THE MIRACLE OF ROY HORN'S ROAD BACK
- By Robert Macy
It's an excruciating regimen more appropriate for an athlete: three hours of rehab, two hours at a gym, laps in a swimming pool, but for Roy Horn it's the price he pays on his road to recovery.
It has been nearly three years since Horn's tragic accident during a performance of the record-breaking show “Siegfried & Roy at The Mirage.”
Doctors said he would never survive.
He did.
Doctors said he would never walk again.
He does.
The medical professionals underestimated the will of Roy Horn. Those who knew him said he had the heart of a tiger, the will of a thousand men. Today he is proving them right. Horn talked about the journey recently in a posh Las Vegas home where he continues his rehabilitation.
“The unbelievable love of people has made me strong,” Horn said. “It's a wonderful feeling to be needed and loved. It humbles me to see the love and affection.”
He admits the therapy is grueling as he works to regain full use of his left arm and leg. “They told me I would never walk again, but I knew better,” Horn said. “The beginning of therapy was really tough…a lot of pain…two steps forward and one step back. I had to keep telling myself ‘Don't give in. God won't let you down.’ My faith is more established now than ever before. It has helped me to overcome this. ”There is constant pain, and medicine to help manage it. But Horn keeps pushing.” All I want to do is keep going,” Horn said. “I know when I'm down, I've got to get up.” Horn, who now walks increasingly better on his own, praises the work of his therapists. “They won't take no for an answer. They tell me I'm amazingly strong, stronger than anybody they know.” He also credits the nurses and doctors who have helped him, and longtime stage partners Siegfried Fischbacher and Lynette Chappell.
He talks about the night of October 3, 2003, when Montecore, a 400-pound tiger, instinctually dragged him off stage. Rushed to University Medical Center, doctors began what they thought would be a futile effort to save his life.
“I died four times,” Horn recalled. “My heart stopped four times. A doctor would try to pull a sheet over my head and I would push it back. He said `He won't make it,' and I started to meditate. I knew everything would be okay. God said it wasn't my time to go.”
There is no bitterness toward Montecore. “He basically saved me. I had a stroke; he knew something was wrong and he took me to my exit,” Horn says.
Horn hasn't lost touch with animals, a vital part of his life since childhood. He visits his animals several times a week, with trips to the Secret Garden & Dolphin Habitat at The Mirage, a sprawling enclave at The Strip resort that is home to some of the illusionists' famed white lions and white tigers.
“My cats, they are all waiting for me,” Horn says with a smile. “I feed them, pet them, baby them.
They have always been a part of my life. They are true magic for me.”
He vows he will return to show business in some form, some day. “The animals are waiting, too, to do something again.”
The public's affection for Siegfried & Roy has not waned in the three years away from the footlights. They still draw standing ovations when they appear at public events, his trips to the Secret Garden always draw fans, and Roy relishes the crowd interaction. He takes in movies and dines with friends, goes shopping at the Fashion Show Mall.
He likes to go horseback riding in the desert “because it's therapeutic for me.” And he loves his trips to Little Bavaria, a wooded sanctuary on the outskirts of Las Vegas, where he goes to feed his ducks and swans, keeping a wary eye on a 28-year-old donkey who, he says, “will kick you in the butt” if given the opportunity.
How did he survive when doctors had no hope? Horn smiles. “The guy upstairs wasn't ready. They know I'm trouble. They've heard about me. They were not ready for that yet.” Therapists continue grueling sessions to strengthen Horn's left arm and left leg, savaged by the stroke. And speech therapists continue to work with him.
His goal: “To be independent. To get back my freedom,” Horn said. “When something like this happens, you lose all your freedom; you lose your dignity. That's tough for me.”
And he has a message for those who offered up a multitude of prayers.
“I'm very grateful for their support,” he said. “My goal is to pay them back. My goal is full recovery. I promise, I will be dancing again.”
In the three years since his brush with death, Roy Horn has proven that if you put your mind to it, anything is possible.
“Fate and the man upstairs brought me through this,” he said. “I was always taught to be strong, that there was nothing I couldn't overcome. You just have to be positive; you just have to believe.”
