There Was No Chance He Should Have Survived...

“When you leave in a morning, you just have no idea that your life is gonna be forever changed in a moment.”

August 24, 2017, started off as a normal day for Rob and Carol Dennis. 

Carol, a salon owner, left for work, and Rob got busy on a roofing project outside.

Their neighbor, Karla lent, had taken the day off to work on her house. Suddenly, her son, Hunter, who was home from school with pink eye, came racing inside. He said, ‘Mom, mom, I think something happened to Rob!’ When he opened the door, right away, I could hear Rob screaming,

"Help! help! Karla, Karla! " I grabbed my phone and I headed over there. As I was approaching, I could tell how bad it was, so I just called 911. I was probably ten to fifteen feet away, and I could see the blood just squirting up in the air.’”

Rob had been carrying sheet metal roofing up a ladder and slipped, cutting his neck and shoulder to the spine and severing his jugular vein.

“He just rode that whole thing down, and it just opened him right up,” Karla remembers.
Karla sent Hunter inside to get all the towels he could find.

‘“He was just losing so much blood, once I got the towels, it was just such a large cut. I couldn't even keep it all. So, I remember putting my knee like up under the back of his neck. I knew if I didn't apply pressure, he would bleed out. 911 stayed on the phone with me the whole entire time. I remember them saying, "Roll him onto his side." And when I rolled him onto his side, right away, was choking on his blood. What scared me in the moment is every time I tried to do something different to help him be a little more comfortable, he'd choke on his blood, like I could just hear the gurgling, he'd start to fade his eyes were rolling back in his head, and that's what was scary. I kept yelling at him, and I shook him a little bit. I'm like, "You gotta stay with me. You gotta stay with me. They're almost here." and the whole time he's like, ‘Just let me go. Just let me go. Please, I, I don't wanna live. This is so bad.’”

Minutes later, volunteer EMT James Taylor arrived and took over.

“Pretty much had my hand in his neck trying to control the bleeding. I've never seen a cut in a neck like that. Usually, it's arm or leg so you can throw a tourniquet on it to control the bleeding. Well, on his neck, you can't do that. I do remember him telling me to tell his wife that he loves her,  and I kept telling him, ‘You're gonna tell her that. You're gonna make it and you're gonna tell her.’"

Karla phoned Carol, who raced home. When she got there, the scene was worse than she’d imagined.

“Fire trucks and ambulances and EMS and everybody was just everywhere and I heard Rod screaming, ‘Let me go. Let me go. It's too bad. Let me go.’ And I said, ‘I gotta get to him. I wanna see him.’ they held me back and they said, "You can't, Carol, it's too bad.” I said, "Can I kiss him goodbye?" And the guy's like, ‘Yeah.’  And it was the RN attending the flight and he came over to me and he said, "I smell the beer." And he said, "I need you to tell me how many he had." So, they loaded him up and they took off. I counted the beers from the night prior, and I found out that Rob had at least ten into him for the day.”’

Carol set out for the hour and half drive to Hamot hospital, praying the whole way. Rob coded on the flight and was without a heartbeat for three minutes. At the hospital, Carol briefly met with his doctor.

She said, "If he lives, I don't know what he's gonna be left with. Right now, I have fifteen people working on him. He has had a massive heart attack on top of everything else.” I cried, but I knew

God had it, and I kept saying, ‘You're good if he dies and you're good if he lives.’”

As the medical team battled to keep Rob alive, Carol reflected on the last few weeks.

“Rob and I were on very rocky ground at the time.He loved Jesus, but he had this addiction and, you know, Rob would get pretty mean when he would drink. And I had left our home.”

Since leaving, Carol had focused on praying for Rob and their marriage. Then one night, Carol dreamed three times that she was being told to return.

“So out of the obedience of the Lord, I went back home,” Carol recalls.

Two days later came the accident.

“Dr. Donatelli said to me, there was no repair to be done. She said, ‘It's gone. There was no jugular left.” She never gave me a whole lot of hope. She never did. Nor did the nurses. I was really scared.’”

When Rob came out of surgery, Carol was there.

“I got right down by his ear, and I said, ‘Rob, I love you, and I am sorry for things in our marriage that were my fault,’ and I said, ‘If you're gonna live, I need you to fight like you've never fought before.’ And the scripture came to me, "He shall live and not die and declare the works of the Lord."

Nurse Kayla Neal was tasked with keeping Rob alive that first night.

“I was nervous the whole night. I didn't leave him all night long because he needed care twenty-four seven every minute that I was with him.”

Carol agrees.  “It was really, really hard. It's probably one of the hardest things I've ever been through in my life. He was never stable. There was never like, ‘Yeah, he's gonna be okay.’ I can't tell you the times he coded, but multiple times he coded.’”

Rob’s condition was grave. His MRIs showed catastrophic damage--a total of fifty-two strokes. He was on a ventilator and a feeding tube. His kidneys were failing, so he was put on dialysis.

Carol’s friend, Pam, gave her an ultimatum.

She said to me, ‘You have to decide if you're going to believe the report of the Lord or you're going to believe the report of man.’ And I said, "You're right. You're right. I believe the report of the Lord." She said, ‘That's what you have to hold onto.’”

As Rob fought for his life, news of the accident spread. Rob’s family and friends rallied around him and prayed.

“It was like a vigil. Thousands of people were praying for this man. So, we know that heaven was battered with prayers for Rob. And one of my biggest prayers was, ‘Father, if you let him live, let him be a great man of God who runs after you.’”

Slowly, Rob began to make progress. He came off dialysis and the ventilator.  One month after nearly losing his life, Rob was transferred to a step-down unit where he had to relearn to walk, talk, and eat. Carol says those weren’t the only changes.

“He started prophesying, which Rob didn't even know what prophecy was, and I'm sitting there, and I’m going, ‘This is all God!’”

A few weeks later, his former nurse, Kayla, remembers seeing him at rehab.

“He was in a wheelchair talking and moving all around. So that was very, very cool to see.”
Rob doesn’t remember much about that time. For him, what stood out most was the presence of Jesus the day of the accident.

‘“I had this really powerful rush that went all through my body and I said, ‘Oh, is this you, Jesus?’

He said, "What are you doing?" And of course, I knew what he was talking about. I'd been drinking too much. I couldn't see his face at all, but I could feel his presence. He just lifted me up and cradled me like a baby. It was so awesome. I can't even explain to you how that felt, knowing that He had a hold of me.’”

Rob is improving every day and treasures time with his family. He and Carol credit God with saving his life and their marriage.

“There's always hope,” Carol says. “We've seen the dead raised. I mean, Rob was dead. He should have been six feet under nine years ago, but he's here, and every day he gets better.”

“Love Jesus with all your heart and absolutely believe that he is real and he loves you.

He's definitely in the miracle business,” says Rob. “I'm definitely not the person I used to be. I'm more loving. I love Carol to death. I don't know what I would've done without her. She's been my rock.”

“God trumps man,” Carol declares. “He trumps a doctor's report. He trumps all that. He has the first and last, and all you gotta do is call on him. I promise you, he'll show up.”