of this episode. He says, I got a
great story. It sounds like it belongs on the show. Last year,
while on a music tour in Mexico, I was ambushed by
six cartel members on motorcycles. I ran,
got shot out, and had to jump off a mountain to
survive. It's my guest tonight with
Jeff Revilla.
Where the stories run deep and the stakes get
realer.
This week's gas took a hard, wild fall
shining in Mexico. It's Kenny
Barnwell.
He followed a butterfly and
lived to write.
Don't miss his story on my guest
tonight. Good night.
Kenny. Welcome to the show. The theme song written just
for you. Oh, man, I am honored. How about it? Nice to
be on here, Jeff. Thank you so much, man. I'm so glad to have you
here. You really hooked me in with this story. It's an incredible story. We're gonna
go on a journey, I think, in the next half hour. And, you know, I
opened up with this scenario where. Where you're in Mexico. But let's go back
to. How did you get into Mexico? What. What were you doing? Was it work?
Was. I believe it might be music related, but what took you down to Mexico
in the first place? Well, I. It was work, work
related. I ended up going down there on tour with a band.
I've done event production, setting up shows around the world
for a little over 20 years. In fact, this is last year,
was my 20th year touring with different bands and
that's how I made it down to Mexico. We were actually finishing a
Mexico, South America tour run.
Very nice. And so I'm guessing somehow did you get separated
from the band? How did you get. How did you get into the situation
that I opened with this story of, you know, here you are, you
know, by yourself in Mexico. Well, it's crazy, man. And thank
you again for having me on to share this, Jeff, because I've only shared this
a handful of times. This happened last August, so we're
not even a year, year anniversary
on this. And so I'm just now kind of through recovery
of what happened to me physically. A bit Mentally, obviously,
and able to kind of just now tell this. And so
thank you again for, for allowing me to come on here and share this crazy
story with your audience. So I was down on tour in Mexico
with this band and how I ended up getting separated,
I really wasn't separated. We actually, we had just finished up a couple of
days in Mexico City. We did a couple of shows down in Mexic
City. We headed over to Monterey to do our last two shows in
Monterey. And I don't know if you've ever been to Monterey, Mexico, have
you, Jeff? No, not yet, but. Okay, well this will determine if I go or
not. Well, well look man, I've been traveling down to
Mexico a lot over, you know, the, the last 20 years, you can
imagine, dozen times. In fact, I've actually been to
Monterey a half dozen times in the last probably
half dozen years. And we
ended up making it to our hotel at about
5:30 in the evening time, still daylight. And
Monterey is beautiful man, like big mountains. Think like
California style mountains, very rocky, deserty, you know, lots of
thorns and cactus and rocks and snakes and scorpions
and that type of landscape. But on,
on this valley, in this valley area, it's real
touristy, like skyscrapers and beautiful city and
there's like high end shops and, and hotels and all of
that. And then it's kind of old Mexico on the other
side of the mountain. Well, I, last
time I was coming through was like wanting to go hiking in
these mountains because I'm a big time hiker. You know, when you live a fast
paced life on tour, it's like hiking forces you to slow
down literally one step at a time. Right. And I'm also a fitness
guy and I was at the time doing a
fitness mental toughness program called 75 Hard.
Have you ever heard of that, Jeff? Yeah, just a bunch of my teammates at
work just did that at the start of the year. Oh, no way. Okay, so
you've got some context. Well, for your, for your listeners anyway. 75 Hard by
Andy Frisella. It's you. You end up doing
five things every single day. It's like two 45 minute workouts.
One of them has to be outside, hint, hint. And then
you drink a gallon of water, you read 10 pages of
a non fiction book and then you follow some sort of
nutrition diet plan and no, no alcohol.
And so I was actually on day 14 of 75 Hard. I love
to do it on the road because it's, it's tough, you know, it's tough to
schedule it in and also it kind of helps you stay in line. You know
the, the old story of sex, drugs and rock and roll out on tours.
It's not completely gone. It's, it's, it's definitely out there. But the
influence is, is very easy to kind of get loose with your physical
and mental health on the road. And so I kind of get in front of
that by doing things like 75 hard. And
when we arrived at the hotel about 5:30 in the afternoon,
I get up to the hotel room, I dropped my bags and I looked out
my back window and we're right. Our hotel's like right on this
mountain, right. Kind of base of a mountain
range. And I see this trail that goes
up to the top of this mountain ridge and there's like a dirt road
up top. And I needed to go and do my
45 minute workout and I thought, man, how perfect. I could just go run
up to the top of this mountain, maybe run up the road a little bit,
take some photos of the valley because it's absolutely beautiful and then
run back down, finish my 45 minute jog, you know,
hit the shower and then go to dinner with the guys.
And so I pretty much did just that, man. I put on my
running clothes. All I had was like my running clothes, shorts, T shirt,
my water bottle and my headphones, my phone and
my room key. Didn't tell anybody where I actually was
going because Kenny always goes on a run.
He's, he's the, he's the fitness guy. He's always going. Not to mention,
if you look at this trail, you'll see like everyday people going up and
down this mountain. Like there's, I saw people that were families,
old people, people in scrubs obviously coming down to work at the
hospital. It looked like it was a bunch of locals that would kind of
traverse this trail to go up and over the mountain to work on the tourist
side of the valley. And so I was like, okay, cool. Like it seemed,
seemed safe, safe enough to me. I'd seen it last time I was there
and so I did just that. I, I grabbed my stuff and I headed
out, headed out of the hotel to this hiking trail
which by the way was only a block and a half away on the back
side of my, my hotel. It took me about
10 or 15 minutes to, to hike to the top of this
trail. And I get to the top of the trail and I hike up the
dirt road a little bit and I start taking pictures of the
valley and taking pano pictures and I Mean, it's just beautiful. The sun
was not. Not quite coming down just yet. And so the sun
was. You know, it was still just a perfect time of day.
And again, I didn't necessarily get separated
from my people down there, but it just kind of naturally happened to where I
was headed, up to the top of this mountain ridge to. To go
on a run. So to answer your first question, and you. And doing things
like that are normal for you, right, you would normally go on a run or.
Or explore a local area. It's not out of the question to.
To be somewhere and try to get a taste of the local flavor. Well,
right. And look, you know, when we're traveling through these different countries, they
tell us, like, hey, you know, certain countries are, like, super,
you know, dangerous. And you got to stay at the hotel close to the
hotel. And you're privy to that. Not to mention
you're also very aware that the cartel in Mexico run
that country. Like, you know, they're. They're so
embedded throughout the entire country. There's not one cartel, obviously.
There's. There's, you know, a handful of cartels. I'm not even
certain how many, to be honest with you, but it's palpable that there
are certain areas in Mexico that you just simply don't go. But in
my mind, I'm like, well, this is just right behind the hotel, you know, like
a block and a half away. I can see my hotel, so all should be
good. But what I did know, Jeff, was
that the neighborhood on the backside of this
mountain range was one of the most dangerous
favelas neighborhoods in all of the
Americas. Like, the.
The city of Monterey sits in the state of Nueva Leon,
which is just south of Texas. And so it's like
cartel land, right? You know, just south of Texas.
But I didn't know this, and I had been to that same hotel, you know,
in fact, not even that long prior to this. And so,
anyhow, I'm up there, I'm taking some pictures, I'm listening to
a podcast, and I start to walk back to the trailhead
that I had just hiked up. And
when I did that, I was walking along, and all of a
sudden, this motorcycle was right up
on me. Like, startled me, but, like, right up on my right side.
And I looked over, and there's two guys, like, men, not
teenagers, but men on this motorcycle.
And they were kind of motioning for my phone, like, basically, give me your
phone. They're, like, saying, hey, pictures, let me have your phone. And
I just kind of played dumb. So I just kind of pointed to my podcast,
like, oh, I'm just listening to a podcast. And I kept walking because I had
my water bottle in my hand, and I kept walking just with
urgency at this point. And so
as I'm doing that, the. The steep mountains on my
left, I'm on this dirt road. Well, one of the two
guys had jumped off the motorcycle and was, like, walking real
fast right next to me and kind
of saying, give me your phone, essentially. You know, I didn't speak Spanish, so I
didn't know what. Exactly what he was saying, but he was motioning for my
phone. And I. At that point, it
startled me, clearly. I was like, oh, whoa. Dude's right up on me. And
I look back, and the other guy that had been
driving the motorcycle had parked the motorcycle right in the middle
of the street, had jumped off and was kind of slow
running at me with this small boulder in his hand,
and he throws it at me. And I kind of ducked, you know, because
it came right past my head. And my instinct was like, I'm out
of here. Like, screw this, I'm out. You
know? And so I was trying to make it back to that trailhead. So I
started taking off running for my life. You know, I've got. I've got two little
babies at home. I got two toddlers, you know, my wife at home.
And so I start taking off to try to make it down to that trailhead.
I was going to scoot down the trail, like I was just trying to evade
these guys. And then all of a sudden, another
huge stone comes right past my head. It kind of clips my left
ear, and it calls me to fall on the dirt road.
And I don't know if you've ever fallen on a dirt road before, but, like,
gravel in your hands and in your knees. I was wearing just running shorts,
you know, and my. My headphone ears popped out,
my headphones pop out, my water bottle busted, and my
phone busted right at the top of the mountain on that road.
And I go to pop myself back up because I hit hard. I mean, I
was running for my life, man. And I go to pop back up. When
I did that, I look back, and I see two more matching
motorcycles with two men a piece on them, hauling
ass towards me. And I was just like, man,
I. I popped up, started running again for my life.
And that's when I started hearing the gunshots.
These guys, the crazy man. I don't know if you've ever been shot at,
Jeff. Oh, luckily, I Mean, thankfully, no. But I couldn't.
I couldn't imagine, you know, being, you know, somewhere new, you know,
not in an environment that I'm familiar with.
I see boulders. I'm running. You know, I spent 20
years skateboarding, so I know about gravel and sweat and all that dirt
sticking to you. And. And now you hear. You're hearing the pop sounds, you're hearing
the gunshot sounds. Yeah, well, I hear the first
shot, and that's really all it took, man.
Like, at that point, I knew I wasn't gonna make it. The. The. The
one guy that was running next to me, he's pretty hot on my trail, right?
Not, you know, not far behind me, the other guys running after me. When I
look back and I saw those two other motorcycles with four guys on
them, and they started shooting at me. My instinct was like, I'm
not letting them kidnap me. Because in your mind, you're thinking, this is the
cartel. Like, you know it, you know, like,
they're not gonna let me live. You hear the stories, especially as a traveler
in these countries, it's like, you hear the stories. These people behead people. They kill
Americans all the time and disappear them, you know, And I'm
like, I'm not letting them kidnap me, you know, and especially with who
I was with, you know, I'm high profile, to be
honest with you, with the artist that I was with. And so. And
that actually the artist's name was on my water bottle.
And then, not to mention, they get my phone, they use face ID to open
it. Like, that stuff's kind of going through your mind, you know, And I
just thought about my kids, man. And so I'm running, and as soon as they
start shooting, I just jumped off the mountain. And when I did, because of the
forward momentum and the steepness of the mountain, as soon as I go to
try to land on the side of this mountain, it snapped my
femur. And then I rolled about 30ft and I
slammed into this cactus. And of course, I'm
covered in cactus. I go to try to stand up, because here they are,
right? They're still going to come after me. And I
just collapsed in pain. Like the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. Never
felt anything like this because I'd never broken any bones before.
And I heard the snap of the femur when I went to land,
man. Like, that's how loud and painful it
was. So I go to get back up, I collapse again, and
it breaks my left forearm, and I roll another, like,
15ft. I drag myself into this thorn bush, and I'm
like. Like, try to collect myself for a minute,
and I could hear the commotion. I hear the other motorcycles finally arrive, like, right
above, you know, where I had left. And they're all yelling at each other, and
I. And I could kind of, like, see a couple of the guys go towards
the trail that. That I was working to get down, where I
had come up. And they had went down the trailhead, I guess, to cut me
off. And I was in this storm bush, and I
collected myself. I was like, what the. You know, this is insane. Like, you know,
I've got kids. I even yelled that as I was flipping down the
mountain, and I'm in this bush, and I look at my arm, and
it's like my. My bones pushing out. Not, like, out of the skin, but it's,
like, pushing out. And I thought, well, maybe it's dislocated. So I went
snap. I. I ended up
snapping my. My. What I thought was a dislocated elbows, really
just snapping the two bones back into place. And I
assessed my hip, and I was like, man, I can't walk. Like, I was like,
I don't know what I'm gonna do, man. And so I'm like. I get my
bearings. I'm like. I look through the. The thorn bush at the top of the
mountain, and I start to see two of the guys start
to kind of, like, make their way down to where I
had fallen to try and see where I had fallen, because they clearly didn't see
me, and they didn't see where I had landed. And this
was, like, this was a type of mountain that, like, you didn't
just cut through it. Like, it was very dense thorn
bush, cactus, aloe plants. Like,
there's. You know, I watch a lot of Naked and Afraid and Discovery Channel and
stuff. I'm like, I know that there are, you know, banana spiders and
tarantulas and scorpions and rattlesnakes in these. In this
kind of, you know, landscape. But this stuff's going through my head, and
I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm
like, what do I do? Do I. Do I sit here and
just like, maybe they'll. They'll find me, or do I, like, try
and move? And if I move, are they going to hear me, you
know? And I just cried out to God, Jeff. I was like,
God, I said, please, if you want me to live,
please, God, tell me what to do. Please save me. And at that
moment, this hummingbird Literally flies
right in front of my face and starts feeding on this
flower right in front of me. It was so beautiful. In
my mind, I'm like, wow. So beautiful. And at the same thought, I'm
like, God, you are a comedian. Like, here you are
showing me this beauty and this chaos. I say, God, please,
please, like, if you want me to live, please tell me what to
do. And the craziest thing happened. This
monarch butterfly flies right by my left
shoulder. And I hear this loud voice
yelling at me, follow the butterfly.
And this butterfly goes
towards this even denser thorn bush.
And I just put my right arm down. I put my left arm down, and
with this divine strength, I just drug myself and
pulled myself into this even deeper thorn bush, which,
you know, is ripping me to pieces, of course, you
know. But then the butterfly lands on the inside of this
thorn bush, not afraid of me. It's not startled by me at all.
It lands on the storm bush. And so I stop and I kind
of cower down. And about a minute and a half later, here comes one of
the guys right around that bush.
And I was like, this is
crazy. And I look across the valley,
and the bottom of the sun was touching the
mountains in the distance. And I just kind of internally, I was
like, I gotta wait till night to move again. And
to be honest with you, man, that's when the craziness actually started.
Like, I know. I know all of that.
Like, the starting point. Like, I know all that's
crazy, man. But, like, that. That's when it really,
really got crazy and really got tough, you know,
because these guys at this point, man, they were hunting me, and
I couldn't walk. You know, I had a broken arm.
And, you know, I'm sitting there with cactus all in
me, embedded into my skin. I've got, you know, nothing to eat, no
water, no phone, no way to call for help,
you know? And I had to trust that I'm doing the right thing because
I didn't know what to do. And by the grace of God, you know,
I just follow that butterfly into that thorn bush,
you know? And, like, I'm sitting there
and they're all around, like, these six guys. They're, you know, hear
the motorcycles, you hear the yelling. They're yelling at each other, talking to each other.
They're looking in bushes, and I'm just, like, cowering in this
dense thorn bush, waiting till dark.
Man. I'm on the edge of my seat. I. It's. It's
like, okay, like, it's starting to get dark. They're
still looking for you. You've. I don't know how far,
you know, up the mountain, you. This whole trail is, but you got a while
to get back with a broken leg, a broken arm to get back
to the hotel, so. So. And it hasn't gotten crazy yet?
Well, it's certainly. It's certainly crazy, you know, And I.
I ended up, you know, I'm sitting there, and what's. What's
really crazy is my hotel is a block and a half away.
Like, the mountain's so steep. The. The hotel is, like, right
there. I can see the entrance, people pulling up. I can
hear the rooftop bar playing the music. My
room was on the ninth floor. I could literally see my hotel
room. The curtains was open. Theirs was my hotel room. I saw
my. My single water bottle I had sitting on my table. I could see it
from the mountain, and I'm just like, it might as well been a million
miles away, you know? And so I'm in this bush, and I
just. I just, like, once when it
gets dark, I go, God, what do I do? You know? What
do I do? No one knows that I'm out here, you know,
and these guys are hunting me, you know,
my wife's at home. I'm feeling so sad for my kids that
their dad got them himself into this situation,
you know? But I had this deep
sense of gratitude that I didn't die, that I didn't hit my head
on a rock when I was flipping down the mountain, you
know, And I prayed to God,
and I just heard the voice again. It said,
keep moving forward. And so once, when
it got dark, I did just that, man. I would put my
hand down and my foot down, and I would scoot on my butt and my
lower back as much as I could. Crazy pain. Sometimes it would take
me two hours to go 10ft, 15ft.
And I kept having to, like,
switch sides of my body because, you know, my back would get ripped up. My.
My shorts and my shirt would start to get ripped up or roll up my
back and my whole lower back. So I'd flip on my side until
that was all, you know, rashed up. And then I, you
know, flip on the other side best I could, but my right hip was broken,
and I'd flip on my belly sometimes and just try to, like,
pull myself on my stomach. And, of course, that's ripping, ripping myself to
pieces. But what really was crazy is
I started to rip my only hand up, you
know, like, my. Couldn't put my. My left hand down because it's broken.
You know, my forearm's broken, and. And so
I. I call it a gift from God. I got. I found this rock,
actually, I have it right here in front of me. I brought it home with
me off the mountain. For anyone viewing this, you
can see this is the rock from the mountain. This is the type of rocks
that was on the mountain. But I found this rock, and it fit
my hand perfectly, perfect enough to use
this to leverage myself so the ground and the thorns
and the rocks and everything wouldn't dig into my hand.
But what was so crazy, it almost. Looks like, like an arrowhead shape.
Like. Like it's like, flat disc shape, and
it perfect, perfectly in that grip of the palm of your hand. So
it's crazy just to paint a little picture of. Of what it looks like for
people listening. Yeah. And, you know, it's. It's so crazy
because, like, it even fits between a couple of my fingers.
In fact, it's still got some of the. The. The wear from the
mountain. And. And I
would use this rock, you know, working my way through, and it was
insane challenges, you know, having to get over, you know,
over logs or around rocks or around trees or through
bushes. I had to stay in the thorn bushes the
majority of the first handful of hours. You know, Jeff,
I spent 12 hours on this mountain that night.
And this rock, I would lose it. It would, like, fall and
roll down the mountain or whatever, but then all of a sudden, it would
show back up. This rock kept showing back up.
I would drop it, it would roll, it would go somewhere. I would lose it.
I'd keep moving forward, and then it would show up again.
Like, that's incredible. Crazy, man. And so
what was even crazier is I'm going through all these challenges. I'm trying
to move forward, and of course, I'm, you know, sobbing for my family,
my kids. I'm like, you know, they need their dad.
I'm also trying to. My best to. To. To be grateful
of. Of what I did have still going for me, you
know, I mean, most people are trying to climb mountains in their lives. I'm trying
to get down one, you know what I mean? And
I would get to, like, a challenge, you know, around a tree or over a
rock or over some bundles of sticks or through another. Th.
You know, my leg would be turned one way, or I'd be so rashed up
on one side, I couldn't get through it. And I would give up.
Like, I would just, like, you're just gonna have to, like, Send a search party
the next day and tell my wife that I'm missing. And, like, all this, I
don't know, like, I'm done, you know, I had nothing physically in me, and I
would lay my head back in the thorns, and then I would get
these visions in my mind of, like, how to
overcome that challenge in a way that I hadn't considered yet. And
then the voice again would wake me up really loud.
It would say, keep moving forward. And I would wake up, and then
I would get this divine energy, this divine strength,
and I would literally do the obstacle in the way that I had
envisioned. And this happened time and time and
time again. It was so crazy.
I could see my hotel. There it was. And
I would look at it and I'll be like, man, with the pace that I'm
moving, I might never get there. You know, I might never
reach my hotel. Like, I. I don't know, it might literally take days
because, like, I'm sometimes moving 10ft. And it
felt like an eternity. And, you know, I would
give up and I would get the visions, and then I would get woken up
with the voice and I would push forward again. And I was like,
you know, I gotta stop looking at the hotel. It's
overwhelming me. And I was like, I need to shorten the
goal. Like, if I could just focus on the next rock, if I could just
focus on the next bush, focus on the next tree, you know, there was
this wall that I was trying to work towards. If I could just focus on
the wall, you know, and shortening the goal, like, that
really helped me dig in and, like, go through this
motion of, you know, pushing myself forward or dragging myself
or pulling myself forward, reaching the obstacles, giving up, getting the
visions, hearing the voices, pushing forward again. And then
when the minutiae of all that got tough, I would look at the hotel again
and be like, okay, I'm getting closer. I can make it. I can make it.
You know, my family, you know, my kids, they need their dad.
And I would just get this immense sense of gratitude, you know,
and it was probably, I don't know, maybe
2:00 in the morning. You know, I was a boy Scout. So, like, I know
that when the moon's up high in the sky, it's about midnight. Once when it
passes over, it's past midnight. You know, it's probably about 2:00 in the
morning. I made it to the wall. And on the edge of
this wall, which was this compound around
this house that was right on the street that I was working my way towards.
Now I couldn't go towards the trailhead, obviously, because
those guys were probably over there. They were probably still waiting for me.
And. But eventually I had heard, you know, maybe around
11:00 midnight or so, the. The voices stopped and all you could hear
was neighborhood dogs, you know, barking in the distance.
And. And so I had to go through this really precarious way, through all
these thorn bushes and. And all of this. This treacherous
landscape, and I make it to this wall. And on the back side of this
wall was another gift. There was this tire
that had a pole sticking out of the middle of it, like concrete, and a
pole sticking out of the middle of it that I was able to kind of
pull myself up on. And I pulled myself up. I'm kind of
standing up on my one leg and my. And letting the. The kind of
blood flow back to my hip, my right hip. And the
breeze, I could feel the breeze. And I'm just like, ah, like, thank you,
God. You know, I've made it this far. You know, I
probably have about, you know, a third left to go.
Before I hit the bottom, I thought, man, I'm at the wall. So now I
could just like, hug the wall. Maybe I could hop. I don't know,
like, maybe I could hop. I don't know. Like this whole time I've been dragging
myself and. And then I look up at the top of the
mountain and it. And it looked like they had like,
turned floodlights on the back of a handful of these houses. And
I see about six floodlights at the top of the mountain and I hear
like, dogs barking even louder. And
then all of a sudden, these six lights
start coming down the mountain. And I was
like, oh, no, that's them, man. Like, they're coming back. Because clearly I
didn't pop out at the street yet. You know, I was like, they're coming
back after me. And so I go to, like, try to, like,
gently pull myself back down to sit down, but I crashed, you know, because I
couldn't just the way I was broken, you know, and I just
crashed back down onto the rocks. But fight or flight, I'm back in.
In, you know, retreat mode, you know, And I'm pulling
myself down along this wall and I was like, I'm just gonna stick along the
wall. And what I didn't know is this wall was extremely
tall and there had been these gullies, these kind of deep
gullies along the wall that I got to the top of the first
one and it was Pitch black dark down there,
and I couldn't see the other side of it. And I was like, if I
go down this gully, I might not be able to get back
out. Like, I can't hug the wall. I'm gonna have
to go around it. And I don't know what's around it either, but I obviously
opted to go around this. This first gully. And I go around
this gully, and I hear the dogs getting closer. I hear the men getting
closer, Ike, out of. Of. Of
anything. And I'm in this kind of thorn bush, not
dissimilar than. Than the first one, but even less dense,
like, very thin. They would see me.
And so I surrendered. I was like, this is
it, all of this fight, and. And this is how I'm gonna
die. And so I just flipped on my back because that's, you
know, the only part of my body that. That I could lay on. At that
point, I didn't even have enough energy to roll over. Jeff. I was
depleted, man. And I covered up the logo on my shirt, this
big white logo that I had on my black shirt. And I just prayed
to God, I said, God, please don't let them find me. And
now my mind, I'm thinking, they have dogs. They're gonna find me. I mean, you're
not gonna retreat from dogs, you know? I said, God, please don't
let them see me. Please make them blind to see me, Lord.
And Jeff, man, one of these guys with his dog
was about 10 or 12ft from that bush, and
they walked the other way. Like, they
didn't see me. I'm like, this is crazy. And I thought, maybe
he's coming around or something, like. Like. Because
I could see him. And if he could see. If I could see him, he
could probably see me. Like, he's that close. I could hear him breathing
almost, because it's so quiet out there, aside from the dogs barking.
And I was like, the dog didn't see me. This is crazy. And so I
just stayed there. I laid there. I don't know, 40
minutes probably went by. I was just laying there, and
they walked on. I saw the lights walk back,
checking out other bushes, other areas, walking back
up to. Towards that trailhead around
the wall again, I was like, whoa, man.
Like, that's when I knew that God
had other plans for me. That's when I knew that this experience
was a God experience. There was no reason that
those guys didn't see me at that point. No reason.
So I just continued on. At that point, I heard the same thing. Keep
moving forward, you know, And I got this divine strength, and I start to go.
And I start to move forward, and I see this
stick. And this stick had, like, a
Y at the top of it, and it was perfect to fit under my. My
shoulder. And I thought, man, like, this is a crutch. Like,
I'm just gonna use this crutch. I can start to see cars on the
road. Like, I'm getting that close. Like, this is great. I'm just gonna
start to kind of crutch my way around. And as soon as
I took that first hop, I just crate came crashing
down. Slam right on my body again. There was no way I
could walk. I mean, no way I could walk. And so I
started to drag myself again. And I was at a crossroads. I'm like, if I
go this way, more dense thorns and just
craziness. But the walls right there. And I know that the wall does hit the
street, because I've seen it when I was headed up the mountain.
And so I was like, I'm gonna go head towards the wall again. At least
if I could just stay parallel. Maybe not on those gullies, those dips, which
probably was like kind of like water wash or something along this concrete wall.
And it was like concrete with. With barbed wire across the top, like
someone's personal compound, you know? And when I got
to the top of one of these gullies, the moonlight was kind of shining
through, and I was like, oh, at the bottom back of that gully
where it touches the wall, I could actually see
where I could go. Like, if I go down this gully to. To the
wall, I might be able to follow the wall, actually, all the way out to
the street. I could see a little bit through the moonlight. I was like, I'm
going. I was like, it's. It's dark in there, but I could see the other
side. I was like, you know what? I would rather try to get to
that wall, because if nothing else, I could stand up again and let the blood
flow. Like, I felt like I was going to pass out constantly, you know, and
remind, remember, I came from Mexico City. I got
up at like, five in the morning, the prior morning, flew in from Mexico
City on 75 hard, which means you're not even just doing keto. You're not
even eating. You know, I had no water, I
had no nothing. My mouth's dry. I'm starving.
I'm hurting. I'm broken. And, you know,
fight or flight, obviously a lot of blood. Blood, you know,
Drainage from just trying to escape from being hunted,
which is crazy, and shot at and all that stuff. And so
I decided to go down this gully, and as soon as I slid down this
gully, Jeff, I look over, and in the moonlight are
all these aloe plants. And the first
thing I see was this huge
snake. And this sucker was probably
forearm, like, girth, you know, this
thing was like a baseball bat. Okay, man. And it was laying
along the aloe in the moonlight. And as soon as I went down, I
looked over, and I see it. I'm upside down,
looking at this thing, and it's probably, like, three feet from
me. And I was just like, Mr. Snake, I am just passing
through. Like, I literally. I'm talking to this thing, and I
was just like, I'm just passing through. I'm just trying to get off this
mountain. And crazy enough, I ended up spending
almost three hours in that gully right near that snake. And
that thing never, never messed with me. It moved a little bit here and there,
but it was. It must have knew that I was, like, in distress or something,
because it didn't move at all. But that was one of the most
treacherous areas because there was all of these crazy bushes
and brambles I had to get over. But I will say the
aloe. So I would break off some aloe. Two things going
through my mind. I've seen Discovery Channel. There's banana
spiders that live in these dang aloe plants. You know what I mean? Like, I'm
like, going. But I'm like. At the same time, I'm just like, screw it. Like,
my mouth was like sandpaper, man. And so I broke open the aloe,
and I would eat the aloe, and I was like, oh, like, so nourishing to
eat raw aloe. But I guess aloe must have some sort of protective
mechanism, because at the same time, it dried me out
even worse, man. Like, the aloe gel. Like,
I mean, it might have, like, my whole mouth was, like, hairspray or something. Something.
I don't know, but crazy. It's. It was sustenance, which
much needed for the energy for the rest of this trip. And so
I'm. I'm getting through the gully, and I make it over these brambles and these
bushes and eating more aloe. And I finally
make it to the wall, and I'm going along the wall
on my stomach. I couldn't stand up still. I was afraid
to stand up because I would come crashing back down. I couldn't sit down, you
know, and. And So I move along, and there's
this tree right along the wall. I'm like, oh, great. Like this tree
with thorn bushes on one side, this tree blocking
the narrow path around. And I was like, well, I'm gonna have to
stand up. But on the other side of this tree was another gift. There was
this bucket. And so I climbed up, pulled myself up
on this tree. I was able to, like, pick my right leg up and put
it on the one side of the. The kind of the tree. So I shimmied
around and just kind of sat on this bucket. And I was able
to sit on this bucket for a little while to kind of get my bearings.
And at that point, the sun was starting to come up. Like, it took me
that long to get this far on the mountain. I still hadn't came off the
mountain yet. And there was again, plenty of times where I was going to give
up. Obviously, I'd lay my head back, I'd get the visions, I would get the
voice saying, keep moving forward. And I would make it through those
challenges not dissimilar to this one. But there I was.
I was at the end of the mountain where it met the sidewalk in
the street. And I was like, thank God.
Like, I'm so close, you know, I'm so close. As soon as I can make
it down the street at this point, I'm probably like two and a half blocks
from the corner and then another block and a half down the street
to the hotel because I had to come down a different way on the mountain.
But then I was like thinking, man, they're probably just down here waiting on. On
me. Like, I'm gonna come out and they're gonna just be waiting on
me, you know, they weren't gonna let this gringo that was up there taking
pictures go, you know. And so I.
I was like, I gotta go. I gotta keep moving forward. And at the very
end of this was about a 10, 8 to 10 foot kind of
drop that was covered in grass, like real tall
grasses. And at the very top of this grass,
another gift. I call them gifts because they just. They
randomly showed up and they gave me exactly what I needed in the moment. Much
like this rock, which I still had, by the way, I had
used the whole time. And I. I found
this half of a plastic bin, and I was able to stick my
head and my shoulders in this bin and
slide down the last 8, 10ft on my back. But my head and
shoulders are in there. And the bin kind of separated the grass
just enough to kind of like push the grass out of the way so I
could slide down. And as soon as I slid down, I'm
upside down. This car comes by and does a K
turn right on me. You know what a K turn is?
I like the. By the way you just described it, I'm uncomfortable with
what it just. Well, a K turn is just an old school term for
like doing a K to back up in the middle of the street, right? And
so instead of doing a U turn, it has to do a K because they
were wanting to go the other way. So this car pulls up and headlights
ironically or, or coincidentally rather,
right when I was upside down in this bin
on the last bit of the mountains, they pull and their headlights shine
right on me. And I thought, oh, is this
them? And I look in me and this, the
driver and the passenger seat guy make eye contact.
And there was like six or seven guys that were in
construction vest that were like just kind of like looking
at me like, like this all wide eyed.
And then they just back up and left. Now clearly they were just construction
workers going to work in the morning. Sun was coming
up and they, you know, they needed to, they made a wrong turn or something.
But like that happened like right when I, I popped
out. So I come out onto the sidewalk, I'm looking going, are
they going to be here? You know, and then finally
I needed to cross the street to the other side of
the road because that's where the hotel was. And plus I was still on the
same side as the trail that I started on. So I needed to cross
the road and I couldn't walk, so a car would pass
by. I would be nervous that the car would pass by, obviously, because
you don't, I didn't know who was who. And I
drugged myself as fast as I could. I would count to 10,
1, 2, 3, 4, you know, drag myself across to the
other side and I would make it to the other side. I'm just like, man,
the, the at that point my body is like a big
scab. Front to back, both sides, shoulders
like a big scab. Because I drugged myself, you
know, along all those rocks. And I was like, I gotta drag myself
another two and a half blocks, well, three, almost four blocks back to
the hotel to make it if I was gonna make it, if somebody didn't get
me before then. But what was so crazy was I got
another gift, man. God gave me another
gift. Jeff. On the two blocks from
where I was to the corner, there was
this layer of hay. Now literally
nowhere else, not on the same side, on the other side. Not. Not
anywhere beyond it or before it. Only on the two blocks
that I had to drag my body was a layer of hay, which
provided enough cushing and enough extra slide
that I could drag myself down this
sidewalk with a little bit of relief. Matt, like, what
crazy. It took me almost an hour to go two blocks
to drag myself along that hay. And of course, the whole time, cars are coming
by. Some of them I would kind of duck on some of them. I, like,
felt okay to kind of put my hand up. Like, I couldn't talk, really. I
was like, oh, you know. And
finally I saw people coming to. To park their
cars and walk down the road to go to work. I saw at this point,
every pull, every drag forward, I was getting closer and closer to
the trailhead that I started on. And I was like, man, this
is crazy. And I would see somebody come out of the trailhead, because, like I
told you, it was a local commuter trail. And somebody would come down the
trail, and I would kind of hide like this, you know, and then I would
keep dragging myself, counting to 10. One, two,
three, you know. And then finally there was a young
guy that I could hear him talking on his cell phone, because he was talking
on speakerphone. And I kind of was like, help me, Help
me. And he turned around, I got his attention, until,
like, he had. He's like, said something to the person he was talking to, kept
him on the phone. He kind of hesitantly walked across the street to where I
was. And I was at that point, I was directly across from the bottom of
the trail ahead. And I said, listen,
you. I know I must look crazy. You don't have to help me up or
anything, but can you please go around the corner to that
hotel and tell them that one of their hotel guests was just
attacked and he can't walk. And so he, you
know, understood what I was saying. He goes down and goes to
get him. And that was about five to seven minutes of one of
the. The scariest, slowest, five to seven minutes of
the entire time. Because here I am, completely lifeless,
laying there, looking at the trailhead that I started
this journey on, just waiting for one of those guys to
come walking down. But fortunately, by
the grace of God, their hotel vehicle pulls up. And,
you know, they were just in shock that this happened to one of their guests,
you know, and they pulled me up into the hotel
vehicle, and they pulled me down to. To the
hotel, got me some soda and some water and a little sustenance.
You know, I was so grateful. And I just thought about my family,
Jeff, you know, I almost died, man.
And I. They went
to go and. And get the people that was in. In the camp with me.
We call them camps out on the road. They go to get the tour manager,
and he was just in shock. He just couldn't believe it. You know, me, the
positive guy, the exercise guy, the fitness guy, like, the guy that's like, you
know, good things are happening too, in his life type
guy. This happened to me and the security guy.
One of. They graciously gave me one of their
security guys to stay with me because the Mexican police were there. I'm like, I
didn't see anything. I didn't see. I didn't see anything because you don't
know, you know, you hear like, Mexican police could be involved. Like, you know, and
so you just kind of like, I didn't. I didn't see or hear anything. And
I just called my wife on the security guy's phone, and she didn't answer,
of course. It's about 7:30, 7:45
in the morning. And I just broke down. I left her
message. I said, baby, I was just attacked. I'm okay. I'm
headed to the hotel. I love you. And
I. They. They took me to the hotel or to the
hospital. The local hospital assessed the damage. They. They honestly were like, man, this
is a miracle you were alive. Not just obviously because of the.
The crazy descent down that mountain, but the
fact that I snapped my femur right at the ball.
And they said that there's some major arteries that
run through that hip. And they were like, you know, it's one thing snapping
your. Your femur, breaking your hip, fearing that these arteries could
break, but they're like, you, You. You know, we would recommend that you would
never move if you hit because you could rupture one of those arteries and
have an aneurysm. And they were like, I'm so. They were like, so surprised I
didn't die on that mountain from an aneurysm. And
so I make it back. The artist that I was with
sent a private medical jet to fly me out of the country. And I did
not feel safe until I was finally back in Tampa, and I ended up
getting a full hip transplant. I have metal arm.
Oh, man. But I got my life, man. And I'll
say for. For anyone listening, man, if you, God forbid, you don't
go through some crazy leap off a mountain like I did
and. And get attacked by a cartel and, you know, get. Hunt be
hunted and all that. But I'll tell you this. We all have our own crazy
things that we go through in life, and they're unexpected.
And, you know, you got to keep moving forward. You
gotta, you gotta trust. Sometimes you gotta surrender.
Sometimes when you do surrender and follow the butterfly, in my case,
you got to go through a deeper thorn bush, you know, one that, that's even
worse than the one that you're in before just to get to safety.
And sometimes you gotta stop looking so far in the future,
like I did with the hotel, and start shortening the goal so you can
actually make it through the challenges that you're aftermath
because you're stronger than you think you are when it really matters most,
I'll tell you that. But you just got to keep moving. Forward, Jeff,
and kind of what does the future look like? Or, you know, I'm
assuming you're, you might still be going through some sort of,
you know, rehab and still getting things back to normal. This was
only, this was less than a year ago. So yeah, maybe you're not at 100
yet, but taking these lessons and the things that you're talking about
now, you know, where do you see yourself taking those into the
future? Well, I'll tell you, you know, I
have such a heart to help people work through their own
challenges and, and better themselves. I'm writing a book about the
situation, it's called Follow the Butterfly and just want
to, you know, speak and, and help people
understand that, you know, these tough things that we go
through, they don't define us. They refine us
into being better men and women in our lives. And,
and for me, my relationship with God and, and has
gotten stronger. My relationship with Jesus. I'm a Christian
and I'm just so, so grateful now. You know, the
joy through it all, despite obviously having a titanium hip
and, and metal in my arm, you know, I had some amazing physical
therapists that helped me get, get stronger. And of course, you know, hip
transplants are amazing. I was up walking the same day now obviously it took a
long time to, to get to the point now where I'm at now. I mean,
I can't, you know, I can't still run or anything like that
yet. You know, I, I'm blessed to still be able to
like, you know, pick up my kids and you know, I've got a three year
old and a two year old and so, you know, moving
forward, it's, it's just a lot of, of
talking about it. You know, like I told you, you know, this is, this is
the first probably five times I've ever really told this
story in its entirety. And I want to continue to tell
it more through this book and through any, you know,
opportunities that I get moving forward to, to do so
as a speaker. And you know, I'm no longer
touring not because of that but because 20, a little over 20 years of
touring and traveling the world was enough. And you know, I always felt
like I was already on my way out to want to do more. I've
gotten, I've written a couple of other books that were industry
books and I've done coaching career and life coaching for
event crew. And so I wanted
to, to make this transition anyways and it looks like God kind
of helped me make that, that decision a lot more
concrete. And so it's really just pursuing that, getting this book
out there. It comes out In August, the one year anniversary is August
24th. And so follow the butterfly book.com you
can check it out. It goes publishes then and
you know, speaking on more stages and hopefully inspiring more
people to keep moving forward. Amazing. Amazing. I've
seen on your social media too, you started to share some of the photos. People
can connect with you. What's the best way if people want to connect with you
or, or bring you to their stage, how can they reach out and find you?
You can go to kennybarnwell.com you can also
join the wait list for the book. It comes
out at followthebutterflybook.com or
there is a link for that wait list as well on kennybarnwell.com that's my
speaker page. And if you're interested in, you know, having me come and
share this story with your, your audience, I'd love to do it.
Love to, to share how, you know, faith and,
and grace saved me on that mountain.
Amazing. Kenny, thank you so much for sharing this story.
This has been an incredible first episode. I don't know how we're going to
top this going forward. I, I'm so grateful that you're able
to even just talk about this and share these, this,
this event that has happened with you is incredible and a great feat of
strength and will inspire other people to do their
own journey to, you know, take those little steps to get things done and
accomplished and it's such an incredible story. Kenny Barnwell,
kennybarnwell.com Thank you so much for
joining us. Pleasure's mine, Jeff. Let's hear
that song one more time.
With
Jeff.
Where the stories run deep and the stakes get
realer.
This week's guest took a hard wild fall
Shining in Mexico it's Kenny
Barnwell
he un the butterfly and live
to write
don't miss this story on my care
tonight tonight.
