MABANK, TX (KLTV) -
By Joan Hallmark - bio | email
MABANK, TX (KLTV) - Bob Coffey joined the Marine Corps just short of high school graduation and by summer was off to boot camp. Combat in Vietnam soon followed. It was during a Vietcong attack on July 29th, 1966 that Coffey was badly wounded by hand grenades that blew out his eye, blew off his foot, opened up his stomach and blew a hole in his head the size of a baseball. No one thought he could possibly live. But a team of doctors on a nearby hospital ship operated and saved his life.
During the next two years of healing and rehabilitation, Coffey had the recurring dream of having died twice, gone to Heaven and told to go back. He saw himself hovering over the doctors as they tried to save his life, saw his pants being cut off, thrown in a corner and a live grenade rolling out of his pocket. For two years he thought it was all a dream until one of the surgeons who had operated on him visited him at his parents home and affirmed every detail of his dream.
Copyright 2010 KLTV. All rights reserved.
