Chapter 4
Looking Back... Moving On
“Living on borrowed time is a curious blessing…
to feel that I owe something, certainly to my
rescuers, and possibly to others.”
On Tuesday I drive back to Maine in my car, with Elaine following in hers. A telephone rings.
It is the cell phone built into my car. Thinking it is Elaine calling me, I pick it up. It is
the Associated Press (AP) seeking an interview. I have three choices:
To ignore the request and go on
To actively defend myself
To complete the interview in order to learn from my experience
Since it would be a shame to have had such an experience and not share its message with others, I choose the latter.
The next phase of my misadventure is now beginning.
Looking back...
Defining and Sharing my story
When I arrived home, so as to avoid being a “Soviet historian,” a latter-day revisionist, I sat at my computer and completed eight pages of text, the details as I recalled them. Fortunately, the discussion at the rescuers class and the AP wire services interview had gelled the facts and the questions about my misadventure. In the midst of this task a photographer from the AP came to our home and took photos; some with me alone, others with Elaine. Did I ever look old and haggard! Soon my story went nationwide, first in newspapers, and shortly thereafter on network television. During the chaotic weeks following my rescue and hospitalization, I received scores of well wishes from people in my current life and distant past. I also responded, in a non-confrontational manner, to a number of inquiries, comments, and questions, keeping in mind my Number One Promise made on the mountain. This process caused me to go deeper into the review of my misadventure, a misadventure that was almost a “terminal event,” as we say in the morgue. I tried to make more sense out of what happened to me, why I found myself in a near-death situation, and how I dealt with my impending death on both a physical and a spiritual level. Hopefully this follow-up—this resolution phase—would wane and life would soon return to normal.
However, several weeks after I returned from Mt. Washington, because of the extensive media coverage, Husson College in Bangor, Maine invited me to present my story at their Business Breakfast lecture series. Since it was just before Christmas, they requested that I include an element of “spirituality” in my presentation. I wondered: What does a pathologist have to offer anyone on the subject of spirituality? Perhaps the logic, the “inspiration,” for including spirituality arises from three potential sources :
The original Bernhoff Dahl, my grandfather and namesake, was a minister in an ancient Baptist
sect in his native land of Norway that claimed to trace its roots all the way back to John the
Baptist.
I graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois—Billy Graham’s alma mater—with a major in
Chemistry, but also with a degree in Bible.
I did have a religious experience in my early teens at a church camp in New Hampshire.
After considerable hesitation, I agreed to speak. My presentation was well-attended and received. It was also audiotaped by Maine Public Radio and soon thereafter broadcast in a series entitled Speaking in Maine. As a result I was invited to speak in a number of venues: service clubs, graduations, libraries, classrooms, outing clubs, and professional societies here in New England. These I accepted with some hesitation; but, nevertheless, I did accept them—and they were all presented pro bono.
The opening of my presentation, “Lessons for Living from a Mt. Washington Misadventure,” always started with:
"October 23, 1999: Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. It was truly a “dark and stormy night” for me—perhaps the darkest and stormiest night of my life, for I came to within minutes—five minutes—of Death, my Death... for, unbeknownst to me, my rescuers were about to give up! As a physician and pathologist for more than thirty years I had developed a close professional relationship with Death and dying, but not a personal relationship with my dying, certainly not with my Death! During that long afternoon, evening, and night as I lay waiting for a rescue in extreme whiteout conditions with hurricane-force winds...and then, having given up hope, and waiting for Death...I had abundant time to think about living, and to think about dying.
It has also been said, since ancient times, that to know how to live, one must first learn how to die."
After I told the story of the mountain rescue, I shared with each audience what I had learned, the three lessons:
Be prepared to die!
Have a plan to live!
Do it now!
This is very same message I have continued to share with all my audiences—but especially with myself. While these admonitions, especially the first one, may seem offensive or intrusive, they were the true deep-seated message from my misadventure. As a hero who had returned from his quest, from the forbidden and dangerous “other world,” I had learned new lessons and confirmed old ones. I had gained new insights and became increasingly burdened to share them.
Subsequently, a film crew from London, England emailed me for several months from throughout the world while on assignments. Eventually, they convinced me to work with them on a re-enactment of my misadventure for The Learning Channel’s series entitled StormForce. They brought me, Mike Pelchat, and several other rescuers (none of the other members of my Magnificent Seven) together on Mt. Washington for the re-enactment.
Why did I accept this offer, this opportunity, this challenge? Was I intoxicated by the attention? Would it be a new experience where I would gain skills? Would it be something to do, some way of making sense out of my retirement? Was it a reprieve from nothingness? I think it came down to pure curiosity, or as Will Rogers noted, “Men are like monkeys; you throw anything into their cage and they will consider it.” I have always been Will Rogers’ monkey.
The Learning Channel show has been broadcast worldwide on several occasions. Soon I developed a web site and received thousands of visits and hundreds of personal stories of misadventures and tragedies. I attended the Cavett Institute of the National Speakers Association in Arizona to improve my scripts and presentation skills. Veteran actor and director Ken Stack of Bar Harbor, Maine skillfully helped me discover, develop, and perfect my stage persona. I went on to share my story as a keynote speaker, and by way of accompanying workshops, in the widest possible range of venues in the USA and beyond—even in Katmandu and Singapore on the way to Mt. Everest Base Camp in Nepal.