Surviving Death: Jackie Khan's Journey
SHERENA KHAN (Jackie's daughter): I recall seeing my mother lying on the ground with blood coming out of her mouth.
AMIR KHAN (Jackie's son): They literally took a white sheet and covered up my mother. You could see the blood coming through the white sheet.
RICKY KHAN (Jackie's oldest son): I knew my mother was dead.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: I said, 'Look, children, your mother has gone to heaven.'
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): It was August 1965. The Khan family was heading home to Camden, New Jersey, from their summer vacation in Niagra Falls, Canada. Dr. Mustapha Khan was driving while his wife, Jackie, rode in the front seat beside him. Their five children, Riccardo, Rasheed, Amir, Sherena, and baby Mustapha, were in the back seats of the station wagon.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: Looking ahead I saw this car coming toward us, across the median and headed toward us. As I recall, I couldnt pull to the right because there was a big cliff, a big precipice there, so I reflexively pulled to the left and struck the car head-on.
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): The front passenger side took the brunt of the impact. Mustapha and the children were injured but still conscious. Jackie was not moving.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: When I looked -- lifeless. I took her up and went onto the highway. As I was going to the highway, of course all the other cars stopped. People came toward me. They asked me, 'What could we do for you?' I said, 'Nothing. Shes gone. Its too late.' So I took her to the side of the road on the grass plot. Ricky, the oldest one, came.
RICKY KHAN: He turned to me and said, 'Ricky, go and get my doctors bag.'
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: While he went to get the bag, I went to the other children.
AMIR KHAN: My father came over to us with tears flowing out of his eyes and said, 'Your mother has just died and gone to heaven.'
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): Even though he knew that his wife was dead, Mustapha still did everything he could to resuscitate her.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: By the time I came back, Ricky had come back with my doctors bag. I gave an injection of epinephrine in her arm.
RICKY KHAN: My father, when I got back, taught me how to do heart massage.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: I began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
DAVID KITHCART: What made you go back and have hope to do this?
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: I dont know. Something entered my mind in the spirit to do this.
RICKY KHAN: I remember him kneeling over my mother and I remember him crying, 'Jackie, Jackie!'
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: After two or three minutes, she began to breathe. Whether I said, 'Thank God,' I really dont know. I dont know what my reaction was when she began to breathe. But by that time the ambulance had come and we went to the hospital.
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): Mustapha Khan believed in heaven. He even believed that his wife, Jackie, who was a Christian, would go to heaven if she didnt live through the night. But Mustapha, who was reared in Trinidad as a Muslim, did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: My father was very devout. He made the haj over to Mecca. All of my brothers and sisters at that time were Muslims. We did not believe in the resurrected Christ. We just believed that He was just another prophet like Moses or Muhammad.
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): But Mustapha was desperate. He says that he prayed all night for his beloved wife.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: She had severe injuries, not just fractured ribs, but she had contusion of the lungs, bleeding within the thoracic cavity, a fractured pelvis. She remained like that in the intensive care unit for a couple of days, two or three days. Then one day suddenly we looked and there she was smiling.
JACKIE KHAN: My husband came in. He said, 'Oh, youre smiling.' I said, 'What have I been doing all this time?' I didnt even know, really, how much time had passed. Then I asked him to tell me what happened, and he stood there and told me that. He said he prayed that first night all night long.
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): Jackie stayed in the hospital recovering for a month. Once she came home to her family, Mustapha could only think of one place for their first public appearance together.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: The first place well go when we leave the house wont be to a ballgame or to have dinner; well go to church. So we went to St. Augustine Episcopal Church, where Father McKay, a very godly man, very pleasant and mild, gave a sermon that morning. He knew about our accident and he mentioned the word miracle. I said, 'Miracle?' To me a miracle was a big thing, way off from us, somewhere in the sky, in France or in Lourdes somewhere. I found it strange he mentioned this word "miracle." I began really thinking about it. My wife, for all intents and purposes, she was dead, and now shes alive. It was just truly a miracle. We continued going to church as a family, but I could never give up my faith as a Muslim to become a Christian.
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): The Khans also began visiting other churches in the area.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: I began praying and doing miracles, praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ 'Get up and walk' or praying for the deaf. That was the first time I began seeing that. That really touched me. Soon after that, three of my sons became ministers: Rasheed; Amir, who is a pastor now at Solid Rock; and my youngest son, Mustapha.
JACKIE KHAN: One of the ministers sons said, 'Ive never seen such a little woman bringing up these great big men up to the altar like this.' Every time Id come in, I would be bringing somebody else to accept Jesus Christ.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: I saw them praying and praying in the name of Jesus, but still that was a block right there. That was a barrier. You talk about God, Allah, but when we began to talk in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that He came and died for our sins, I couldnt go beyond that barrier, I couldnt go.
DAVID KITHCART (reporting): As he witnessed the growing, fervent faith of his family, Mustapha knew that he had to make a decision.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: It was not a big spiritual upheaval within me to say, 'Look, I am.' I had to decide, and I made that decision. No matter what my father was, or brothers or sisters, this is what I decided to do. Ill believe not just in a God, but Ill believe in Jesus Christ and the power of Jesus Christ as someone we can look to for leadership, for strength. I never regretted it. That belief system spread not only in the family, but it has spread in the work I do and in my everyday life. With me being a doctor, hopefully it does reflect in the way I treat patients. I know it does. I pray for some of my patients. I bought a plaque that hangs in my foyer that says, 'My greatest joy in life is to see all of my children believe in God.'
RICKY KHAN: It was really my mother who always had Christ in her heart. We had Christ in our heads. We had Christ on our schedules. My mother was the one who had it always in her heart.
SHERENA KHAN: My mother and my father have always been my parents, but now they are truly, truly my best friends. They are there because they love me, but in their hearts is Jesus Christ.
DR. MUSTAPHA KHAN: She was a believer even before the accident, and I think she and the family became greater believers after the accident. We believe certainly it was a miracle, and we continue to believe in the powerful God who cares. She has exerted the greatest influence on me in believing.
AMIR KHAN: We saw God touch our lives. I believe that through that accident, there was a transformation that took place in our lives. It was a journey, but that journey brought Christ from our minds to our hearts.
