Meet the world's best lumberjack and the son he almost lost forever - For The Win
– Mel Lentz, the King of the Lumberjacks, sat atop the cab of a logging truck, deftly working the controls to a self-loader that plucked logs off the ground and stacked them in rows to be lugged off toward their future. He’d just eaten lunch and was now alone with only the work to keep him company, which is how he often likes it, anyway. Then the weight of a log pulled too hard, and the bolts on the turntable below him gave way. His body jarred to a stop with a loud snap when the boom crashed down on his left leg, pinning it against the log stake and shattering his femur. The force of his bone breaking shredded his skin – “It looked like somebody took a shotgun to it,” he says – sending blood pouring out. The top of his leg turned right, slightly, but at mid-thigh it swerved left, heading away from his body, splaying out to the side. Lentz says he did not scream. He didn’t contemplate death, or even the likelihood that he would lose his leg, his career and the livelihood that supported two children. It would also serve as the introduction that his son Jason always wanted – and implant in him a need to understand, like so many young men, how to be like his. Source: ftw.usatoday.com
