Here is the heart-wrenching story John Stadtmiller was unable to completely read during the last segment of today’s broadcast of The National Intel Report:

Source: Detroit Free Press

Erik Kramer flew home to California last July, after finishing a month-long stay at the Eisenhower Center rehabilitation facility in Ann Arbor, and almost immediately began planning his death.

Kramer, who quarterbacked the Detroit Lions in 1990-93 and led the team to its only playoff victory since 1957, sat down at his computer and started typing out a suicide to-do list.

Known for his meticulous preparation and diligent work habits as a player, Kramer wrote, in order, everything he wanted to accomplish before alleviating the unbearable mental and emotional pain he had been dealing with, off and on, for almost two decades.

He had to redo his will and tidy up some business ventures. He had bills to pay and chores to do around the house. He had suicide letters to write to the eight or 10 people closest to him: his son, his ex-wife, his sister and a few friends and business partners.

And he had to buy a gun.

One day, Kramer drove to a gun store in Simi Valley, Calif., about 30 minutes from his home in Agoura Hills, northwest of Los Angeles.

He made small talk with a clerk at the store, said he was in need of a handgun, and when the clerk recommended a SIG Sauer 9mm, he filled out the paperwork and waited 10 days before he was cleared for purchase.

Finally, with everything checked off his to-do list and a few practice rounds under his belt at a local gun range, Kramer took what he planned to be his last day on Earth for himself.

On Tuesday, Aug. 18, with his son Dillon a day away from starting his junior year of high school, Kramer printed the suicide notes from his computer and put them in personalized envelopes on his desk. He picked up Dillon for lunch and dropped him off at his ex-wife’s house. He had dinner at a local place he can’t remember. And he checked into a second-floor room at the Good Nite Inn on Agoura Road in Calabasas, Calif., where, around 8 p.m., he tried to take his own life.

“All of that came to sort of an end, and it was time to either do it or not do it,” Kramer said. “I think I hung out for a little bit. I think I may have gone to eat some dinner somewhere and then came back and, I don’t know what time, but sort of took the gun, crawled into bed and pulled the trigger.”

That Kramer is alive today to tell his story — one of hope built from despair, and one that he wants to serve as a life preserver for others dealing with depression — is nothing short of a miracle.

Kramer, in a series of phone interviews with the Free Press over the past 11 days, described in detail both his suicide attempt that made headlines last August and his recovery, spurred on by family and former teammates, in the months since.

The bullet traveled through his chin, left a hole in his tongue … CONTINUE READING AT FREEP.COM