We Are Superman

Imagine crashing into a wall in your car while traveling at 30 mph. That could certainly leave some ugly marks. Let’s take away the seat belts and airbags and imagine careening down a hill on a bike or on skis and hitting an object at that same speed. That will probably hurt quite a bit, perhaps a trip to the hospital. Now imagine skydiving and smacking into the side of an immovable building. Jason Dennen of Boulder, Colo. experienced that extremely tragic scenario, and the results were predictably catastrophic. For starters, Jason broke 10 of 12 ribs on one side, his pelvis, his arm, his leg, and suffered damage to multiple organs. Most significantly, his heart was ripped from one side of his chest to the other. The doctor who performed the surgery to move it back into its proper place later told Jason that no one at the trauma hospital had done it before; he had studied the procedure in med school, but no one there had ever seen a patient survive such an injury, so this was a first-time type of surgery. Jas