To Our Friends in Wrestling Around the world
By William May
(Japan Amateur Wrestling Federation, Public
Information Committee
Kyodo World Services, senior sports writer:wmay52@hotmail.com)
Olympic wrestling champion leaves hospital
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) - Rulon Gardner left the Eastern Idaho Regional
Medical Center in a wheelchair, nearly two
weeks after spending a freezing night alone
in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Gardner, the heavyweight
gold medal winner in Greco-Roman wrestling
at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, sustained severe
frostbite but did not have any of his toes
amputated, his father, Reed Gardner, told
the Post Register of Idaho Falls after his
son was released Thursday. "He has ambitions
of trying to get back to life again,"
Reed Gardner told the paper. "They have
been very nice, but he felt it was time to
get out of there."
Rulon Gardner, who flew
to Washington, D.C., on Friday for a speaking
engagement, is scheduled to return to Eastern
Idaho Regional Medical Center on Monday,
Reed Gardner said. "We knew this was
a long, drawn-out procedure," Reed Gardner
said. "Doctors told us it would be three
weeks before they had a really good idea
of what would happen."
Gardner spent 17 hours
in 25-degree below zero (-32 C) temperatures
in Wyoming after his snowmobile bogged down.
When he was rescued on February 15, his body
temperature hovered around 88 degrees (31
C). His boots were sawed off at the hospital
and his toes were frozen solid.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics,
Gardner upset Russia's Alexander Karelin
to win the gold medal. Karelin had not lost
an international match in 13 years.