The Six Million Dollar Man

On a visit home to Ojai, tennis pro Jaime Sommers was reunited with a childhood friend, Steve Austin (now a colonel and former astronaut). With some matchmaking from Steve's Mom, Jaime and Steve's relationship quickly blossomed. But their happiness was replaced by tragedy one day when the couple went skydiving. Jaime's parachute ripped and she plummeted to the earth. Her injuries were critical with both legs and her right arm crushed beyond repair. Severe head trauma had also caused damage to her right ear. Steve, who was deeply in love with Jaime, contacted his boss Oscar Goldman at the Office of Scientific Investigation (OSI) and pleaded with him until he authorized a top secret procedure -- Bionic replacement. Steve knew that it was the only way to save Jaime, because the government had performed the same experimental operation on him two years earlier. Under the skilled hands of Dr. Rudy Wells, Jaime's surgery was a success. Her badly damaged arm, legs, and inner ear were replaced with state of the art electronic prosthesis. However, Jaime soon learned that her new limbs greatly surpassed the performance of her own flesh and blood. It seemed that she and Steve were truly made for each other. The world's first Bionic man and woman were in the midst of planning their wedding when tragedy struck again. Jaime's body rejected her Bionics. Emergency surgery was performed to save her, but it was fruitless. With Steve by her side, Jaime died on the operating table.

Miraculously, Jaime's life did not end here. Dr. Michael Marchetti used an experimental cryogenic procedure to cool her body and prevent cellular damage. This gave the doctors time to repair the massive cerebral clot which had ended her life. Her heart was restarted, and she was rescued from death. However, the radical operation was not a complete success. Jaime had suffered brain damage, and the memories of her past life were gone. Another surgery restored many of her memories, but the feelings of love that she had felt for Steve seemed unrecoverable.

Jaime's extraordinary strength ruled out a return to the tennis circuit, so she decided to return to Ojai to put down some roots. She moved into a coach house apartment situated on Jim and Helen Elgin's ranch. She also got a job teaching school at the Ventura Air Force Base. Jaime felt very indebted to Oscar and the government for saving her life, and she insisted that Oscar contact her if the OSI should need an agent with her special abilities. Oscar did call on Jaime, and from 1976 through 1978 she was sent on numerous covert missions.

The SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN were inspired by the novel Cyborg written by Martin Caiden.