Product Overview
In this gripping first-person account, former Olympian Eric LeMarque recounts a harrowing tale of survivalof eight days in the frozen wilderness, of losing his legs to frostbite, and coming face-to-face with death. But Erics ordeal on the mountain was only part of his struggle for survivalas he reveals, with startling candor, an even more harrowing and inspiring tale of fame and addiction, healing and triumph.
On February 6, 2004, Eric, a former professional hockey player and expert snowboarder, set off for the top of 12,000-foot Mammoth Mountain in Californias vast Sierra Nevada mountain range. Wearing only a long-sleeve shirt, a thin wool hat, ski pants, and a lightweight jacketand with only four pieces of gum for foodhe soon found himself chest-high in snow, veering off the snowboard trail, and plunging into the wilderness. By nightfall he knew he was in a fight for his lifeSurviving eight days in subfreezing temperatures, he would earn the name The Miracle Man by stunned National Guard Black Hawk Chopper rescuers.
But Erics against-all-odds survival was no surprise to those who knew him. A gifted hockey player in his teens, he was later drafted by the Boston Bruins and a 1994 Olympian. But when his playing days were over, Eric felt adrift. Everything changed when he first tasted the rush of hard drugsthe highly addictive crystal methwhich filled a void left by hockey and fame. By the time Eric reached the peak of Mammoth Mountain in 2004, he was already dueling demons that had seized his soul.
A riveting adventure, a brutal confessional, here Eric tells his remarkable storyhis climb to success, his long and painful fall, and his ordeal in the wilderness. In the end, a man whose life had been based on athleticism would lose both his legs, relearn to walkeven snowboardwith prosthetics, and finally confront the ultimate test of survival: what it takes to find your way out of darkness, andafter so many liesto tell truth and begin to live again.
