Episode 371 - Kegan Gill

Cleared Hot

Society & Culture

4.9 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2025

⏱️ 136 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kegan Gill was a US Navy Fighter Pilot (F-18 Super Hornet) and was forced to eject into the sound barrier as his plane was going down during a training exercise over the Atlantic Ocean. In the process of ejecting, Kegan sustained catastrophic injuries that literally ripped his limbs apart along with a severe traumatic brain injury.

His body landed in the ice-cold waters of the Atlantic with a protective wet suit that had been ripped to pieces. With his parachute still attached, and unable to move his arms, Kegan was continuously dunked into the freezing water for two hours before his rescue. Luckily, his hypothermic condition kept him from bleeding to death.

Kegan spent the following months focusing on his recovery, and despite his catastrophic injuries, he was eventually able to score a perfect PFT and was able to return to flight duty.

Kegan recently published the book Phoenix Revival about his experience, and long journey through recovery: https://ballastbooks.com/purchase/phoenix-revival/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Good morning, everybody. Hope your week is kicking off well. My guest today is Kagan Gill.
0:05.9	He is a repeat guest on the show. I had him back on for a few reasons. I'll get to that in a second.
0:11.5	His story of survival exceeds my vocabulary. That's for sure. If you caught him on the first time that he was on the show, then you know he was an F-18 pilot in the Navy.
0:23.6	He ejected at 0.96 Mach and an F-18 Super Hornet off the Atlantic Coast a few seconds before impact.
0:32.5	Let me just tell you, ejection seats are not designed to be operated at 0.96 mock.
0:37.4	Now, Kagan does a great job of talking about the why aviation, what caused the ejection,
0:44.1	the injuries that he occurred during that, the fact that he probably shouldn't have even
0:47.2	survived in the first place.
0:49.3	His recovery from that, working his way back into being a naval aviator again, flying an F-18 again,
0:55.2	and then what I find to be the most impactful, at least to me and what I hope people can grab
1:00.9	onto, is his struggles back into what I think we would both clearly call a mental health
1:08.8	crisis. Now, a lot of this was tied to TBI, but he went pretty
1:14.1	deep, and he talks about it. And he wrote a book called Phoenix Revival. And it is not only about
1:20.6	what happened to him, but how he got out of it. And that is, I think, probably the most important
1:26.2	aspect of this episode. Strap yourself in.
1:30.4	No pun intended, even though there are straps on an ejection seat. Episode number 371 with Kagan
1:36.5	Gill is going to be a banger. Now, if you've been a fan of the podcast, you know the deal.
1:41.5	I do ads. Give me 60 seconds to pay the bills so I can keep
1:47.0	bringing this to everybody for free. Ladies and gentlemen, this episode is brought to you by
1:52.2	Black Rifle Coffee. I know. People thought that they were gone because I'm working with some other
1:56.9	sponsors now. They're not gone at all. Let's head over to the website.
2:02.3	Okay, I'm liking this.
	...

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