Eighty-year-old grateful to be alive.

NEW SWEDEN (AP) – The oldest of the 16 people who were poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee in northern Maine last April is healing – and says he’s grateful to be alive.

After eight months of physical therapy and powerful medicine, 80-year-old Ralph Ostlund can shovel snow off his porch and bowl twice a week. Long an avid cross-country skier, he planned to try skiing with his grandchildren this weekend.

“It’s a long struggle,” said Ostlund, who was unconscious for two weeks and nearly died. “I wasn’t supposed to make it. I made it. I’m around. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anybody. It happened. I have to put up with it.”

Sixteen people were poisoned at a church social in New Sweden early last spring. One man, 78-year-old Walter Reid Morrill, died.

Daniel Bondeson, Ostlund’s friend, committed suicide after the poisonings, leaving a note that implicated him.

Doctors don’t know what’s ahead for the poisoning victims because never before have so many people ingested so much arsenic and survived. The case remains under investigation by state police.

“I don’t know if we’ll make an arrest,” said state police Lt. Dennis Appleton, who oversees the homicide investigation. “We don’t know and may never know the true motive for this event. To this day I don’t think the victims can rationalize why this happened.”

Dale Anderson, who was among those most seriously hurt by the poisoning, said finding out for sure who was involved in the case “would put a lot of people’s minds to rest.”

“I’d know who I could get mad at,” said Anderson.

Both he and Ostlund said the experience deepened their faith. Despite their misfortune, they believe that God and the prayers of well-wishers around the world led them to survive.

AP-ES-12-21-03 1315EST