Silver City, NM – Wednesday March 4, motivational speaker, Dr. Randy Gallaway spoke to students at Western New Mexico University. Gallaway is a double amputee and travels the world to talk to people about the importance of safety and to never give up hope when you are in a difficult situation.
The day Gallaway’s life changed was on March 26, 1966, he was a senior in high school and worked as a junior electrician, many people were fighting the Vietnam War during this time. Gallway’s wife Mary Anne Gallaway said “He turned the power off so that everything would be safe and even locked and tagged everything and then went to work on what needed to be fixed, but somewhere along the way someone decided to turn the power back on causing enough electricity to run a city to go through his body, his partner on the assignment fell off the roof and died, and Randy was engulfed in flames.”
Randy said he yelled out “ God please help me while engulfed in flames. An ambulance picked me up, but back then the ambulances didn’t have all the medical supplies as today, it was basically just a ride to the hospital. I should have died multiple times that day, in that ambulance, and in the hospital but God decided it was just not my time and that was a miracle.” Ryan Gallaway then stated “ The pain was beyond belief! I was knocked out and going in and out of consciousness. All I could do is pray to god, and he blessed me. When people came to visit me they sensed something amazing like someone was watching over me. To this day I believe it was God that made sure that I was going to get through this and was showing the people that visited. While recovering, my mother told me ‘I know it hurts now but it won’t always be like this. It’s not about the body it’s the person inside that counts.’ This motivated me to get by the pain and focus on getting better.
Randy Galloway met his wife Mary Anne in a Christian group in the 1970’s when he was talking to colleges about his experiences. Randy said “I didn’t know how it was going to be finding a wife. I prayed to God to find someone for me. One of my friends said ‘ There’s Five-Billion people in the world, surely there is one person out there for you.’ God made my prayer come true, my wife Mary Anne, she is perfect for me and I think God spent years getting Mary Anne ready to meet me.” Randy travels the world spreading his message he said “Across the world my story is a story of overcoming disaster and a great difficulty. I want my story to give people hope in these circumstances and in conclusion think, ‘if Randy overcame his surgeries and hardships I can overcome my problems.’ That is the ministry of my story.”
Randy has artificial limbs, on one arm he has a robotic hand that allows him to move it with a nerve in his shoulder and on the other arm he has a prosthetic arm with a hook on the end that he can also move. Randy stated “ Over the forty- eight years I have had lots of different limbs but now I have the best limbs and the hand is really amazing, it allows me to shake hands with people and other everyday activities. I heard someday they can grow me a new arm with cells from different parts of my body and I think that’s incredible and I hope that someday that will happen.”
Many airports have high security and can make it difficult for people with prosthetics to travel. Randy said “At airports it has been interesting, they have made me take off my arms to see if they are safe.” Randy Gallaway also gives a suicide prevention speech called “Never Give Up” where he speaks to students in high schools and college about how with finding your dream you can discover amazing capabilities in your life. If you put your advantages to the world, you will always have work and joy because you are doing what you’re made to do. He tells students powerful forces is hope.
