December 2 – Chad Stock battled shock as blood poured from a gaping wound stretching down his forearm. Chad Stock had two conversations with God as the light faded on Easter Sunday 2024.
The first fifty-year-old father of two children doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s between him and God.
The second, however, was part of what he now sees as a transformation through trauma.
“Take me away, or take away the pain,” he remembered telling God. “I’m done.”
Stock, a contractor with 30 years of experience, was working on a cabin near McGregor Lake on March 31 around 6:30 p.m. when his sleeve got stuck in a table saw and pulled his hand toward the saw blade.
“And within no time I was in some pretty serious trouble,” he said.
The lake has few visitors and residents that time of year, Stock said. He was alone and a delivery man wouldn’t come by anytime soon, he knew.
Sitting in his shared Keller Williams Realty Northwest Montana office in North Kalispell in November, Stock picked up a tablet computer from his desk and began scrolling through photos, pink scars visible on his wrist. Some imagined his right arm torn open by the knife, but cleaned before the operation. He also has video from the construction site after the accident, with his movements visible in the trail of dried blood staining the floor.
In those first few minutes, he walked around trying to turn off the kerosene heaters that heated the job site. He recalled being afraid that leaving it unattended would lead to a fire. He then walked to his truck, which was parked about 50 yards away.
But the door was locked. His keys and cell phone were back where he had left them, in a sweatshirt sitting on a scaffolding about 15 feet above the ground.
“I realized I was in big trouble and at that moment I slipped on my butt and realized I was in a bad way,” he said. “I literally look at my heartbeat and see it beating out of my wrist.”
Stock recalled thinking it wasn’t a bad place to go. He just couldn’t bear his children knowing he hadn’t given it his all.
“I didn’t want my kids to think I just gave up,” he said. “I wanted my children to know that if I didn’t survive this… I wanted them to know that I fought to the end.”
He doesn’t remember the walk back to the cabin, but he does remember looking at the dock and wondering how he was going to get up there. He lost consciousness while climbing the ladder.
Stock woke up on the concrete floor, with throbbing pain in his face. He later learned that the fall had cracked two crowns. Stock forced himself off the ground. He realized he had his iPad with him; In this way he could spread a message via the Internet.
He recalled struggling to get the tablet to work until it finally dawned on him that the battery was dead.
At that moment Stock, tormented by the worst pain he had experienced, began his second conversation with God.
“I’m doing my part, man,” he remembered saying. “I’m trying.”
He wondered how long it would take for someone to find his body. He thought about his regrets. He thought mostly about his family.
“I can’t believe I’m leaving my kids for Easter,” Stock recalled, leaning over his spartan desk in Kalispell. ‘At that moment I made a promise to God. If He would help me through this… I would be a changed person. I would convert.’
Stock fell unconscious again.
He woke up in pitch darkness. So black he thought he might be dead.
“Then the pain started and I am fully aware that I am still alive,” Stock said.
But this time it decreased. He felt a calm come over him. He compared it to the eye of a hurricane.
“God took it from me,” Stock said.
A lifelong outdoorsman and athlete, he drew from his time on the wrestling mat. One last move, one last push, he thought.
He stood up, turned on the light and stared at the dock again. Somewhere up there was his sweatshirt, containing the keys to his truck, of his survival. Looking around, he found a level of six feet. With a little help, he might be able to reach the hood of his sweatshirt.
“Till the day I die I will never forget the sound of those keys, the phone hitting the floor,” he said.
His personal mantra changed from “I have this” to “We have this” after his conversation with God as he struggled in his truck. With his left hand Stock accelerated towards Kalispell.
“I just had this overwhelming feeling that God is with me,” he said. “Honestly, I have never felt closer to Christ than I did in that situation.”
He can’t be held accountable for all the decisions he made on the ride into town. He drove past the homes of several friends who could have helped him, but he stopped at a gas station to get enough gas to reach Logan Health Medical Center. When he returned to the cell reception, he called his son. He then called his girlfriend in Salt Lake City.
He only called the hospital emergency room when he came down the hill from Kila.
They urged him to stop and wait for emergency services. He told them to get the ER ready for him. He didn’t stop.
“I remember lying there, [thinking] this is not going to beat me,” Stock said, reflecting on his subsequent five-day hospital stay.
“All these things go through your mind: I have a Harley, will I ever be able to ride it again?”
But he found activities to keep him motivated. One goal is to land a spot on the History Channel’s hit series “Alone.” The other was finding a purpose for his new life from God.
He came up with two: bringing men to Christ and helping them re-embrace their manhood.
“The thing about going through trauma, you don’t know if it’s coming,” Stock said. “To be a fully prepared man, you have to be spiritually, mentally and physically prepared. And I just want to help other men do that.”
As part of that effort, Stock unveiled a podcast earlier this year called “We Got This: Raising up your fellow man,” which documented his survival story, which family and close friends call the “Marion Miracle.”
He has also shared the story with parishioners at Fresh Life Church and hopes to continue spreading it, both as his testimony and as a motivational speaker, throughout the Flathead Valley and Northwestern Montana. Stock encouraged those interested in his story to contact him at 406-300-2027 or chadstockmt@gmail.com.
Stock lost somewhere between 75% and 80% of the use of his right hand in the accident. In the months that followed, he had to relearn how to write, shave and go to the toilet. He taught himself how to shoot a gun with his left hand.
When he thought about how for years his livelihood revolved around using his hands, he smiled.
“Everything has passed through my hands and now it’s oral,” Stock said. “I have to be able to reach and touch people verbally.”
God saved him for a reason, he said.
“I just want to encourage other people to get up and keep moving forward no matter what life throws at you,” he said. “I’m just excited to see what the future brings.”
News Editor Derrick Perkins can be reached at 758-4430 or dperkins@dailyinterlake.com.
