Ethan’s Miracle Story

May 24, 1976: The evening of this day found me installing storm windows at our house in Huntington, WV and Marilyn experiencing abdominal discomfort which we assumed was indigestion. Marilyn was in the 6th month of our first pregnancy, and we had not yet begun to prepare for our baby’s due date at the end of August.

May 25, 1976: The day began with a shock at 5:30 a.m. when Marilyn awakened to find that she was bleeding and that her “water” had broken. I rushed her to Cabell Huntington Hospital emergency room, and at 7:06 a.m. shortly after our arrival, our baby boy was born…a full three months early weighing 3.4 lbs. Marilyn had suffered “placenta abruption,” a serious condition where the placenta had broken away from the wall of the uterus which can be a life-threatening event for the mother as well as child…

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A Heart Attack on the Way And I Never Felt Better!

“You are one of the healthiest guys I know for your age,” was an expression I had become accustomed to hearing from my doctor. I have always enjoyed excellent health and have been what some might call a “health nut.” So when I found myself on the operating table for a heart catherization in the Fall of 2002 at 56 years of age and heard my cardiologist say: “You have massive heart blockage and need immediate open-heart surgery,” I was shocked. In fact, my wife later exclaimed to the doctor in the waiting room: “Are you sure you have the right patient?” I had never experienced any chest pain, pressure, or shortness of breath, and in fact, had removed several large trees in my yard just two weeks prior to my surgery…

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Safe in the Shadow of the Rock

The escape and evasion night exercise was the culminating event for my Officer Candidate (OCS) schooling at Ft. Sill, OK in the Fall of 1968. This was the height of the Vietnam War, and I had volunteered for Army duty in lieu of being drafted. I had been assigned for training as an artillery forward observer (FO), a position noted for having one of the shortest life expectancies of all officers in Vietnam. Deployment of the FO’s were typically far out in front of friendly lines calling in artillery fire on enemy targets with only a radio operator for protection…

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