John Mellencamp

And there were four other kids.

And there was a young doctor named Heinberger who was just a young neurosurgeon.

Don't forget, neurosurgery in 1951 was in its peak.

So he just said, well, we've got to try to do something with these kids.

And so he operated on all of us.

I was on when it lived.

Oh, boy.

You know, the fact that—and he charged my parents a dollar.

Because it was an experiment.

I was like a guinea pig.

And these other poor kids who had the same thing I did—

they all died within, you know, six months.

I remember seeing one girl that made it till she was 14 and she was in a wheelchair.

I would see her at basketball games and my parents would go, that's the other little girl that had the same operation you did.

And then she died.

So my whole life has been full of luck.

I mean, I'm not supposed to be here.

Well, they have to cut your head off, for starters.

You know, they had to cut my head and lay it open to get to my spine.

And then they would push each individual nerve ending back down into my spine, drain the fluid off.