Free Iron Heart: The True Story of How I Came Back From the Dead by Brian Boyle, Bill Katovsky Page A

few broken bones. They never mentioned that I was going to be a cripple the rest of my life. All the progress that I have made has just been canceled. Why did I have to ask Francine? I start crying. She tries to console me, but it’s too late.
    For the rest of our physical therapy session, I remain quiet and sullen. I try to smile and nod every now and then, but it’s completely artificial. My spirit is broken. I’m damaged goods. What will it be like to never walk again? How will this change my life? When I graduated high school a few months ago, I never thought that the bright future I had planned was going to turn into something as awful as this. The day of my graduation, as I walked across the stage, the school principal should have said, “Mr. Boyle, congratulations, here’s your diploma. And by the way, in several weeks, all your goals and dreams will be destroyed in a car accident. Best of luck to you in the future.”
    When Francine leaves, I’m in a foul mood and I do something that I shouldn’t. A white sheet covers me from the waist down. Naturally, I’m curious to see what the rest of my body looks like. From seeing my arms and legs, I know I’m rail thin and have agonizingly come to accept this unfortunate fact. But what does my stomach look like and what about everything below that? I slowly raise the sheet and lift up my hospital gown for a peek. I notice the invading catheter, but as I raise my eyes upward to my stomach and lower chest, the view is revolting. It’s much worse than anything I had ever imagined. I have never seen anything as dreadful as this. I knew I was pretty messed up from the accident, but this is totally gruesome. It looks as though I have been ripped open many times by the assistance of scalpels and finely sharpened blades. The only thing missing is the carved signature from the surgeon who did all this fine work. What detail, what craftsmanship. I have scars all over. My stomach has been sliced open from the middle of my chest all the way down to my belly button, and the wound is ugly and red. There are even tiny segments of the skin that have not yet fully closed, and I can actually see tiny holes that go deep beneath the layers of skin. I have another long cut that goes all the way across the lower area of my left pectoral. My body is ruined.
    Ever since middle school, I always tried to take care of my physique by eating well and weight training. It started when I joined the basketball team in sixth grade. Every day after practice, I would jump rope for several minutes, do an endless number of sit-ups and push-ups, and run whenever I got the chance.
    When I saw the formation of my very first abdominal muscles, the workout craze really hit strong and I weight trained everyday after that. It wasn’t really a macho kind of thing that led me to this lifestyle, but more a feeling of being healthy that made me enjoy doing it. The feedback that I happily received from the girls was a big plus too.
    Throughout high school, I stayed in shape and actively participated in sports, never getting caught up in the party scene. Shortly after graduation, one of my close friends, named Rachel, persuaded me to pursue modeling. She has the look—tall, blonde hair, long legs, cute face, and she had been modeling for several years. She said that I was the type of guy some agencies were looking for. Shortly after graduation, I received a phone call from a modeling agent in California who wanted me to fly out and attend college near L.A. because he thought I could get work with Calvin Klein Underwear and Abercrombie & Fitch. Unfortunately, I never made the trip west. Instead, I’m in Intensive Care, morbidly staring at my wretched, gone-to-hell body.
    When Victoria returns, I hurry to lower the sheet in embarrassment. I give her a fake grin. My parents are following closely behind her, and my dad is carrying a bottle of Mountain Dew. I’m eager to see them. It’s a timely diversion from thinking