The city of Oglesby, IL was the home of Marquette Cement Company.  It is also my hometown.  This cement company was established as being the manufacturer of some of the highest quality cement in America.  This was attributed to the fine limestone that is found there.  The mining operations, and the natural landscaping (due to the glaciers) created very beautiful, scenic and somewhat dangerous natural areas.  These areas are where I spent much of my childhood and teenage years.

          Often, I would go hiking with my cousin and “best friend”, D.  The two of us fancied ourselves adventurers, or even frontiersmen.  We would spend hours just walking around the woods, exploring the forest, shooting at tin cans, fishing, or just  hanging out.  Not a care in the world for us. 

          My parents, however, stricter than D’s, would establish curfews and rules for me.  I guess that there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of structure, right?  We all need a little guidance, especially at that point in our lives.  

          In spite of that, we had built a cabin of sorts in the woods—where we could go and fantasize about being true woodsmen.  We even found a dog, and named him Lucan, after the television show of that era about a boy who was raised by wolves.  Lucan went everywhere with us.

          One cold, winter day, we had decided to go “hunting”.  Now, even though we called it hunting, it was more about hiking and carrying a gun.  We usually ended up shooting at cans, or trees—never really bringing any animals back. 

          This particular day, I was not supposed to go hunting.  I think that my parents, however, expected me to spend time in the woods; it was one of my favorite things. 

          At D’s house, he handed me a 410 shotgun to use.  He would be carrying a 22 caliber, bolt action rifle.  I was jealous.  However, the rifle did not have a safety on it.  But, by keeping the bolt back, and thereby keeping a round out of the chamber, we considered it pretty safe. 

          We ended up going to a place not far from D’s, called Thirty Foot (after the hole in the river that was supposed to be thirty feet deep).  We met up with another boy our age, talked with him a bit, and headed down to the river.

          At one point, we decided to cross the river where it was frozen.  I waited on the ice/river bank while D came down the small hill.  He lost his footing, and slipped.  He made a noise like “whoa” and the rifle went flying from his hands.  The rifle hit the ice, the bolt went forward and the gunshot rang out.  BAM!!

          Right in my head.  Above my left eye, into the eyebrow, through my brain.  I fell to the ice.  I think that it shocked me more than anything.  However, I did have a terrible headache.  My cousin asked me if I was okay.  He hadn’t realized yet that I was shot, and it was a shot to the head.

          I told him that I had the worst headache in my life.  Once he was aware of the gravity of the situation, he was asking what we should do.  “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going anywhere,” I told him.  I was starting to not be so coordinated.  

          Now, where we were at in the woods at this point was probably a mile or two away from home.  It was essentially all uphill from here back.  I was in no shape to make the trip.  We had shoved one of the fingers of a glove into the bullets entry point to slow the bleeding, but I was pretty incapacitated.  We needed a plan.

          D’s mom, we decided, was a nurse.  We figured this because she had worked at a hospital (actually it was in housekeeping, many years before).  So, he would go back home and get her and she could fix everything.  I am reminded of a quote I once heard:  “Mother is the name for God on the lips of all the children of the world”.  Moms can take care of anything, right?

          So, D took off his sweatshirts, flannel shirts, jacket, etc. and covered me up on the side of the river.  He went to go get his mother.  Lucan stayed with me.  He was my rock of faith that day, so was D, and his mother.

          D got his mother, they tried to drive down to where I was; but the path was not big enough, so they walked back.  With no way of getting me out of the woods, D picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and carried me out.  As previously stated, basically all uphill.

          My parents weren’t even aware of where I was, let alone what had happened.  My aunt left a note of sorts; my uncle came home and read the note, and called my mother.  He had a bit of a day already, so he was a little confused when he called.  All he could tell my mother was that one of the boys got shot, and was hurt. 

          They called the police and the hospitals, but we were still in the woods, so no one knew anything.  Eventually, they located me at the local Catholic hospital.  My mother and uncle rushed there. 

          What I remember of this time period was this:  I was never afraid of dying (it never crossed my mind), I was in trouble (wasn’t supposed to be hunting, and there was no way that I could “fib” my way out of that), I would also be in trouble for wearing a pair of boots (now probably ruined), and that I probably wouldn’t be allowed to go hunting again. 

Also, my faith in God was strong—I sincerely believed that He would protect me (especially from getting in trouble).  During the trip out of the woods, and even in the hospital, I kept singing “Amazing Grace”—that was my aunt’s name.  Just coincidence?

          When my mom arrived at the hospital, I was lying on a stretcher and had a towel on my head for the bleeding.  All I could think of was how much trouble I was in.  I apologized to my mom for causing so much trouble.  She cried. 

          I heard the doctors tell her that there was nothing that they could do.  I was pretty much a goner.  What about another hospital?  So, they began making arrangements to move me to Peoria, IL—where there was a neurosurgeon that might be able to help. 

Back in those days, they did have helicopter transport, but the helicopter was in Peoria.  So, they got permission from my mom and took me by ambulance to that hospital.

          At that hospital, they needed to prep me for the brain surgery, this involved shaving off the hair on my head.  My hair (looking good) was more important to me than any fear I may have had of dying.  It took several nurses to hold me down while they did this.

          I remember briefly seeing/meeting my doctor, the neurosurgeon.  He came highly recommended, and was actually called to help with President Kennedy’s surgery.  From what I know, the purpose of my surgery was to remove as much of the shrapnel and bone fragments from my brain as possible, without incurring too much more damage.  I ended up having lost the vast majority of the right frontal lobe of my brain.

When my parents asked what I would be like after the surgery, all they were told was:  “We don’t know.  He could be a ‘vegetable’; this is a serious brain injury.  We just have to wait and see.”

          I also remember, just before the operation, hearing the sound of the saw cutting through my skull.  Then, I blacked out.  I guess that you shouldn’t really put someone under when doing brain surgery, because you want to be more certain that they will wake up.  The stress of that sound apparently triggered my body’s reaction to shut my consciousness down—to avoid more stress.

          In the middle of the night, while the surgery was still taking place, my Priest, Father M, awoke and felt a very strong urge to pray for me.  He was unaware of what was going on.  This was a very tricky, touch and go part of the surgery where I hung by a thread to life.  Father M obeyed this urge, prayed fervently, and, by a miracle, I made it through!

          In the recovery room, when I regained consciousness, I didn’t understand why I was in the hospital.  I thought that I had my tonsils taken out.  My parents explained it to me, and it took a while to accept that fact.  Who gets shot in the head, right?  But, here I was; and, here I was to stay for quite some time. 

          I spent New Year’s Eve in the Intensive Care Unit.  My father took time off of his job to stay down at the hospital with me.  I remember him being there most of the time.  One thing that I don’t remember is that I was given the Last Rites.  That’s the absolute final step in a Catholic’s life.  Right before you die. 

          The Intensive Care Unit was very cold.  They kept it that way to lower the body’s activities; so that they were more able to serve you if you should have a problem.  I had tubes coming out of my scalp, to help drain the blood and spinal fluid out of there.  I had a habit of constantly removing them from my head.  Eventually, they restrained my arms so that I wouldn’t do it. 

          Something else that strikes me as miraculous is the fact that basically every other patient that shared that room in the Intensive Care Unit died.  It was basically a common, accepted fact to me that if you stayed in the room where I was, your life would end.  But not mine.

          After I was more stable, they moved me to the 9^th floor of the hospital.  This would have been the floor where all brain/nervous system related cases went.  At first, I had the room all to myself.  Eventually though, others came and shared this room with me.  None were like me.  A stroke victim shared the room with me for quite some time.  He was, to me, an old man. 

          I always wondered what business I had on this floor.  I was fine (in my mind).  Sure, I had some coordination problems for a while.  But, I wasn’t a stroke victim.  Others on this floor included:  a teen-age boy who just came out of a coma from a serious car accident, and another teenage boy who was paralyzed from the neck down.  His story still fascinates me to this day.

          He and his father were swimming in a natural waterscape.  They had swum here countless times.  The son dove into the water, just like he had done so many times before.  This time, however, he struck the bottom and basically broke his neck.  His father saved him.

          His father’s conundrum was that he kept his son alive by using CPR and got him to the hospital.  Now, his son lived in a special wheelchair that he could move by breathing into a small tube.  Did he doom his son to a life of misery by saving him?  I cannot imagine not trying to save someone’s life.  We are all special and miracles and created in the image of God and we do not have the authority to say when life should end. 

           I spent most of my time in the hospital bed.  They would roll me over, side to side, to change the sheets.  I eventually had a catheter removed and would use a urinal.  I had problems with this, and it would often spill.  I would be too embarrassed to say anything.  Usually, it was my mother who noticed and then would get the nurses to change the bed again.  Thank God for mothers, huh?

          Another remarkable moment in this story is when my doctor, the neurosurgeon, came in and said to me:  “You’re probably about ready to get out of here, aren’t you?”  I had, up to this point, mentally accepted the fact that my life was now going to be in this hospital.  I didn’t realize the option of going home.  Now, he was offering to me the gift of returning to my family and friends.

          Some had come to visit me in the hospital, and I got a lot of cards and letters.  But, returning home and to school and to a “regular” life just didn’t seem real to me. 

          The nurses came to tell me that my doctor was releasing me from the hospital, and that I could go home today.  I was excited, and confused (you mean I really get to go home?).  I called my mother, and she said that it was good and that she’d come get me.  My father had missed more work due to this experience and could not get any more time off. 

          Then, my mom called back and said that she didn’t know how she would be able to come and get me.  She had no car; my dad had taken it to work.  So, the story now was “sorry, I can’t come get you, so you can’t come home.”

          Now, I was a little depressed.  And, I guess that it just made more sense anyway.  I was used to being here.  No use in getting my hopes up of going home.  I’ll just live here. 

          In the meantime, the nurse got me into the bathroom so that I could take a bath.  I was able to do this by myself at this point.  When I came out of the bathroom, my mom was there.  God had sent another miracle into my life!

          My mother had gone to work at my uncle’s restaurant because she wouldn’t be able to come get me.  She talked about what was going on, and a gentleman at the bar said that he would drive her down and bring me back.  And, this they did.

          The man drove us back to Oglesby, helped to get me into the house and then left.  My mother got me settled into my bed (I forgot that I even had any bed other than a hospital bed) and left me to rest.  That night, when my dad came home from work, she told him that the snow on the roof must’ve done some damage and that it had collapsed into one of the bedrooms. 

          I can only imagine what went through his mind when he walked to that bedroom, just home from work, getting more grim news.  He opened the door, and to his surprise, found me in my bed!  I’d say that’s a bit of miracle, as well.

          My mother let me stay home from school for a few more days.  Then I returned to my high school.  It was different.  I was different.  Everyone I knew was different.

          Since then, I have spent time in the military (serving in more than one branch of the service), received a nomination to West Point Military Academy, written a book, and have lived a marvelous life.  I am married, have one daughter and have learned to be grateful for all of life’s many wonders. 

          I did have a few problems from the injury that didn’t manifest themselves until quite a while after the incident.  There were seizures, a few black outs and other minor obstacles; but, through the grace of God, I have been blessed with an incredibly full and gratifying life.

          Whenever I am asked about the accident, I explain that you couldn’t create the situation where I was shot if you tried to.  It was one in a million.  Think about it:  the bolt was back on the rifle, Dale had to step in just the right spot, lose his footing in just the right way, the rifle had to travel to just the right location—at the right angle, with the right amount of force, I had to be standing in just the right spot, turn my head at just the right time, and so on.

          I think that what we often overlook are the little miracles that add up to the life-saving/changing miracle.  Like:  the temperature was cold enough to slow my body’s activities down in the woods while Dale went for help, I had just the right person to carry me out, just the right person to drive the car, just the right time to get to the surgery, just the right doctors and neurosurgeon, just the right nurses, just the right guy to be at the restaurant, and so on.  And, of course:  just the right priest to pray at just the right time for just the right fourteen year old boy.

          Who says God doesn’t work in mysterious ways?

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