Hi folks, this is Max Young-Rice from the StoryCorps podcast.
As always, we want to hear your stories, which you can tell us by calling our voicemail at 702-706-TALK.
This week, tell us about someone in your life who you disagree with on an important issue.
How are you navigating that?
Tell us about it in a voicemail at 702-706-TALK.
And a warning, this episode contains mentions of gun violence and suicide.
We're going to introduce you to someone today who we first met a few years back, when he signed up to record with us.
My name is Dan Legger.
I'm 72 years old, and I'm eager to see where this conversation takes us.
This was in 2020, and Dan recorded a virtual interview through our One Small Step program.
That's where we match strangers with different beliefs to talk about their lives.
My name is Amber Neider.
I'm 34 years old.
Nice to meet you.
Glad to meet you.
They both live in Pittsburgh, and they both have backgrounds in healthcare.
Dan was a hospital chaplain and a nurse, and Amber worked for years as a medical assistant.
But that doesn't mean they agree on everything.
I carry a gun every way.
A small capacity, semi-automatic handgun.
I have never had to use it.
I'm so glad you haven't had to use it.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah.
But at the same time it makes me wonder why you feel the world is such an unsafe place that you need that.
Now it's really something for Dan to ask that specific question, because he's a survivor of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the deadliest attack on Jewish people in this country's history.
Eleven people were shot and killed that day.
Many others were injured.
Dan was one of them.
He was shot in the abdomen and left to die.
The only thing that was going on when I was lying on those stairs was basically between me and God.
You know, I thought this afternoon somebody's going to come into the building and they'll find me and these other people dead.
I was convinced that I was not going to survive, and I almost didn't.
Dan spent weeks recovering in the hospital.
And while he was there he started thinking a lot about how people respond to violence and what it actually takes to heal.
Dan knew that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life living in fear and anger.
Instead, he wanted to understand people better, even people he might disagree with.
And that eventually led him to us.
I'm Jasmine Morris, and it's the StoryCorps podcast from NPR.
We mentioned before that Dan had signed up for a one-small-step conversation, which means he was paired with a stranger, in this case Amber.
And it wasn't until they sat down to record that Amber found out Dan was a victim of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
That had happened two years earlier.
First of all, I'm so sorry that happened to you.
How did you get past that?
There are certain things in life that you don't get past, and this is one of them.
I wake up every morning and I'm grateful to be alive, and I put one foot in front of the other and I move forward.
I mean, that's traumatic.
I appreciate the fact that you're feeling it along with me, but I'm okay.
I miss my friends who are no longer alive, and my body doesn't work the same way it was before I was shot.
But I really do think that it's how we respond that makes us who we are.
You okay?
I'm just processing it.
I think it's something that while not every Pittsburgher was there, we all were.
That means so much.
It really does.
Dan and Amber ended up having a lot to say to each other.
They talked for a full hour.
Do you ever feel troubled by people of the same beliefs as you?
One of the things that I did as I was emerging from the ICU was to express my need to forgive the shooter.
And this is something that some people completely disagreed with in my community.
And it was interpreted that that need on my part to forgive this individual for what he did to me also meant that I was forgiving him for killing 11 people.
And that's not the case.
My attitude about that is not to convince people that I'm right and you're wrong, because that doesn't work.
We have way too much of that these days.
And that's unfortunately what led somebody to come into my synagogue and do what he did.
I just really wish that he had come in in frustration and said I want to talk to you rather than I want to shoot you.
So the way, One Small Step, conversations work.
Participants go in knowing they're going to disagree on something, even if they don't know the specifics.
But after they start talking, they find out their differences aren't as big as they thought.
And that's what happened in this case.
Remember, Amber is a gun owner.
Well, I've been robbed.
My home has been broken into.
I've been followed in my car.
Sometimes calling the police is not fast enough.
But I do think there is a big problem in this country with access to guns for people that probably shouldn't have access to them.
I definitely think we agree and need to put laws in place to make it more difficult.
Yeah.
I've seen so many people hurt by firearms, not just myself and my friends who were killed.
But in my career as a nurse, I worked with many, many kids who were injured in firearm accidents.
It seems like all the things that are being done to try to fix the problem are creating more barriers between people who are not as able to talk about it anymore.
That's a worry to me.
I think these types of conversations, where people are listening to understand what the person is saying and, you know, acknowledging their viewpoint in a respectful way, you know just, it's OK to disagree.
But what's not OK is the failure to communicate.
So I'm really glad we had this chance to have a conversation like we've had.
Me too.
That really means a lot to me.
And I'm delighted to have met you.
And I just wish you well.
As they were wrapping up their recording, Dan mentioned another conversation he'd been having across political lines.
You know, I've become friendly with a couple of the police officers who came into the building when I was shot.
And one of them told me that I was a hero, and I said, I'm not a hero.
I was shot while being Jewish.
You are a hero because you ran into the building, into the gunfire, to try to help.
This is a guy who I probably have nothing in common with.
Politically, physically, in so many ways, we are so different.
But we both get up in the morning and we're all the same things that every other human being does.
And I think so much that's what we really need to remember.
After a short break, a conversation between Dan and that police officer.
Stay with us.
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Thank you.
Tim Mattson was a member of the SWAT team that responded to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
That day, he burst through the door where the gunman was hiding and was shot seven times.
Tim met Dan Legger at the hospital in the weeks after.
And as they both started to get their strength back, getting to know each other became part of their recovery.
I remember the nurses telling me that you were down the hall.
And then sometime later, I heard a walker clicking, coming into my room.
And I remember thinking, that's one tough old man.
I can't let him show me up.
You know, that was my physical therapy goal.
I wanted to get to your room.
And thank you.
But I saw that you were banged up really bad.
Yeah.
Shattered right kneecap, shattered left tibia, shattered left elbow.
A bullet went through my helmet, fractured my skull and jaw.
You took some bad hits.
And that just reinforced the fact that you didn't hold back.
When the call came, you went.
But the thing that really drew us together in the strongest way was when you sent the letter to me along with your award that you were given your Medal of Valor.
That just blew me away, Tim.
To me.
You deserved it more than me, because you were never prepared for that situation, but still found a way to get through it.
I signed on for a career knowing the risks.
Me approaching you prior to this, I'm 6'4", 310 pounds, shaved head, covered in tattoos.
Would you have judged me differently?
Absolutely not.
I hope not, anyhow.
So I remember I was in the hospital.
Some doctor came in the room.
He said, I want to apologize to you.
And I was like, for what?
And he said...
I saw the guard on your door.
I saw all your tattoos.
I knew you got shot.
I immediately thought, oh, gang, you're in.
He said, I went back and read your file.
And he was like, I want to thank you for your service.
That's really cool that that doctor took the time to come in and make it real with you.
Yeah.
How many times does that happen to people and they don't fill in the rest of the story?
And same thing with me.
People see me in the supermarket and say, oh, this guy's got a yarmulke, you know.
I know about them.
People just go in those directions, you know.
There's a lot about the whole experience that still seems like it was a dream.
I'm glad we both made it through, because there were moments when part of me was saying I don't know if I can hack this.
Yeah.
I was in a hospital for 16 weeks, in a wheelchair for another six weeks.
So when I got home, I realized my life's changed and I'm in pain and I don't want to do this no more.
And I'm like, I'm just going to end it.
I'm going to take my life.
I went outside.
I'm crying.
And I walked by this plastic bucket.
And at some point, one of my SWAT teammates weed whacked my house and this weed fell in the bucket.
It rained and I grew a root.
And I looked down at this weed and I thought, man, that's one tough fucking weed.
Somebody tried to kill it.
Nobody cared about it.
And to find a way to survive all on its own.
And then I took that weed and I planted it in some potting soil and I kept that weed on my porch.
And that weed kind of pushed me to rehab harder.
When I moved, I put it in the passenger seat and put a seatbelt on it.
And every year it grew.
Except this year.
That beat me up a little bit because that was my motivation, but I realize I don't need it anymore.
It's a job.
I'm so glad that weed was there that day.
I am so grateful.
Love you, my friend.
Love you, too.
That's Tim Mattson with his friend Dan Legger in Pittsburgh.
Dan is retired now, and Tim is still on the force.
That's all for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast.
If you're interested in learning more about One Small Step, visit our website at takeonesmallsteporg.
Our voicemail line is always open and we love hearing from you.
This week.
We're wondering who in your life has very different views on an issue that's important to you.
And how are you navigating that?
Leave us your answer in a voicemail at 702-706-TALK.
That's 702-706-TALK.
The stories on this episode were produced by Carrie Hillman and edited by Amy Drozdovska and Michael Garofalo.
Special thanks to Maria Rose and Helen Wigger at WESA in Pittsburgh.
The StoryCorps podcast is produced by Max Youngrice.
Our senior producer is Jadesty Kendall.
Amy Drozdovska is our executive producer.
Our technical director is Jared Floyd.
I'm Jasmine Morris.
Thanks for listening.
Support for this podcast comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation
