Thanks to a few lucky breaks, Laurence Lau (Sam) has more life to live
When you meet Laurence Lau (Sam), his humility is the first thing you notice. Happy that ONE LIFE TO LIVE is his third incarnation in daytime in as many decades (he starred as ALL MY CHILDREN’s Greg Nelson in the ’80s and ANOTHER WORLD’s Jamie Frame in the ’90s), the actor admits that he’s grateful for life’s blessings. But what fans might be surprised to realize is that Lau actually is lucky just to be alive.
"I survived a couple of accidents I shouldn’t have," reveals the actor. "I don’t know if you’d call it lucky, or just a God job." The first was a motorcycle crash at the tender age of 17. "I took a cross-country trip. I was passing this guy and he made a left turn without using his signal or break light. I crashed into the right side of his car." Miraculously, Lau avoided serious injuries, but nonetheless experienced a near-death experience. "While I was traversing this space, which took about half a second between my handle bars and his car, I saw a white light. Luckily, I was wearing a helmet, or my head would have been split in two. Amazingly, I walked away with just a few scrapes and bruises."
The Eye Of The Storm
That experience wasn’t the only time Lau cheated death, however. "Years ago, I was driving through a snowstorm with my brother in Oregon, and we parked on the shoulder of the highway to scrape the ice off of the windshield," he says. "I had my flashers on, and as I was scraping the ice off of the windshield, I looked behind me and saw this Cadillac driving on the side of the road, totally oblivious to us being there. About 10 feet from the car he started to swerve and then just plowed into the back of us. I was holding onto the roof, and when he hit, I was flung straight into the air. It was like a 6,000 pound Cadillac — I felt like I’d been shot out of a gun. And the instant the car hit, I heard this voice say, ‘You’re dead.’
"I was flung in the air; I felt so peaceful and so calm, absolutely without any fear," he continues. "I can’t tell you how peaceful it was. It was just an amazing, embracing feeling like everything’s fine. Then, I finally slammed into the ground and I hit two feet of snow headfirst. I thought, ‘Oh I’m not dead.’ Then I heard my brother — who was fine — saying, ‘Where’s my brother? Where’s my brother?’ And I looked at the street up the road where he was trying to get out of the back of the Camaro. I had a bump on my head, and that was about it. I was, and still am, very lucky to be alive." — Irene Vitale
Laurence Lau
