All we have to fear is fear itself

Looking back, Douglas finds a lesson in his story. He has experienced both dying and the terror of dying. In the deep water, the moment of death itself had been peaceful: the terror was in the fear of death.

He quotes President Franklin D. Roosevelt: 'All we have to fear is fear itself.'

Having faced death, his will to live grew stronger. He had learnt that fear can be beaten. Once he conquered his fear of water, he felt free to walk the trails and climb the peaks of the mountains, and to brush fear aside.

Douglas makes the story vivid by telling it in the first person, as 'I'. He gives sharp details of his body and mind: the yellow water, his paralysed legs, his lungs aching, his plan, his panic, and finally the strange calm. So we feel his terror with him, not just read about it.