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Dick chuckled. “Of course you don’t. That’s what God told me to pray for, and God answered.”

“You believed that? You believed that God would answer that prayer?”

“Yes, I did,” he said. “I knew with all the other injuries you had incurred that God was going to answer my prayer.”

It took a few seconds for me to absorb what he’d said. From the force and intensity of the impact, I would have had internal injuries. Even the doctor had commented—in amazement—that I had neither head nor thoracic injuries.

“I’ll tell you this,” I said. “I know I had internal injuries, but somewhere between that bridge and this hospital I don’t anymore.”

Tears ran down Dick’s face, and he said, “I know. I wish I could pray like that all the time.”

6

THE RECOVERY

BEGINS

And we can be confident that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. And if we know he is listening when we make our requests, we can be sure that he will give us what we ask for.

1 JOHN 5:14–15

Pain became my constant companion. For a long time I would not know what it was like not to hurt all over my body.

Despite that, within a few days of the accident, I began to realize how many miracles had occurred. I refer to them as miracles—although some may call them fortunate circumstances—because I believe there are no accidents or surprises with God.

First, I wore my seat belt. I shamefully admit that I had not “bothered” to wear one until I got ticketed. That morning, I had consciously belted myself in.

Second, the accident happened on the bridge. What if it had happened on the open highway across the lake when I was headed toward the bridge? My car would have plunged down at least thirty feet into the lake, and I would have drowned.

Third, I had no head injuries. Anyone who saw me or read the medical report said it was impossible that I suffered no brain damage. (Eva still jokes that on occasion she’s not so sure I didn’t.) Just as bewildering to all the medical people was that the accident affected none of my internal organs. That fact defied all medical explanation.

Fourth, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tom Greider, who was on duty at Hermann Hospital that day, saved my leg. Dr. Greider “just happened to be” one of the few experts in the United States who deals with such bizarre trauma. He chose to use a fairly new, experimental procedure, the Ilizarov frame. He performed the surgery one week after my accident. The implanted Ilizarov not only saved my leg, but also allowed them to lengthen the bone in my left leg after I had lost four inches of my femur in the accident. The femur is the largest bone in the human body and quite difficult to break.

When Dr. Greider examined me, he faced a choice. He could use the Ilizarov frame or amputate. Even if he chose to use the Ilizarov frame, there was no guarantee that I would not lose the leg. In fact, at that stage, he wasn’t even certain I would pull through the ordeal. A less-skilled and less-committed doctor might have amputated, assuming it wouldn’t make much difference because I would die anyway.

Fifth, people prayed for me. I have thousands of cards, letters, and prayer-grams, many from people I don’t know in places I’ve never been who prayed for me because they heard of the accident. I’ve since had people tell me that this experience changed their prayer lives and their belief in the power of prayer.

On the night I entered Hermann Trauma Center, I was in surgery for eleven hours. During that operation, I had the broken bone in my right leg set. My left forearm had to be stabilized because two inches of each bone were missing. My left leg was put into traction because four and a half inches of femur were missing. During the operation, an air tube was mistakenly inserted into my stomach. This caused my stomach to inflate and my lungs to deflate. It would be several days before they discovered that this was the cause of the swelling in my stomach. Further complicating my breathing, I was unable to be elevated, and I developed pneumonia.