Quote

When I was very young, my father had an accident. He fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his skull, and lost sight in one eye.

I got hurt when I was 19. They thought I broke my neck. I couldn't move my hands or feet, and I had a very bad experience.

I was in Cuba in the winter of 1937. I was playing in Cuba, and I'm in the shower, and I slipped and caught myself with my right arm. I felt something pull right then. Then, in '38, when I came back, my arm was messed up.

In 2003, he was hit by a subway in Prague and lost both of his legs. It made me realize that we take for granted every step we take, and my brother now has to physically challenge himself to take each step in his prosthetic.

I busted my chin open trying to be Evel Knievel on my bike. When it happened, you could see straight through to the bone, I thought my dad was going to pass out. It left a scar that I still have now.

I have a scar on my forehead. I was three years old, jumping on the bed with my brothers, and I fell off and hit my head on the dresser and cut it open, went to the hospital, got stitches, came home, went back on the bed, jumped with my brothers, fell again, and reopened the stitches.

With the help of a friend I got father into a wagon, when the crowd had gone. I held his head in my lap during the ride home. I believed he was mortally wounded. He had been stabbed down through the kidneys, leaving an ugly wound.

In February 1991, I was rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles to have my feet amputated. Three years earlier, I had broken the national 100 meters hurdles record while a student at UCLA and was a favourite for the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.