He Came Back From The Dead To Pass On Life Lessons

By Ray Glier

Bob Welty finished his fifth race of the day, a 100-yard butterfly heat race, and climbed out of the water onto the pool deck. Suddenly, he fell back into the pool and sank to the bottom.

He was dead.

“I was cold and dead,” Bob said. 

He had not only gone over the edge of the pool, he had gone over the edge where few return. 

When he was hoisted to the pool deck, Welty had no heartbeat and was not breathing. “They said I turned blue,” he said.

Bob’s friends, Janie Cole and Mark Glass, immediately started CPR. These two worked on him until paramedics arrived. Welty was told he was gone 22 minutes. The meet in Mansfield, Texas, was stopped. People were asked to leave. There was crying and hand-wringing and utter shock. Welty was well known in the swim community.

Somehow, Bob said, a piece, or pieces, of plaque in a superbly conditioned 69-year old man had broken loose and blocked an artery.

The absence of a heartbeat for more than a few minutes is generally incompatible with life. 

Bob woke up in the hospital to his personal halo of Janie and Mark and his swimming coach standing in the room. The 22 minutes into The Beyond was not a record, but still miraculous.

Welty is 80 now. The episode happened July 18, 2014.

“God gave me a second chance at life. And when something like that happens, you ask, ‘Why did it happen? And what can I change to make the rest of the life I have better’,” Bob said. “And I found some really important things.”

Welty, a collegiate swimmer at Oklahoma, started training amputees. Some of them were double amputees or multi-amputees, and the goal was to make them feel water-safe and give them an opportunity to enjoy the water, rather than just be afraid to get near it.

Bob did that charitable work from 2014 to 2020 and then Covid shut things down. After that, Welty started working out at the Jewish Community Center and has attracted senior swimmers because of his expertise. The youngest of his charges is 50 and the oldest is approximately 90, he said. 

“They have learned the joy of swimming. They've learned the joy of competing, and they all compete in meets, which makes me really, really happy,” he said.

On top of that, Bob continues to work full-time at an architectural firm in Dallas.

**

Following the near-death experience, Welty’s primary care physician in Dallas said, “If I was you, I wouldn’t swim anymore.” 

“Well, you're not me and you're not my doctor anymore,” Bob replied.

Welty’s cardiologist knew better Bob’s love of the sport.

“My cardiologist said it wouldn't do him any good to tell me not to swim,” Welty said. “He asked me instead of swimming five events a day, and with a goal of setting personal best times or records in those events, just pick one or two events you want to swim fast and you swim the others easy. Just have fun.

“I have not forgotten his advice.”

Instead of being impassioned and over-ambitious in the pool, Bob cooled his jets. He was ok with second place for once in his life.

Welty is angular at 6-foot-1½ and muscled at 210 pounds. He could pass for a man 70, not 80. When he combined that athleticism with fierce drive he could be dominant. Bob also could have died because of that fierceness.

“I used to be far too self-centered in the pool and concerned with how many events I was going to win, and how many records I would set,” he said.

That experience in the pool 11 years ago, Welty said, “really changed me. It had a big impact on my life.”

In Des Moines, Iowa, at the 2025 National Senior Games a few weeks ago, Bob won a gold medal in the 100-yard butterfly and was part of two relay teams that won gold medals. Welty also snatched three silver medals over the four days of swim competition. The old Bob might have been disappointed.

What continues to make him competitive is a fastidious approach to mechanics as he swims. That not only goes for strokes, but other parts of the race.

“The other variables in a race are certainly starts and turns and by doing better starts and turns than your competitors really gives you a big advantage. It's knowing that on every turn I'm going to be a half a body length better than the guy swimming next to me,” Bob said. 

Here is another imperative to learn from Welty’s experience.

Get things fixed. He's had both knees replaced, besides the heart stent.

“It really is important to take action to fix and repair the parts of your body which you're wearing out and also take care of the things that aren't quite right,” Bob said. “It will improve your life. It'll make life safer for you. Don't live with something that that slows you down, that makes you unhappy.”