David Francisco Platillero is a survivor. Young, handsome, healthy, and talented, he was living his dream when IT happened. Hit by a distracted driver while riding his bicycle, David was gravely injured and told he would never walk again... HA! His lion heart led him through the pain of his injuries, surgeries, and months of grueling therapy to the love of his life, Kristi. The two now walk together through life and feel like they can face any challenge it has to offer.
David has released a CD, and companion book, called LIONHEART; an inspiring story of love, forgiveness, and the power of music. He and his beautiful bride Kristi join me today to talk about their journey and their mission of empowering others to face their fears, even when all seems lost. Lionheart is also my February book club pick. Visit my Book Club at Delilah.com to learn more, and go to www.DavidFranciscoMusic.com to keep up with David's work! ~ Delilah
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Hello, my friend, welcome back. Have I got a sweet treat for you on today's episode? In this podcast, I talked to people, ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things in the hopes that their stories will resonate deep within you, will jostle something loose that you'll say, Hey, if they can do that, I can certainly use my gift to change the world. Whatever this is my guest today are going to blow you away. After hearing their story, you are going to realize that absolutely no obstacle, no challenge, no hardship, no fear is too mighty to overcome. David is a bright, talented, handsome young man, full of unbridled enthusiasm for life and the Lord. He's the kind of guy folks look at and think, dudes got it all. And David grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was an active kid. He loved music, He attended church, he played sports. He did well in school. He went off to college, graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, and then went to start his career. But soon realized music was what he was really excited about, and so, in one of his first courageous moves, he quit a job that was paying the bills and started teaching piano and guitar lessons and dabbling in music production out of a studio he built in his bedroom. And then a few years later, in April, back in sixteen, he did another courageous thing. He packed up and he moved to Nashville to attend the Blackbird Academy. He wanted to become the best music producer that he could possibly be. He got an apartment, he had a few belongings, he had a lot of enthusism as him, and he had a bicycle. Twenty three days after he started classes, it happened the unthinkable. David and his bride, Christie, who plays a very important role in their story, are with me today to talk about what true courage looks like, what true faith looks like. This is gonna be real, it's gonna be raw, it's gonna be powerful, and I know it's going to inspire your heart. Before we get into it, though, we need to first take a moment to thank my podcast sponsor, the Home Depot. I've been shopping at the Home Depot for longer than I care to admit, certainly longer than they've been a sponsor of this podcast or my radio program. I shot there because I find what I'm looking for in the garden department, in the paint department. When it's time for a new appliance in my home. It's my go to place and it has been for a long long time. Make the home depot your destination when you need something for your home. The home depot where doers get more done. Hi David, Hello Christie, thank you for being with us today. You have such an amazing story to tell. I've given the back story and I'm gonna let you take it from there. Tell us what happened less than a month after making that big move. Yes, I had been biking through Nashville, loving it, and I get to the last intersection to my house and I got t boned at about thirty five by Volvo. Smashed into the windshield, My head smashed against the top of the car. Fortunately, think the lord I had a helmet on. Okay, stop right there, Stop right there. Kids, young people, if you are listening, especially my young people, when Mama Bear says where you're dang helmet? This is why, this is why, what would have happened had you not listen to your Mama Bear and didn't have your helmet on. Oh, I wouldn't be alive. And it's crazy. Actually, there's a story behind the helmet that I'll share briefly. Um, I actually didn't have it in Nashville. I had forgotten it, um, and it was in my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. But just three days before the crash, I was at home, driving away from my parents house forgetting it again, and the thought just popped in my head. I call it whatever you want, but I think it was the voice of God, and it just said, go get the helmet. I turned around and I got the helmet. And then literally three days later I was in this crash that without the helmet I would have probably died. So did the driver just not see the red light? So what actually happened was she was a a heavy drug user at the time. We don't know if she was on drugs when she was driving, but she was hearing voices in her head off of her bipolar medication, not in the right state of mind, and so um, really she she just said it came out of nowhere and and it was a bad choice on her part to drive that day. So you were hit head into the windshield and then what happened. I actually don't remember anything from the crash. This is all just what's been told to me. But my body apparently went a hundred feet is what I was told. Um. I was unconscious, bleeding out from my arm, which had smashed the windshield, and um, some people came over prayed over me. Um, and I started coming to a little bit after someone put a tourniquet on my arm made out of someone else's belt. God's angels just coming around and yeah, so somebody at the scene of the accident had the good sense to say, oh my gosh, he kind of madejor artery. It looks like he's bleeding out. Ironically, it was a Jimmy John's driver stops the car, leaves the sandwiches in the back and just comes over. Turns out she's going to medical school the next fall, and so she yeah, she knew exactly what to do. Saves me from a blood transfusion, if not just bleeding out. I got to meet her later and it was what's the name of this hero, Let's give her and Jimmy John's a shout out, Yeah, Cecily Hummer, and we still keep in touch. So Cecily and Angel Sin at the right place at the right time. Yeah, all right, so now you're you're awake. No, I don't really remember being awake. I'm I am starting to say I can't move, I can't feel my legs. I can't move my legs. Um. My first memory actually is after they had already taken me from the scene to the hospital and and I wake up in the hospital and I I realized my parents were there. I didn't realize they had driven three hours from Knoxville to get there, so it must have been a while. And I asked, why are my legs off the bed? And uh, and they said, well, your legs are on the bed. And I was like, what do you mean? And I looked down and there's my legs sitting on the bed, but I couldn't feel them. And then I tried to move them and I couldn't move them. And then the first moment I really knew something was wrong. And it turns out that I had had a spinal cord injury, which basically means you can't control anything or feel anything from below the point of impact, and mine was at the l one level, which is mid lower back, so everything below that point basically has no more function. And that was definitely the worst of my injuries that day. And do you remember what went through your head at that moment. I'm pretty sure I said something like, I guess life is going to be different. But honestly, it can't really hit you a trauma like that. I was on pain medication and had a severe concussion, and so I don't think it really hit me in that moment. But over the next few days and weeks and turned into months, actually, I really kept learning the new implications of what it was going to mean for my life. And what did the doctors tell you when you were finally healed enough and coherent enough to hear what they had to say. The prognosis after an m R I was, it's so bad, it's a complete injury. He's never gonna walk again. Neurological recovery is unlikely, is what they said. So they actually waited until the next morning to do the surgery to put eight screws and two rods into my back. Maybe the next day is when they told me it's a complete injury. People don't really walk after this. That had to be the hardest, scariest, most painful thing. Any young man, any person could hear, any mama could hear. Was your mom with you when they were sharing this? Well, yes, I mean I was going through a lot of pain. But the first few days were probably the hardest for my family. UM, My mom and dad immediately drove to Nashville when they heard. They got a call from my cell phone, but it was a lady at the scene of the crash that said I would come if I was you, which, if you can imagine getting that phone call, Hey, Daves, is what my mom said. And then it's this lady's voice, and she said it was the worst call you could get. But as I started processing it, yeah, I I grieved. I probably cried every day for the first four months just because of how much loss I was experiencing and it was just overwhelming. So how many months were you in the hospital just learning how to set up and manage the pain? So a total of eight months in the hospital, and the first I would say three months were full time nurses taking care of me, learning how to live, learning how to get out of bed, learning how to get dressed, learning how to shower. It's actually really hard um at first, because you you've got too deadweights attached to your hips and you got to pull them around and they literally don't move. But at of the first two months or so of of being full time nurse is taking care of me being in the hospital, I started becoming pretty independent, and then I eventually started seeing some movement, which was really amazing. Okay, stop right there, because because this is this is big, this is huge, right. It's funny, actually I was. I was on the phone with a friend one night in the hospital, in the like the hospital bed with you know, the nurses still kind of taking care of me, and I'm always trying to move my legs but nothing ever happens. But they they've told me about this idea of neuroplasticity. If you think about sending the signal to your leg, it can possibly regenerate a pathway or find another way to get there. John was always thinking about it. And then on the phone one night with a friend, I'm looking down and thinking about moving my legs, and all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, is my foot moving? And I'm I literally told him like, dude, I think my foot's moving, and and it was so small that I all the nurse in just to confirm, and she was like, yeah, I think it's moving a little bit. And so then I called my parents and who were still literally living at the hospital, and they came in, and this is this is a month after the crash, so it's been a month of zero movement, and so when they came in, we all celebrated, even though obviously it wasn't walking. It was literally one twitch in one part of my lower extremities. We'll take a twitch, right, So that was amazing. It's our first little sign of hope. So as a musician, did you just feel like bursting into song at that moment? And brazen? God, here's where I ended up at a place where I turned off long term thoughts. He was so dark and depressing at the beginning. I had to say, I'm not going to think about a year from now. I'm not even going to think about six months from now. I'm gonna focus on today and what the therapists are asking me to do, and I'm gonna just do my best today. So when I saw the first movement, it was great, this happened, It's amazing. But I think that I was also focused on just every day let's keep working and see what happens. And how much longer after that did you? You said you were in the hospital eight months, so you you had to have stayed there quite a bit longer. Yeah, So it was a month and when I had the first movement, and then over the next few weeks, I really started seeing exponential growth, just movement in my right but a few days later, and then a few days later my hamstring could kind of flex, and they had said that there's spinal swelling that goes down. After about eight weeks, I just kept seeing recovery. And when I was in Nashville, I was going to the Audio School. We were thinking about going back, but because I was getting this movement, we decided to be better to actually stay at the Shepherd Center where I was doing my therapy and a program called Beyond Therapy. It's really more like athletic training than therapy. But but they had me the first week, and keep in mind I had a couple of things switching, but they had me on my knees, crawling like a baby. They had me actually on a bicycle with my legs kind of strapped into the pedals and zero resistance um and again all of this is because of the idea of neuroplasticity, the idea that you can possibly regenerate pathways, and so that's what we focused on. And I did that program for the next six months. So yeah, eight months total of therapy, and by the end of that I was actually walking on forearm crushes. Wow. Now where does the young woman sitting in the studio with you? Where does she enter the picture? Ah? She and there's one month before the crash. Actually, you want to tell about it, Christie. Yes. So I was actually in Nashville visiting friends for a wedding and one of the friends I was visiting he was playing in a show and it just so happened that David was also in the band that night, and we all just clicked and um hung out that night and they were just band members. So I actually never heard David sing, but he was such a light it was really uplifting. Um. So then I leave Nashville, I go back to California and I start listening to David's own music and it was so funny because I shared with all my friends and my family and my mom. Actually, after she listened to his album, she said, you need to find a guy that speaks the way that this guy sings. Wait, stop right there, Christie. I felt connected to David through his music, the fact that he's adorable. Oh yeah, his picture was on the CD I had. He was very cute. We had one moment that night at the at the show where she's like, do you ever put your hair in a man butt? And I'm like, yeah, sometimes I put it up, and we kind of looked at each other for just a little bit longer than I was like, no, got me. He can rock the man bun. Wow, thank you. Yeah, Yeah, you're so adorable. I listened to some of those songs and Christie, You're right, he does. He does speak to the heart of people. Okay, so you had met before the accident and then what happened. So then about a month and a half later was when the crash happened, and Gideon our mutual friends. He texts me saying, hey, can you pray for David. He's been in the crash, And my stomach just drops through the floor. And so I called Gideon and he updates me, and I remember that first night so vividly. We just were crying over the phone over David and you know, kind of a little angry at the situation about why him, Like he's such a good person, why does this have to be his fate? And uh, and then I remember thinking, wait a minute, I've met this guy one time. Why am I so affected by it? But it's not like he was one of my good friends or family members. But I think that was the push from God saying, no, you are meant to be connected to this human It's okay to feel so now I have to rewind for a second, because during the time of me listening to his music, I really wanted to reach out and tell him how much it was impacting me. And I knew he was moving to Nashville, so I was going to write a letter, a type of encouragement letter. However, I never wrote it because I felt like it had come off creepy or weird. Then the crash happened, and then I was regretful. Well, then I started having dreams about words and letters and reaching out to David, and uh, finally I woke up literally at five am in the morning, and I just wrote and I sent. I actually sent two letters. One had the theme of encouraging him in his music, and the other was just trying to encourage him in his new situation. Um, and so I think he received them well and we still have it, which is awesome. And what was your response. I was very encouraged and kind of um impressed with this amazing letter from this girl in California. We were kind of in our own spaces, but I would I would watch the social media videos that his parents would post, and Gideon would update me and whatnot. So basically, you were stalking him from California without letting him know that. Absolutely, okay, just just making sure I understand where you're at here. So I had a crazy dream that summer. Again, the first one is about the letters. The second one, I actually had a dream of David walking. And in the dream, David is walking down this path or aisle, and at the end of the aisle, he turns around and I'm at the other end of the aisle, and you can guess that it's a wedding. And I wake up the next day freaking out. I'm like, I just had not only a dream of David walking, but of me marrying David. I've talked to this guy one time, and then finally I get a message from David that he's coming out to California. We have so much more to cover. Let's take a breath and pause for this message. Okay, David, where did we leave off? So I'm coming to California. I first of all, I should just explain I had amazing support from friends, family, and even more than that, the music community. I was invited to the audio school, Blackbird Academy, on a full ride. If you can get back here, we'll build wheelchair ramps for him. Martina McBride and her husband John are actually the owners of the school, and they have an incredible program, an amazing place, and just shows you the kind of people they are over there. But all that to say, another piece of encouragement I got in the music community was from this show called Pintado's Place. It's a TV show on YouTube where they interview famous mixers and producers and engineers, the guys behind the scenes in the audio industry. And so one day the Blackbird Academy, Uh, some of our friends, they're actually sent out the video of one of the episodes, and I'm like, oh cool, I love the show. I wonder why they're sending this to me. So we start watching it and all of a sudden, they start talking about me on their show. Hey, send all your Pensatian powers to our friend David who was injured in this crash. Um, bro, We're with you, We're gonna support you. Blah blah blah. I was freaking out because like, these are my dudes that I've been watching for years and trying to learn how to mix through um. And then not only that, but then later they reached out directly to my dad and said, hey, we want to have David come out for our awards show in California. Four months after I've been paralyzed in this crash. I'm flying out still, you know, in a wheelchair pretty much full time, UM to California to go to this award show called the Pensado Awards. Well it was an amazing event, um, but I guess I should explain. When I landed, I'm like, l A, this is so exciting, this is so cool. Wait that chick who sent me that letter doesn't she live here? Wait a man, at hold on? I remember, yeah exactly. I hit her up on Facebook Messenger because I don't even have her number, And I say, yo, first of all, been me to thank you for about eternity and for for your letter, and second of all, I'm in l a are you around? It was so vague and so bad. I'm still embarrassed. Um. But and because you already had her at the man Bun, and because she's already dreamed the dream of your wedding. Instead of saying, what a rude jerk, You've gone all this time without answering, no, no, I'm not around, she said. Oh, I was ecstatic. But the ironic thing was, I was actually how of the country. I was in Guatemala on a missions trip. I was like out of all the time using California, I'm literally out of the country. However, we realized that I was going to get back late the night before he was going to leave, and so we literally had a few hours on a Sunday morning that I could go meet up for coffee. So there was a meet up. I was a little nervous because I haven't seen him since that concert back in March, when he was fully able bodied. I hadn't seen him in a wheelchair. I didn't know exactly how this was going to go. So he is rolling out of the hotel and I'm crossing the street and I kid you not, and he had that his hair in a main bun. My first thought was crap, I forgot how good looking he was even see the wheelchair. I just saw his face. But we hugged and she came in and we just caught up like old friends. It really felt it was crazy, yeah, like and so it was great until my dad started inserting himself into the conversation and ends up it's her and my dad talking and I'm like, what is going on here? I'm trying to talk to the girl, and my dad is jack the conversation right away from you in the conversation. So um. So it's funny now that we look back, because he actually did turn out to be a wing man and invited her to a festival in San Diego that we were going to the next month. So anyway, a month goes by, but I was in the friend zone, she was in the resident So we go to this music festival and it was pretty pivotal in our friendship. I would say, uh everyone. For me, first of all, my eyes were open to the world of the handicapped because I would help push David in his wheelchair, and all of a sudden everything was an obstacle. Course, so it just really humbled me. And now I'm I'm very much hyper aware, and I'm glad for that lesson that I learned. And of course we get to know each other. And one time, luckily David's dad, he snuck away, but he came back and took pictures of us behind our backs. Dad's good. Yeah, he believe when he has a vision for something, he makes it happen. So Dad had already started naming the grandkids. He literally texted his wife, Mitsy, my mother in law, a picture of us, and said, I think this is David's future wife, Like he knew at that moment. So David, everybody's kind of a step ahead of you. It sounds like, yeah, basically, David, you didn't stand a chance. Yeah. So I said something like I really like you and I look forward to seeing where this goes, because I didn't know what else to say. Really, It's like, I want to tell her that I like her, but I also don't know what's next. We started writing letters back and forth. So a month goes by from after this correspondence, so I actually go out to visit him in Nashville and we go to the place where we're gonna stay, and David's kind of like weirdly excited about I don't know, and I just was like, oh, yeah, he's excited that I'm here. But we get to the airbnb and he finally says, oh, I would love to play music for you, and I I'm like, heck yes, And then finally he says, well, I should warn you this song is about you. And then I was like, what one of my favorite songs actually, and you can go here it on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, all the things. It's called She makes you want to sing? And I played it for her. She was like so joyful, just smiling, beaming the whole time. And you can imagine I was a girl who fell in love with his music months ago and then here I am listening to this guy playing a song about me. So that's when we both kind of knew, okay, like this is definitely something. And you know, by the end of that trip, I literally dropped her off at the airport and cried the entire thirty minute drive home, just thankful to God. Honestly, like that he redeemed relationships when I thought there was no hope, And you know, David will tell people about the redemption parts of his story, and one of them is the love and the relationships. One of him, obviously is his physical journey and the journey back to music. But then there's also the driver and her redemptive story that we might be able to get to too. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me. Because you shared that she was an active addict, dabbling mental illness, probably self medicating, yep was was so depressed after the crash that she actually overdosed, trying to kill herself and woke up in the hospital kind of like I woke up in the hospital, UM with a second chance and said I gotta do something about this. UM. So she actually ended up going to a halfway house, becoming clean, facing our fears. UM. But what's crazy is UM and a lot of people, I guess tell me this is crazy. It felt natural to me, is when I woke up and they told me what happened. I was concerned for her. I was wondering, is she going to be okay? If if I had done that to someone unintentionally, I would be devastated. So tell her that I'll be all right, Tell her that I forgive her. Tell her that I'm going to get through this, so it's okay. Um, and that was yeah, I think really powerful for her. Wow. Yeah, so you you fall in love, you decide to spend your life together, and then there is the proposal. Yea, the proposal. I knew. I wanted to try to surprise her and uh don't know how it was going to happen, But when we were going to Tennessee, we ended up going kayaking this one day. Um. Secretly, I had taken her to coffee earlier that day and my family had decorated this peninsula and her family, who her parents, were in town. My parents were in town because David had just graduated from the Blackbird Academy program. So it's natural that everyone was there. So I didn't think anything of it that both of the families are there, I should be suspicious. No, we're just celebrating David, so continue. So So anyway, I took her to coffee while they decorated the peninsula, and then we end up um saying all right, we're gonna go kayaking, which was Christie's idea, which made it super easy. So we go kayaking, and all of a sudden, we're going by the peninsula and I'm like, there's lights on the ground. I'm like, check that out. That's interesting, and my first spot. I don't know why, it goes to, oh my gosh, what weird people are having a seance in the forest always be and I'm not out. I didn't really scared. I'm like, keep paddling, keep paddling. What I thought? And David's like, no, there's no you should go check it out. And I'm like, she's seriously going to miss her proposal because she's scared of lights in a forest. So then he finally convinced me to go over there. He's like, this is where I used to play as a kid. I want to show it to you, and so I'm like okay. So we get closer and there's conveniently this woulden ramp because David is still pretty weak, and so he was able to kind of toss himself on the ramp and go up. Later, I found out that neighborhood boy and David's dad built that ramp just for the proposal because they knew David would need help to get out of it. But yeah, it was. It was awesome. So then we get off of the ramp, and we start walking on this little peninsula. But then I see rose pedals and more lights on the ground and I'm like what, and David I'm like yeah. I'm like, wow, this looks like it was made for two people who are madly and left. And then she's like what, and I'm like, this looks like it was made for us. And then I'm not even kidding you. For the next four hours, it seemed like I wept. I was beside myself with happy emotional tears. And we walked down the peninsula and there's this beautiful heart made out of tool and a bench with the roads and the ringbox, and I'm weeping and we sit on the bench and then David was able to transfer from the bench to his knee to propose, which I found out later the bench was my mom's idea because he was thinking I'll just fall to the ground. And so then he proposes, and I say, yes, yes, yes, this freaking out. This whole videos on YouTube, but yes, and you'll hear me crying. I found my way to you becau as of that video. That is how I found my way to you too. Well. After he proposed, then I hear a lad explosion and fireworks are going off in the middle of the lake. And I love fireworks. I've always loved fireworks. I work at Disney now, that's where I dance, and you know there's fireworks there. So it's just something that he knew that I liked. And so the kid that had also helped at the ramp had also been secretly in the lake on a paddle boat and at the right queue, I guess he jumped into the water and set off the fireworks that were on the paddle boat from the water, like these people are committed. And so then the fireworks go off, and then John boats everyone else over, including David's nine year old grandma, who was just a matriarch, and she says this beautiful prayer over us. And the best part was when David's mom and David's best friend emerged from the wood. It's in camouflage. They had been taking video and pictures the whole time, and I was like, oh my gosh, that's awesome. And then he moved out to California. When we planned the wedding and got married February two thousand eighteen, we're meant to be a team, and we found purpose together so well that and and the man Bun Yes, and the man Bun started with the man bun. So, so what is God doing since since the proposal, since the wedding, with the music, with your your producing? Where are you guys at today? And you know, the whole purpose of this podcast is to inspire other people to find that gift that they have inside and use it to change the world for good. The things that have come from this tragedy just keep getting crazier and crazier. I actually um wrote the book Lion Heart, which we kind of mentioned earlier, and and an album that goes with it about the whole journey. Um I had started writing songs a month or two into the crash, and she kept writing songs and they all kind of had to do with the journey I had been on, and so an album pretty quickly emerged. And then one day a friend told me, hey, you should write a book, and I was like, you know what, Like normally I would just laugh and be like whatever, and you know, you move on, but I actually stayed on that for a little bit and I was like, you know what, I think I'm going to And it took a year or two, but finally I finished, and we got editors to actually make me sound coherent. And it's called called Lion Heart, An Inspiring Story of Love, Forgiveness, and the Power of Music by David Francisco. So each chapter of the book is a song title, and I was able to structure in a way to where if you read the chapter and then you listen to the song, you'll have more kind of insight into how I wrote it and why, and so I think it will be a really interesting experience for the reader. But not only that, I mean another crazy piece that's come into this whole thing to give me purpose it is I've actually started speaking to high schoolers about distracted driving and I share my story. I get to play music, and I go around the country now and I and I share it and the kids just love it. It's it's amazing how many positive responses I've gotten from them, And it really feels like I've found something that's really it aligns all of my different passions into one thing where I get to communicate through music and words and and get to connect with people all over and so that's another really cool development. Um So these days life looks like working on the book and the album, finishing up the stuff for that, and then going on these little week long trips to different schools around the country and for you, Christie. So I actually get to travel with David quite a bit, which is wonderful. We get to sing together, and I'll share part of the story as well. I'm so proud of you, guys. I'm so happy for you, Thank you, thank you so much. Well, good luck and God bless you. From the day of the crash, with David keeping his faith through therapy and complications, then embracing the belief that love is what keeps us alive, marrying his soul mate Christie thanks to his wingman Dad, all these things pointing to the future, a future focused on music and redemption. David's book was born. Lion Heart, just released befittingly on Valentine's Day February. It just so happens that Lion Heart is also my book Club Pick of the Month for February. You can find out more about that at Delilah dot com. Lion Heart is a movement with the aim of empowering people to find purpose in their transit. Go to David's website, David Francisco Music dot com David Francisco, f R A, n C I, s c O, and order the book and the music CD. I promise you'll find nothing more impactful, inspiring and downright entertaining out there. Thank you for coming along in this journey today with us. Join me on the next episode of Lumsomeone with Delilah