I'm totally disabled and in severe pain right now; but not due to my "survivor experience" which occurred on a YMCA sponsored canoe trip down the Current River in the Lake of The Ozarks, MO section in the late 60's / early 70's. For now it's fusions in my lower back and my neck with hardware that didn't heal right in either case. They call it "Failed Back Syndrome" which is a fancy term for "it's not going to get better, it'll keep getting worse, and we can't fix it". Degenerative Disk Disease. One beautiful day at a time and I'm enjoying life as much as I can! :-) But now for the *real* survivor story: I had fallen over 45 feet down a cliff while doing a little cliff climbing along with one of the camp counselors and I was also showing off for the girls in the group. It was amazing, when I think back, how everything seemed to pass by my face in slow motion while I was falling feeling every hit with the rock face but not the pain. Like a dream or something.

It took over 7 hours I think on the river to find the ambulance that would meet me about 15 miles down river at a gate in someone's cow pasture, causing of course a great infection to set in since I had landed in the river with my busted up knee. This was in the 60's or early 70's, before they did Med-A-Vac helicopter rescues; or maybe one just wasn't available at the time. I'll never forget that 15 mile or so trip stretched out on canoe paddles even with the top of the sides of the canoe going through rapids and such; drifting in and out of consciousness. I had cut all tendons and everything else in my left knee, lost a chip of about 1/8th of my knee cap and cracked it totally in half, and with a 104 degree temp off and on for several days. Advanced Gangrene of course developed in my left knee since I had landed in the river and they wanted to remove the leg. But I liked it too much and had grown attached to it and wouldn't let them take it.

I was in ICU for 1.5 month with different problems and complications on the strongest meds known to man and the best doctors and surgeons available since the YMCA was responsible. Then I was in a private room for 2 months longer drifting in and out. Your indestructible when your a teen and don't know any better about the problems of keeping a poisonous leg just because you like the looks of it! Not to mention a high tolerance to pain and a good sense of humor both received from my father God bless him. They were happy to see me leave the hospital, and not just because I was walking thanks to their skills (which made the Med Books on that one) or a trouble maker which I wasn't in the slightest, but because I had set up dates with 4 or more of the Candy Strippers. I kept the door shut alot, and was the king of sponge baths for the floor. I was only 16 and was planning on living forever! I just couldn't overcome gravity or develop the brains needed to be a safe teenager. That's the short version of my overcoming death by luck, and good doctors, and keeping a leg that was basically totally useless at the time. Lots of therapy was needed because I felt the need to show off for everyone. I think I survived it all because I was too dense to realize how serious it really was, and I had a power much larger than I was watching over me throughout it all. Also I give Kudos to the doctors and nurses of N.W. Christian Hospital, St. Louis Mo. It was possible for me to die several times for many different reasons or have permanent brain damage but I just don't think it was my time yet, and God knew much more than a brainless teenager showing off for the girls in a remote area of the Lake of The Ozarks, which is like being in a different world in the middle of nowhere. Does this qualify me for at least a Jr. Survivors Club membership??? :-)