From Deseret News archives:
Hall relishes life, death on 'CSI'
That's just the way Robert David Hall, who plays Dr. Al Robbins, likes it.
Hall, a double amputee fitted with prosthetic legs, wants to see more disabled characters on-screen as a matter-of-fact part of life.
He compares casting the disabled in television and movies to using a 64-crayon box instead of one with a fraction of the choices.
"To me, it's always much better to paint with a wider palette. And it's more truthful, too," he said. The actor, 55, joined TV's top-rated series early in its first season in 2000 and has been a regular since.
"I told them (the producers) right from the get-go, 'I'm not going to play your ghoulish guy.' I want to be a guy who has respect for and sees death as part of life, and that's what they were looking for."
Hall knows how closely life and death shadow each other. Twenty-five years ago, he was cruising down the San Diego Freeway south of Los Angeles in a carefully washed, detailed car he was about to sell.
He was juggling jobs and enjoying it, working as a disc jockey at an Orange County radio station, writing ad copy and playing in a band.
Then, on that day in July 1978, an 18-wheel rig smashed through a chain-link fence dividing north and southbound lanes that were under construction and into Hall's path. His small auto was crushed underneath the truck and at first invisible to rescuers.
"I heard yelling and screaming," Hall recalled. "One of the policemen outside was concerned the truck's gas tank might explode. I had started screaming by this time. Somebody yelled, 'Forget about him' — and I started screaming louder."
The situation grew desperate when the tank on Hall's car burst into flames. A just-retired welder and two paramedic-firefighters, described by Hall as "very brave guys," put out the fire after several minutes and cut him out of the wreck.
With burns over 65 percent of his body, Hall was rushed to the University of California Irvine Medical Center. He decided to take his survival into his own hands — or mouth.
"I was convinced if I kept talking I would stay alive. The paramedics told me I was one of the funnier guys they ever had. I told them the name of every girl I'd ever dated, every movie I'd ever seen, every song I loved."
In two surgeries, Hall lost his right leg above the knee and his left leg below it. He had countless skin grafts on his face and body and was hospitalized off and on for more than seven months.
A parade of family and friends comforted him as he lay wrapped, mummylike, and helped satisfy "the actor in me who likes to observe things," Hall said.
