Published by On January 7, 1992, I was in a serious car wreck. My husband was an over-the-road truck driver, only home every few weeks or so. It was time for him to go back to work. We only had one car, so he would drive all of us to the city he worked out of, then I would drive me and our 2 children back home.
I don’t remember that day at all. I don’t remember saying goodbye to him, nor do I remember anything that happened once I got behind the wheel of the car. The next time that I remember anything, it was almost Valentine’s Day.
What happened was this. One of my children apparently wanted something that had fallen in the floor of the front seat of the car. I leaned over to get it, and when I did, I lost control of the car. The car rolled over and over down a steep hill. Thankfully, someone witnessed the accident, and called for help.
My children, then 3 and 5 years old, were easily removed from the car. I was not removed quite so easily. The “jaws of life” had to be used to pry me out of the wreckage.
My children, Mandi and Kyle, were sent home to stay with my parents.
The authorities got a hold of my husband, who immediately left for the hospital that they were rushing me to. He even beat the helicopter there. So he was already there when they wheeled me into emergency surgery to stop my mysterious internal bleeding.
A chaplain met him in the waiting room. He asked my husband, Todd, if he wanted to pray. Todd promptly said he did, then proceeded to grab the chaplain’s hands and lead him in a prayer for my healing. I came out of emergency surgery a lot faster than they expected me to. The doctors had easily found the problem – they had to remove my injured appendix.
They then proceeded to tell my husband that I would be in a coma for at least 6 weeks, if I made it. They really weren’t even sure that I would survive. If I did survive, I would have brain damage and think on about the level of a six-year old. And I would definitely never walk again, nor regain full use of my left arm, which had bent at the elbow and become pinned up against me.
My husband camped out in the waiting room. He stayed right with me, continually praying over me, asking the Lord what he should do. He really didn’t want to not allow them to do something that would save me, but neither did he want to allow them to do something unnecessary.
They had put breathing tubes down me and I was hooked up to all kinds of monitors. When they decided that it was time to remove my breathing tube, they had trouble doing so. They attempted it several times, then wanted Todd to sign papers allowing them to put trach me. He really had a hard time with this one. He asked God what to do, to send him some sort of sign. Later that night, while he was in my room praying over me, a nurse entered the room. She looked around to make sure that no one else was around, closed the door and pulled the curtains around my bed.
She told my husband that according to my charts they wanted to trach me. She told him that she had been a nurse for a long time and somehow she knew that it wouldn’t be necessary, she knew that I was going to be alright. Then she left.
When the doctor came in the next day and told Todd to sign the papers so they could trach me, he told them to try and remove my breathing tubes just one more time. If it didn’t’ work, he would allow them to do the procedure. They tried one more time, and it worked. I did not have to be trached.
All of that happened at Humana Hospital in Louisville, Ky. After spending about a week there, they moved me to Cardinal Hill in Lexington, Ky. That is where I have my first memory.
I had sort of come out of my coma, much earlier than expected. I say sort of, because I still couldn’t remember anything. At least, not yet. They would put me in a padded room to nap, as they do all patients who have come out of comas. My first memory is in that room. I remember rolling around in the floor of that room, on all of the exercise pads that were on the floor, when I heard a voice telling me to crawl over to the door. I did just that. Once I got there, the voice told me to pull myself up. That took a little bit of doing, but I managed to do it. Then the voice told me to open the door and walk out. And I did. The first nurse who saw me walking about fell over. Then she asked me just what I thought I was doing. Of course, I told her that I was walking.
After that, they strapped in my wheelchair to keep my from taking off walking again. My improvements began coming faster than they could keep up with them. The doctors would evaluate my situation, decide on a course of exercises, mental and physical, for me. By the time they finished, I would have already surpassed what they had down for me.
God even had a surprise in for them with my arm. The doctors told my husband that my arm would begin healing at the shoulder, and would only heal at the rate of about 1 centimeter a day. Much to everyone’s amazement, God healed my arm backwards. I started moving my fingers first, then my hand, and so on. I have regained full use of my arm, though they said it wouldn’t be possible.
While in my wheelchair, I would chase my physical therapist around the hospital and beg her to exercise me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was her first patient. She left the hospital right before I did to go to her first job in Atlanta. She told me what a wonderful patient I had been.
I remember vividly one day before Valentine’s Day, the nurse was walking down the hallway, pushing me in my wheelchair, and telling me about the fun crafts that we were going to do for Valentine’s Day. I patiently told her that I wouldn’t be there.
How right I was. I was released from the hospital the day before Valentine’s Day, February 13, 1992. I proudly walked out of the hospital, no wheelchair needed. The only scar that I have left from that terrible wreck all those years ago is the one left on my stomach from the emergency surgery that was performed on me.
Before all of that happened, I was just learning about all of the wonderful things that God does for His children. I am so thankful that I had at least begun to learn about it. Not for one moment while I was in the hospital did I ever think that there was a possibility that I would spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was and still is my healer.
