June 17, 2026

Heather & Don Van Boerum: How Losing Everything Taught Us What We Had

1 hour 27 minutes

In this episode of Case Studies, Casey sits down with Heather and Don Van Boerum — a Utah couple whose ordinary trip to Costco became a moment that divided their lives into before and after — for an honest conversation about trauma, faith, marriage, and what it means to find joy on the other side of the unthinkable.

Heather opens up about losing both legs below the knee in a parking lot accident just days before Christmas, navigating 14-plus hours of surgery, and the quiet spiritual premonition she'd had only a week before it happened. Don, a trauma surgeon who has spent his career walking into the worst moments of strangers' lives, reflects on what it was like to jump into the back of an ambulance and realize it was his wife — and the dark night he spent wandering back to the Costco parking lot wondering if they'd made the wrong call.

The conversation explores the thin line between survival and loss, the choice to compete instead of collapse, the son who wrote a forgiveness card to the driver before his mom had even thought to be angry, and the kind of joy that can only be found on the other side of deep suffering. Heather and Don talk about what presence actually means, how tragedy clarified their marriage, and why four and a half years later, neither of them would trade what this experience has given them.

This episode is a powerful listen for anyone navigating hardship, anyone who's ever questioned whether faith holds up under real pressure, and anyone who needs a reminder that the richest lives are rarely the ones that went according to plan.

00:00 — Introduction & How They Met

11:00 — Life Before the Accident

11:54 — Just a Normal Day

16:18 — The Moment of Impact

22:32 — Don Hears It Happen

25:06 — "We Have Her Limbs"

33:30 — The Surgery That Lasted Until Christmas Eve

36:22 — "This Is My Wife, Let's Get Going"

47:42 — Choosing to Win

49:44 — The Christmas Eve Surgery

57:54 — "Will You Make Up My Difference?"

01:03:10 — The Card