The wrestler opens up about arriving at the scene of his son Nick's car accident.
An emotional HULK HOGAN is speaking out about the day he found out his teen son NICK crashed a car that injured a dear friend, who is still recovering in a Florida hospital.
"When I saw the wreck, I didn't think anybody was alive," Hulk says. "I thought no one could have lived through a wreck like that."
Pat sat down with the former wrestler and star of "Hogan Knows Best" at the national launch and official kick off of the National Wave program, sponsored by the Freedom Group of America.
The charitable campaign, which Hogan is the official spokesperson, aims for Americans to come together in a simultaneous towel-waving event to symbolize the nation's unity on July 4 of next year. The plan is to include celebrities with famous feuds -- like ROSIE O'DONNELL and DONALD TRUMP -- to drive the unity theme home. The Freedom group hopes to raise $20 million to distribute to a number of charitable groups.
While kicking off the campaign, Hogan opened up to Pat about his son's accident, saying he drove up to the crash scene completely unaware that it his son was involved. He says he had been driving to meet the boys at a local restaurant.
"We were going to get something to eat and Nick paged me and said, 'Dad, I want to go early, because we don’t have a table at the restaurant.' ... As I was going down our normal route to the restaurant, I saw this yellow car and it happened to be twisted ... and there were ambulances there and police were there, and -- BAM -- it was my car."
Nick lost control and hit a raised median while driving his father's yellow Toyota Supra on a Clearwater, FL, highway. The car flipped around, and the back end hit a palm tree, police say. Both Nick and his friend, JOHN GRAZIANO, were helicoptered to a nearby hospital and Nick was released a few days later. His friend is still in critical condition.
"Nick is doing good," Hulk says. "He's got a broken arm, some broken ribs, some neck problems and some stuff wrong with his knees but he's hanging in there. He's living at the hospital with John. He's going to be okay and John's going to be okay and we're going to move forward."
Hulk says that John, a 22-year-old Iraq war veteran, is like a son to him.
"We were always close. The crazy thing is that John is like my son too. When he went to Kuwait and came back, it was like a miracle. So the bond with these boys and with these two families is something that people don't understand. It's a tough one for all of us."
He also denies that Nick was racing at the time of the crash.
"It's just so unfair. There's not a bad bone in my son Nick's body. The most important thing to me was from all the eyewitnesses and from everyone who was there and saw it, they were not racing. Thank God."
On Sept. 10, Nick is set to appear in a Florida court to face a previous speeding charge.
Hulk is doing publicity in support of the National Wave program, sponsored by the Freedom Group of America.
