Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [100]
The producers decided not to bring Justin back to the show. His family and their bad advice had basically talked him out of the greatest opportunity this young man had ever had. He wasn’t getting paid a lot of money—hell, none of us were back then—but at least he belonged to something. He was successful and blew it all over greed, jealousy, and what other people thought he should be doing.
We let him come visit us on occasion, but it was difficult for all of us because we could physically see he was having a hard time letting go. He had been on the show, had built a fan base, and suddenly it was all gone.
Eventually, we had to distance ourselves from Justin because he was continuously making bad choices. I heard that he had moved to the Big Island and begun partying all the time. He was doing drugs and excessively drinking night after night. Although it hurt my heart to hear he had fallen so far off his path, I didn’t give it much mind because even though I still loved him, he was no longer any of our business. He was on an uncontrollable downward spiral that would eventually bring this young man to his knees—literally.
Three years had gone by since we spoke to Justin or his mother. One night in 2008, Justin’s grandfather called to say his grandson had been in a pretty bad drunk driving accident. His car flipped over several times before he was thrown from it. Because he was driving late at night on a road that isn’t well traveled or well lit, he lay on the side of the road for a long time before coming to. The grandfather said he was being airlifted to Honolulu and asked if Beth and I would go to the hospital to make sure they didn’t cut off his grandson’s legs.
Shortly thereafter, Justin’s mother, Moon, called crying and screaming for her son’s safety. Although we hadn’t spoken to her in some time, it didn’t matter. We were family, and family comes together in times of need. Beth immediately bought Moon a plane ticket to fly from Denver to Honolulu so she could be with her son and see him through this tragic situation.
When we got to the hospital, Justin told me the last thing he remembered from that fateful night was jamming to some music and dancing in his seat. The next thing he recalled was waking up, hearing the sound of croaking coqui frogs all around him, and then being put on a stretcher and placed in a helicopter that was airlifting him to the nearest hospital.
When Justin was in high school, he’d become well known because he had a sixty-four-inch vertical leap in basketball. He was the shining star of the Hilo High School basketball team. He was in every state championship and always made the all-star team. He was a terrifically funny kid, always making everyone laugh. He was Moon’s pride and joy because he was her child who had the potential to go the furthest in his life. Sadly, it had all been wiped out in that one night. He suffered massive damage to his legs. His ankle was severed from the bone and the rest of his leg. They had to reattach his foot and leg below the knee. His face had been severely cut, with stitches going all across his eyelid. He was lucky to still have his eye, as it had almost been pulled from its socket. His hand was also very badly damaged.
We begged Moon to leave Justin with us in Hawaii while he recuperated, but he chose to go back to Denver to be with his family. Beth instinctively knew Denver would end tragically for Justin. Unfortunately, she was right. He slipped into a depression and began using drugs as a mode of escape. This time he wasn’t just overindulging in painkillers—he was smoking crack too. The drugs were dumping all sorts of impurities and toxic chemicals into his body, which wasn’t helping his healing process. In fact, it was poisoning his body, causing infection after infection, until he finally developed