'He's a miracle man': Local man beating the odds after near-death construction fall

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - Even when summer has faded, Ocean City, New Jersey, still gives people the chance to escape. At a local gym on 9th Street and Asbury Avenue, a local man is beating the odds one day at a time. 

Frank McLoughlin, 58, works out at the Ocean City gym in an effort to escape from pain. 

"They tell me that every muscle in the body is connected," he said. "I don't really understand that process. So when they tell me to do my upper body, it also helps my bottom." 

Day after long day, weight after more weight, Frank will not stop, and it's a full-time job. 

"I dedicated 749 days in a row to this," he said. 

The process of working out has been made easier by his favorite pair of construction work boots. Frank said, "The reason I do it in the boots is I'm a construction worker. That's what I did. So I've had boots for 40 years."

But to walk in Frank's boots, you'll first have to know his story. 

Two years ago, Frank was working on the exterior of a house when he fell. "I know it was November 5th and it was my mom's birthday, so I am not quite sure if I was rushing," he said. 

Frank woke up in the hospital several days later. Friends told him some of the details from the accident, including that he fell 35 feet and came in contact with 10,000 volts of electricity. 

"We're not sure if there was a voltage jump," he said. "I can't say for sure because I was near a transmission line. But that's all I know."

Doctors worked around the clock to fix Frank's broken body. "Eight back fusions, torn rotator, collapsed lungs," Frank said. "I understand it to be a fractured pelvis and electricity came out of the bottom of my heel and they had to do surgery on that," he said. 

According to Frank, doctors also used a defibrillator three times and he was given a 10% chance of walking again. However, Frank was up for the challenge. 

Frank's trainers, Mark Impagliazzio and Fritz Hastings, told him it would take up to 18 months for all of his injuries to be back to 100%, with two to three years being needed to recover from nerve damage. 

Impagliazzio and Hastings say Frank's work ethic is unmeasurable and that he's moving towards a goal that is not out of reach. 

"Yeah, he's a miracle man," Impagliazzio said. "But we call him Frank." 

Hastings says Frank should celebrate all his accomplishments. "He was literally dead three times," he said. "And when you take a 35-foot fall, [electrocution], and the [electricity] when out of his foot, seriously, if you live from that, you should celebrate." 

Frank spends more than two hours a day at the gym before his daily massage to keep his muscles loose. His routine then ends with acupuncture to stimulate the body's natural healing abilities. 

Old photos remind Frank of just how far he's come and they make him emotional when he looks at them. 

"I can't believe I did it," Frank said emotionally. "People didn't think I could do it. But I did it."

Frank's ultimate goal is to finish what he started and get back on the roof of the house he fell from. 

Expect nothing less from a man that never quits.