A Most Anticipated Christmas Miracle

On December 14th 2017, Angie was in the Christmas spirit and enjoying lunch with her family, when she started to experience unbearable stomach pain. So, she took some of the medicine her doctor had recently prescribed for the stomach ache but she had an adverse reaction to it and moments later, her husband Bill said things took a turn for the worse.

“We thought it would just stop hurting. But it didn't. This was some kind of reaction. You know, she just all of a sudden got real sick. At that time my youngest son jumped up, ran around and grabbed her, put her in the car. We didn't get a block away and she started having seizures and foaming at the mouth.”

Then, Angie stopped breathing. Bill pulled over and their son performed CPR until the paramedics arrived. En route to the hospital, she went into cardiac arrest multiple times.

“I was just dying. I couldn't imagine life without her. Angie is my soulmate. And I don't know if I'd want to live without her.”

In the emergency room, chest compressions continued. Emergency Department Technician, Eric, was part of the team working to save her life.   

“While we're doing compressions, we would stop, and she'd start seizing. The whole time I'm pressing, I'm talking to God at the same time like, ‘God, please come on. Just put your power through me right now. Help me to bring her back.'"

Angie’s heart stopped beating for up to 15 minutes, several times. Meanwhile friends and family began to gather and pray as Bill cried out to God on his wife’s behalf.

“And I felt so helpless. And then I said, Well, I can pray. And so I got on my knees. I felt like I was in God’s presence. I was pleading her case. Lord, please, you know, spare her. She's a good person. Our family needs her. And then I felt a rush, a surge of energy and I knew she was going to be okay.”

Two and half hours passed, then a glimpse of hope. Finally, Angie’s pulse was steady. But doctors expected her have severe brain damage and warned Bill she may never be the same.

“I just kept praising God. Praise you, Lord God. Thank you. Praise God. You just keep praising God, because you can't have any doubt. And Eric comes walking out…”

Eric said, “And he gave me a hug and he was like, ‘Thank you’ and I said don’t thank me, thank God for what He’s getting ready to do."

Angie’s loved ones continued to pray with anticipation. On day six, she was awakened from a medically induced coma and taken off the ventilator. Doctors were astonished. 

“They asked me can you move your feet? Can you move your hands? What's the date? You know, who's the president? Who was the president...That's a lot of questions. And then the neurologist asked me, 'What was December 7th, 1941?' And I was thinking like, Why is he asking me about Pearl Harbor? I said, 'It's Pearl Harbor,' you know. And I asked him, I said, ‘Well, you know, if I knew you were going to give me a history lesson, you know, I would have studied.’ And we all got a little chuckle out of that. And he gave me a thumbs up and he walked out.’

Medical staff called Angie the ‘Christmas Miracle.’ She continued recovery and Angie was released to go home on Christmas Eve. 

“I thank the Lord for giving me a second chance. This is a second chance. When you go without a heartbeat for so long there's thousands of bad things that could happen. And they didn't happen to me. And I just want to give the glory to God. I want people to know that in your worst situation, the worst scenario ever, you can pray. You can pray. That's what saved me.”

“One of the other prayers I prayed when I was in that hospital room, I said, Lord, please, just let us walk in the pasture. Let us hold hands in the pasture again. And when we came home from the hospital, that's one of the first things we did. We drove up to our pasture and we walked in it and we held hands in the sunshine and we just thanked God for that moment because life is a vapor. It's gone so fast. We need to do what we can and love our family and live life while we have a chance.”

This Christmas, Angie and Bill celebrate the joy of family, friends who have become like family, the blessing of prayer, and the gift of hope.

"Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus. The Lord is doing miracles. He's helping us every day.”