Lance: I thank God for saving me!

MANILA, Philippines - At 7 o’clock this morning, Lance Raymundo will undergo a five-hour major surgery at an undisclosed hospital, five days after he, as he put it, “lost my face” during a freak accident at the gym where he regularly works out.

Reclining on a bench press with a dumbbell in each hand, Lance felt the ceiling fall on him before he could raise his hands. It was not the ceiling but the 80-pound barbell a few inches above him that fell right smack on his face, cracking his skull and breaking the socket of his left eye.

“When I came to my senses,” Lance told Funfare in a phone interview yesterday from his hospital bed, “wala na akong ilong, wala na akong mukha.”

He learned that a trainer must have slipped or been looking somewhere else while passing by and accidentally pushed the barbell.

“It was nobody’s fault,” said Lance who is a health buff. “It was an accident. Nobody wanted it to happen.”

Thankfully, the gym rats present came to Lance’s aid and rushed him to the hospital.

“Had the barbell fell an inch higher,” said Lance, “I would have been a goner. Or if it fell four inches lower, it would have struck my neck and the result would have been fatal just the same.”

During this morning’s surgery, a titanium will be planted inside his face. Depending on how fast Lance recovers, another surgery will be done to repair his nose and then another process will follow to reconstruct his whole face which, he said, looked as if it was smashed in a car crash.

“My doctors assured me that I would look the way I did before the accident,” hoped Lance.

There was no foul play, repeated Lance.

“I just thank God for saving me,” he said.

Next time, Lance will make sure that he will find a safe way to work out, with machines and away from free weights.

“It was traumatic,” he added. “Please ask your readers to pray for me as I undergo the surgery this morning.”