Admission for Shane Hmiel came by way of a throbbing right hand so painful the weight of a single bed sheet hit like an anvil and reduced him to tears. Even in his sleep. He had been partying hard at a local bar the night before when someone poured a beer down his back. They exchanged glances and half-breathed apologies. Minutes later, the guy did it again, and laughed this time ‘ and threw a haymaker. Hmiel threw a counter-blow, and it was on. Bouncers gouged Hmiel’s eyes and fish-hooked his mouth, tearing his cheek from his gum line as they wrestled him away from the other men. That’s all he remembers of the incident. He awoke crying and sped to the ER, certain the hand was broken. Doctors at the hospital X-rayed it, and delivered shocking news: His hand wasn ‘t broken after all. There were teeth lodged in it. A pair, in fact, so deeply gouged into his knuckles they were invisible to the naked eye. And worse yet, infection had set in. If the teeth weren ‘t removed immediately, amputation was a genuine possibility. ‘That’s when I knew I had to get clean,’ Hmiel says now. ‘That fight was the stupidest thing you ‘ve ever seen. But I ‘m so thankful it happened. That was the moment that turned my life around.’ It was July 2007, and Hmiel was a drug addict in complete blind denial. He started smoking marijuana when he was 12, to look older and tougher because ‘that’s what the badasses did.’(see full article at ESPN)(11-23-2012)
