@GravitySucks - WOW this video is amazing. It gives me a view and sound of riding in a bobsled. The rider calls out the curves. Who is giving out the calls? The one in the front seat is the driver? Does the heaviest person sit in the last seat? I have rode in a toboggan with at least 5 people. We would arrange seating according to weight and skill. Fly off a toboggan is not fun. Thinking back to the story of Ethan Frome and Mattie. It sounds like your “smash-up†almost killed you. You must believe in FATE at this time in your life. This smash up has changed your life. Life has a way of breaking us up into pieces. It is want you do with the pieces that has meaning.
@FISH The wreck really did change my life. I had been taking some college courses at night in the summer and fall but I always had to skip the spring semester to compete in Lake Placid. That summer I decided if my hands were paralyzed I better work on my brain. I started going to classes at University of Nebraska at Omaha to finish my degree in Computer Science. I took every CLEP test I could and every weekend class I could from SIU and any nearby college. Some semesters I took over 20 hours at night and on weekends.
I needed one more 300 level Humanities class for my degree plan. The only one available that fit my schedule was one that was a physics/humanities class that was funded by NASA called “Philosophy of Space Explorationâ€. I took it pass/fail thinking it would be a blow off class for me. I became enthralled with it.
Until I moved to Texas between my Junior and Senior year I went to the same high school as Eugene Cernan. While I was taking this class NASA was beginning to launch the Space Shuttle. It renewed the interest I had for wanting to work in the space program. I finished that class and decided I was going to do everything I could to work at Johnson Space Center. I finished my degree right when my enlistment was up.
I had a Top Secret/SCI clearance and turned down a lot of lucrative job offers across the US to go to work for McDonnell Douglas down at JSC. STS-4 was the first mission I actually worked on. That led to working for 33 years on a myriad of NASA programs but mostly Shuttle and Station.
I eventually recovered from my hands being paralyzed but I do still suffer from some neuropathy and nerve damage. But yes. That accident changed my life and career path.
And yes, I believe in fate. Don’t always understand it, but generally accept it.