Mark Mettler entered Grady Memorial Hospital on March 1, straight from the sky. He was flown in from Rockmart after a parachute jump that went horribly wrong. Few people expected him to live.

When he returned to Grady in late June with his mother, bearing balloons, chicken wings and a sheet cake, he was able to stand long enough to visit with trauma surgeon Dr. Leslie Matthews and the nurses and technicians he credits with saving his life.

By Matthews' account, Mettler should have been dead three times over. The physician calculated Mettler's chances of dying from each of his injuries. He stopped when the tally was greater than 300 percent.

After all, Mettler, 45, had plunged 500 feet toward the ground at an estimated speed of 70 mph.

The day had started well. Mettler, who is divorced, drove from his Virginia Highland home to Skydive the Farm in Rockmart that day with his son, Madison, 9, and daughter, Laura, 5. A former parachutist with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, he was working toward recertification more than 20 years since his last skydive. He hoped to add a new dimension to his routine of just working and going home.

His children had never seen him jump.

The day's supervised dive would be the fifth of seven required for recertification as a solo jumper.

By the time Mettler arrived in Rockmart, the weather was rough and windy. He considered going home, but didn't want to disappoint his children. By late afternoon the conditions improved, and Mettler went up with instructor Sandy Paulsen.

Paulsen's husband and fellow instructor, Hans Paulsen, was on the ground. He didn't know who was diving.

Looking up, Paulsen noticed that a student's parachute seemed to be stalling. A few seconds later, it looked fine. Then, at about 500 feet, the parachute appeared to partially close and the skydiver started to spiral rapidly toward the ground, twisting and plunging.

He expected to see the student activate the reserve parachute. Instead, he watched in horror as the diver slammed into the ground, bounced and hit again.

Paulsen ran over and recognized Mettler. He assumed he was dead.

Fellow skydiver Blaine Kunz, who was in his last month of paramedic school, was nearby. Kunz, a paramedic with Puckett EMS in Austell and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite, rushed to Mettler's side, stabilized his neck, and made sure he could breathe until help arrived.

At Grady, Matthews was on duty. The assistant professor of surgery at Morehouse School of Medicine had treated other patients with severe falls. Mettler was his first skydiver.

The doctor faced a challenge.

The impact of the fall had knocked Mettler's stomach and intestines into his chest. His lungs were bruised. His pelvis, arm and shoulder were fractured. His heart and lungs failed. Altogether, Matthews said, Mettler had 18 injuries, any one of which could have killed him.

As Matthews treated Mettler, each advance seemed to be followed by a complication. Mettler developed pneumonia from extended use of a ventilator and an infection from a catheter.

But he had support and a will to live. While he was still unconscious, his children talked to him and read to him. His mother, Sallyann, came from Michigan to be by his side.

Gradually, he improved.

On May 5, he opened his eyes. On May 7, he mouthed "Hi," to his mother. On Mother's Day, May 11, he spoke. His first words were "pray for me."By June, he was on a rehabilitation floor at South Fulton Medical Center learning to walk.

Now he's an outpatient at Emory University Center for Rehabilitation Medicine. Physicians have given him the go-ahead to live on his own. His mother is headed back to Michigan.

Mettler remembers nothing from the fall or his hospitalization.

On June 26, when he went back to Grady to visit, Mettler said he felt as if he were meeting his caretakers for the first time.

Many Grady staff members likewise felt they were seeing the real Mark Mettler for the first time. One by one, they came by to hug the thin, smiling man who had once been their battered, swollen, comatose patient.

"You're an extraordinary man," Matthews told him. "My job would be easier if I had more patients like you with a determination to recover."