JOHN MELLENCAMP - MELLENCAMP DEDICATES HALL OF FAME INDUCTION TO SURGEON

JOHN MELLENCAMP dedicated his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday night (10Mar08) to the surgeon who saved his life as a baby. The rocker was born with Spina Bifida, a birth defect of the spine that routinely paralysed and caused the death of infants when Mellencamp was born in the 1950s. The singer survived, and called the now elderly surgeon who operated on him in Indiana when he was just six weeks old - so he could learn the true story of his brush with death. Mellencamp 56, told the star-studded audience at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel: "I was born with Spina Bifida. Back then it was fatal. I should have been paralysed from the neck down. "My parents waited six weeks to see if I lived. They then performed the operation on me and I was lucky. It was a high risk. The surgeon worked on my spinal cord and didn't damage it. "I called him up to find out exactly what happened. His name is Dr Heidenberg. He is still alive. He is 92 years old. "I'm lucky to be standing here."