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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Second chance after near-death experience
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vino Wong/AJC
Kenneth Malcom grimaces during recent rehabilitation.
People sometimes ask Kenneth Malcom if he is scared to resume working with the electricity that almost killed him seven months ago.
They ask him if he saw white lights during his brush with death.
No, he says, to both counts.
The 56-year-old journeyman line technician for Walton EMC fell onto an underground transformer Aug. 10 while repairing electrical lines on Clower Street in Snellville. Electricity (how much is unclear) entered his chest and came out his back. He was not breathing and had no pulse when his co-workers removed him.
“When we pulled him out, he was dead as a door nail,” said Walton EMC crew member Frederick Muldrow, who — along with Tommy Ledford and Tommy McDaniel — worked with Malcom that day.
Through CPR (which Walton EMC mandates all employees learn and for which it offers company training), they were able to revive him just before an ambulance arrived to take him to Gwinnett Medical Center. The three were honored later by the Georgia EMC trade organization for their heroic efforts.
Since the accident, Malcom has worked diligently not merely to recover, but to make a complete comeback. Next week, he’ll find out if he’s there. He sees the doctor April 3 to learn if he can return to work.
Why Malcom fell is not known. Procedures were followed, safety equipment was worn, and Malcom has long paid attention to physical fitness, working out and running 6 miles daily to stay in shape. But it was a blistering hot day, and while Malcom said he had been drinking plenty of water, he and others surmise that he must have blacked out from the heat or tripped.
Such incidents are uncommon, said Greg Brooks, communications coordinator for Walton EMC. Earlier, the utility even went for a three-year stretch without any injury that resulted in lost work time.
That’s why Malcom isn’t scared to return. He had never been seriously injured before and knows that with the safety precautions, it is unlikely again.
(As for the lack of white lights, Malcom can only say that he remembers nothing. It was time lost, he said.)
It has been a long road for Malcom. His head required 30 stitches and part of his ear was cut off. His shoulder was cracked and needed surgery. He fractured his lower lumbar and received second- and third-degree burns.
But his determination and spirit were left strong.
“I’m blessed,” he told me last week. “I’m very blessed.”
I heard about Malcom from my husband, who met him at Atlanta Rehabilitation & Performance Center in Snellville, where Malcom goes for physical therapy three days a week. He works up a sweat with weights, a stationary bike and other equipment, all the time exchanging quips with the staff there.
“The hardest part is the stretches,” performed by therapists while he lies on a table, he confided.
My husband, who was nursing a knee injury, was moved by Malcom’s outlook, determination and the intensity of his workouts — even before he heard Malcolm’s story.
“He’s definitely got a lot of fight,” said David Biggee, physical therapist and part owner of Atlanta Rehabilitation. “He wants to be where he was before that day.” “A lot of people would be satisfied being at the point he’s at right now — once they get within 20 percent of what they were,” Biggee said. “ … He’s not satisfied not having full movement (of his shoulder and arm).
Malcom wants to return to Walton EMC, where he has worked for 24 years, until he retires. “I want to be healthy,” he said.
Originally from Monroe, Malcolm lives with his wife of 32 years, Linda, and his youngest son, Nick, on Everson Road near Snellville.
Linda, retired from a job with the state government, is a native of the area and part of the Everson family for which the road was named.
Nick, 25, recently graduated from Savannah State University, is looking for a job in social work and planning for graduate studies. An older son, Kelvin Deitrick Malcom, 28, is in the real estate and mortgage business in Hawaii.
Malcom’s survival of the accident in August is not the first time he feels he has been given a second chance at life. Four years ago, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent treatment. Next year will bring the five-year mark of being cancer-free.
“My wife has told me, ‘You’ve … used two of your lives; you only have five left,’” Malcom said.
Since the accident, Malcom has not only resumed his fitness routine, “I’m more into exercising,” he said. “I run in the morning and ride my bike in the afternoon.” He recently won second place for his age group in the “Run the Reagan” 10K on Ronald Reagan Parkway.
He also finds himself being more positive (which I noticed as he complimented the men who saved his life, his wife for her care, co-workers who visited and called, the EMTs who took him to the hospital, the Gwinnett Medical Center staff, those who help him in rehabilitation, Walton EMC and others.)
“And I always thank the Lord, because he’s No. 1 to me,” he said.
“I do look at life differently. … The negative things in my life, I try to avoid them.”
“I’m too blessed to be stressed.”
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