Steve Leary (Tragedies and Triumphs)

Stephen "Steve" Colm Leary (born 2 February 1957) is an American aeronautical engineer and pilot, known as the uncle of Kimberly Hart.

Biography
Steve was born and raised in Albany, New York, the eldest son in a close-knit upper-middle class Irish Catholic family. A precocious and active "wonder boy," he was a top-student, a natural athlete and a fierce protector of his six younger siblings. Though now and then he would coop himself up to build model trains and airplanes, he loved outdoor sports, winter or summer, and was a leader in his scout troop.

It was this particular hobby that, at age fourteen, led to a nasty spill and a horrible gash in his left ankle and lower leg in the Catskill mountains. He was airlifted to a hospital by helicopter and for a few hours the doctor worried amputation might prove necessary. Steve overheard and became highly distressed; a priest (it was a Catholic hospital) giving last rights in the next room could hear the distress and, when he had finished with his dying penitent, came in to bless Steve and pray with him. Though educated in Catholic schools with daily Mass, Steve had never prayed much himself until that point. But when his leg was saved and he made a full recovery, he devoted himself more diligently to prayer.