"I literally ran myself over with a van."

About this episode

The episode recounts the improbable events surrounding a near-fatal accident involving military veteran Jake Lee and his family van.

In this narrative episode of This One Time in Kankakee, we travel out to Hopkins Park, Illinois, to meet military veteran Jake Lee. On Mother’s Day weekend in 1991, a mischievous afternoon inside the family van took a near-fatal turn when the transmission accidentally engaged. What followed is a sequence of events so mathematically improbable it defies belief—involving a torrential downpour, a perfectly placed trench of rain-washed sand, and an emergency surgery that uncovered an entirely dif...

People in this episode

Guest: Jake Lee

Topics covered

• military veteran
• accident
• family
• survival
• narrative storytelling

Keywords

• accident
• military veteran
• Hopkins Park
• Mother's Day
• survival story

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Hopkins Park, Illinois

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