These are a few of My Favorite Things!

Some of my "loyal readers" (ha!) have already read the inspiration for this particular post, but I have decided to post it here so that my thousands of new readers (double ha!) have the opportunity to hear this story and the rest of you can look for the revised sections! 

November 8, 2010 was a day that I was set solidly down on the wildest, week long ride of my life full of twists, turns, sentimental moments and a HUGE SURPRISE ending that even I could never have imagined.  

In the summer of 2010 I signed up to receive a daily newsletter from Oprah.com.  Before you judge, remember that this was just prior to her FINAL season--I wanted to be sure to have a head's up on the super duper shows promised during the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show.  Still a tad lame...I know.  I own it--get it?  O.W.N. it?  Never mind.  In one of my daily emails from Oprah.com there was a section asking the question: “Do you have a personal hero in your life that you don’t feel you ever able to thank?”  If the answer was yes, viewers were encouraged to send in their story via The Oprah Winfrey Show website.  Now, let me say this early on…contrary to what you might assume about someone who takes the time to write a blog, I am NOTthe type of person who writes in to talk shows.  Anyway, the question got me thinking.  While I have many people I admire in my life—family, friends, etc.—there is one person whose actions made a difference in my life from the moment he entered it.

Here’s the story:

In May of 1996 I woke up late for work after going to a high school prom with a dear friend of mine, (shout out to Richard and all the other Bradshaw High School 1996 Prom participants!).  I stopped at a gas station and when I got back in the car I forgot to put on my seat belt.  While driving down the road, I reached across to grab hold of the buckle and veered into oncoming traffic where I slammed into another vehicle head on. I honestly didn’t even see it coming.  The next thing I remember is opening my eyes to a shattered sky—that’s what I thought it was in my confusion-- in the most excruciating pain imaginable.  Later I learned that I was lying in the floorboard of my car, or at least most of me was, looking upward.  The bottom portion of my right leg was turned the wrong way due to a compound fracture of the knee (meaning part of the knee cap was on the outside of my body) and the bottom half of my leg was stuck under the dash board causing my ankle to be crushed.  My head and shoulders were jammed against the passenger side door which was bent outward from the middle, resulting in a portion of my body to be laying on the street while the rest of my body was trapped in my car.  The driver’s side was completely crushed inward.  In a manner of speaking, I was in very bad shape.

I was called in as an entrapment and a probable fatality.  When the fire department arrived on the scene, included on their truck was a 24 year old man named Shane Puckett.  Shane was a rookie fire fighter who had yet to even leave the firehouse before this sunny Saturday morning.  He had completed his training but still had to take his EMT test and because of that he was sent to my side to confirm the fatality rather than to attend to the man in the other vehicle, (emergency workers aren’t allowed to touch a living victim until they have completed their training and taken their test).  As he walked towards my car he expected to find the worst considering there was no movement from me at all; but, as he got closer he could hear what he described as “whimpering.”

From my perspective, there are only flashes of memories from that day and the several days that followed.  One thing I do remember clearly is the voice of “my angel”-my name for him after I woke up in I.C.U. before I knew his real name.  I could recall hearing this deep voice that said to me, “Don’t worry, darlin’…I’m here to help…” among other calming things.  It was that voice that kept me present and anytime I could feel myself start to drift, it would bring me back to center.  Once I was conscious in the hospital, I asked about who that voice could have been and never got any answers; so, I assumed it must have been some higher power.  Turns out I was mostly correct…

Back to the scene of my accident—

Several firefighters had tried to find a way to open the door of my car to no avail and so they had decided that the only means of extraction was to cut me out.  The problem with that scenario was that while the tools are effective, they can take a long time.  Shane felt that I didn’t have that kind of time and so he walked over to my car, asked another fireman to get ready to catch me and proceeded to rip the door off of my car.  He bent, broke and pulled away a METAL DOOR from the frame of a car!  When my parents arrived at the hospital they were told about what Shane had done…and then were told that it was a good thing that he had made the decision he did.  After a medical evaluation at the hospital it was discovered that I had massive internal bleeding and had they waited for the equipment needed to cut the door off of the car, I would have bled to death internally at the scene.  My family was shocked at both the news of my condition and the heroism displayed by a young firefighter they had yet to meet.  They were given no further information about who had done this incredible thing.

Several months later, my mother was asked to speak in church one Sunday morning about my car accident.  As she is not comfortable speaking in public in any way, shape or form she almost didn’t do it.  I’m glad she did because that day there was a young firefighter visiting the church with his beautiful wife and brand new baby girl.  It was Shane.  After my mother spoke about “Keri’s Angel” as well as the nameless firefighter who ripped metal to save my life…up walked Shane with tears in his eyes to tell her that he was who she had been speaking about!  He was the voice of my angel AND the man who somehow found the super human strength needed to save my life.  He said that the vision of me—“looking like a broken rag doll”--had haunted him every day since and how he nearly quit after my accident because he didn’t think he was cut out for that kind of work—“pulling broken, bleeding kids out of cars.”  Thank God he didn’t quit because he was made for this kind of work…he is brave, strong and unbelievably humble.
Back to the scene of the email--

So, when I stopped to think of the hero in my life…of course I thought of Shane.  I wrote in and honestly forgot all about it until I opened my email on November 8th and sitting in my inbox was a letter from The Oprah Winfrey Show inviting Shane and me to come to Chicago to attend a taping of a show focusing on heroes!  I called Shane and, although it had been several years since we had spoken, he knew me right away saying, "Well, hello, darlin'!"  I laughed out loud at the greeting i remembered from so long ago and then asked if he was free to head up to Chicago the following Monday to go see Oprah. Needless to say, he jumped right on board!  

The week that followed was a whirlwind of travel plans, DECIDING WHAT TO WEAR (!!), packing and a lot of reflection over the past 14 years since that fateful day that he gave me back my life.  Before we knew it, we were sitting down in the audience of The Oprah Winfrey Show!  Out walked Oprah, in this rather frumpy black dress, to tell us that we were going to be discussing heroes and exploring the art of meditation (cue the Chinese GONG!)…I must say, we were all looking rather confused and skeptical.  She told us all to breath and to reflect and….then it started SNOWING—real snow, by the way—sleigh bells took over the gong sounds and the audience went wild!  It was "Oprah's Ultimate Favorite Things" episode!  As   Oprah ripped off that frumpy black dress to reveal a beautiful red holiday gown, the screeching of the crowd sounded like they let loose axe murderers into the studio and locked all the exit doors.  Even Wes Craven would have been impressed with the blood curdling screams!  It was, in a word, incredible.



Lessons Learned:
1.  Remember to never judge people who are on newsletter lists for daytime talk shows.
2.  Sometimes all it takes is remembering to say "Thank You." to make a major impact on a person's life. (Side note--I did, in fact, send a hand written thank you note to Sharvonne Turner-who was in charge of booking that show-and to Ms. Oprah Winfrey!)
3.  Remembering to remain thankful can make a major impact on your life.
4.  Living each day as if yesterday could have been your last will help you to remember the previous three lessons.



Final thoughts:
Oprah was beautiful, the gifts were unbelievable (and remain that way to this day), and the experience was remarkable…but what I will always carry with me from that day is the moment I looked up at Shane and realized that I had finally found some way to show him my gratitude.  There is NO way to thank him for giving me my life.  He made it possible for me to LIVE—to meet my partner in life, convince him to marry me and proceed to have the two most beautiful children ever to walk the Earth…along with all the other incredible LIFE experiences along the way.  How do you thank a person for that?  You can’t; but, if you are lucky, you get to have MS. OPRAH WIIIIINFREEEEEEEY do it for you!