No Victims Only Survivors
Ten Lessons for Survival
Deborah Scaling Kiley
As seen on "Larry King
Live"!
Debbie Kiley is a survivor. Thrust into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after a shipwreck, adrift for days in a rubber dinghy in shark-infested waters, Kiley survived, while three of her shipmates died before her eyes. Her story, in large part, is about the superhuman feats of endurance the body is capable of in order to continue to exist.
But Kiley did not just survive shipwreck. She had also survived a childhood of abuse, neglect, bulimia, drugs, rejection, and lovelessness. Her twenty-four years before the shipwreck were also about survival – survival of her soul, her psyche, her sanity.
Faced with harrowing and horrific situations most of us cannot even imagine, Kiley did more than merely survive; she triumphed.
And more importantly, she learned. In this book, she tells her story and explains how it taught her the ten lessons she has learned for survival – lessons that anyone can learn, should learn, must learn. Because as Kiley writes, "To die well, we must have lived well and not have given up."
Born and raised on her family's
Texas
ranch, Debbie spent much of her youth outdoors. She has always been an
avid sports woman and adventurer. Debbie learned to sail on the lakes in
Texas and it was after her junior year of college at the University of
Texas that she left school and flew to the Caribbean to pursue a career in
yacht racing. In 1982, Debbie became the first American woman to complete
the prestigious and grueling Whitbread Around the World Race
.
Debbie's life changed the moment she joined the crew of the sailing yacht, Trashman, in the fall of 1982. Her life would never be the same. Debbie tells the story of that fateful voyage and how she survived despite the odds in her book, Untamed Seas. Since that tragic accident at sea, she has appeared on Larry King Live, Inside Edition, and Oprah, as well as a variety of other television and radio shows, not only in the United States, but also around the world. In 1997, Debbie's story was adapted into a made for TV movie, Two Came Back, starring Melissa Joan Hart which later became ABC's Movie of the Week. Currently, The Weather Channel, National Geographic and The Discovery Channel are airing shows where Debbie shares her story of survival in "Shark Attack," "Split Second" and "Lived to Tell." The newest show airing on The Discovery Channel in the United States and around the world is a documentary film that was created by the producers of "Touching The Void" called "I Shouldn't Be Alive."
Debbie is recently remarried and lives in Texas with her husband, two dogs and cat while her children are away at college. She has a Bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at Arlington and she is currently pursuing an additional degree from Texas Christian University. Debbie is a Master Fitness Specialist, certified by the Cooper Institute in Texas as well as a yoga instructor. She routinely speaks and writes about survival to a variety of audiences including conferences, corporate America, local churches and high schools just to name a few.