Alive Again
Alive Again
That which doesn’t kill us… Hosted by award-winning filmmaker Dan Bush, Alive Again is a weekly series featuring extraordinary stories from people who faced death—and came back changed. From near-death experiences to near-fatal accidents and moments of profound crisis, each episode dives into the transformation that happens on the other side of survival. Told in their own words, these first-hand…Social links:
Follow the podcast:
34 | Surviving the Boxing Day Tsunami
On the day after Christmas, Dwayne Meadows was packing for a beach day in Thailand when a distant “white line” on the sea became a wall of water. Swept through his bungalow and into a churning maze of debris, he fought to breathe, said goodbye to his six-year-old son in his mind, and surfaced into …
49:22
33 | Born Astride a Grave
Aileen Loy grew up inside a storm—descended from indentured laborers, raised in a rigid, often violent household, and taught to keep the family together at any cost. At 13, she watched a Halloween car crash fling her four-month-older nephew through a windshield; the year before, a beloved brother h…
41:04
32 | No Soul Left Behind
“We've taken huge steps backwards in the last few years with warfare and with violence and with disregarding the rights of human beings. It's time to reverse that and start acknowledging this much deeper lesson that's coming to the fore about the nature of our existence, how we're really all in thi…
1:24:59
31 | The Death of Craving
Content note: This episode includes strong language, discussion of opioid/heroin and crack use, overdose, stroke, withdrawal, arrest/incarceration, and suicidal hopelessness. Listener discretion advised. At 27, Scott Jenkins woke up thrashing in a bathtub—his left arm dead, his vision blown out…
58:24
30 | Strong In A Different Way
At 17, Nicholas Tecosky, one of our Alive Again story producers, slipped on a rock face above Gem Lake and nearly fell thirty feet to his death—then spent hours lost on the wrong side of the mountain. The brush with mortality was followed by years of anxiety, alcohol, and a brutal run at creative s…
59:14
29 | Living Is Forgiving
Trigger warning: This episode contains a frank discussion of sexual molestation and drug overdose. Listener discretion advised. After a lifetime of compounded trauma—childhood sexual abuse, relentless bullying, chronic illness, and consequently a two-decade opiate dependency—Brandon Densmore overd…
47:29
28 | Bulletproof Love
Trigger warning: Discussion and images of gun violence. At 33, championship-level ultimate player and teacher Eileen Murray started coughing up blood—then spent a year being dismissed by doctors before hearing the word no one wants: lymphoma. Six months of chemo followed, buoyed by a community she…
36:25
27 | No One Makes It On Their Own
On a dangerous Australian beach, actor Frankie Mulinix was swept down the coast by a powerful undertow, slammed against rocks, and pulled under again and again. Time telescoped; panic rose; then came a stark clarity—“I’m done… I made peace with it.” At the very moment of surrender, a stranger haule…
25:58
26 | The Countdown Clock
When Maggie Slepian flipped her kayak on Montana’s Gallatin River, she found herself trapped underwater, fighting to escape a spray skirt she had never practiced removing. In those harrowing moments, she felt time slow down, her thoughts split between terror, sorrow, and love for her family as she …
45:53
25 | Unfortunate Brain News
What happens when the part of you that defines your identity begins to fail? Dana Swanson was a rising creative force—an award-winning writer-producer at Adult Swim, a voice actor, a musical performer, and a self-proclaimed comedy nerd on the brink of big things. But in 2012, her world unraveled w…
53:18