Asked of me on Quora #4

“What saved your life from the brink of death itself?”

Drs, nurses, and a higher power.

In 2013 I had pneumonia, and developed sepsis. I was on a respirator for ten days. They had to do a thoracotomy, cutting between two ribs and spreading them apart to get inside my thoracic space to remove plural fluid that had become too thick to get out with a needle and syringe. I was expected to “not make it”.

In 1977 I was in a boating accident. The right side of my head struck a very glancing blow on the edge of a steel I-beam, at 50 MPH. A mate in the boat got us back to the pier.

Though I never was able to remember it, I was told that, lying in the bottom of the boat, everyone thought I was dead. When the ambulance guys were standing on the pier, talking about backboards and ropes, I’m told that I sat up, looked up, and said, “Well g-damn it! I’ll do it myself!” Whereapon I got up, climbed up, and as soon as I sat on the stretcher, lost consciousness again.

There was a depressed skull fracture, right, tempero-parietal, 13cm long, by 3cm high at the front, 7cm high near the back.( a 100mm cigarette is ten cm long, for comparison). The entire side of my head was caved in.

After immediate surgery to remove the “rubble” inside, the skin was sewn back over the resulting hole. I spent a year indoors…