Eric and Amanda Stevens (A firefighter's battle with ALS) - Episode 256

Behind The Shield

James Geering

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Fitness

4.9 • 667 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2025

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Eric Stevens is a collegiate and NFL football player turned firefighter. Eric was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) earlier this year. We discuss their athletic careers, how they met, being given a terminal diagnosis, how a potential cure is being withheld, how you the listener can help and much more.

“The average life expectancy of ALS diagnosed patients is 2-5 years. Currently, the most promising treatment called NurOwn is going through a phase 3 trial, meaning that people who have been diagnosed and are potentially a good match for this treatment don’t have access to it unless they accepted into a trial. The trial is a double blind study, so even if you get accepted you only have 50/50 chance of actually receiving the treatment. Once your time in the trial ends, all participants are taken off the treatment even if it is greatly improving their lives.

We respect the FDA, as well as the drug companies working hard to bring new treatments on the market. However, even with this respect for these agencies, it’s hard to understand why terminally ill patients have no possibility to access treatments already proven to be safe and affective.

This system is not working for currently diagnosed patients who have been given a year or two to live and their families who are losing hope. My hope is to shed light on this underfunded disease, start a debate and motivate people in power to make changes that allow terminally ill patients to access treatments still in trials but proven to be safe. We need currently diagnosed patients who don’t have a year or two to wait for treatment to have access to treatment since it can drastically reduce their suffering.”

– Eric Stevens

Stevens Nation Website:

https://stevensnation.com/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by 511 Tactical, and I've got some great news for you.
0:04.4	511 usually very generously offers the listeners of this podcast 15% of any of their purchases using the code shield 15.
0:13.5	Well, going into Black Friday from November 26th to December 1st, they're offering you guys 25% off and a free patch if you use the code
0:24.3	shield 25. That's S-H-I-E-L-D-25 at 511 Tactical.com. You will get 25% off and a patch.
0:33.9	Now, while you are looking through there, I urge you to look at some of the products that we've talked about in the last few episodes.
0:39.7	From the lightweight Norris sneaker, a great alternative to the tactical boot, to the AMP backpack, the uniform selection that I've talked about.
0:48.6	I'm going to throw one new piece of equipment in there as well.
0:51.7	The response XR2 flashlight, extremely light or torch,
0:56.2	as I would say in England, very, very light and compact. The brightest bloody light I've ever seen
1:02.7	in my life, not only was, is it great for illuminating things? It actually would have a great
1:07.0	self-defense element to it as well because it's literally blinding.
1:15.5	So not rated specifically to go into structure fires, but every other element of our job is a great light to have on your person.
1:18.9	So as I mentioned before, use the code shield, S-H-I-E-L-D-2-5 at 511 Tactical.com from November 26th to December 1st and the rest of the year, Shield 15
1:31.5	will still get you your 15% off.
1:34.5	Welcome, guys, to episode 256 of Behind the Shield podcast.
1:38.1	As always, my name's James Gearing and this week I am extremely excited to bring to you
1:42.5	Eric and Amanda Stevens.
1:45.3	Now, Eric was a college football player.
1:47.9	He entered the NFL and ultimately transitioned into the fire service.
1:53.2	And when he and Amanda were about to get married, Eric discovered that he had ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
1:59.3	So I sat down with both of them to hear their journey,
2:03.7	you know, how they met, Amanda's journey through collegiate soccer, and ultimately the diagnosis,
	...

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