Survivors

Fred Gutierrez realized it immediately. Something had gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

This wasn’t heaven. This wasn’t what he expected to wake up to after he unlocked the handcuffs that secured the doors of his gun cabinet, pulled out his Ruger and fired a .38-caliber bullet into his brain.

He had expected to wake up in paradise, freed from the hopelessness and despair that led him to try to take his own life. But there was nothing heavenly about the host of voices buzzing in his ear. He heard someone say “coroner,” a word he could not recall ever coming across in the New Testament.

No, Fred Gutierrez was alive, which was the last thing he wanted to be.

No one expected Rich O’Brien to live, either. A former would-be tour pro, O’Brien had seen his dream dissolve – along with most of his money. He was working as a caddie at the Kiawah Island Club when he took a turn – literally – for the worst.

Standing on the back of a golf cart that was being driven to the clubhouse, O’Brien lost his grip when t...