As re-told by Bridger's mother, Mindy, at a press conference held on Bridger's birthday, August 22, 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah, two days after he woke from a month long drug induced coma. This was one of the first things Bridger wanted to talk about (the following account has been condensed from the press conference):
Mindy: "He wanted to say to me what had happened to him. So, he told me the story from his perspective.
"He said they were riding their bikes and he was with his two cousins, Colin and Ryan. They were riding in front of him and he was in the back. They came around the corner (of his step-grandparent's home) and noticed people outside. Adults and a man (Mr. Miller) were outside in the middle of the street and people were watching. They noticed a big metal thing in the middle of the road and they saw he had lit a match once and it didn't go and so they were like "hurry take cover", those were the words he said. And then he said, "So we were riding to take cover behind the horse trailer" and he said, "Mom, I didn't make it." He said as he was laying down…, (Aside from Mindy: "There was a girl there to help, named Kristen Hobson. She heard the explosion and ran outside, she was wonderful.") …she had Bridger looking at her and he was hugging her arm. His wounds are on this side [Mindy gestured to her left side] and she (Kristen) was telling him to look this way [Mindy turned her head to the right and is pointing upward to the right] and he's telling me that he took his eyes and tricked her and pretended he was looking at her but took his eyes and looked down. And this is what he said, "Mom, I saw blood all over and I knew I was going to die." And he continued to be positive and happy and he said ‘see ya later guys', ‘see ya at the hospital', ‘bye dudes'. So, now I know that while he's comforting everybody else, in his mind he knows he's going to die and he took the time to comfort everybody else and let them know that he was okay. It just shows me how much strength that he has.
"And then the next thing I asked him was, are you sad about your injuries? Are you sad about your leg? Are you sad about your body?" And he said, "No mom, I don't care." He said, "I'm in pain, but it doesn't bother me. I don't care that, that happened to me." He is not sad, he's not mad. He's only in pain and he's thirsty.
"He told me from his perspective, by the time he got in the helicopter he started seeing everything third person. So he was viewing himself from above and he could see them working on him. One of the things he asked me is why did I let the doctors strap fireworks on to his body to blow him open and I said, honey, that didn't happen. And he said, "Yes it did. I watched it. I was in the operating room and they strapped fireworks on me and were cutting me open with it." (What we've learned) and obviously what was happening was that they were trying to save his life with the defibulator and he probably thought that felt like a firework to him.
"He thought that he was burned in the face, so I let him see a mirror. I let him hold it in front of his face. He looked in the mirror and said "no, my face is burned." He was seeing tubes and clear tape on his face that was taping down tubes and a big peach bandage on his chin and so I said, no honey, its bandages, so I peeled them off a little so he could see. And then he said, "Okay… okay mom."
"He also wanted me to say, straight from his mouth, "Thank you for your prayers." And he wants me to say, "This is really crazy that everybody is paying this much attention to me!" So, that's his message to Utah and anybody else that is listening."
