Nader Elguindi: Struck Down, But Not Defeated

CBN.com Nader Elguindi made his career choice early in college.

"My motivation to join the Navy at first was that I needed money.  I needed a scholarship. And for me, it seemed like a ticket out, an opportunity to get out of this kind of low-level grind, and really explore and provide a career track for my future," he says.

The Navy covered Nader’s bill to finish college. After graduation, he was off to serve his country.

He had been a Christian since high school and was surprised to find so many Christians serving beside him.

"I really started exploring my Christianity and taking it to a new level when I was in the Navy," he says.

Nader trained as a submarine officer in the Navy’s nuclear program and was stationed at Pearl Harbor.

"Being a junior officer on a submarine is probably the hardest job I can imagine on earth. There are only 24 hours in the day, and it seemed like there was about 70," he continues.

Early in the morning after working a double shift on the sub, Nader made a fateful decision.

"Instead of sleeping there on the boat, because we’d frankly been sleeping on the boat for the last two-and-a-half months, I said, 'I just really want to go home and crash in my own bed.' I got on my motorcycle, left base, and got on the freeway to head home. It was a cool night with hardly any traffic at 4 a.m. The bike kind of locked up and skidded for about 70 feet before it finally hit the exit sign and threw me onto the side of the hill. I really lie there for about 20 minutes."

His life hung in a delicate balance.

"Both my legs, below my knee, had been severed in the accident. They were just only dangling on there by flesh, so I was really bleeding, and I’d smashed up the whole left side of my body. But they said I was kind of in and out of consciousness," Nader remembers.

He was airlifted to a nearby Army medical center. Three shifts of doctors were working in that emergency operating room for 18-and-a-half hours.

"To put me back together, to reattach my legs, I underwent replenishment of 10 units of blood. I just lost so much blood," he says.

There was a staph infection that lead to gangrene in one of his reattached legs. Doctors amputated it to save his life.

"If that staph infection crept into my bloodstream and got in my heart, I would have died. I’m very fortunate that they discovered it early enough. They were also able to amputate just below the knee and salvage most of my leg. So I’m able to effectively walk today."

One of the first questions he asked was if he would be able to go back to work again.

"The doctors were pessimistic and they said, 'Son, you’ll be lucky to walk again. You’ll certainly never go back to work again.' For the first time in my history of being, I felt like I was doing God’s work. I was helping by being a lay person on a boat. I feel like I was serving my country. Everything felt right. And, to have all that taken away, I asked the “why me” question. You know? I mean, like, 'Hey, what’s up?'  You know, God led me down this great path and then threw this big, boulder on my shoulder, this monkey. I was really kind of questioning God."

Nader took a bold step.

He thought, “Look, I’m not done living. I want to go back to work. As a matter of fact, I want to go back to submarines."

His family and Admiral Kenney said, "Nader, whatever you need, we’ll support you. We’ll give you the support."

"And that was everything I needed. I knew that and with the Lord’s help, I could do it. I could overcome. It would be a long journey, but I could do it," says Nader.

Even though he was walking on crutches, he called his captain. 

Nader told him, "Look, I need something. You know, I know I can’t go back to the boat yet, but can you do something? Can you give me a desk job? Give me something to work on."

Once he was walking on his prosthetic, he was ready for a greater challenge.

"I called my captain and said, 'I’m ready to go back to the submarine. If I can hobble around on a cane, I can get around on a submarine. Send me back to sea, because I want to finish working on my quals. I want to finish my job. I want to do what I’m supposed to do.' ”

"Three months at sea, and I did it all with a prosthetic leg, and it was absolutely amazing. It gave me a phenomenal amount of confidence that I could do my job," he now says.

Nader finished his submarine qualifications.

"I was the only officer in the history of the United States Navy to ever qualify in submarines with a prosthetic leg. No one in fact, had ever really been let back on submarines. I think the ambition to really be part of myself again, to be whole again, to have the confidence that I could go do my job, that was really important to me mentally and spiritually."

Nader retired from the Navy in 1997 and started a business as an IT consultant.

"I launched my company, Cydecor, and it was an amazing journey because the next two years we doubled and doubled our company again."

He also travels, motivating others to live by faith in God. He tells of his journey of faith and determination in his book, My Decision to Live. Nader says his ordeal deepened his relationship with God.

"I developed my prayers more into understanding God’s will for my life instead of understanding my purpose and force-fit into my prayers for God’s will. There’s definitely a lot of things that we experience in this physical world that are hard to understand. But given time, you see it clearly and understand why it was part of your path and how that led you to greater purpose in God’s will and God’s life."