Gary Elettra DeVaul

Champions...Plus

Gary Elettra DeVaul

A summer thunderstorm pursued Mark Thallander as he drove from Massachusetts to Maine after playing the organ for a morning church service in Worcester. Dinner awaited him, but Mark never arrived. The car hydroplaned at the exit from the turnpike, just minutes from his destination.<br><br>A deafening silence followed the explosion of the accident. Then an unseen woman&#39;s voice spoke to Mark. Turn off the engine. Keep talking. Later, in a hospital forty miles away, surgeons had Mark sign an amputation release form as he pleaded with them to save his arm…