Craig Deleenheer:  

It was Mother's Day nineteen ninety-one. A typical late spring day in California where the sun was shining and the smells of spring still floated easily in the air. I arrived at mom's house, ready to gorge myself on a home cooked meal. Dinner is not ready yet? If I have an hour or two, there is time for a bike ride. A quick phone call later, "Fish" and I were on the trail. We called the place "torkers". It had numerous paths intertwining through groves of eucalyptus and oak trees. Flying down a trail dodging trees we soon found ourselves at the edge of a deep ravine with a dry creek bed in the bottom. Two fallen logs were perched in such a way that it made a sort of ramp leading to the ravine. At the high end of this log hung a rope. The idea was to run up the log while holding the rope and swing in large, lazy circles out over the creek bed. By running a little further up the log each time you came around you could get some scary height as you passed above the ravine. I had to try it out, but I am going to be safe about it. The first thing I did was to grasp the rope. Jump as high as I could and pull as hard as I could when the slack came out. It held tight so it must be safe. We took turns on that swing for close to an hour, until we decide to move on. I am going to go one last time, but this time I am going to see if I can swing all the way across, Tarzan style. I swung out, in perfect form. Then with a loud crack the rope broke where it was tied to the tree. I the blink of an eye, I was hurled into the sand below. The darkness faded from the hard landing and when I came to I was looking up at giant Eucalyptus branches swaying in the wind. It felt like someone had bashed my head with a sledgehammer. I tried to get up and my body would not move. I reached for my right leg and could not feel my hand touching it! Pain surged through every part of me. With every breath agony pulsed, reducing my lungs to fa...Expand for more