Iron Heart : The True Story of How I Came Back from the Dead

by Boyle, Brian

• ISBN13: 9781602397712
• ISBN10: 1602397716
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: FRWHEEL

Summary

It was a terrible car crash, and during the months Brian Boyle lay in a medically induced coma, his body convulsed whenever his parents spoke. He remembers finally waking up from the coma, unable to speak or move, watching his doctors huddled with his parents in the corner of the hospital room. They didn't know it, but he could hear them. He heard the words "vegetable" and "hospital for life." He saw tubes everywhere-down his throat, in his chest, in his arms, on his neck. He couldn't move any part of his body, couldn't blink his eyelids. He couldn't ask why he was paralyzed. He only knew that he was in a hospital and that he was scared. Later, this 5-foot-11, 230-pound athlete turned 130-pound skeleton, sat in his wheelchair, staring at his immovable legs, willing death to come. For almost two years, survival seemed impossible. . . until the dream of an Ironman triathlon brought twenty-three-year-old Brian Boyle back to life. From learning how to walk again to becoming an Ironman, Brian's ordeal and triumph are brought to life in his inspiring memoir: Iron Heart .

Table of Contents

Heart
Waking Up	p. 2
Hoping to Find Answers and Finding None	p. 6
A New Kind of Living Hell	p. 12
I Recognize My Parents	p. 17
Angels in the Hallway	p. 21
I Want to Die	p. 24
Garth and JoAnne Boyle	p. 32
The Smile	p. 37
The Kiss	p. 42
Throwing the Discus	p. 52
"Hello"	p. 58
Question Time	p. 64
Standing Tall	p. 77
Leaving Intensive Care	p. 81
Kernan Rehabilitation Center	p. 86
Where Am I?	p. 100
Therapy Sessions	p. 107
Witness	p. 111
Body
Coming Home	p. 118
The Track	p. 135
The Intersection	p. 142
Return to Prince George's Hospital	p. 146
Getting Back in the Pool	p. 155
Tattoos	p. 161
Concrete	p. 163
St. Mary's College Swim Team	p. 167
July Is the Cruelest Month	p. 174
Bodybuilding	p. 177
Soul
My First Triathlon	p. 186
From Coma to Kona	p. 209
Epilogue	p. 240
Acknowledgments	p. 244
About the Authors	p. 249
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