The Associated Press...Syracuse Herald American, November 7, 1999.......Young Bill Goss plunged his head into a sink full of water, hoping to get the wethead look of Elvis Presley. His head wedged between two facets as the water poured in. Bill, just 9 years old then, thought for sure he was going to drown."My screams dissipated into gurgling noises, since my face was immersed in the water," he recalls. "My head was too big and the basin too small. There was simply no way I could get my hands around my face to to unplug the lifesaving stopper and drain the water. That's when I knew I was going to die."Goss survived by ripping out two hunks of scalp, denting the facet handles. It was the first of 30 near-death experiences that he says he survived over the next three decades. From mine collapses to plane wrecks, his dances with the grim reaper are recounted in his book, "The Luckiest Unlucky Man Alive."TAKING ON CANCER. The most threatening of the retired Navy pilot's experiences began five years ago with a small pink cyst-like bump behind his ear. Navy and civilian doctors told him to get his life in order because the cyst was a rare form of malignant melanoma, a quick killer. In a desperate attempt to stay alive, Goss found a doctor who removed his left ear and 200 lymph nodes.The stitches along the side of his head and down his neck made the dashing naval officer look like he had been put together with spare parts. Reconstructive surgery helped him look normal again, but for a while he had to glue on his silicon ear with rubber cement.Greg O'Neil, a Cinncinnati businessman and lifelong friend of Goss who was with him on several misadventures, thought the cancer would kill Goss."I was devastated. I thought this was it for Bill," said O'Neil, who grew up with Goss in the Millburn, N.J. area.Goss, 44, has been cancer-free for five years now. "I lucked out," he said. "I learned from those dark days that behind every challenge are great opportunities."O'Neil doesn't see Goss as being unlucky.He was always able to pull something positive out of bad circumstances," O'Neil said. "Bill Goss is like 'Forrest Gump' meets 'Terminator II."BRUSHES WITH DISASTER. Few people, however, would wish to be quite as "lucky" as Goss.While attending University of Arizon in 1974, he worked weekends at a nearby copper mine. He was rigging blasting caps 5,000 feet underground to clear a chute along a 40 foot hole when he heard the sound of splitting granite. When the dust cleared, he was dangling over the chasm by his safety belt.In 1985, Goss was in Spain as a Navy pilot of a P-3 Orion, an aircraft used for tracking soviet submarines and drug runners. He was doing test landings when a crew member inadvertently shut down one of the planes four engines."Suddenly the aircraft snapped to the left more violently than before," he wrote in his autobiography. "It departed the left side of the runway, twisting off the l
Man has a life of cheating death
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
Retired Navy pilot Bill Goss' autobiography chronicles his life-threatening experiences, including a bout with a quick-killing cancer, auto accidents, a plane wreck and the collapse of a mine that left him dangling over a chasm by his safety belt.
You want to read this book!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
YOU WANT TO READ THIS BOOK ON PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL FULFILLMENT! If people invested their money like Bill Goss invested in life, we'd all be billionaires.....Executives can relate with Bill's background as a Navy pilot because we too fly high-performance aircraft at over 500 mph---it's called your company---and we're all on this plane together---and we don't want to crash and burn either! ..................YOU'RE GONNA WANT TO GET YOUR TWO HANDS ON THIS BOOK AND READ EVERY WORD OF IT!
It will give you all old fashioned contact high!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
Cancer, mine cave-ins,automobile and plane smashups, near-drownings in a bathroom sink---why is it Bill Goss' life seems like so much fun?Written by a survivor of more crack-ups than Evil Knievel, THE LUCKIEST UNLUCKY MAN ALIVE is a work of extreme exuberance...it will give you an old contact high!
A book with a heart that keeps on beating page after page.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Bill Goss has written a book that with a heart that keeps on beating page after page. THE LUCKIEST UNLUCKY MAN ALIVE is the joyous true tale of not just one miracle --- but many. It will inspire readers to live each and every day to its fullest, and most of all, to believe we are alive for a reason. The best books are those that make you laugh and cry, and, after reading them, become a part of your own life experience --- this is one of them. Bill Goss will surely become an Earth Angel to anyone who picks up this book."
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