Close Encounter with Death

On June 21, 1994 Bill and I were riding on a back country road not far from where we lived when suddenly a car came flying through a curve straight at us. Bill had to make an instant decision and he noticed we were next to a horse barn but there was a huge piece of equipment where he needed to drive to. So he tried to get between the wire that went to the ground from the telephone pole. The back of the car shimmied and my side of the car slammed into the pole with the side of my head making contact. I instantly was thrown into a coma with blood spurting out my ears and mouth and the side of my head. A lady came running with washcloths to compress the side of my head while Bill tilted my head back and cleared my throat. The ambulance came and attempted to get me out of the passenger side door. Someone had called the medi-vac helicopter and they sat on the road so long waiting that they had to turn it off as the road was starting to melt under the helicopter. Finally the 2nd fire dept showed up and asked why the top of the car hadn’t been cut off.

Two hours after the accident I was taken out with the “jaws of life”. By the time they had me on the ground they could find no appreciable blood pressure. I was medi-vacced to Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. Bill followed with a friend in the car. By the time he got to the hospital word had gotten out and the ER was full of people to include 3 pastors who were there to pray and give support to Bill. The ER Dr. asked Bill if we had a minister or a priest and Bill immediately assumed that I had died in route to the hospital. He was relieved to find out differently but the Dr. told him that it did not look well for my survival, and if I did live that I would probably have massive brain damage.

They took x-rays to determine the amount of head damage and to determine what bones needed to surgically be put back in place. They found 11 skull fractures and 5 of them were major. But to their total amazement not one bone was out of place. There were bone chips pressing against the optic nerve, but too close to the carotid artery to safely remove them. They also discovered that the bone located above the palate had been broken and had made a clean cut through the lining around my brain but it didn’t touch the brain or the pituitary gland that was sitting right next to it. Because the lining was cut it had kept the blood from building up and causing pressure within the brain cavity that would have been lethal.
Upstate Medical is a teaching hospital and they asked if they could use me as a case study as they had never heard of that particular bone breaking on anyone before. Both ear drums had been broken.
My mother showed up in the E.R. that night and when she looked at me she said, “This is not my daughter!”

They put me in I.C.U. and on the 3rd morning I woke up. I looked around the room and knew that I was in the hospital and that I must have been in an accident though at that particular moment I didn’t remember the incident. My mother-in-law was sitting in the room and I motioned for her to give me a piece of paper and a pen as I wasn’t able to talk because of the breathing tube in my mouth. The night of the accident Bill and I were to meet a couple for dinner at their home and I wrote a note to my mother-in-law with the name of the couple and their phone number asking her to contact them and tell them we wouldn’t be there for dinner that night. I was 3 days off but my brain was functioning just fine. Bill came in later and saw the note on the tray table and after reading it slid down the wall to the floor and cried.

I was put into a regular room and stayed there for 10 days. Every morning I awakened singing a chorus, “The steadfast love of the Lord never faileth, his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, new every morning, great is thy faithfulness oh God! Great is thy faithfulness!” I heard the sound of a hammer banging in my head. I was still fearful that I might die. The doctor’s didn’t tell me anything and I don’t think they knew. The morning I was to leave the hospital I had a Heavenly visitation. A lady in our church had died the year before. She showed up at the head of my bed and put her hands on both my shoulders. She was dressed in the most beautiful blue dress I had ever seen and it was a shade I’d never seen before. Her face was beautiful and ageless. She was an adult but there was not one crease or sag to her face. She could have been any age. She didn’t speak but I felt totally comforted and I knew I’d be OK.

I want to say here that the Bible is very clear in the fact that humans do not become angels after they go to Heaven. They remain humans. Angels are created beings as well, but totally different than us. The Bible says that “We were made a little lower than the angels”.

After the 10 days were up the doctors sent me home to heal and said they didn’t know what else to do for me. I slept in a recliner for a couple of months as I was too dizzy to lie down. Ten days after I arrived home I had my first Dr’s appointment at the hospital. One side of my face felt like it was heavily novocained and looked a bit distorted from being pulled up. I had terrible whip lash and my right leg had been banged up a little but I chose to walk in instead of using a wheel chair. I sat on the edge of the examining table and waited for the Dr. to arrive. When he walked in he stood and stared in disbelief at me shaking his head. He knew and admitted that he was looking at a miracle!

All that summer I felt totally vulnerable and afraid. Many people came to my home to bring comfort and food. A group of 8 people came and stayed for several days and cleaned and cooked. Our house was big and I was staying in the sunroom so had lots of space when I needed it.

I had a lot of “why” questions and I didn’t have any answers. “Why had this happened to me?” And then later, “Why did God let me live when so many others with even less injuries had been taken?” I couldn’t pray and that was OK. I could feel the prayers of many holding me up. I received hundreds of cards through that summer. I discovered that many churches, to include those from other denominations were also holding me up in prayer. I was amazed and knew that again it was a “God thing”. For those of you who know it, my favorite song became, “How Firm A Foundation”. I’d sit at the piano and play it and sing it over and over and over again. That song was my prayer, and in the midst of all the emotional trauma I felt encapsulated in God’s love. He knew I wasn’t happy with him for letting this all happen but I wasn’t bitter. I knew that my Heavenly Father had something huge that he intended to teach me through it all and at some point he’d let me know.

Some weeks later I went to the eye clinic as I was seeing double and the eye with the bone chips was wandering to the right. I was told that it was a good possibility that it would never be right again. I wore a patch over the eye to get rid of the double vision and by September I was driving on my own. I had been fearful to ride in a car and when Bill took me out riding I knew every car was going to hit us head on. I finally knew that the only way to get over the fear and paranoia was to again totally surrender my life to the Lord and leave it all in his hands. If he wanted me to die that was his business. I knew if I did I’d immediately be in his presence so it was a “win/win” situation. I immediately felt unbelievable peace and the fear was instantly gone.