"It’s been perfect, let’s rent that boat one last time…"

I’m the survivor of a propeller strike. I write also on behalf of my husband, Bob, and Paul, the fishing guide, as this is the story of three strikes by the same boat. Their strikes were fatal. The accident was a freak occurrence, and the worst of its type on the lake. My husband and I were enjoying a wonderfully romantic and peaceful vacation on Table Rock Lake in Missouri. It was our 19th anniversary and all we wanted was to spend time together enjoying nature, each other, the beauty and serenity of the lake, and fishing. We hired a trained, licensed, and certified fishing guide and his 18-foot bass boat, powered by a 200 hp outboard propeller driven engine. He had taken us out on Thursday and we enjoyed it so much we decided to stay an extra day and hire him one last time on Saturday June 11, 1994.

Bob & I were well-trained and avid boaters. None of us in the boat that day were novices, and we were NOT imbibing in alcohol or drugs. We were just boating and fishing. It’s not what you know. A series of events lead to all three of us being thrown from the boat that Saturday. The now empty boat, still running and in gear, was in a hard right turn and circling tightly in what we now call "the circle of death."

When we surfaced, Bob and I located each other and were talking across the water. We were fine. Suddenly, Bob yelled that the boat was coming at me from behind. I spun around and saw the bow of the boat coming straight at me. I pushed (with both arms at the time) off the bow of the boat and went under, curling myself into a ball to avoid the propeller. I was tossed about and stripped of my clothing due to the force of the propeller but escaped. I surfaced and yelled to Bob that I was okay. He warned me that the boat was "at me AGAIN". I again pushed myself away from the boat, worried mostly about my legs and the path of the open propeller. This time I was inside a whirlpool, spiraling downward, fighting to swim to the surface. As I surfaced, I could not avoid the propeller. In fact I was sucked into it. It slashed my left arm, my back and breast, and continued down, slashing my left buttocks, grabbing my left hip and thigh and chewing down through the bone. I was swimming as hard as I could with my undamaged right side until I cleared the prop. I yelled to Bob to watch out for the propeller. The next time I saw him, he was floating in the water, seemingly resting. As heroes pulled him aboard the boat, I saw that his left leg was shredded from the knee down. He had died. I later discovered, our guide, was mowed down from behind by the boat and its spinning propeller. He also died.

For them, the propeller caused death. For me it caused much more. Through great will, faith, determination, and support, and an unsurpassed medical and family team, I am a functioning human being, and adjusting to a completely different life. I am typing this with my remaining arm, the right one, as my left arm had to be amputated above the elbow. I lost all but 1 pint of my body's blood. My body absorbed 29 lake bacteria. I had a plate in my left leg under which the bone miraculously regenerated. After being initially hospitalized for ten weeks, of which the first six were spent far from my home, I went from a wheelchair, to a cane, to a scooter. I had to get leg/foot braces to assist in slowing down the deterioration of my muscles. In 1997, my left leg bone became infected (as well as the plate) and I was hospitalized for three months undergoing extreme antibacterial bone marrow treatments, which saved my left leg bone. In 1998, my left hip collapsed and my hip was removed. My sister gave up her job, and changed her family’s entire lifestyle to care for me for over 11 years. I remained in physical, occupational, and psychological therapy for over 8 years, still receiving occasional maintenance therapy.