BALTIMORE — Few people can say they've cheated death, but Jason Pett did it twice.
Originally from Howard County, Pett went for a 5-mile run in 2018 and it would change his life forever.
Although it was a hot day, this was just a normal run for Pett.
"It didn't feel unusual, it didn't feel like an unsafe day. I did everything I always do, and during the run, I have no memory," he said.
Pett has no memory of the heat stroke that happened as he was running back to his house. He collapsed in his driveway and his son found him.
"By the time the ambulance got there, they said if it was 20 more minutes he wouldn't have made it. This is all per my wife really filling the holes."
Once he was at the hospital, his heart was stabilized, but another issue arose. Doctors realized his liver was in bad shape.
Pett was transferred to Johns Hopkins where doctors realized it wasn't going to regenerate. This meant he had to be put on a list for a transplant.
After finding a match, he started to go septic, meaning his organs were decaying.
"The liver was decaying so rapidly that it was releasing all these toxins, literally toxic waste into my body and it would have killed me," Pett said.
Doctors cut him open and reconnected his veins and arteries in a way that the body thought everything was normal. He remained this way for hours until his new liver arrived from Philadelphia.
To put this in perspective, the initial incident happened on May 26 and he didn't wake up until he had a new liver. Meaning, that Pett wasn't aware of any of the issues with his liver until things were better.
He also wasn't aware doctors gave him a 20% chance of living.
"People say like, are you living your life, like a second chance of life and all that, I don't really view it that way," Pett said. "I consider it just an event that occurred."
He felt good knowing if he did die, his life was one well-lived.
"I felt affirmed in that had I died that day, I have loved my wife well, I have loved my kids well, I've loved my friends well," he added.
He wasn't out of the woods yet, just four months later he'd find himself in another near-death situation.
"I started to have horrible back pain, just crippling back pain...The pain got worse and worse, to the point where I couldn't do anything without pain."
An MRI didn't reveal anything and by January 2019, the pain was "crippling."
"They did another MRI and they found an infection that was about the size of a half dollar in my back."
Pett ended up having surgery and the doctors sent the infection to Texas so they could figure out what it was. It turned out to be a banned chemical warfare agent by the UN due to how deadly it is.
If it gets into your blood it kills you, Pett said.
"Now, they don't know how I got it... They think that when I had my accident, I was facedown, they think I breathed it in," Pett said. "They first found the fungal marker in my lung when I was in the hospital originally, and then it went away. The theory was that it left the lung and traveled to the back, lodged in my back, and then grew there."
"Had it not lodged in my back, had it just kept traveling around, it would have killed me and I wouldn't know why," he added.
After numerous trips to the hospital, a couple of near-death situations, and a lot of bed rest, running should've been the last thing on his mind right? Wrong.
He was so eager to get active, he started riding a bike and swimming, neither activity quite scratched that running itch.
Now, he's training for the Boston Marathon.
"I told my son when he got to Boston College in 2020, I'm gonna run the Boston Marathon in 2024... I just believe that I can do it and I believe that it'll be fine," he said.
"I was training for Boston when I had my accident. I feel like I gotta close this chapter," Pett added.
To run Boston, you have to raise money for a Boston charity and he did just that.
Pett has raised $23,000 for the Good Sports organization. This group works directly with the sporting goods industry to distribute brand-new equipment to youth organizations all over the country.
The 2024 Good Sports team is tracking to raise over $200,000 for children in need, the most raised by a Good Sports marathon team. Some of the organizations supported in Maryland include Volo Kids Foundations, Frederick Steppers Youth Group and DC Panthers Water Polo.
The big race is on April 15, and Pett is ready to run.
To anyone thinking about running, Pett has two words of advice: "Just start."