THE OPTIMISM REVOLUTION.

After testing his ability to wiggle his toes and turn his head, Dossey concluded his best chance for survival was to walk out of the wilderness. "I realized that this was an extraordinarily serious situation with no good solution that I nonetheless had to overcome," he recalls. "And somehow I knew I could overcome it with sufficient courage and resolve." So he suggested that the women, wranglers, and pack horses ride ahead, and that his friend accompany him by foot. Night fell. For 10 hours he walked, in pain "with every step, one flashlight between us, across some of the most rugged territory I've ever seen," says Dossey. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I focused on the act of putting one foot in front of the other. I put my consciousness down in my feet. I stopped every 15 minutes to get on top of the pain."

At about 4 in the morning, they reached the wranglers' base camp, and from there his wife drove him to the small town of Lander, Wyoming, an hour away. But his back pain only worsened, so that he could hardly stand. Two days later they located a spinal specialist in Bozeman, Montana, who diagnosed the fractured vertebra and hospitalized Dossey, putting him on intravenous morphine. For months he wore a body brace, encased in plastic from chin to hips. He now wears a lighter brace and suffers from daily back pain. His conclusion: "I'm absolutely grateful I didn't land on my head or neck. I came within just a whisper of being a quadriplegic. I reflect on this every day."