 |
| Dick Williams Photo: Wikipedia |
One of the
passengers, a young tennis player named Dick Williams, put on a life jacket
and, before he jumped into the frigid Atlantic, he helped fill a boat with
passengers. Grateful, they pulled him into the boat to safety but, as it was
overloaded, it took in water and, an already shivering Williams, had to sit in
ankle-deep cold water until 4 a.m. when they were rescued by the Carpathia.
The doctors told him
that he had such terrible frost bite that they would have to amputate his legs
in order to save his life from gangrene that was sure to set in.
Dick refused and
began to pace the boat with bandaged feet every two hours in a valiant effort
to restore circulation to his badly frostbitten legs.
To the doctors'
surprise, after two days of his grueling self-prescribed walk every two hours,
Williams' legs began to improve, he started feeling them again, and circulation
was restored, thus savings his life and his legs.
Once on shore, after
a rigorous training program, three months later, Williams won the mixed doubles
title at the U.S. National Championship. His career included winning Wimbledon, Olympic gold medal, and being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
No comments:
Post a Comment