S is for Saving Lives

The past few days I have run in to a couple of shadows from my past. Good shadows, mind you. Shadows that I am grateful for. Shadows that saved my life.
Literally.

Baker Reservoir in the summer of 2008 is the backdrop to where this story begins. My good friend Blake Nielson and I were headed for an overnight campout. Good times I must say, good times. It was on that fateful drive when I learned about what would be later called the “steak on the back”.

Good times were abounding as a group of guys sat around the campfire and scarfed down some amazing Dutch Oven Dinner. Following our delectable dessert we all walked down to the shores of the reservoir and looked for some “male bonding” time. None of us had any idea what that would entail.

Let me backpeddle for a moment. At this point in my life I was neck deep in dealing with complex-partial epileptic seizures. Seizures in which my temporal lobe would force me to lose consciousness at the most random points in time. I had been through my fair share of accidents, totaled cars, bike wrecks, Sunday school lessons. The seizures had not been my best friend.

Jump back to the shores of Baker that fateful summer night. As the sun was just setting, I felt a seizure coming on, and so I went in the complete opposite direction of the reservoir as I could before I lost all consciousness. From what I was told later, that’s not what actually happened.



Fade to black.



I woke up from what I would be told was 40 minutes later. Lying on my back. Dripping wet. Muted, because I couldn’t open my mouth and talk for some odd reason. There were people all around me. Dripping wet. On their knees. Panting for air. Sobbing. Paramedics stood over me and began to put me on a stretcher. My mind was unable to understand what was going on. I still couldn’t talk.

I would later be told that rather than run away from the water, I jumped in the water. And sank. Eight feet down. As the light faded, I sat underneath the water. For four minutes. The guys at the shore thought I was playing a joke, but as the seconds clicked on, they soon realized that my seizures had taken me below the water.

It was at that point in time where I found out what a true friendship means. True friendship is jumping in the water trying to find a body that is in mid-seize. True friendship is still diving and diving and diving over and over again till you can pull an awkward big guy out of the water. And I am so grateful for what they did. Blake, Bron, Cory, Brother Prince’s sons, and everyone else that was jumping in the water for me that night, I can’t thank you enough for saving my life. Miracle is not the word that can describe that Near-Death Incident .

A great man once told me that one day in heaven I will be able to watch that great event on DVR. I’m just glad that because of those friends, I am able to write these words on my blog, rather than remain on the bottom of Baker.