Amy Montgomery
There was no blood at the scene, not even a cut on his body. Yet on May 25, 1999, when the top of a massive beech tree snapped off and slammed into 33-year-old, Adirondack logger Scott Remington, his bones exploded. The terrain was unforgiving and the area too remote for cell phones. So the fact that medics reached him is a miracle. So is the aftermath of a freak accident that felt like death to a woodsman who could never sit still. More than the story of one man, this is also about a small town that rescued Scott from despair, and, by accident, discovered the meaning of life.
In this well written and extremely compelling book, Amy Montgomery draws us into the essence of living with a spinal cord injury through Scott Remington’s moving story. Her portrayal of his struggle to survive and live a meaningful life makes us care as much as the members of his family.
In an instant both Scott and I became members of a club that neither of us would ever have wanted to join. But instead of self pity, Scott has demonstrated relentless energy, drive, and willpower that no disability can diminish.
Montgomery has captured not only the drama of an accidental tragedy but the power of the human spirit to overcome it.
Christopher Reeve
Amy donates 10% of her $9.38 per-book royalties to the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
Amy Montgomery is an EMT and New Jersey-based freelance writer, who has worked primarily with corporate clients across a range of industries. She has also worked as a radio reporter, press secretary, and adjunct instructor at the University of Michigan. She has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MA from the University of Michigan.
Introduction
The weirdest part is that there wasn’t a mark on him, not a bruise, no black and blue marks, no cuts or scrapes, not a drop of blood.
But when the top of a massive beech tree snapped off unexpectedly and smacked into thirty-three-year-old logger Scott Remington—who was standing on the ground at that moment securing a bunch of freshly-cut trees to his skidder cable—it crushed his insides. “I was tying up the last tree of that hitch,” says Scott, shaking his head from the irony of it all. “Everything was all cut, and I was just hooking them up.”
The treetop hit him in the back, and Scott guesses that he lunged forward, hit the downed tree that he was tying, and was thrown back by the impact. His older brother, Earle, would eventually find Scott lying face-up in the woods beside his chainsaw and skidder, whose motor was still running, with that huge piece of beech cradling his neck like a pillow. Earle thinks that when Scott felt the impact of the tree, “He musta fought it back.” No one will ever really know what happened in that split second of impact, but one thing’s for sure, says Earle, “Scott’s pretty strong.”
