The Accident That Put Me In A Wheelchair (part 2)

Part 2 – Rescue

(click here for part 1)

To my great fortune, there was a security guard that saw me lying in the water at the start of his rounds. It was surely an answered prayer. He originally thought that I was just goofing off, so he went about his business. It wasn’t until the completion of his rounds that he saw that I was still out in the water and realized that I was in peril. He sprang into action, pulled me from the water and started administering CPR.

After being extracted from the water and resuscitated successfully, I was taken to a local “hospital”. There, I was treated as a drunken drowning victim. During the rescue, Nate was awakened and sent to retrieve my uncle, John, who happened to be on the trip as well.

John would soon contact my mother and tell her that I had been in an accident. I was unconscious and based on the amount of time that I was in the water, it would be a miracle if I lived, and even if I did manage to survive, to expect severe brain damage. Having received the news that every parent fears most, my mother booked the first flight available to Cancun.

My father was doing everything in his power to get medical transportation arranged to get me back to the United States before it was too late. However, he was running into two very big problems. The first problem was with our health insurance provider at the time. Since the accident had occurred on the weekend, all calls were automatically sent to voicemail. Someone was supposed to be monitoring the inbox for emergencies and returning those calls within an hour. Apparently, there was some sort of mishap that weekend and nobody returned my father’s calls.

After several failed attempts to get help from the insurance provider and knowing that time was not on our side, my father started calling air ambulance companies to arrange a return flight. Of course, every company he spoke with wanted prior authorization from insurance to secure a flight. The only way around this was to pay the estimated cost of the medical flight up front and get reimbursed by insurance afterwards. The estimates he received for an international medical evacuation were all in excess of $30,000. This was far more than our lower-middle class family with no credit cards could afford.

By late Saturday evening, my father had reached a point of desperation. He finally found an air ambulance company that agreed to a security deposit of $10,000 and a family friend willing to lend him the money. The plane would leave the U.S. first thing Sunday morning to bring me home…many answered prayers!

I can’t even imagine what my parents went through as they were making all of these arrangements. To this day, they both get teary eyed when we talk about the events that took place throughout that day.

Answered Prayers

Our family has not forgotten what everyone else was doing during all of this…praying. The entire family and all of our friends started contacting every church they had ever been involved with and a nationwide prayer chain was launched.

Fearing she would be bringing back my corpse, there were flight attendants praying for and with my mother on her flight to Cancun. People we had never met were praying for me and my family. Four months later, my younger brother would actually meet someone at Army boot camp that remembered his church praying.

It’s important to remember that this happened in 1999; Facebook was founded in 2004, so it was several years before social media would become mainstream. These prayer requests were all made by phone calls and word of mouth.

My uncle spoke with the security guard at some point later on. The guard told John that it generally takes anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to complete his rounds. I seem to recall someone telling me that the guard’s name was Angel (pronounced on-hell), but I cannot confirm it. Regardless of his actual name, he was definitely my angel that morning.

My point is that prayer was the ‘X’ factor in everything. It was an answered prayer when God sent the security guard. My mother’s prayers were answered by finding a same-day flight to Cancun on a Saturday during peak Spring Break season. My father’s prayers for a medical flight and funding were answered. And everyone’s prayers were answered because 19 years later, I am still here. Prayer is so powerful and I am forever grateful for all of the people who prayed for us then. I know that God answers prayer and I’m living proof.

Continue reading in part 3 of our series. If you haven’t already, please consider sharing this website with friends to share how God uses trials in our lives to grow us up into the character of Jesus. If you have already shared or contributed, thank you!