Shotgun Rides Again

By Barrett Seaman

A few months shy of three years ago, a young man named Todd Hunter was admitted to the Duke University Medical Center near death from liver failure, most likely triggered by an antiseizure medicine prescribed after a fall near his home in Greenville, S.C. It happened to be the week that a team of TIME journalists was at Duke to report "A Week in the Life of a Hospital," the cover story of the magazine's Oct. 12, 1998, issue. Despite a series of miscommunications over insurance coverage that nearly derailed their efforts, Duke's doctors were able to find Hunter a new liver and install it in time to give him new life. I witnessed part of the surgery, performed by Dr. Betsy Tuttle, and was there shortly after Hunter awoke from the anesthesia and described how an angel on the wall of his hospital room had told him, "It's not your time, boy."

Though his post-op prognosis was good, Hunter would never be the same again, his doctors acknowledged. For the rest of his life, he would need medication that costs as much as $1,500 a month. And with a major-league "pre-existing" medical condition, he would have a hard time getting new medical insurance if he ever decided to leave his day job as a game-machine repairman.

The part of Hunter's life that would change most drastically, however, was the one belonging to his other persona--Shotgun Shane Sawyer, professional wrestler on the western Carolina circuits, which fall a long step below the World Wrestling Federation follies featured on TV. As he lay in his Duke hospital bed, Hunter, as Shotgun, promised surgeon Tuttle that he would not only one day wrestle again but also personally subject her to one of wrestling's more flamboyant moves, the overhead, body-rotating Airplane Spin.

Following his discharge, Hunter went home to Greenville a changed man. A sometime churchgoer before his illness, he returned with fervor to Russell Memorial Baptist Church, where his wife Kim was a lifelong parishioner. He has since missed, at most, two Sundays, and coaches many of the church-sponsored youth athletic teams. Readers of TIME's report have deluged him with stories about their own encounters with angels.

Before his brush with death, Hunter's marriage had been deteriorating almost as fast as his liver. Consumed by wrestling, he was seldom home. When he called from the road, if his son Blake, now 7, answered, the boy would hand the phone in silence to his mom. Now father and son--and daughter Brittany, 13--are inseparable. Kim calls her husband "a totally different human--a lot more of a family man." When Hunter grew concerned about his future with his employer, Joytime Amusement Co., he consulted his wife about the wisdom of changing jobs--no small decision in light of his need for medical insurance.

Fortunately, provisions of the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act had gone into effect not long before the transplant. The law required any company that employed Hunter to provide coverage in spite of his pre-existing condition. When Hunter signed on as a vending-machine repairman with Cromer Food Services, outside Anderson, S.C., full medical benefits came with the job--no questions asked.

Every six months, Hunter drives north to Durham so Tuttle can check on his new liver. "He's really doing very well," she says. "He's what you do this for." With his medications balanced, Hunter regained his fighting weight of 210 lbs. and was hankering to resume "rasslin'" as Shotgun Shane. Tuttle resisted until a Duke colleague convinced her that the violence was all fake anyhow. So this spring, Shotgun returned to the ring.

The new Shotgun keeps rasslin' in perspective. On most Saturday evenings, when his matches are on the road, his family is there with him. At a recent bout in Columbus, N.C., so too was Tuttle, who had driven 230 miles from Durham to watch her former patient boomerang off the ropes and crash onto the canvas. Celebrating his victory, Todd gave his doc a teary hug--then pulled her into the ring, hoisted her aloft and gave her the old Airplane Spin.