Delores "Dee" Moats Fullmer of Tunnelton, Preston County WV cheated death more than once, dying in 2016 at age 86. I wasn't too far behind her in such cheatin'. She was one of the most remarkable women I have met in my lifetime.

I first met the woman while dryin' out from alcoholism in a small detox founded by recovering alcoholic Dr. Thomas Haymond at Preston Memorial Hospital in 1979, hopefully my last detox with 51 years sober. Later, Dr. Haymond hired me to develop the full-fledged Preston Addiction Treatment Center.

In 1979 Dee was in detox with me, likely the sickest woman I have ever met reeking with the final stages of alcoholism, yellow jaundiced from head to toe, barely able to speak.

While I was there for less than a week, she was patient for at least two months, and for several weeks I returned to visit her, slowly recovering.

Her alcoholism progressed after her alcoholic husband committed suicide at the dinner table, killing himself with a gun in front of Dee and her children.

Dee was an active member and leader within the AA recovering community until her death 37 years later. In the early 1980s I hired her as a recovering counselor at Preston Addiction Treatment Center, where she compassionately helped hundreds for 20 years.

Dee had cheated death.

I had decided to take my first trip down the Cheat whitewater in the 1980s with a group of doctors and employees of Preston Memorial Hospital, some highly skilled rafters. I joined them in my rubber ducky. They were most helpful on my first trip down the mighty Cheat, a river that is appropriately named.

Things went fine until we approached the most notorious rapid, the skilled rafters advising me to steer clear of the dangerous trough, a killer, and paddle to go down the safer side.

Not sure what I did wrong, maybe took a couple second rests, and quickly being pulled toward the ominous trough. There I went on the roaring journey, the ducky twisting and bouncing, losing my oar, somehow staying in the ducky to come out in the quiet water below, alive.

The 15 or so experienced rafters gathered around me, declaring I was the recipient of a miracle, none having ventured down the torturous chute.

So, Dee then decides she wants to give it a try with the same bunch of skilled rafters. I can't recall what treacherous chute done her in, but she was thrown out.

Stunned, the skilled rafters spotted he ducky floating down the Cheat empty, unable to spot Dee in the roaring river.

They called for rescue services and a chopper from Morgantown came to report she had washed onto a tiny shoal, with high rapids obstructing her view, not being able to see her from land.

She was rescued with some pretty serious injuries, taken to Preston Memorial Hospital where she remained a patient for about a week, recovering.

Dee had escaped death a second time.

Long after leaving Preston Addiction Treatment Center, Dee having retired, we often traveled and visited. Attending her funeral and yet today, I will always remember her as one of most gracious women I have met in my lifetime.