THE CLINKFrom the heartbreak of losing his father at a young age to surviving a near-fatal skydiving accident, Lucch’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary. In this gripping episode of The Clink, he opens up about transforming tragedy into fuel for living a fearless, purpose-driven life. Lucch shares how embracing vulnerability and confronting past pain helped him build resilience and pursue a lasting legacy. His story is a powerful reminder that life’s challenges can become the foundation for personal growth.
Tune in for a conversation that will inspire you to face your fears and live fully.
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Welcome back to the Clink and part two of Brand's chat with Mark Luciari. In this episode, we hear more of Mark's fighting career and a moment in the sky that inspired a new documentary.
Looking at who you are, and you know what you bring to the table today and you know it's it's a beautiful thing. You know, you're dedicated, committed, you really want change and want to help people through being here today opening up as you know, like I said, I know you're a bit of a private man, so it is very much an honor to have you sit down and have this conversation.
And I know that you've been doing.
A couple of other podcasts of late with great reason, which we're definitely going to touch on, but I wanted ours to be different to the others.
You know, I feel that I can have a little bit more of.
A personal chat with you as a post yeah definitely podcast and that makes me very proud. So I want to say thank you for allowing me that space and allowing me to, yeah, a touch on some things that you probably haven't spoken about. You come back to Australia, you get asked to jump into a what was it, the tough tough man.
Tough man, I actually retired, That's what I mean.
You talk about a tough man, and this is my point. You know, you've gone from the commitment and the dedication to training and supporting and in your absolute peak. And mate, just just for the record, what were what were the awards, accolades and belts prior to.
Just two Aussie titles? World beater or whatever, But yeah, beat a lot of world never won a world title and beat a lot of world champions, and mate, just I don't I think I was an entertaining fighter and that's what was the best for me. You know, Like my win loss record is not far apart, you know. I remember it's like thirty wins or twenty eight wins and fourteen losses and of that, so not that far apart, you know, But I think I was just an entertaining fighter. I fought with my freaking heart on my sleeve, and I think my accolte ad mainly with fighting was fighting pure, like pure, just being a fighter entertainer. That's what I love that. The belts here are amazing and everything like that. But you know, and then obviously the was a tough Man title. Was was incredible to just to do finish, finish on top doesn't happen very often.
Can you give that just because a lot of people aren't going to understand exactly what we mean here? Do you want to just you've lived, I don't want to talk about it. Can you just give it a touch on exactly how that worked?
That was a tough Man. It was sixteen men got invited to fight. It was it was all styles as well as like mma boxing. You can be a street fighter, more tie whatever, kickboxing, but sixteen of the best guys in Australia got invited into it. And you literally pick a name out of a hat and it's around Robin for the night and the way you go and you know you end up if you keep winning, you end up having four fights in the one night. And yeah, it was I hadn't thought. I hadn't fought in Queensland for a long time, on being overseas and fighting around Australia, so I hadn't been back for quite a while. And it was that i'd retired already.
You know.
It wasn't a bad check either.
It was that's why I came out of it and did it. You know, Hell was struggling a time for money, and I actually retired on the way back from Thailand and my wife said I've had enough. She's like, I'm done, and I'm sick of your diet and sicking. If you've been grumpy because you are sicking, you're being selfish.
You've lived it.
Yeah, And like I said, I wasn't the most skillful, so I just trained hard. I just love training and pushing myself. So I trained way more than anyone else would, just because I loved it. I love punishing myself that way, you know. And she was like, I'm done. I just want my husband back, you know. And so yeah, I'm retired. I've been retired for a year. I hadn't even hit pads or done anything. Really. My son at the time two keys he went back to We just got back to Australia. He's playing footy as I'm going to do a year of footing have a year off fighting as well. Yeah, yeah, be a kid again, because you know he was only fifteen at the time, so there we expected to win days a week. Man, mates back here were all partying and going to you know, the year ten prom or whatever it is and all that stuff. And he's there training, you know, six days a week. So you got to come back and be a bit of a you know that. And yeah it was a tough man. I've seen it, and I was like, I win this. I'm like, like, if it's the whole night of fighting, I know I'll be fitter and stronger and more mentally ready than anyone in this.
You know, I just knew were fucking monsters like you were. You were you're not small as in small, but you're talking about heavyweight fight like it was an open category?
Was I was? I was under eighty kilos?
Still you went, Actually you went both, didn't you find?
I fought in I thought the under eighty yeah eighty and yeah, you know, like a triple D who was my mentor and got me into muay Thai. He was in my Division, Frank Georgie, Daniel Bella Saga. There was like absolute there was not no one thought I was going to win it. Everyone, you know, but I knew I was Gonn.
I've seen your name on it. I remember it clearly. Yeah, I remember messaging actually and just go fucking yeah loose.
You know, I just knew. I was just knew i'd win it. I said, I knew I've trained harder than anyone, and at that stage, I'd been retired for a year. I've been living in Thailand fighting over there. I've matured as a fighter. Like I lost a few fights because I'd see blood and you know, and try to finish the guy. I was composed, and I just knew I could fight smart and did and it just was a really nice way to finish off. And you know, winning that I think. You know, nearly every one of my friends came obviously been on the Gold Coast my whole life. There's a lot of people there. It was just you can't It was like a fairy tale finish that you dream of, and luckily enough I had it, and I'm content with my fighting career. It is a hard thing because I know a lot of my friends you know, lost their last fight or two fights whatever, and usually just that's just how it goes as a fighter. You keep going until you're is it ever enough?
And then then you get to a point where you go, well, you know, far out after.
So yeah, I'm I'm blessed man, blessed and just lucky that I did finish on top. And then I'm content with it. You know. They asked me to go back the next year, and I was like, like, much as I would have loved to have gone back and forward again and defended the tough Man title, I was like, you go back and you lose and then and then you chase.
The glories, finished the top.
I was lucky to because I had other sports. I had my family to concentrate on, which was amazing because you do spend a lot of time away from your family as a fighter. My other sports skydiving and surfing and rock climbing. Again, like, I had those outlets, and they were they were very similar in the way of what I was addicted to with fighting and pushing myself, push getting out of my out of the comfort zone, pushing my boundaries, like climbing does that, skydiving does that. Surfing, surfing, big waves, just surfing.
You know, well, it's all adrenaline, isn't it, And that it.
Is all adrenaline, it's all it's all adrenaline. But it's also beating yourself. Like it's also beating yourself, you know, when you're climbing and you're climbing above the you know, above your protection. It's you're like, so you're self doubt. You got self doubt in yourself, and I love proving myself wrong. Like you know, we all have self doubt, and I love beating myself doubt. I'm addicted to, you know, having doubted myself and then getting past that, you know, and that's what fighting does. Like when you're about to go into the ring, you're like, you're doubting, you're did I train hard enough? Am I fit enough? This guy's better than me? You know, you're literally fighting yourself before you're fighting your opponent.
And you can sometimes lose the fight in your own head before you even.
Get over the ring. Sometimes nearly every time, you know, like you literally most fighters go into the ring they've already lost, you know, they've beaten themselves. But then you kind of start overcoming it. That's the beauty about it. Like I had fights where I one first round knockout, and then I had fights that I won in the fifth round or one on points and I'd been knocked down in the I was losing the fight, you know, and come back and one and those ones the ones that you get the most satisfaction out of, you know, the overcoming the hardships, I guess of the fight where yeah, it's all nice to go out and knock a dude out first round and not even get a sweat up or be touched, you know, but get at the end of the fight not hardly being able to walk, You're banged up, You're losing for half the legs. That's what LIFs about. And that's what the That's what also it is.
And that that moving forward.
That's something that I think is so valuable in the lesson here today is you know, your resilience to life.
You move into another phase. Man, so many phases of life, it really is.
You know, I look at you in the face and I'm thinking before I speak, because you are like a ladder and there's so much value in each level of that ladder that you've climbed, and that is so inspiring to be able to be in the presence of someone like that, because we all do amazing. Everybody's got a great story if you've got the time to sit down and listen. And unfortunately the world doesn't allow us. Well, we choose to, I guess, be selective about who we do and don't want to hear from. Yeah, we don't even know sometimes the lessons that we could learn from people. And there is so much value out there and everybody's journey.
Everyone has value.
Your journey is here today and I think that, you know, so many will be able to take something from it.
You mentioned that.
Then you you're rock climbing, your skydiving, you're obviously starting to age a bit more in a graceful way, but mentally immaturity. You know, the body's obviously taking a little bit of a toll. But here you are climbing cliff faces and you know, like really pushing the limits.
And I do remember seeing, you know, I guess little.
Snippets of you're just doing these little under ledge sort of climbs and with the fam and these little mats down you're all supporting each other, and.
You look at it and you go fuck it's like any six ten foot tall. It's not that big, but.
It's the whole technique and the mindset and the thinking and being able to just hold yourself there. And I've never done it, and I shouldn't say I don't think I couldn't do it, because you can do anything you do, So that that's I'm going to contradict.
Yeah, I have to, because well, look, I self doubt you all haven't.
Across Australia, you know, like I put myself out and I have run doubted me and I was like, fuck you.
I self doubt Percy. You doubt yourself, and.
So I've probably got to. Now I've lost a bit of weight.
I'm going to try it for you. You are an extremist. There's no other way of putting it, and that's being polite. You're fucking off tap. You surrounded yourself with some off tap people, worldly known off tap people.
How did that evolve?
And certain persons and you're free to, you know, if you want to touch on some of the wonderful people you've had come into your life.
But these people are people that do.
Just mind blowing things, whether through murder, cross or like you say, your skydiving buddies, like, wow, you've got some really tapped humans that do some crazy things.
Oh wow, what a beautiful man.
But you are who you surround yourself with, you know. Yes, if you're sitting there with your mates that like, and I was there with the boys, we're all smoking bombs in the back room. You know, you're not going anywhere. You know, like, you are who you surround yourself with.
You want to be on the plate twenty four to seven. Then the bag's going ding ding ding.
Yeah.
All you're going to hear is ding in a bag.
Yeah exactly.
Man.
It just keeps looping around that, you know. And just yeah, by being in the sports I think, you know, then meeting these people, seeing the guys that were better than me, How did.
You become in?
How did you connect with these people though? Because these are elite people that you've been surrounded by and that you once again, I won't say it's become a pet. I think more mentoring, mental mentoring and just being able.
To shift people's mindsets. Yeah, is your gift?
How did you become drawn and a part of these communities?
Just the fucking universe? Man brings it together, Like I said, being like I think being myself, those people wanted to train with me, especially when I was you know, fighting, and a lot of the athletes, you know, Harry Bink, motocross and all the different sports, extreme sports, they just wanted to get fit and train hard. I was training and they wanted to train. Was very organic, very very very organic. Just the Gold Coast, we're blessed on the Gold Coast. We have some of the best athletes in the world.
So we walked past them every day of the way.
Wouldn't even realize you could be for a war gone past somebody, Oh well there's so and so. It's just every day. That's how we are.
Here, you know. And just by being in the wakeboarding getting to that level, then having all the like, we're very lucky Australia had some of the best wakeboarders in the world, you know, and then moving into fighting, same with that, and then the same with the skydiving. It's just we're very, very lucky the Gold Coast, the Queensland and the Gold Coast has and Australia's self, we have some of the best athletes in the world. And a lot of the sports I do choose are quite probably it's niche, not like you know, footy or whatever it is.
There's only a small number of these amazing humans that are performing or you know, contributing to these sports. You're in there deep with a lot of these people. How does one get themselves you know, in and amongst that sort of scene, because obviously you're a unique human.
Like I said, I can't even I don't even know the answer to it. It's just unique attracts unique. I guess positive attracts positive, you know, like the really we've just come together and they were obviously the universe is bring brings us together to keep elevating each other, you know.
Which once again comes back to this is life. This is what you put out is when you're going to get.
Out exactly man to like it really is. You know, I maybe said something about before, but I'm not perfect, and I'm like, imperfection is perfection, Like what is fucking perfect? You know? Imperfection is perfection. I actually discovered that in a ceremony I did not long ago, a d MT ceremony and I.
Just had to go down this channel. In January, I'm doing.
It's changed my life. I've done five journeys and literally changed my Psychedelics changed my life. Let me become didn't change me, and let me become who I truly was man, you know, and let me I know who I am like and I fucking truly know who I am, you know. And that happened from psychedelics and allowed myself to open up and see who I truly am and accept that person.
You know, I'm enjoying microdosing at the moment, to be honest, and I don't talk about it. It's my but I'll put it out there. I'm enjoying the microdosing.
Man, It's cool.
It's what it's it's without going to Yeah, it's what's been provided to us by the universe, you know. And yeah, you know, like I said, I had this epiphany of you know, I always try, I always push myself, and I always I'm very hard on myself, very very hard on myself, you know. Always. I think it's it's a blessing and a curse of the drive, you know, like I've done that, I won that, or I got to that level, I could get better, or I'm not satisfied. I'm never satisfied, you know. I remember, like my first base jump base is the narliest sport in the world. You know, you're jumping off. My first one was off a cliff. You do a PCA where someone holds your pilot shoot and it actually pulls your main canopy out, So you jump and it pulls your main canopy off your back. And the reason you do that is so all you got to do is think about jumping off the cliff and presenting yourself, you know, to the air properly. You don't have to worry about throwing your parachute out, pitching it out. You know, it's a progression up until jumping off and then pitching parachute. And as soon as my canopy opened, you know, I was a my micro second of satisfaction and then it was just like I need to free fall now, I need to you know, like and I remember thinking that time. I was like, fuck, I've got a problem. Like it's like it's all like I said, it's a blessing and a fucking curse, that free for all word.
So as I said, I've had four jumps now, and everyone says, oh, how'd you go? I said, I fucking hate when the shoote gets pulled. The feeling of free falling and being totally at peace. I find it the most peaceful thing ever that this is right now out of my control. Yeah there's a shoot, yeah, whatever else, someone's gonna pull it. But hey, there's still that small percentage something could go wrong.
I'm loving this fall.
I'm loving this rush.
To me, that's where I'm addicted to, like want.
I want to fall and fall and fall and fall. Only you and others out there that have done it and do it beyond can I understand that. I sort of thought, fuck, is that a bit weird because I'm not scared to die? But I don't know whether it's a way of looking at it.
I just love that rush of the moment shoots pulled.
It's like, fucking, I've seen this view before me.
No legs a sword.
Once you learn the control of like the canopy right, a little bit more involved what you have said there, like no one should be scared of dying, like we're all going to die, Like it's just so never that's it, Like we're all going to die, Like, so we shouldn't be fearful about. What everyone should be scared of is not living life to the fullest. And that's what scares me is not, you know, living life to the fullest, not experiencing everything that I can, having regrets like being on my deathbed. You know, if I make it, and I'm going to I know, I know I will make it to be the last one left. I told my wife, I said, I'm going to be the last one left. I've nearly died that many times. I'm probably going to be all my friends are going everything, you know, and I don't want to have regrets. I don't want to say did I try that. I didn't try that because I was worried about something, or I was scared that it wasn't going to work out, or I was scared that I wasn't going to like it or something. I'm like, fuck that, Like I want to go to my grave knowing that I had done everything to the fullest. I tried everything, as you know, experienced everything I could possibly experience, being a good human along that path as well, you know, giving giving to this world as much of myself as I can, and hopefully, you know, just as simple as giving someone a smile down the street.
I said this in my post yesterday, and it means so much. And I did a little gratitude thing last night, I just wanted to thank everybody because I received so many just beautiful messages from strangers. People have this misconception that oh, you've got a platform or following, Oh that your mates.
You know, I fucking know ninety nine percent of the people on my thing.
But if you send me a message or a polite comment or something, I'm going to into I'm going to honor that. I'm going to come back to you. I'm going to interact with you and give you that respect because I appreciate you.
I'm grateful that you.
Took the time to write, whether it be a word, a little bit of something shared, even a moment of comparison, whatever it is, it's it's a beautiful thing and we should be grateful and we should say thank you.
Yeah, oh mate, yeah, one hundred percent. And humans a beautiful man. This is like we there's so much negative around and you see so much negative human interactions and activity, but we really are like you know the space something now in the charity space and just meeting and like people that like yourself, just wanting to do good. Like there's like it's fucking I don't know, it's such a nice feeling, man, you know that humans are amazing and we want to know.
Yeah, I think too, Mark, I think you know. And once again people probably saying he says all this time, but I want a drummed it into people's heads. The value of lived experience. It is so important. Yes, clinicians, and no, I don't say the word.
Right, so anyway, pull me apart, you know what I mean.
Professionals are needed in this world, but the actual contribution of people who have lived and experience survived come out moments like this, having these charts, delivering this to a beautiful audience out there that someone's going to go, well, I'm going to try. I'm going to take up on what Mark and Simmel were talking about, like it's just endless of.
What we can do to give and help others.
I do want to really hit on this because this is something that I'm getting the hairs on my arms stand up as you can see. I'm about I think you know where I'm going to head. I did say at the beginning, you know, with God's grace that basically you're still here.
You had a I don't.
Even know what you would call the experience, because how many people survive at one and two only you're here to tell that story. You've been able to put that with another wonderful native yours into a fantastic documentary. I'm looking forward to joining you on the fourteenth of December at the Hotel on the Gold Coast and I'll let you give a little bit more sort of in depth to that.
But this fuck, I'm tingling. I am, I really am. Mark.
I'll give you a spoiler survive so it's all good.
This is crazy. This is really really crazy.
So guys, you know, listen up real careful about how quick life.
Can be taken from me. Mark. Please can you share with us that day?
Thanks? Mate? But yeah, like we're just another day of jumping down Byron Bay. Everything's going good. It's the most beautiful bluebird day where we've been jumping all day, like with the boys, I think we've done six or seven jumps that day. Life as good as it gets, you know, the froth is high as and it was last jump of the day, a sunset jump, and like.
That run down Boomers don't say one morning, yeah mate, it's always the way that you like.
There's like we literally we're having an event in Barron Bay. There was a DJ set art plane on the in the landing area. Boys with the beers. Pizzas have been ordered. And this big last jump is like all the you know, the experienced jumpers jumping together on what we call a big way. There was seventeen of us on the jump. We all fly together in this format. We're doing an angle jump, which is like where we all fly together in this formation across the sky.
How many planes took yourself?
The one plane seventeen?
Is that that plane of boring?
Yeah, yeah, we're seventeen sitting on each other's head pretty much.
Yeah. Now, and then this and this is the whole part of how it happens is you know when when there's that many people in the plane, whenre's that many people leaving at the same time, because that's usually there's that many people in the plane, but you know that you two will go, three will go, four, will go greenlaw. Yeah, you've got to have separation, but we all jumping together us. We all need to get out as quick as we can. You also can't all be down the back of the plane because the plane will stall. So you're gonna have half the people up the front, half people down the back half.
People are outside and you're on your shuffling through, aren't you.
Yeah, yeah, you're all shuffling through. And then anyway, long story short, I was first diver of the second group. So I think there's like eight people in our group. I think nine in the group in the first group, and you. The first group obviously leaves and they leave before you, so they're a lot lower. So every person that comes out after that has to dive down to the group. And with skydiving, yeah, you can fall flat on your belly and you're falling out, you know, terminal veloscity, flat in your belly, whatever your body part you're presenting to the wind, you can fall slower and faster. So if you're flat, you're falling as slow as you can go. If you're on your head or standing up straight up, you're pin you know, Yeah, there's no resistance. You're falling very fast. So the last guy, which my buddy Benny was, he's got to jump out and dive down to the group as fast as he can. Usually the last jumpers are the most experienced jumpers. In this case was too, you know, like the best jumpers, I guess, And yeah, Bennie was just I was flying in my slot. I exited the plane and was in the in the jump, and yeah, Bennie just come through the group. He just mistimed everything and just made a mistake. Didn't realize we weren't going to be as far he thought were going to be a bit further away than we were. A lot of factors when he do it. I won't go too deep because you have to watch the documentary to get it, but yeah, he knocked He come through the group and hit me and knocked me out cold. First time I had actually ever been knocked out cold. I've lost a few fights from knockouts. But you know, being.
Speed, was he coming at you, he would have been doing It's hard to tell.
He probably would have. I was probably doing about two and twenty and he was probably doing three three twenty maybe, yeah, maybe a little bit more. Yeah, he come through, his knee, collide in the back of my head, so I'm knocked out. His legs exploded on the back of my head.
So he blew his knee completely out.
Yeah, like a hand grenade went off inside his knee. Oh and yeah, so he's actually, yeah, he's hit me. I've flung off like this. A couple of boys have seen it from the back of the group who were coming into the group as well, and they had seen the collision, seen me fall off, obviously in an unconscious position. They've dived down. Benny's had to pitch his parachute, so he's you know, he's opened up quite high from what we usually opened up, and all you can see is see me falling out of the sky.
So can I just sort of just to put it in perspective here? Because what how high was it?
I mean, I've only ever done ten thousand, so what's where were you guys?
So we left at fourteen thousand, right, and the collision would have happened at about ten thousand, eight thousand feet, Okay, So.
For me, I can understand that hadn't seen that level of Yeah, that's why I probably like a third of the jump, yep, you know, a long way to go down.
Still, yeah, still a long way. So I think he'd open his canopy by about eight thousand feet, so we must have he must have hit We hit each other probably about eight and a half nine thousand feet maybe. I think he opened about seven and a half eight thousand feet.
What's normal about five to.
Three and a half. We pitch our parachute for you guys, what about for us as for tandems? About five five?
Okay, that's yeah, that's what I thought. So you guys are just like banged.
Yeah, no, No, he's still a long time. You fall at terminal velocity. I think it's a thousand feet every ten seconds, So yeah, it's a long time, but it's also not a long time, you know. Yeah, And look, yeah, Benny All he sees me falling out of the sky in an obvious unconscious position, and he's under canopy with a smash leag and he he didn't see me open my canopy, so he actually thought he killed me, you know, and he had to fly himself back to the drop zone thinking this the whole time. This is all in the documentary. You know, he had some pretty horrible thoughts in the sky. He thought he'd just killed someone. You know, you're gonna make and.
What and not just someone a mate?
Yeah, mate, you know, we were actually we were acquaintances from the drop zone. We were friends because we see each other the drop zone, but we didn't know too much about each other at that time.
But when you're in that moment your family.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent on each of you to land together and for sure, Yeah, there's no.
Other way of looking at it.
And you know, look, Benny's job too. He's a paramedic, you know, so he's a caring person who you know, he's he's literally dedicated his life to helping humans, you know, and he thought he'd made a mistake that actually had cost someone, you know, their life. So you know he's going through that. And this is what the documentary is all about about, all these different sides of the story. That's what it's called impact. The noun of impact two objects colliding. The verb is effect, the effect that it has. You know, I'm falling out of this guy unconscious. Two of the boys are flying after me, like point break, trying to get to me. One of the boys nearly gets to me. I don't want to ruin the documentary. It nearly gets to me. No, I won't.
I won't.
And this is the thing I don't want, obviously that to be exposed, because there's something that we all need to see, because there's so much value in this documentary and it is an award winning documentary.
But I'm i want to try and slow.
It down just for a little minute. The speed that you're falling, you're unconscious.
Your buddies are.
Trying to work out a way of how they're going to stop you from dying. If you're not already exactly how do they then stop you from just exploding into the grounds.
There's like there's a lot of different factors that could happen. Yeah, wow, Luky one of the boys. The first thing he thought was to try and get to me. See what see what condition I was in?
So can they get to you and actually touch you in a safe way at that speed without depends.
Yeah, we've got so much control, Like, we really have so much control in the air when we're conscious. But I was, I was semi conscious, but I was like I was spinning on my back, I was flipping on my belly. I was I was coming too, but I was so rattled. I didn't like you can see me, I'm like grabbing my helmet. You see blood, blood span out of my helmet, looks like I tried to turn my camera on. At one stage, I half through my emergency procedures, you know, half like cut away. We have two emergency sieges and you cut away your maine, then you pull your reserve, and I cut away the main and you can see I'm literally passing the cutaway handle in front of my face, I think three or four times. So my mind must have been trying to figure out, like what's going on, you know, And all this time Luki's flown over it and he nearly gets to me. But when he come in, I'm spinning quite fast and it's quite dangerous for him to get spin.
That's what I was asking.
And then there's all these different factors. Is if what he was thinking of doing is getting to me and maybe pitching my parachute for me pulling it, yep, but then my parachute can open and we fly. Our main canopies are quite small and very high performance, where your reserve canopy is a lot bigger, it's a lot more docile. It's made to fly. Yeah, yeah, well our main canopies are like sports cars a yeah, yeah, you know. And if you're not doing any inputs, you're going to hit the ground. Ye're going to die anyway, because you have to do inputs to slow the canopy down enough to survive.
Which is why you learn the swooping and the diving sort of stuff.
You know, everything that happened worked out for the best because I obviously survived, but Lukey was very He couldn't get to me. He tried to and he tried to grab me, and I flip out of control, and then he had to pitch his parachute. He's we have safety devices, you know that tells you what heights you're going through. We haven't set at at a height that's we call our hard deck, which is like, that's the lowest suit we can go. You know, you need to get material out above your head. And so he's device's safety device is buzzing in his head telling him his needs to pitch. He had to pitch, and then I just keep falling out of the sky, and so he is like, I'm about to watch my mate die. We call it going in.
You know who'd just say this.
Yeah, he just sees me keep falling out of the sky. And by now, you know where you're seeing trees, We're getting close to the ground, and I'm still falling out out of you away from him, you know, obviously conscious but not in a state where I can save myself. And then we have this other little device some very smart people in the world. It's called an ad Yeah, you wouldn't be here there for sure, mate, for sure. Like I was going in they work, yeah, yeah, they do yeah yeah. And I was very annoyed at myself too after this, like I didn't save myself, you know, like I I struggled with it for quite a while. It's like I was going to die. I knew I was going to die for a bit there too, and I couldn't work out what to do. You know, I know, I know I was unconscious, but I really struggle with this for a bit. I was like, what a fucking idiot. I couldn't save myself. You know, I'm over it now, but for a while there, I.
Was like, do you think just because the amount of times you had, the skill level that you're at, and the constant reminding of the procedure of how to in these sort of cases to get yourself out of it, but you physically, do you think that that sort of was maybe a little.
Bit more to why it puts so much effort?
And I was in what I put I said I mentioned before, I put so much pressure on myself, you know, I was fucking having me bell rung. I was just being knocked out it, you know, like no wonder I couldn't save myself. But I was very hard on myself about it, you know, I was very down. And we we it becomes second nature. We I practiced my emergency prosiegures on the way up of the plane. We all do. We do it multiple multiple times, just we constantly are going through our procedures. And I was, yeah, I was annoyed at myself that I didn't do it. But anyway, this a device saves me meters from the ground. I cannot be opened. I land undernea power lines. I should have been dead. So many, so many different moments of the accident should have killed me, Like the initial hit should have killed me. You know. I could have landed on the power lines. I could have landed on power lines. I could have landed on the highway byron By there, could have been impaled by so many things, and just somehow I land on this one little tiny bit of green grass. You know. It was this farmer's front yard, like overgrown patch. It's nice beautiful, yeah, like well I think you just mom it it's just beautiful, you know. Yeah, And so it wasn't my time. And to really compound this is that I had a base jumping accident literally two months before this where I should have died as well, like I should have gone and I hit. I hit guidewise on a base charm I cannot be wrapped around it and ripped all the lines and I literallyly fell straight down like I somehow stood up and was like holy shit, like you know, how the hell do I survive?
That?
Miracle stuff just about And then this one two months later as well, And this is where I think where you wanted to go with everything is like the realization I had out of this is that it wasn't like an amen, I'm born again and all this, but it was like why the fuck am I here? Like what is important to me in life? Like why was I? Why was I spared? You know, I'm no one special, Like what have I? You know what? Why was I spared? And really got me thinking of what was important to me in life? You know, obviously family, living life to the fullest and all that stuff, But this is where I really realized what my purpose is and what makes me happy and what what every human should be after is helping each other out, being kind, and helping everyone else, and that's where give and get comes from.
I love you, bro, I love you, I really do.
Man. I'm just just.
I can't wait to see this big because I actually think there'll be a tears shed if you're not human and don't feel the connection of what you're saying and then visually be able to see this like I'm tingling just sitting here talking about and you've only just touched on and I respectfully understand that because there is so much more to be seen.
And we will savor that, but I just.
Wanted to clearly touch on that, like, yeah, just like I'm a very small part of this film. Benny who ran into me is the is the star. Yeah, he is the man. You know, this guy made a mistake that anyone can make, you know, humans making some mistakes. But he's come out and he's openly admitted it to the public. You know, it's you can imagine the things going through his head, you know, embarrassment. He's one of the world's best skydivers. He classed himself as a very good skydiver and he was he is, you know, and just made a mistake. And for a human, especially a man, to come out and admit that and tell his side of the story of it to help other people. Is just I'm just the I'm just the guy. I've just got a cool story out of it, you know, I just got you.
Know, no means in Ireland.
As I always say, it takes.
Between the two of yous.
Yeah.
Like, and I hear what you're saying. Once again, that's you just being humble in my eyes. But I think a big shout out to Betty, because mate, wow, what a beautiful human, what an amazing man. And I wanted just to ask have you shared a jump together?
Since you must watch the documentary?
I get that one.
You wave the bells?
Oh mate, look, you know.
You have to watch the film. A lot that a lot of that. Yeah.
Well listen, guys, if you're on the Gold Coast on the fourteenth of December, come and join us at the hotel on the Gold Coast mark tell us about the details where they can find it.
Yeah, so you can get tickets off the hotel website. If you just go on the HODE website search up Impact, it will come up. But Impact doco dot com is our website and you can buy tickets on there as well, there's the trailer. There's a whole spell on there obviously about who we are, what we are, what we're doing.
And just quickly, what are you doing now? What is it that you want to achieve? Because that was the other side of me wanting to be here with you today. I'm a massive advocate for mental health, especially in the men's mental health space, and of course across men and women. But I have been actively involved in a lot over the last twelve thirteen years physically, and I love it. I love seeing people come out of the holes. I'm a man that lives in some of those holes. It's not easy.
We need holes, we need holes, and we need great people to.
Be able to put their hand down and actually.
Pull you back up.
And you guys are really moving into a space where that's what you want to try and achieve, is helping kicking that person up. So can we just before we leave this beautiful conversation today, can we just.
Touch on Yeah, Well, that's I'm glad you said that, mate, because that's what the film's not about. The accident. The accident is. It's not about me. It's not about the accident. It's about men's opening the conversation men's mental health. It's about Benny, you know, going into a very dark place. You know, the injury took years to overcome. It's been four year. He's got a lifelong injury, you know, a lifelong disability. It's not a critical disability, but he's got disability out of it. But just him coming to grips with changing his life's changed forever, you know. And he speaks about men's mental health and about getting to that dark place of wanting to end at all and how to overcome that and how friendship resilience and you know, our friendship helped him overcome that. And that's what it's about starting that conversation and men's mental health because I find that so important, Like I hit it for years that I struggled, you know, and I felt that I was weak if I I spoke about it, you know, but that's so not true. You know, where life's fucking tough, but we've also got a lot of tough people around to help us get through it. And life is also very fucking beautiful. And that's what we want to show on this story is yeah, to times get tough, but you know you'll see at the end of how beautiful life really is.
I'm honored.
I'm feeling very elevated, and just being in your presence today, Lurch, is a blessing. I thank you for making the effort to come on the clink, and I truly hope that everybody out there has really found something beautiful in Mark's story. I just want to ask you just for our toolbox, because you are the last of the season and you did leave a valuable message in your story. I'd like one more valuable tool that you can leave for our listeners. Being the last of the season. What is something that you would suggest to somebody in life right now that needs to just have to be able to follow that dream, follow that passion, believe in themselves and not be feeling like they're being a burden or held back.
What would you give them?
Mate? You said the word in there, believe in yourself. I knew I was going to do well in life. I knew something was gonna happen, but I thought I was gonna lie. I thought I was gonna win lotto or something like that. You know I'm destined, Yeah, I'm destined to win lotto. You know the thing, we are fucking lotto. We each individually. You are lotto. Believe in yourself, push through those doubts, try everything you know. Fuck the nay says you are the lotto, like we are all so capable of more than we could ever imagine, you know, and every individual person is so Just believe in yourself and and you know, reach your potential because we're all so amazing. You know it's there.
Has The shirt says, brother, be the best. You can be better every day and it's something that I live by and I am bet in my children and try to share.
With those around me. Thank you so much, brother, There you have it.
Guys are such a beautiful story, a powerful story, and I just want to take a moment and wish everybody are very safe and happy holiday season. Be careful out there, make better choices, look after yourself, and whatever you do, enjoy, but do.
It in moderation.
We're all we're all got rubber arms sometimes and.
We're not here to bullshit rifeer's life.
We understand, we get it, and we're not here to judge either. But just be careful, be kind, be humble, and be loving and stay blessed. And thank you everybody, Thank you, Mark, thank you to all my guests. A phenomenal season and I'm really looking forward to building the next season and delivering another fantastic episode of the For.
The record, don't try and make you out comfortable for the record. You try a world and stuff for your for the record. Laugh on me going all the way for the record. Ain't trying to link, No, trying to wait. Stop all that for the record, for the record. Yeah, for the for the record, for the record, for the record, for the record.
Yeah mm hmmmmmm hm
