Jeff Purvis is an incredibly fortunate man.

Twice, Purvis has stared death squarely in the face and come away able to talk about it. Just knowing a fraction of what he's been through, it's hard to believe that Purvis is still around. Talking to him on the phone comes across as nothing short of a miracle.

"It's kind of humorous in a way, but I'll start talking to somebody and I'll say, 'The first time I broke my neck ...'" Purvis said. "I've been totally blessed. My health is good now. Physically, I can do pretty much anything, within reason, that I would've been able to do if I'd never had either one of the wrecks."

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Jeff Purvis

And what unimaginable wrecks they were ...

Five years ago, on May 18, 2002, Purvis blew an engine going into Turn 1 at Nazareth Speedway in Pennsylvania. He glanced off the wall, and slid back down the track, directly into the path of an oncoming Greg Biffle. Their cars met in an instant, Biffle's nose to driver's-side door of Purvis' Brewco Motorsports Chevrolet, the worst possible kind of impact.

The hit was so hard, Biffle's helmet was cracked when it struck his head rest. After briefly losing consciousness himself, Biffle was able to walk away from the accident and win just two weeks later in Dover.

Purvis, on the other hand, sustained a contusion to the base of his brain, fractures to the first and second vertebrae and a broken left leg. Listed in serious but stable condition early in his hospital stay, Purvis spent time on a ventilator to aid his breathing. He was also placed in a halo to stabilize his neck.

If nothing else, the Nazareth accident caused Purvis to realize that he had to get his affairs in order. He had to, for his family.

"If I had died at Nazareth -- and there was times, according to my wife, they thought I was going to -- [wife Margo] would've been in a cluster," Purvis said. "My will was not taken care of ... like it should be. There were so many loose ends. I just went on with my daily business, and I just never thought anything like this could ever happen.

"The first thing when I got physically and mentally able, I straightened up all these different situations that I had just left untied."

The Tennessee native would race just once more in Busch Series competition, two years later at the same track that nearly cost him his life. For Purvis, it wasn't a return to the scene of the crime. He never felt the track owed him anything, or that he had anything to prove to himself.

It was simply the result of a suggestion made by his longtime car owner and good friend James Finch.

"It was none of that ... none of the above," Purvis said. "The only reason I did it is because James called me and asked, 'You wanna run this race for me?' There was never a thought that it owed me one, or I owed it one. It was a race, and I wanted to go race. It just happened to be at the same place."

Purvis turned thereafter to dirt Late Models, a division that had seen him accomplish a great many wondrous things. He is, after all, a member of the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame.

It was on his way to a dirt race at the famed Talladega Short Track that Purvis was again nearly brushed with tragedy. At about 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 5, 2006, a left-front tire blew on his team's transporter as it traveled southbound on Interstate 65 near Cullman, Ala. The vehicle struck a culvert in the median and crossed into oncoming traffic before hurtling into a wooded area on the side of the highway.

The accident threw the vehicle's six passengers -- including Purvis, his wife Margo and son Clay -- into complete and utter chaos.

Incredibly, Purvis' first instinct in the accident was to get to his son, who was sleeping in an overhead berth. Another occupant, Ben Britt, was thrown into Purvis, whose back was broken by the impact. Yet another violent hit -- one of countless in the mishap -- broke his neck.

The whole thing lasted maybe 8-10 seconds, but they were the longest 8-10 seconds of Jeff Purvis' life.

"Of all the NASCAR racing I ever did ... dirt racing, any kind of racing ... that was by far the scariest wreck I've ever been involved in," Purvis admitted.

Purvis was the most seriously injured, but even as the vehicle was coming to a rest, he knew he had to move. And fast.

"When it stopped, I was buried down by where the motor was, and I heard it basically sparking," Purvis said. "You could hear the flame. Everybody just started saying, 'Get out!' We knew that thing was fixing to catch on fire. We finally got out. ... It burnt up everything -- race cars, a four-wheeler -- everything. Everything we had, it burnt it all.

"Everything we had was just totally engulfed in flames. [A fireman] said, 'Mr. Purvis, we're doing everything we can.' He just kept trying to apologize that they couldn't get it put out, and when I saved up enough breath, I finally told him, 'Listen ... I'm happy. Just let it burn.'"

A couple of months after the accident, Purvis was able to return to work at Queen City Metals in his hometown Clarksville, Tenn. For quite a while, and sometimes even now, he blamed himself for putting his family through such an ordeal.

They wouldn't have been going to a race if it hadn't been for him, he told himself. And if they hadn't been going to a race because of him, they wouldn't have been in the accident.

"I still somewhat do [blame myself]," Purvis said. "[Returning to racing after the Nazareth accident] is something that I chose to do. I know accidents are gonna happen. I don't wake up guilty every morning that I've done this, because everybody does have a choice. It's kind of a double-edged sword, but I do. It was something I was choosing to do because I loved doing it. I don't know if it was such a good decision."

Even while considering both of the terrible accidents in which he's been involved, Purvis says that an even bigger life-changing event was the death earlier this year of his first wife, Susan Turner, due to cancer.

Purvis grieves for his children with Susan: Thomas and Clay.

"That's an eye-opener right there," Purvis said, the emotion evident in his voice. "That changes more than pretty much anything that's ever happened to me. ... I feel good [physically], but I hurt for my boys, losing their mother."

Clay has a dirt car, and is ready and raring to go racing. His dad, however, isn't quite so sure, not because of the life-threatening accidents in which he's been involved, but because of the tremendous financial burden racing requires.

Purvis knows. He's been there. And he doesn't want Clay to go through the hard times that he's been through.

"It really has nothing to do with injuries," Purvis said. "There were times when I dirt raced, I struggled. There were times I couldn't pay my tire bill. James came along and started helping me. Well ... heck ... I had an eight- or nine-month racing season, and two or three months into it, I'd already gone through that money. They say speed costs money ... how fast do you want to go? I wanted to go faster than everybody.

"If they had a new part out, I had to have it. I just remember those times when it was a serious struggle. I know a better way now. He can come out here [to Purvis' business] and work, and have a good and successful life if everything goes well. That part is what worries me more than anything. It's easy to remember the good times, but those bad times were there as much as the good times."

Will Purvis ever race again? It's a question Purvis has been asked many times in recent months, and it's a good one. Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell. It's a fever that Purvis caught long ago, and it doesn't appear to have left him yet.

"Would it take very much to talk me into doing it? None whatsoever," Purvis concluded. "I probably would like to do it more now than ever. I've situated myself better for it now than I was then ... as far as personally, financially ... whatever."