He didn't see it coming. With a belly full of food and sake, Armand Nelson Schneider just wanted to get rid of his nausea and empty his stomach before hopping on a train back to his study-abroad home in Yokohama, Japan. Schneider, 22, was throwing up over the platform when a high-speed commuter zoomed into the station and smashed into him.
"Here's where the miracle begins," said Schneider's mother, Audrey Nelson. Moments earlier, a "Japanese angel" had grabbed Schneider's left shoulder and pulled him just enough to the left to spare his head and save him from suffering neurological damage, Nelson said. "Had Armand not been pulled by his left shoulder, he would not be here," Nelson said about the March accident. The Boulder native fractured nine vertebrae and suffered severe liver and lung damage. He was kept in smallish beds in Japanese hospitals for eight weeks, struggled to communicate with the foreign doctors and risked becoming paralyzed on the flight home...more...
One lucky hombre.