Accident Leaves Man Clinging to Life

Sherry Cowling remembers, “It was hard to believe. I was – I think I was pretty much in shock the whole ride. I just remember sitting in the backseat of the car looking out, and I kept asking the same questions over and over…just really was praying and trying to hold it, hold it together."

October 2019, while Sherry Cowling was away on a cruise with friends and family, her husband Marty took a solo weekend motorcycle trip through Oklahoma and Arkansas. Marty had been riding motorcycles for 40 years and had thousands of miles through the United States and Europe in his rear-view mirror.

On Sunday Sherry called to check on him. She remembers, “And I was calling him, but he didn't answer, but I knew he was trying to ride home. The goal was to be home by church Sunday night at 6 o'clock. So I figured he's trying to get every minute he can riding.”

Sherry had no way of knowing that afternoon Marty had been in a terrible accident. His body was found over 120 feet from his wrecked motorcycle. Sherry didn’t get word of the accident until two days later when her ship arrived at port. Marty’s brother and sister-in-law met her with the news. “First thing we did when Sue told me is I said, ‘Let's sit down. We got to pray.’ So I always heard when you have problems, first thing you do is pray and then you take action," Sherry says.

They spent the next eight hours on the long drive to the hospital in Little Rock Arkansas, praying and hoping for Marty’s survival. When Sherry finally arrived, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw. “It was surreal.” Sherry says, “Kind of like a-a dream gone bad. How can this be? This strong man that I've known since the sixth grade, my soul mate, my best friend, always so strong and there for me, and just laying there… And I just – I just couldn't leave his side." 
    
Marty was in a coma with a fractured skull and neck. He had multiple brain bleeds – yet somehow he clung to life.  Sherry says her church family joined her, pleading for Marty’s survival and healing. Sherry says, “People I didn't even know would – w-were praying and doing things and sending us stuff just because word got around many people. They were covering us with prayer and everything we needed, physically, mentally, spiritually. Could have never made up that family and friends and our church body. I've never seen a church body support somebody like that. My whole world was upside down and they were there.”

After three weeks in the ICU, Marty was transferred to a long term acute care facility. Soon after, his blood pressure crashed and his organs began shutting down as he battled renal failure, sepsis, phenomena and a host of other life threatening issues. Cyndy Holter is a volunteer Chaplin with their church and was there to pray for Marty. She says, “The nurses and doctors were working frantically on him, it seemed like his life was in the balance and every time I would go in and check with the nurses they didn’t say anything, they just shook their heads. They just said, ‘He’s not doing well.’”

In the middle of their efforts a nurse reminded Sherry to keep praying. Sherry remembers, “And finally she just looked at me and she said, ‘I'm praying for Marty. You need to pray. And you need to get everybody you know to pray.’ And then she spun around and ran back in. And we just started calling everybody we knew.”
        
Their church responded in prayer once again. As prayers of faith rose up on Marty’s behalf he eventually stabilized. Sherry says, “Immediately we're seeing the great power of prayer, especially united prayer of agreement by many people. There is much power in prayer… just covering him in-in prayer and faith. That's all I knew to do, because everything else is out of my control.”

His condition eventually stabilized but the extent of damage to his brain was still unknown. As they brought him out of his coma Sherry tried to communicate with him. Sherry says, “And we'd say, ‘You were in a motorcycle accident.’ And he goes, ‘That's not good.’ It was so exhilarating because he was tracking, as he started getting stronger and you could see that his mind was okay, he wasn’t paralyzed or anything like that. I mean, all the things that could be wrong. Everything was just more hope and more encouragement."
        
Marty had a long, hard recovery. It took three months before he was strong enough to return home. He then spent several more months in physical therapy. Now Marty and Sherry celebrate God’s goodness and the prayers that helped him through.  Marty says, “It wasn't my desire to be the poster child for uh, um miracles, but um seeing how prayer actually, uh, impacted my condition and restored me, it uh really encourages me to reach out to others, you know, in their time of me – in their time of need, knowing that, you know, God can intercede for them, just as He interceded for me through prayer. It’s nothing short of a miracle in my mind.”
        
Sherry says, “Now he's here and he's like 100% or very close to it. He's normal. We're together yeah, this proved that, yeah, nothing is impossible with God, nothing.”
         
“Every time I see Marty it is just a delight.” Says Cyndy, “I’m just so thrilled that God would resurrect him and give him his life back."

“He should have been dead many times.” Says Sherry, “And the circumstances were so dire and just beyond hope. There's no explanation. But Jesus. But the Lord, Marty, every time I look at him, he's walking proof that God is alive and in control. And our hope is in the Lord.”