http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEP20030721133653&Title=States&rLink=0 "Holding Severed Head In Place, He Defied Death" IANS AGRA: A 28-year-old carrier van driver's head nearly got chopped off in a road accident. Weeks later he is alive, thanks to sheer grit. His head almost severed, blood oozing and eyes popping out, Balram was in a dazed state when the accident took place on July 5 in Fatehabad in Uttar Pradesh. He, however, kept his head attached to his body with some cloth. When no one came to help him, he drove his own vehicle for 30 km to reach a nursing home in Agra. Doctors there found the head partly joined with the spinal column -- something that saved his life. D.V. Sharma, who runs the nursing home, said it was Balram's supreme confidence and presence of mind that must have made him drive without any loss of time. "Had there been some delay, death was a certainty." "Imagine someone walking into the nursing home with his head almost cut off from the neck. The very thought gives shivers," said an attendant who first saw Balram at the nursing home. On Sunday evening, a felicitation function was organised by Agra's clubs and some NGOs for Balram. People who donated blood for him were also praised at the function in the hospital, which incidentally refused to take money for his treatment. Recalling the accident, a family member said: "Balram was returning from Arnauta in Bah tehsil (sub-district) with 10 quintals of wheat in his van. When he was passing through the main market in Fatehabad, a tractor trolley carrying iron rods and pipes ahead of him suddenly applied the breaks. "Balram could not stop in time and banged into the trolley. The iron rods pierced through his neck. His head fell on one side, attached precariously to the spinal cord. "He was fully conscious and all his organs were in command. Promptly, Balram straightened his head and tied a 'safi' (a thin cloth towel) around it and rushed towards Agra. Whoever saw the scene couldn't believe his eyes. The crowd that assembled around did nothing. "When Balram tried to speak, blood oozed from his mouth. "Soaked in blood and in a totally shattered state, even his co-worker collapsed unconscious. But Balram did not lose heart. He kick-started the van and went to a nearby doctor who advised him to immediately rush to Agra. The first nursing home on the way refused him admission as he was in a critical state. "Then around 7.30 p.m., he reached D.V. Sharma's bone clinic. He fell unconscious. Sharma immediately got his team together as both his pulse and breathing rhythms had come under strain." It took nearly three-and-a-half hours for doctors to complete the operation. Papers on the van helped them trace his family members. A life was saved. On Sunday, Balram was fit and ready to return. He is still having trouble speaking, but doctors said a minor operation later would restore his voice

Did you hear the story of that important business executive who boarded the New-Orleans-to-Washington train? He was a heavy sleeper and he needed to be awakened in order to get off the train in Atlanta about five o'clock in the morning. He had a very important business engagement there so he found a porter and told him, "I want you to awaken me in order that I might get off the train at five o'clock in the morning. Now I'm a heavy sleeper," he said. "It doesn't matter how much I fret and fuss and fume or what I do to you — I have to get off the train in Atlanta. If you have to remove me bodily," he said, "you get me off that train in Atlanta." "Well, the next morning he awakened about 9 o'clock, having slept all night and having missed Atlanta, found that he was speeding toward Washington. He located the porter and really poured it on with all sorts of abusive language, almost attacking the poor guy bodily. After he left, someone said to the porter, "How could you stand there and take that kind of talk from that man?" The porter said, rather bewildered, 'That ain't nothin'! You should've heard that guy I put off in Atlanta!'" "Many of us not only fail to get off at the right station, we miss the train — and too many of us, I'm afraid, miss the train of the total gospel message. That's the reason we have to read the rest of the story — and we have to think about the walk from Emmaus."