Miraculous Recovery

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The Daily Citizen

Man’s miraculous recovery makes TV

By Kyle Melinn

It’s not necessarily a miracle John Turrentine’s nasty motorcycle crash 32 years ago will be re-enacted this fall on a national television program. Yes, the Dalton doctor’s real-life story was picked out of 1,000 entries in a special Pax Television promotion, but the real miracle is that Turrentine is alive to talk about it.

On the evening of Aug. 2, 1967, Turrentine wrapped his Honda 50 motorcycle around a telephone pole near his former Atlanta-area home.

The residential street was bare. The night was hot and all the residents were snug inside their air-conditioned homes. His parents were attending a conference miles away in Florida.

Nobody could here 15-year-old Turrentine’s cries as he lost more than half of his blood from his mangled left leg.

How he was discovered is one miracle, he said. How he was able to walk unaided two years later is another.

"It was a changing point in my life," Turrentine said. "It strengthened my faith at a time when I was at the end of my rope and I didn’t have much left."

Turrentine entered his story in Pax television’s "America’s Search of Miracles" promotion earlier this year. Five stories nationwide were picked to be re-enacted for the prime-time television show. "It’s a miracle," hosted by Richard Thomas formerly the "Waltons" John Boy. "It was a tough selection process," said John McLaughlin, senior producer for Tri-Crown Productions. "They had nearly 1,000 entries and this one made it through."

Turrentine visited the Brentwood Street accident scene with television crews from Burbank, Calif., two weeks ago. The curb he ran over is still there. The telephone pole he hit is gone. A new one sits in the same spot. The television crews interviewed Turrentine, his mother, one of the four doctors who saved his leg and the wife of the man whose discovery saved Turrentine’s life.

When he was found, the bone in Turrentine’s upper leg was split and poking through his skin. He lost an inch and a half off his left leg.

Doctors needed to put eight units of blood back in to his body. A regular human body has 12. His ankle bone was never found.

"I was OK when I went to the scene, but my legs were hurting when they were talking to Dr. (Robert) Willingham," Turrentine said. "I had to get up and leave the room. I knew it was bad, but not as bad as he described."

He said he never let the crippling injury break his spirit. Turrentine was told not to play high school football again, so he ran cross country.

Since then, He’s run in the New York City Marathon, Boston Marathon and a marathon in Atlanta with his left leg and inch and a half shorter than the right.

The show now appears at 9 p.m. Sunday, but6 will be moved to 8 p.m. Thursday starting Aug. 26. Turrentine’s story will appear sometime in October, McLaughlin said.

The hour-long program features four to five different stories each episode. Turrentine’s story will likely be seven to 10 minutes long.

Pax television is a family-oriented network featured on cable channel 56 in Dalton and channel 53 in Chatsworth.