After nearly dying, Chad Stock rededicates himself for a second lease on life

Fighting off shock, blood pumping 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 the fiftyish father of two won't talk about it. It's between him and God. 

The second, though, was part of what he now considers a transformation by trauma.  

"Either take me away or take the pain away," he remembered telling God. "I'm done." 

Stock, a contractor with three decades of experience, was working on a cabin near McGregor Lake on March 31 at about 6:30 p.m. when his sleeve got caught on a table saw, yanking his hand toward the blade.  

"And in an instant, I was in pretty serious trouble," he said.  

The lake has few visitors and residents that time of year, Stock said. He was alone and there would be no delivery driver swinging by anytime soon, he knew.  

Sitting in his shared Keller Williams Realty Northwest Montana office in North Kalispell in November, Stock grabbed a tablet computer off his desk and began flipping through photographs, pink scars visible on his wrist. Several pictured his right arm, rent open by the blade but cleaned up ahead of surgery. He also has a video of the construction site after the accident, his movements visible in the trail of dried blood staining the flooring.  

In those first few minutes he wandered around trying to turn off the kerosene heaters warming the job site — he remembered being worried that leaving them unattended would lead to a fire. Then he headed to his truck, parked about 50 yards away. 

But the door was locked. His keys and mobile phone were back where he left them, in a sweatshirt perched about 16 feet off the ground on scaffolding. 

"I realize I'm in bad trouble and at that point I slid down on my butt and realized I am in a bad way," he said. "I'm literally watching my heart beat, watching it pulse out of my wrist." 

Stock remembered thinking it wasn't a bad place to go. He just couldn't bear having his children know he didn't give it his all.  

"I didn't want my kids to think I just gave up," he said. "I wanted my kids to know that if I didn't survive this ... I wanted them to know I fought to the very end." 

He doesn't remember the walk back to the cabin, but he can recall looking up at the scaffolding, wondering how he was going to get up there. He lost consciousness climbing the ladder. 

Stock woke up on the concrete floor, pain throbbing in his face. The fall, he later learned, cracked two crowns. Stock forced himself to get off the ground. He realized he had his iPad with him; he could get a message out that way using the internet.  

He remembered struggling to get the tablet to work until it finally dawned on him that the battery had died.  

That's when Stock, racked with the worst pain he had experienced, began his second conversation with God.  

"I'm doing my part, man," he remembered saying. "I am trying." 

He wondered how long it would take for someone to find his body. He thought about his regrets. Mostly, he thought about his family. 

"I can't believe I'm going to leave my kids on Easter," Stock recalled, leaning forward across his spartan desk in Kalispell. "At that point I made a commitment to God. If he would get me through this ...  I would be a changed man. I would repent." 

Stock fell unconscious again. 

HE AWOKE in the pitch black. So black he thought he might be dead.  

"Then the pain set in, and I am fully aware that I'm still alive," Stock said.  

But this time it abated. He felt a calm settle over him. He compared it to the eye of a hurricane.  

"God took it away from me," Stock said.  

A lifelong outdoorsman and athlete, he drew on his time on the wrestling mat. One last move, one last push, he thought.  

Getting to his feet and flipping on a light, he stared back up at the scaffolding. Somewhere up there was his sweatshirt, containing the keys to his truck, to his survival. Looking around, he found a 6-foot level. With a little help, he might be able to catch the hood of his sweatshirt.  

"To the day I die I will never forget the sound of those keys, the phone hitting the floor," he said.  

His personal mantra switching from "I got this" to "We got this" after his conversation with God, he struggled into his truck. Using his left hand to shift it into gear, Stock headed toward Kalispell.  

"I just had this overwhelming feeling that God is with me," he said. "Honestly, for me, I have never felt closer to Christ than in that situation." 

He can't account for all the decisions he made in the drive into town. He rode past the homes of several friends who could have lent him aid, but he pulled into a gas station to put in enough fuel to get to Logan Health Medical Center. When he got back into cell reception, he called his son. Then he phoned his girlfriend in Salt Lake City.  

He didn't call the hospital's emergency room until he was coming down the hill from Kila. 

They urged him to pull over and wait for emergency responders. He told them to get the ER ready for him. He wasn't stopping.  

"I REMEMBER laying there, [thinking] this is not going to beat me," Stock said thinking back on his subsequent five-day hospital stay.  

"All this stuff goes through your mind — I have a Harley, am I ever going to be able to ride it again?"  

But he found pursuits to keep him motivated. One goal is to land a spot on the History Channel's hit series "Alone." The other was finding purpose for his new lease on life from God.  

He came up with two: Bringing men to Christ and helping them reembrace their masculinity. 

"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," documenting his story of survival, which family and close friends have taken to calling the "Marion Miracle." 

He's 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, across the Flathead Valley and Northwest Montana. Stock encouraged those interested in hearing his story to contact him at 406-300-2027 or at chadstockmt@gmail.com. 

Stock lost somewhere between 75% and 80% use of his right hand in the accident. In the months following, he had to learn anew how to write, shave and go to the bathroom. He taught himself how to shoot a rifle with his left hand. 

Thinking about how his livelihood for years revolved around the use of his hands, he smiled. 

"Everything has been through my hands and now it's verbal," Stock said. "I've got 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 hands you," he said. "I'm just excited to see what the future holds." 

News Editor Derrick Perkins can be reached at 758-4430 or dperkins@dailyinterlake.com.