Near Death Experience

“Someone once told me that the only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is the will to try and the faith to believe it is possible.”

On April 24, 1998, James DeMelo was in a critical accident. A semi-truck hit his car, and the impact literally left him dead at the scene. There was a paramedic on the corner, and when he rushed to the car and checked James’s vitals, he couldn’t feel a pulse. But he began CPR and James’s heart began to beat again. Through the grace of God his life was saved, but he had broken his neck in two places, his back was broken in four places, his shoulder blade and a couple of ribs were broken, and he suffered various other injuries.

“I wore a halo brace on my head for three months so the neck vertebrae could heal,” explains James. “But even after that, I had a long way to go in the recovery process. Significant nerve damage remained, and a large portion of my muscle mass had atrophied. I had so much to overcome, and I wasn’t sure I could do it.

“But I had to try. Someone once told me that the only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is the will to try and the faith to believe it is possible. At first it was difficult, but I forced myself to go to the gym twice a day. Within the first two weeks I had increased my strength and stamina, and my mobility had greatly improved. I began to see that it was possible to regain my quality of life.