Each morning I would wake up at 5am to get ready for swimming practice before school. At the time I admired Mark Spitz and wanted to be the 1980 olympics.
I did the butterfly stroke and anyone that is familiar with swimming knows that you start off the starting blocks and shallow dive in the pool. The starting blocks are on the shallow end of the pool where the water is only 3ft deep.
On 14 November 1978, I was practicing and as I dove off the starting blocks my foot slipped and I went in headfirst in 3ft of water. I felt something wrong, my head hurt, there was a lot of blood and could not move. I didn't remember much at this time but I was taken out of the pool on a backboard by my team mates.
My next memories were being at the nearby hospital and feeling cold. I was naked on a stretcher and remember wanting to be covered. I could hear people and see people but I could not speak or move.
I remember a doctor saying "Really? Is he still alive?!" and someone else saying that there was nothing they could do for me that I was supposed to be dead.
I had broken my C1, C2, C3 and a bone called my odontoid.
The pain was terrible and apparently I could not stay conscious for long. I think they used a term "in and out" later to describe my condition. Saying that my body is shutting off and I won't live.
The next memories I had was of wind and for a moment or so I thought I was going to heaven. I was in fact being transported on Houston's LifeFlight helicopter to Hermann Hospital.
It was there that I remember hearing my mother and father's voices and hearing my father cry after being told that I was alive but would not make it. I was hurt so bad and was trying to move or say something and I just couldn't.
My mother had begged to see me and asked the doctor if I could hear them. He said "no". I remember him telling them that honestly I had no chance for survival through the day. He explained that the extent of my injuries were just too severe and that it was a miracle that I was even alive at the moment.
I remember my mother asking the doctor if I was in pain. He answered her and both my father and mother broke down sobbing in tears. They didn't want my passing to be painful.
I tried everything. I tried to move and couldn't. I tried to speak and couldn't. I remember at one point noticing the heart monitor and trying to see if I could somehow control my heart rate so that someone would notice me. I wanted to fight. I wanted to live and I felt completely helpless. I felt that people were giving up on me.
Even as I type this, the memories bring back such a deep sadness and loneliness that I simply have no words to describe. I didn't want to be left alone and people were talking as if I was not there anymore as if I was already dead. I had to fight back.
The days, weeks and months afterwards are much of a blur, morphine does that to you I suppose. It took two weeks for me to communicate and when I did I was so drugged that people wondered whether I was brain damaged. I vividly remember hearing a doctor explain that no one should have much hope that I would be like a vegtable and paralyzed from the neck down at best. I lost all track of time.
It would be almost a year before I could walk around. Everyone smiled. It was all a miracle, there was no other explanation.
To this day I have two scars on my temples where I had a halo brace and I can't turn my head all the way to my shoulder, but Im alive and well and Im grateful that no one gave up on me.
Like most of you, I don't know Terri Schiavo, but there is a small part of me that can empathize with her. I know how it feels to be alone and I know all too well that dark sad place where she is now. She is alive and she is fighting. The simple fact that she is alive is all the evidence one needs to understand that Terri has not given up. Please don't give up on Terri.
What Terri needs is people who love her, care for her and those who won't give up up her. Terri may never come back from that place where she is at now, but she needs to be given the chance.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Bingo! Against such there is no law. Except in the US.
Wow. Glad you made it.
What an incredible story. Thank God you were somehow able to make it through. The thought that Terri might be trying to communicate and not be able to is one of the most horrible things about this. I hope your story makes some people think.
sw
Wow. Thanks for sharing that.
My two NDE's were very brief. But being aware that other's think you are dead is the most horrible thing you can experience. I appreciate your story but don't wish to share mine today.
That just brought tears to my eyes. Every Freeper needs to read your story and what you overcame.
Here in this area we have the Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation Hospital that has given so much hope to people that were no given no hope. People have walked who they said couldn't walk, people after strokes where told they were going to be paralyzed but have learned to button their own clothes which sounds small but is a huge step for them. So much progress has been made and continues to be made that your story and others like it happen and this woman needs to be allowed to see if there is a miracle around the corner for her.
Without rehabilitation no one will ever know -- she deserves that chance.
A truly incredible story.
I'm glad you're here now to post it.
Thanks for your post#1406. Please go to the FR Home page, and hit the POST item on the blue bar, and post this as a new thread... a "vanity" ... it merits this, and put in the title something like "my personal Terri Schiavo experience". Don't change the body of what you wrote much at all. People will appreciate this as its own thread.
Thank You!
We need more to speak up who have been in your shoes.
BTW Glad your abilities came back as well as they did.
I know the pain you feel thinkig back we share that.
Again Thank You for stepping forward and sharing a very personal part of your being.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy! You have said it all. Thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing that......could you make the post a stand alone thread or allow one of us to do it for you?
Bless you.
Once again God Bless you.
Where there is life there is hope, If you have to err, err on the side of life.
Incredible miracle you received, praise God. How wonderful that your parents were by your side the whole way and amazing how quickly the docs want to shut a patient down.
Yours is truly an amazing story, thank you for sharing it with all of us.I wish that judge could talk to you. he surely couldn't ignore the fact that Terri needs to have a chance.
Wow...what an experience you went through! Thanks for putting it down for us. I'm going to repost it here, so folks don't have to go back to search for it.
*****
(expatguy's story.)
Back in 1978 I was a swimmer on my High School swim team at South Houston High.
Each morning I would wake up at 5am to get ready for swimming practice before school. At the time I admired Mark Spitz and wanted to be the 1980 Olympics.
I did the butterfly stroke and anyone that is familiar with swimming knows that you start off the starting blocks and shallow dive into the pool. The starting blocks are on the shallow end of the pool where the water is only 3ft deep.
On 14 November 1978, I was practicing and as I dove off the starting blocks my foot slipped and I went in head first in 3ft of water. I felt something wrong, my head hurt, there was a lot of blood and I could not move. I didn't remember much at this time but I was taken out of the pool on a backboard by my team mates.
My next memories were being at the nearby hospital and feeling cold. I was naked on a stretcher and remember wanting to be covered. I could hear people and see people but I could not speak or move.
I remember a doctor saying "Really? Is he still alive?!" and someone else saying that there was nothing they could do for me, that I was supposed to be dead.
I had broken my C1, C2, C3 and a bone called my odontoid.
The pain was terrible and apparently I could not stay conscious for long. I think they used a term "in and out" later to describe my condition. Saying that my body is shutting off and I won't live.
The next memories I had was of wind and for a moment or so I thought I was going to heaven. I was in fact being transported on Houston's LifeFlight helicopter to Hermann Hospital.
It was there that I remember hearing my mother and father's voices and hearing my father cry after being told that I was alive but would not make it. I was hurt so bad and was trying to move or say something and I just couldn't.
My mother had begged to see me and asked the doctor if I could hear them. He said "no". I remember him telling them that honestly I had no chance for survival through the day. He explained that the extent of my injuries were just too severe and that it was a miracle that I was even alive at the moment.
I remember my mother asking the doctor if I was in pain. He answered her and both my father and mother broke down sobbing in tears. They didn't want my passing to be painful.
I tried everything. I tried to move and couldn't. I tried to speak and couldn't. I remember at one point noticing the heart monitor and trying to see if I could somehow control my heart rate so that someone would notice me. I wanted to fight. I wanted to live and I felt completely helpless. I felt that people were giving up on me.
Even as I type this, the memories bring back such a deep sadness and loneliness that I simply have no words to describe. I didn't want to be left alone and people were talking as if I was not there anymore, as if I was already dead. I had to fight back.
The days, weeks and months afterwards are much of a blur, morphine does that to you I suppose. It took two weeks for me to communicate and when I did I was so drugged that people wondered whether I was brain damaged. I vividly remember hearing a doctor explain that no one should have much hope, that I would be like a vegetable and paralyzed from the neck down at best. I lost all track of time.
It would be almost a year before I could walk around. Everyone smiled. It was all a miracle, there was no other explanation.
To this day I have two scars on my temples where I had a halo brace and I can't turn my head all the way to my shoulder, but I'm alive and well and I'm grateful that no one gave up on me.
Like most of you, I don't know Terri Schiavo, but there is a small part of me that can empathize with her. I know how it feels to be alone and I know all too well that dark sad place where she is now. She is alive and she is fighting. The simple fact that she is alive is all the evidence one needs to understand that Terri has not given up. Please don't give up on Terri.
What Terri needs is people who love her, care for her and those who won't give up on her. Terri may never come back from that place where she is at now, but she needs to be given the chance.
What Terri needs is people who love her, care for her and those who won't give up up her. Terri may never come back from that place where she is at now, but she needs to be given the chance.
Very well said.