When Andrew Oberle gives speeches to groups, he always starts with an experiment: "Raise your hand if you've survived the worst thing that's ever happened to you."
Invariably, all hands go up.
"Life's not easy for any of us," Oberle said. "Everybody has it in them to be resilient."
The worst thing for Oberle happened five years ago when two chimpanzees attacked him while he was working at an animal sanctuary in South Africa. He was torn open from his scalp to his feet, losing his nose, ears, most of his fingers and both feet, plus muscle and tissue in his legs, arms and chest.
Some two dozen reconstructive surgeries later, Oberle, 31, has launched a trauma care program at St. Louis University where much of his recovery took place. The goal of the Oberle Institute is to heal trauma patients both physically and spiritually, with a team of surgeons, counselors and therapists helping people get back to lives that will be forever changed.
It only makes sense that a patient will be leading the institute, said Dr. Bruce Kraemer, plastic surgeon at St. Louis University Hospital.
"I can only do so much with the patients I touch," Kraemer said.
Oberle, the surgeon said, is "one of these people that has a positive life energy. You feel better just by being around him. His resilience and his fierceness of wanting to succeed so he can help others is very inspirational."
For Oberle, starting the institute answers the question of "why me?"
"It would be almost irresponsible not to take what happened to me and use it to help others," he said. "I survived for a reason."
