Post by Stu-E Price on Sept 18, 2007 17:08:47 GMT -5
DEPENDENCY
Davey was getting frustrated. He was training hard and eating, but he wanted to be bigger. The problem was he was losing weight. It was 1987 and he was wrestling at a remarkable rate. Sometimes he was on the road for 65 days without a day off.
He talked to Jim Neidhart. Jim told him to visit Dr. Dennis (pseudonym) a general practitioner in Calgary. Davey entered his office without much ado and the doctor introduced himself then asked, "What do you need?"
Davey tried to sound cool, "I need steroids."
Dr. Dennis initially refused to give out prescriptions, but he was very generous with shots in his office in exchange for cash. He instructed Davey to pull down his pants and a few minutes later, Davey had his first hit of body-building drugs: 3 cc's of Deca-durbolin, the Cadillac of steroids.
The steroid also helped reduce pain and swelling in his joints. Soon after the injections started, he was bench-pressing 600 pounds—huge weight. Sometimes Dr. Dennis would hit him up with testosterone, which was good for gaining size and strength. But Davey became irritable and aggressive so the doctor gave him Percocet to take the edge off and relieve pain.
Soon Davey learned of a doctor in Hershey, Pennsylvania, John Zoharian. He worked for the athletic commission there. Dr. Zoharian would take your blood pressure, lock the door and offer up almost any drug known to man. While Davey was on the road, he would stop by and stock up: ten bottles of Deca-durbolin with syringes, 300 Halcion to sleep at night, 300 Valium and Placidyl.
Placidyl was a horse pill with 750 milligrams of tranquilizer. It looked like a vitamin e capsule except it was dark green, not gold. It was a favorite among the wrestlers. They'd put it in their mouths and wait for it to dissolve, then bite and chase it with a beer. Later, Davey told me Placidyl tasted like year-old sour milk. Davey stopped taking it because a few wrestlers died on the stuff. He couldn't bring his stash back across the border for fear Customs would spot it, so he'd leave it with wrestlers in the States to hold until his return.
Unbeknownst to me, Davey's daily regimen in 1988 included a coffee, two hits of speed, Ionamin and Fastin—which within 15 minutes made him feel he could run through a brick wall. He’d take two shots of Deca-durbolin per week and hit the gym. When he got back he'd be so wired, he'd take four Valium to settle down.
This would give him a smooth ride and get rid of that speedy feeling so he didn't have to go into the ring wired. He would wrestle at night, then go for something to eat and hit a bar with his wrestling friends. He'd get hammered, then back to his hotel room where he'd take two or three Halcion to sleep. It was bad, but it was kid stuff compared to what he was up to 10 years later.
Davey's addiction wasn't the first I was exposed to. My mom is an alcoholic. She started drinking heavily when there were only four of us kids left in the house: Owen, Alison, Ross and me. I think she did fight it off as long as she could and she finally just succumbed. Alison would pour salt in my mom's liquor bottles. Ross emptied them down the sink or diluted them with water. Owen would smash them. When Mom was drinking, my parents fought constantly. Fighting, fighting, fighting from morning 'til night. You wake up, you hear it, you go to sleep, you hear it.
I remember being with Owen up in the attic where Smith and his son Matt live now, we'd crouch under the pool table and Owen would talk about how we had to get out of there and how we couldn't stand it anymore and wonder how come dad kept buying her the goddamned liquor. Neither of us could understand why we'd get in trouble for throwing it out.
My dad rarely acknowledged that she had a problem. And when he did, he'd say, "I don't know where she's getting the gaddamned stuff."
But we knew he was buying it for her. Sometimes he wouldn't be able to wake her. He would become frantic with worry. He'd drag us into the bedroom. "See if you can wake her," he'd plead.
Owen and I would look at each other. An unspoken question passing between us. "Is she dead or is she alive?" We'd be so disappointed in our mom, drunk at two in the afternoon. We'd shake her and beg her to wake up and my dad would be saying, "Is the poor thing dead?"
She never really liked our house. In fact she hated it. We all grew up listening to her raving when she’d get really drunk about how much she hated the house and hated the life she was living. It took its toll on Owen, me, Ross and Alison.
Owen and I could not bring ourselves to invite friends over. On the rare occasion we did, we'd be very anxious. Were they going to hear the fighting that was going on all the time? Would they see my mom stumbling around drunk? It was such a private thing at the house.
In addition, there was the secret world of the wrestlers that we were warned not to expose. We were not supposed to let anyone see two enemy wrestlers that apparently hated each other on TV, sitting in the same living room sharing a coffee.
"Don't let the wrestling fan see Bulldog Bob Brown in the same room with Chris Benoit. Don't let them see Carey Brown and Jim Neidhart in the same room. Don't let anyone know that Davey and Dynamite are cousins because they're wrestling each other."
It was hard for us younger ones in the family. Bret was a bit older. He didn't really see a lot of it because he was about 17 and he was starting to get out. He was always very popular with girls. Actually, most of the Hart boys were, but Bret had the most girlfriends.
Dean had lots of girlfriends too, but I never saw Dean kissing them or anything. He was always very reserved about things like that. But I remember Bret's girlfriends were so in love with him they couldn't keep their hands off of him. They would pat him on the head or wrap their arms around his waist or hold his hand. I guess, he was irresistible.
In 1988, Vince ran a big European tour and Davey and Tom, being from Great Britain, figured prominently. The night before they were to leave, one of Vince's agents Pat Patterson was doling out tickets for the flight. He called Davey aside to give him instructions.
Tom wandered off for coffee. When Tom was on his way back he met up with another wrestler, Jacques Rougeau. Jacques and Tom had bad blood between them. A few months before Jacques and his brother Raymond or "The Quebecers," asked Curt Hennig aka "Mr. Perfect" to look after their bags while they were in the ring. They were afraid Dynamite was going to pull a rib on them.
Tom was noted for his mean practical jokes and Davey was often guilty by association. Tom would empty an entire can of shaving cream into the bag of anyone who happened to have left it open. Once, he'd handed Sam Houston—Jake “The Snake" Roberts brother—his cowboy hat on his way out to the ring after covering the entire band with crazy glue. When Sam yanked off his Stetson a lot of his scalp and hair came with it.
Tom also got a big kick out of substituting Preparation H for toothpaste. And no one would accept a drink from him, because it was sure to be spiked.
Davey's ribs were fairly innocent. One time he had popped a baby mouse into the Ultimate Warrior's wrestling boot. It gave the Warrior a little scare, but the mouse was unharmed.
Curt Hennig was also a notorious ribber. Knowing Tom would be blamed, he padlocked both Rougeaus' bags to the ceiling pipes in their dressing room and made out as if Tom and Davey had done it. It took more than an hour for the Rougeaus to locate bolt cutters and get their stuff back. They were really mad. Jacques complained to Pat Patterson about Tom.
A few days later, Vince asked Tom to apologize to the Rougeaus about the padlocked bags. Tom refused and was furious about being unjustly blamed. He made a beeline for Jacques and confronted him in the dressing room. When Jacques repeated the accusation, Tom sucker punched him in the jaw. Jacques' jaw shattered leaving him unable to wrestle for a month.
Vince had quite a time trying never to schedule them on the same card and they were only together on this eve of this European tour because they were all picking up their plane tickets to Europe. Jacques was carrying a roll of quarters and Tom had a coffee in each hand. Still angry over being sucker punched, Jacques took one look at Tom and hauled off and knocked his front teeth out.
Tom never rallied after that. He did the European tour and came back for the Survivor Series that year where he and Davey were pitted against the Rougeaus. Both the Bulldogs and The Quebecers were professional enough to leave personal issues outside the ring and put on a hell of a show.
The Survivor Series was Tom and Davey's last show together for the WWF. Tom convinced Davey to quit and both Brits went back to Stampede Wrestling, which had started up again. Vince hadn't been able to make a go of it in my dad's territory, so he gave it back to him. My dad was happy to get another crack at it and recruited and trained a new generation of wrestlers including Owen, Chris Benoit, Brian Pilman, Steve Blackman, “Strangler” Steve DiSalvo, Bill Kasmire, Hiro Hasi, Keichi Yamata aka Jushin Liger and Tom McGee.
Tom “Dynamite" Billington was on the road to self-destruction. One night in Calgary, he came down to the ring drunk out of his mind, his teeth missing and his wrestling boots tied around his neck. He staggered up in front of the TV cameras, grabbed the microphone and demanded to see Chris Benoit, "The time has come," he slurred, "but I don't know when." His words whistled through the empty gap in his gums. Chris arrived at the microphone totally perplexed. Tom had always been one of his heroes. Tom threw his boots around Chris' neck.
"I'm retiring and I want you to have these. You're the only one who can fill my shoes."
Chris was gracious and tried to cover up for Tom's drunkenness. He skillfully guided Tom back into the dressing room.
This came as a big shock to my dad. He had been building an angle between Tom and Davey, billing it "The Dogfight of the Decade: Bulldog versus Bulldog' and now Tom had made this surprise announcement.
My dad couldn't advertise Tom anymore, not only because he had retired, but also because he never knew when Tom would show up. Tom did take the occasional road trip and my dad let him go. But Stampede Wrestling was still struggling to gain a foothold so the wrestlers did not travel in style.
Bruce never lost an opportunity to needle Tom and Davey about how low they had sunk after quitting the WWF. In late June, just before Owen's wedding, Tom confronted Bruce after hearing that he had been badmouthing him. Bruce rolled his eyes.
"I don't know a thing about it Tom." Tom broke Bruce's jaw.
On July 4th Davey, Ross, Chris Benoit and Carl Moffat were in the baby face van waiting to leave for Prince Rupert, British Columbia and then on to the Northwest Territories. All the good guys traveled together and all the bad guys traveled together. The baby face van was in good condition. The heel van was beat up.
The heels didn't respect my dad's property and they slashed the seats and peed all over the floor. It was filthy. My dad decided to go ahead with "Dogfight of the Decade." If Tom didn't' show, Davey would wrestle Johnny Smith who was billed as Davey's brother. (In reality he was no relation.)
The heel van waited for Tom to show, but my dad finally sent them on their way. The baby face van waited another hour and a half for Tom, but finally everyone got fed up and left. It was a 15-hour journey, and they were cutting it tight. To make up for lost time Ross stepped on it.
They stopped at a gas station in Jasper, Alberta. Davey bought a chocolate ice cream cone, a Diet Coke and a muffin. Ignoring his seatbelt he jumped in on the passenger side beside Ross who was still driving. The van sped through the mountainous terrain in northern British Columbia. Davey spotted a hairpin bend ahead and ordered Ross to slow down.
Ross sighed, "We're fine Davey. I've been driving for years. I am quite aware of what I'm doing."
"Fuck it, Ross. Slow down!"
Ross tried to brake, but it was too late. The van started hydroplaning and the brakes were locked. Ross tried to make the turn on the tight curve, but the van was sailing straight for a three hundred 300-foot cliff. Just as they were about to plunge over the cliff, a camper coming in the opposite direction t-boned the van on the passenger side. The camper carried the van to a full stop against the side of the mountain. Davey was thrown onto the road through the front windshield. Carl Moffat, who had recently injured his right knee at a match in Puerto Rico, was hit in the same leg by a loose spare tire. Miraculously no one else in the van was hurt.
The driver of the camper sustained a crushed pelvis, but the parrot traveling in the front seat beside him was unscathed. I got a call from Ross an hour after the accident occurred. He was calm, but grief stricken.
"Diana, I don't know how to tell you this, but there has been a really bad accident. I was driving and we were hydroplaning and we were hit. Davey is unconscious. We can't wake him up. I wish to hell it was me not him. I'd give anything if it was me. You know how tough he is Diana. I know he's going to pull through this."
His voice faltered but I could hear Carl Mofatt whining in the background," My leg, my leg—my career is over, it's over. Davey's dead, oh God he's dead!"
Ross sighed, "Oh and Carl Mofatt got hit with the spare tire."
I hung up the phone and called my dad. Mom and Dad, Ellie and Jim, Georgia, BJ and Alison immediately arrived at my doorstep to comfort me and await more news. I couldn't breathe. We sat at the kitchen table speculating on what had happened. If only they hadn't waited for Dynamite. If only Davey had worn his seatbelt.
When I told them about Carl's background comments Jim, who had known Carl for years, said, "His career is over? Oh my God that'll be a big blow to professional wrestling." This made us all laugh, which relieved the tension a little.
Then the phone rang. Ross told me Davey was conscious. He said when the paramedic finally succeeded in reviving him, Davey was feeling around the road with his left hand searching for his chocolate ice cream cone.
Davey spent the next year recovering. I started training with him to keep him company and I was so proud of him. He had over 135 stitches in his forehead and the doctors said anyone else who had been thrown 25 feet with such force and landed on the pavement on his back the way he had, would have broken his neck. The steroids he had been taking created such muscle mass in his neck it saved his life.
He did have herniated discs at the top of his spine, which limited his head movement and the eyesight in his left eye was impaired. He suffered bad headaches for almost a year, but he was back in the ring five months later.
Meanwhile, I had started some serious bodybuilding. I entered the southern Alberta provincials and came in second in the heavyweight division. At five feet nine, I weighed 144 pounds of solid muscle. I'd borne two children—five-year-old Harry and two-year-old Georgia—and my stomach was as flat as a pancake.
Davey gave me a pill every few days to help me build muscle for the contest. I never knew what it was. I also took one Ionamin in diet-pill form a day and Slow-K, which Dr. Dennis prescribed to help me handle cramping from the lack of potassium. When the contest ended I threw out all the dieting drugs and gained 30 pounds in a month. I didn't look fat. I looked healthy.
Davey and I had no income during his recuperation. That's when he turned to Ben and Hermish for financial help. He also signed on for another Japanese tour with Dynamite. They happened to meet up with Vince McMahon at one of the shows. With five months of solid training behind him, Davey was in peak form. Vince was impressed. He knew Davey was so loyal that if he wanted him back, he'd have to offer Dynamite a job too. He approached Tom and Davey and asked if they would consider working for him again.
Tom told Vince to fuck off and Davey said, "I'd love to come back." They finished their tour. Vince still hadn't called so to keep us going, Davey did independent tours around the world on his own. He wrestled in Africa and the Middle East as the Gulf War began and Tom never spoke to him again.
Davey was getting frustrated. He was training hard and eating, but he wanted to be bigger. The problem was he was losing weight. It was 1987 and he was wrestling at a remarkable rate. Sometimes he was on the road for 65 days without a day off.
He talked to Jim Neidhart. Jim told him to visit Dr. Dennis (pseudonym) a general practitioner in Calgary. Davey entered his office without much ado and the doctor introduced himself then asked, "What do you need?"
Davey tried to sound cool, "I need steroids."
Dr. Dennis initially refused to give out prescriptions, but he was very generous with shots in his office in exchange for cash. He instructed Davey to pull down his pants and a few minutes later, Davey had his first hit of body-building drugs: 3 cc's of Deca-durbolin, the Cadillac of steroids.
The steroid also helped reduce pain and swelling in his joints. Soon after the injections started, he was bench-pressing 600 pounds—huge weight. Sometimes Dr. Dennis would hit him up with testosterone, which was good for gaining size and strength. But Davey became irritable and aggressive so the doctor gave him Percocet to take the edge off and relieve pain.
Soon Davey learned of a doctor in Hershey, Pennsylvania, John Zoharian. He worked for the athletic commission there. Dr. Zoharian would take your blood pressure, lock the door and offer up almost any drug known to man. While Davey was on the road, he would stop by and stock up: ten bottles of Deca-durbolin with syringes, 300 Halcion to sleep at night, 300 Valium and Placidyl.
Placidyl was a horse pill with 750 milligrams of tranquilizer. It looked like a vitamin e capsule except it was dark green, not gold. It was a favorite among the wrestlers. They'd put it in their mouths and wait for it to dissolve, then bite and chase it with a beer. Later, Davey told me Placidyl tasted like year-old sour milk. Davey stopped taking it because a few wrestlers died on the stuff. He couldn't bring his stash back across the border for fear Customs would spot it, so he'd leave it with wrestlers in the States to hold until his return.
Unbeknownst to me, Davey's daily regimen in 1988 included a coffee, two hits of speed, Ionamin and Fastin—which within 15 minutes made him feel he could run through a brick wall. He’d take two shots of Deca-durbolin per week and hit the gym. When he got back he'd be so wired, he'd take four Valium to settle down.
This would give him a smooth ride and get rid of that speedy feeling so he didn't have to go into the ring wired. He would wrestle at night, then go for something to eat and hit a bar with his wrestling friends. He'd get hammered, then back to his hotel room where he'd take two or three Halcion to sleep. It was bad, but it was kid stuff compared to what he was up to 10 years later.
Davey's addiction wasn't the first I was exposed to. My mom is an alcoholic. She started drinking heavily when there were only four of us kids left in the house: Owen, Alison, Ross and me. I think she did fight it off as long as she could and she finally just succumbed. Alison would pour salt in my mom's liquor bottles. Ross emptied them down the sink or diluted them with water. Owen would smash them. When Mom was drinking, my parents fought constantly. Fighting, fighting, fighting from morning 'til night. You wake up, you hear it, you go to sleep, you hear it.
I remember being with Owen up in the attic where Smith and his son Matt live now, we'd crouch under the pool table and Owen would talk about how we had to get out of there and how we couldn't stand it anymore and wonder how come dad kept buying her the goddamned liquor. Neither of us could understand why we'd get in trouble for throwing it out.
My dad rarely acknowledged that she had a problem. And when he did, he'd say, "I don't know where she's getting the gaddamned stuff."
But we knew he was buying it for her. Sometimes he wouldn't be able to wake her. He would become frantic with worry. He'd drag us into the bedroom. "See if you can wake her," he'd plead.
Owen and I would look at each other. An unspoken question passing between us. "Is she dead or is she alive?" We'd be so disappointed in our mom, drunk at two in the afternoon. We'd shake her and beg her to wake up and my dad would be saying, "Is the poor thing dead?"
She never really liked our house. In fact she hated it. We all grew up listening to her raving when she’d get really drunk about how much she hated the house and hated the life she was living. It took its toll on Owen, me, Ross and Alison.
Owen and I could not bring ourselves to invite friends over. On the rare occasion we did, we'd be very anxious. Were they going to hear the fighting that was going on all the time? Would they see my mom stumbling around drunk? It was such a private thing at the house.
In addition, there was the secret world of the wrestlers that we were warned not to expose. We were not supposed to let anyone see two enemy wrestlers that apparently hated each other on TV, sitting in the same living room sharing a coffee.
"Don't let the wrestling fan see Bulldog Bob Brown in the same room with Chris Benoit. Don't let them see Carey Brown and Jim Neidhart in the same room. Don't let anyone know that Davey and Dynamite are cousins because they're wrestling each other."
It was hard for us younger ones in the family. Bret was a bit older. He didn't really see a lot of it because he was about 17 and he was starting to get out. He was always very popular with girls. Actually, most of the Hart boys were, but Bret had the most girlfriends.
Dean had lots of girlfriends too, but I never saw Dean kissing them or anything. He was always very reserved about things like that. But I remember Bret's girlfriends were so in love with him they couldn't keep their hands off of him. They would pat him on the head or wrap their arms around his waist or hold his hand. I guess, he was irresistible.
In 1988, Vince ran a big European tour and Davey and Tom, being from Great Britain, figured prominently. The night before they were to leave, one of Vince's agents Pat Patterson was doling out tickets for the flight. He called Davey aside to give him instructions.
Tom wandered off for coffee. When Tom was on his way back he met up with another wrestler, Jacques Rougeau. Jacques and Tom had bad blood between them. A few months before Jacques and his brother Raymond or "The Quebecers," asked Curt Hennig aka "Mr. Perfect" to look after their bags while they were in the ring. They were afraid Dynamite was going to pull a rib on them.
Tom was noted for his mean practical jokes and Davey was often guilty by association. Tom would empty an entire can of shaving cream into the bag of anyone who happened to have left it open. Once, he'd handed Sam Houston—Jake “The Snake" Roberts brother—his cowboy hat on his way out to the ring after covering the entire band with crazy glue. When Sam yanked off his Stetson a lot of his scalp and hair came with it.
Tom also got a big kick out of substituting Preparation H for toothpaste. And no one would accept a drink from him, because it was sure to be spiked.
Davey's ribs were fairly innocent. One time he had popped a baby mouse into the Ultimate Warrior's wrestling boot. It gave the Warrior a little scare, but the mouse was unharmed.
Curt Hennig was also a notorious ribber. Knowing Tom would be blamed, he padlocked both Rougeaus' bags to the ceiling pipes in their dressing room and made out as if Tom and Davey had done it. It took more than an hour for the Rougeaus to locate bolt cutters and get their stuff back. They were really mad. Jacques complained to Pat Patterson about Tom.
A few days later, Vince asked Tom to apologize to the Rougeaus about the padlocked bags. Tom refused and was furious about being unjustly blamed. He made a beeline for Jacques and confronted him in the dressing room. When Jacques repeated the accusation, Tom sucker punched him in the jaw. Jacques' jaw shattered leaving him unable to wrestle for a month.
Vince had quite a time trying never to schedule them on the same card and they were only together on this eve of this European tour because they were all picking up their plane tickets to Europe. Jacques was carrying a roll of quarters and Tom had a coffee in each hand. Still angry over being sucker punched, Jacques took one look at Tom and hauled off and knocked his front teeth out.
Tom never rallied after that. He did the European tour and came back for the Survivor Series that year where he and Davey were pitted against the Rougeaus. Both the Bulldogs and The Quebecers were professional enough to leave personal issues outside the ring and put on a hell of a show.
The Survivor Series was Tom and Davey's last show together for the WWF. Tom convinced Davey to quit and both Brits went back to Stampede Wrestling, which had started up again. Vince hadn't been able to make a go of it in my dad's territory, so he gave it back to him. My dad was happy to get another crack at it and recruited and trained a new generation of wrestlers including Owen, Chris Benoit, Brian Pilman, Steve Blackman, “Strangler” Steve DiSalvo, Bill Kasmire, Hiro Hasi, Keichi Yamata aka Jushin Liger and Tom McGee.
Tom “Dynamite" Billington was on the road to self-destruction. One night in Calgary, he came down to the ring drunk out of his mind, his teeth missing and his wrestling boots tied around his neck. He staggered up in front of the TV cameras, grabbed the microphone and demanded to see Chris Benoit, "The time has come," he slurred, "but I don't know when." His words whistled through the empty gap in his gums. Chris arrived at the microphone totally perplexed. Tom had always been one of his heroes. Tom threw his boots around Chris' neck.
"I'm retiring and I want you to have these. You're the only one who can fill my shoes."
Chris was gracious and tried to cover up for Tom's drunkenness. He skillfully guided Tom back into the dressing room.
This came as a big shock to my dad. He had been building an angle between Tom and Davey, billing it "The Dogfight of the Decade: Bulldog versus Bulldog' and now Tom had made this surprise announcement.
My dad couldn't advertise Tom anymore, not only because he had retired, but also because he never knew when Tom would show up. Tom did take the occasional road trip and my dad let him go. But Stampede Wrestling was still struggling to gain a foothold so the wrestlers did not travel in style.
Bruce never lost an opportunity to needle Tom and Davey about how low they had sunk after quitting the WWF. In late June, just before Owen's wedding, Tom confronted Bruce after hearing that he had been badmouthing him. Bruce rolled his eyes.
"I don't know a thing about it Tom." Tom broke Bruce's jaw.
On July 4th Davey, Ross, Chris Benoit and Carl Moffat were in the baby face van waiting to leave for Prince Rupert, British Columbia and then on to the Northwest Territories. All the good guys traveled together and all the bad guys traveled together. The baby face van was in good condition. The heel van was beat up.
The heels didn't respect my dad's property and they slashed the seats and peed all over the floor. It was filthy. My dad decided to go ahead with "Dogfight of the Decade." If Tom didn't' show, Davey would wrestle Johnny Smith who was billed as Davey's brother. (In reality he was no relation.)
The heel van waited for Tom to show, but my dad finally sent them on their way. The baby face van waited another hour and a half for Tom, but finally everyone got fed up and left. It was a 15-hour journey, and they were cutting it tight. To make up for lost time Ross stepped on it.
They stopped at a gas station in Jasper, Alberta. Davey bought a chocolate ice cream cone, a Diet Coke and a muffin. Ignoring his seatbelt he jumped in on the passenger side beside Ross who was still driving. The van sped through the mountainous terrain in northern British Columbia. Davey spotted a hairpin bend ahead and ordered Ross to slow down.
Ross sighed, "We're fine Davey. I've been driving for years. I am quite aware of what I'm doing."
"Fuck it, Ross. Slow down!"
Ross tried to brake, but it was too late. The van started hydroplaning and the brakes were locked. Ross tried to make the turn on the tight curve, but the van was sailing straight for a three hundred 300-foot cliff. Just as they were about to plunge over the cliff, a camper coming in the opposite direction t-boned the van on the passenger side. The camper carried the van to a full stop against the side of the mountain. Davey was thrown onto the road through the front windshield. Carl Moffat, who had recently injured his right knee at a match in Puerto Rico, was hit in the same leg by a loose spare tire. Miraculously no one else in the van was hurt.
The driver of the camper sustained a crushed pelvis, but the parrot traveling in the front seat beside him was unscathed. I got a call from Ross an hour after the accident occurred. He was calm, but grief stricken.
"Diana, I don't know how to tell you this, but there has been a really bad accident. I was driving and we were hydroplaning and we were hit. Davey is unconscious. We can't wake him up. I wish to hell it was me not him. I'd give anything if it was me. You know how tough he is Diana. I know he's going to pull through this."
His voice faltered but I could hear Carl Mofatt whining in the background," My leg, my leg—my career is over, it's over. Davey's dead, oh God he's dead!"
Ross sighed, "Oh and Carl Mofatt got hit with the spare tire."
I hung up the phone and called my dad. Mom and Dad, Ellie and Jim, Georgia, BJ and Alison immediately arrived at my doorstep to comfort me and await more news. I couldn't breathe. We sat at the kitchen table speculating on what had happened. If only they hadn't waited for Dynamite. If only Davey had worn his seatbelt.
When I told them about Carl's background comments Jim, who had known Carl for years, said, "His career is over? Oh my God that'll be a big blow to professional wrestling." This made us all laugh, which relieved the tension a little.
Then the phone rang. Ross told me Davey was conscious. He said when the paramedic finally succeeded in reviving him, Davey was feeling around the road with his left hand searching for his chocolate ice cream cone.
Davey spent the next year recovering. I started training with him to keep him company and I was so proud of him. He had over 135 stitches in his forehead and the doctors said anyone else who had been thrown 25 feet with such force and landed on the pavement on his back the way he had, would have broken his neck. The steroids he had been taking created such muscle mass in his neck it saved his life.
He did have herniated discs at the top of his spine, which limited his head movement and the eyesight in his left eye was impaired. He suffered bad headaches for almost a year, but he was back in the ring five months later.
Meanwhile, I had started some serious bodybuilding. I entered the southern Alberta provincials and came in second in the heavyweight division. At five feet nine, I weighed 144 pounds of solid muscle. I'd borne two children—five-year-old Harry and two-year-old Georgia—and my stomach was as flat as a pancake.
Davey gave me a pill every few days to help me build muscle for the contest. I never knew what it was. I also took one Ionamin in diet-pill form a day and Slow-K, which Dr. Dennis prescribed to help me handle cramping from the lack of potassium. When the contest ended I threw out all the dieting drugs and gained 30 pounds in a month. I didn't look fat. I looked healthy.
Davey and I had no income during his recuperation. That's when he turned to Ben and Hermish for financial help. He also signed on for another Japanese tour with Dynamite. They happened to meet up with Vince McMahon at one of the shows. With five months of solid training behind him, Davey was in peak form. Vince was impressed. He knew Davey was so loyal that if he wanted him back, he'd have to offer Dynamite a job too. He approached Tom and Davey and asked if they would consider working for him again.
Tom told Vince to fuck off and Davey said, "I'd love to come back." They finished their tour. Vince still hadn't called so to keep us going, Davey did independent tours around the world on his own. He wrestled in Africa and the Middle East as the Gulf War began and Tom never spoke to him again.