Just days short of a year after a near-fatal encounter with a gravel truck, Bill Rataczak made an emotional return Sunday, July 20, to the Heart of the Lakes Triathlon. Rataczak, one of the founders of the competition 23 years ago, was back on the beach at Pleasant Lake in his familiar role as race starter. "We love you, Bill," one man shouted from the crowd of waiting athletes at the end of a brief welcome-back ceremony in a spontaneous expression of affection shared, if not spoken, by everyone else. "I’m just happy to be here," Rataczak, 69, said into his starter’s microphone before losing his composure for a split second, then recovering. It was a scenario that seemed unlikely 363 days earlier when Rataczak and his bicycle collided last July 23 with a Stearns County truck at the entrance to the Annandale Rock Products gravel pit on 80th Street NW. He was on his daily ride near his Lake Sylvia home when the crash split his helmet and fractured his forehead into tiny fragments. Rataczak was airlifted to St. Cloud Hospital where doctors rebuilt his forehead during nine hours of emergency surgery. He also suffered a broken neck, jaw and orbital bones around his eyes. But 40 days later he walked out of the hospital under his own power. Race director Jeff Holmberg told the crowd Sunday that Rataczak had missed only one triathlon in 23 years. That was three years ago when he was recovering from throat cancer. All the triathletes wear bike helmets for a reason, he said. "Without his bike helmet, Bill wouldn’t be standing next to me today," he added, echoing a surgeon’s declaration that Rataczak’s helmet saved his life. In an interview later, the retired Northwest Airlines pilot said he’ll never fully recover. For one thing, he has no feeling from the waist down. A neurologist told him: "It’s not going to get any worse, but it’s not going to get any better." For another, he has limited neck movement so he has to turn his torso instead. And he’s undergoing therapy because he can’t swallow and chew very well. The biggest thing he’s tried to do is "to learn to live with my limitations," Rataczak said. But it’s great to be alive, he said, when he thinks about what could have happened – ending up a paraplegic or quadriplegic or even dying. At St. Cloud Hospital, doctors call him their "miracle patient," and they’ve told him: "You are extremely lucky to even be alive." "I’m just pleased to be here," he said, "and I was really looking forward to this." Rataczak praised his wife, Judy, his family and friends for their support. "She’s been my rock," he said, adding that’s true of family members and friends too, including some people he hasn’t heard from for years. "The outpouring has been phenomenal." Rataczak said he has no recollection of the crash impact and has no idea who hit whom. "I had the right of way," he said, and the truck driver failed to yield to traffic. "So it was carelessness on his part that resulted in the accident."