Guitar World’s Dave Reffett recently conducted an interview with MOUNTAIN legend LESLIE WEST. In part two of the interview West discusses his leg amputation surgery and his wife. In an excerpt, West states:

"I go to the hospital three times a week - Kessler Rehab, which is a world-renowned place. Christopher Reeve was there when he got paralyzed. It's a rehab for amputees, people with brain trauma and brain injuries, and I'm trying to learn a lot. I used to walk one foot in front of another, you know, and now I go walk and use my hip and butt muscle to bring the artificial leg around.

They amputated the leg above the knee. If I would've had it below the knee it would've been easier, but they told me it would've meant we might have had to do two or three more amputations because they couldn't get high enough up where it was away from the blood clot. My wife actually saved my life because they put me in a coma for two days in Mississippi trying to bust the clot. They did bust it up, but my blood was so thin at that point that it was going all through my body and it was toxic. And she made them wake me up.

They put me on Propofol, believe it or not, for two days, and she wanted them to wake me up so she could tell me, 'Listen, this is what's going to happen'. She didn't want me to all a sudden one day say, 'You cut my leg off'. I made a joke with her. I said, you know honey, I meant to say, 'Pass the salt' and it came out, 'You evil bitch, you cut my leg off' (laughs).

Read the rest of Part Two here.

Part One of the interview can be found at this location.