Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 29, 1995 TAG: 9508010007
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WESTMINSTER, COLO. LENGTH: Medium
By all rights, Cliff Meidl should be dead.
Rarely does a person survive 30,000 volts of electricity to resume a regular life, let alone become a world-class athlete.
Meidl is pursuing his goal of making the 2000 Olympics in canoe-kayak, an idea unknown to him nine years ago before the accident.
In 1986, he was a carefree 20-year-old, attending junior college, working as a plumbing apprentice and paddling outrigger canoes in his spare time.
At a construction site in Hawthorne, Calif., Meidl was using a jackhammer when he drilled through high-tension wires buried in an unmarked spot.
The electricity blew off two toes on his right foot, popped off his kneecaps like quarters shooting from a slot machine, traveled up his back and blasted out of his shoulders and head.
He never knew what hit him, going through cardiac arrest three times only to be revived.
``I just felt like a truck had run over my chest because of the CPR. I remember I kept wanting to get up and get out of bed but I was strapped down,'' Meidl said.
``The only thing my parents told me was that I was involved in a really bad accident and everything was going to be OK.''
Meidl's mother, Senta, barely could stand to look at her oldest son.
``When you talk about burns like he had, you're talking about holes with bone sticking out - black - blisters everywhere,'' she said. ``It was the longest time between life and death. We didn't know if he was coming out of it.''
Meidl was injected with 50 grams of morphine to ease the pain from burns covering up to 20 percent of his body.
Over the next several months, he endured 15 operations at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. At first, doctors believed his legs should be amputated. Then Dr. Malcolm A. Lesavoy of UCLA suggested using calf muscle to reconstruct the kneecaps.
Today, there's no sign of the burns on Meidl's face, which is framed by dark hair and piercing brown eyes, or his chest and arms, muscled from hours of lifting weights and paddling kayaks and canoes.
Meidl's withered knees and feet are exposed by his shorts and flip-flop shoes. The left knee is indented and the skin on each knee is mottled.
The remainder of his right big toe is a stump welded to the other three toes. A tank top reveals a patch of badly burned skin on his back.
``There were a lot of times where I felt it wasn't worth it anymore, that I just kind of wanted to quit life, it wasn't worth going through all the battles,'' Meidl said.
But his plastic surgeon told him he'd done his 50 percent and now it was up to Meidl to supply his half.
``That gave me a lot of inspiration.''
Meidl deals daily with knee pain and often can't sleep through the night. His legs are only 50 percent recovered, but Meidl is successful because kayaking requires greater upper-body strength.
``The biggest fight that I had was trying to be like I was before. I had a major battle with my inner self trying to compete against other people that I was like before,'' he said.
``I felt a lot of hate and anger for several years. I still do here and there, but I'm just trying to overcome all that.''
Three years ago, Meidl began kayaking as a way to cross-train for outrigger canoe racing. Six months later, he won gold medals in intermediate singles and doubles in the nationals.
Meidl, of Redondo Beach, Calif., won two medals Thursday in the U.S. Olympic Festival. His four-man team won the 1,000-meter kayak race, and he teamed with Mark Hamilton of Louisville, Ky., to finish third in the 500. The duo had won a silver Wednesday in the 1,000 doubles.
When he isn't training five evenings a week, Meidl works as an investment representative for a development company. His income is supplemented by a worker's compensation settlement from the state of California.
Meidl calmly recounts the accident and its aftermath to anyone who asks, although his cool demeanor didn't come without struggle.
``You can't kill a weed. I believe that I'm here definitely for a reason. Somebody wanted me around. It's my second chance,'' he said. He hasn't touched a jackhammer since that horrible day.
``And I never will, either.''
by CNB