crushed. there were people trying to escape from there. and what they were doing is walking over at least me. and when they were doing that, it was pushing my chest flat, so it was really difficult to breathe. reporter: douglas telling cnn he estimates 15 feet of debris lay between him and the rescuers using heavy machinery to get to him. i think the guys said, i see him below this glass. there was a door with glass on it. it says, james, close your eyes. so i closed my eyes and they broke the glass, and the guy who was at my feet, he kind of grabbed the back of my shorts and a couple guys grabbed my arm, and they just shaked me up. reporter: they were heroes. they remained on-site continuing to sift through debris where people died. more people are feared dead in
would come down and i could feel my body would like compact more. i was getting my face was already underground but there was something trapped in my pelvic area. you were being crushed? i was definitely being crushed. there were people trying to escape from there and what they were doing is walking over at least me and when they were doing that, it was pushing my chest flat so it was really difficult to breathe. reporter: douglas telling cnn he estimates 15 feet of debris laid between him and the rescuers using heavy machinery to get to him. i think the guy said, i see you right below this glass. and there was a door with glass in it. and said james, close your eyes. so i closed my eyes and they broke the glass. and the guy who was at my feet, he kind of grabbed the back of
feeling what is going on? you were a ninth grader. yeah, and things were not normal. i can t even imagine how confusing it must have been. yeah, it s like stumbling around a dark room. yeah. so how did that process work when you realize whatever this quote unquote normal thing was, i m not? i didn t have a word for it. which made it so much more difficult to realize that i was trans because that i mean, you have to know what the word is to know that exists. i had no idea that was a possibility. i had an inkling that trans women were a thing. but i didn t know that trans men existed. i didn t know what it was feeling. that was really hard. i looked up a tutorial. i think the google search was how to make my chest flat. i got results all from trans