Casey Rowe

I recieved this e-mail from a friend who brought Casey to our field several times:

Dear friends,

I've had a chance to reflect on and now would like to tell you about the man..... as I walked through the door to his room he recognized me and smiled right away and it momentarily brought me back to when we first met, always a smile or occasionally joking around, talking about good times flying model planes. You know how you can just tell when someone is happy that your just there, that feeling swept right through me. I smiled and came farther into the room, a little hesitant at what might be. "How ya feeling" I spit out, then thought to myself, thats a dumb question. As I got closer I could feel his suffering, although he tried not to show it, I could see it in his eyes. He asked for a hug, I gladly indulged him. I felt a certain comfort in the fact that he said he was feeling better and was progressing in his therapy quite well. We spoke about modeling and how much we enjoy the camaraderie amongst ourselves, what a privilege to be a part of such a great hobby. But now was a time for us to talk of other possibilities, things that may go wrong, things that did go wrong. A gaping wound in his right lower back lacerated his kidney and came within an 1/8 of an inch of severing his spinal cord, a second large slice in his right buttox, then a third, striking his right leg and severing his leg below the knee and then still a fourth blow just below that, now my friends let me tell you that this man put a splint on his own leg, stuffed towels in his own wounds and was significant in saving his own life after being struck by a 42% Oracle Biplane. He told me that he lost over 7 units of blood (thats more than 50%) and that they nearly lost him on the helicopter ride to Cleveland. Casey Rowe and I have known each other for about three years and while in the hospital visiting him it welled a large rolling tear in my eye as I listened to the story of what happened to him that would change him forever.