On June 21st,1999, the 1st day of summer my nephew Douglas 29 years old, was going home for lunch on his moped when he got over too far into the other lane and hit a semi truck head on.
He hit the truck with his face, and cracked it like an egg. Broke both jaw bones, knocked both eyes out and crushed the socked of one eye, broke he left leg in several places. I asked the doctor if he was going to make it? He said it was very doubtful and if he did he would be a vegetable, and blind.
They flew him by helicopter to Vanderbuilt Hospital in Nashville Tn. And placed him into the TRAMA center. He was in a coma. They were expecting him to die. He had tubes going all over his body. And a respirator breathing for him.(Which he came off of after about 6 days) And a trek was placed in his throat. He had a tube coming out of his swollen brain to drain the fluids that just kept building up. On the third day they took him to surgery and fixed his leg. It had to be pinned back together. In two days after the leg was set they wired his jaws and put a feeding tube down his nose. They were medicating one eye and the other was so far out of his head they kept a cup over it to keep it from drying out, they kept salve on the other. In just a few days he started showing signs of coming out of the coma. And in 2 or 3 more days he could see out of the left eye. And the next day he was able to answer a few questions by raising 2 fingers for yes and 1 for no. His Mom who had not left the hospital since he was hurt, Said " Douglas it’s Mama and Aunt Rena. Do you know who we are?" He nodded his head yes. I told him to use 1 finger for no and 2 for yes. He held up 2 fingers. She said do you remember we were here yesterday he shook his head no. I told him not to move his head, to use his fingers. Then his Mom said, "Is the food up here any good?" He waved his hand palm down, to say so so. We laughed and I said, "Your Mamas trying to be funny, huh?" He raised 2 fingers. (No vegetable here!) Not blind either in the left eye anyway! He will have the feeding tube until they unwire his jaws. In about 6 weeks. They have had him sitting and helped him stand, they keep his hands tied and he tried to lift them to his head and they would not reach so he lowered his head to his hands. Pretty smart for a vegetable? Tomorrow they are sending him to Lexington Ky. for rehab. He still has to have the right eye socket rebuilt. They will do that there.
After God spoke to me I KNOW Douglas will come out of this 100%. God is going to use Douglas to give testimony of his great power. I also believe he will even be better than he was before. He was slow, and has been all his life. He has always been a very special person. And loved to work and earn his own money. He would have always lived with his father. But I have talked to the MASTER. And when He fixes things they get fixed RIGHT.
(See the story below from the paper) And make sure your children wear their helmets when on bikes, mopeds or motorcycles!!!
Update Aug. 19th.
Doug will be 30 Sept 18th. He may be home by then. He is now walking by hopping around on his good leg. They gave him a test and he answered all questions right except how to make up a bed. Well he never knew how to do that before the accident. The last visit he was trying to laugh but that is hard to do with your mouth wired. Yesterday he had his last surgery to reconstruct his eye socket. (The eye he had to have a transplant in.)which went great also. And they unwired his jaw. I know he is ready to talk to us. We will be going to see him Sat. I will put an update when we get back from Lexington.
UPDATE
This is Thanksgiving 2000. Douglas just spent 9 hours in surgery last week and still got home to spend Thanksgiving at home. He still had a hole in the bone around the brain about the size of a half dollar. They built a bridge around that to close it, they placed a shunt in to direct the fluids that are driping. The fluid will now drain into his stomach. Where it was draining down his throat and even out his eyes. His transplanted eye only sees cloudy images, but they examined it and said that was scar tissue and in Jan he will have the scar tissue removed and they think that will give him 20/20 vision in it. His eye he lost was real bad from birth. He wore glasses since about age 2. Ain't GOD GOOD!
When he was born his head was mis-shaped and most of his 29 years of being slow and having headaches were caused by that. I think God is going to use Douglas, And allowed his head to get busted up so he could fix it in a way that would be a great testimony in the work He has planned for Douglas to do. After his next surgery he should be better then he has ever been. Well he already is that! Because the eye he was born with was already bad before the accident. The other eye has always been good. And I think he now has a girlfriend he met a church. We will just have to wait and see where God leads him in his personal life. Thanks again for all of you have sent up prayers in his behalf!!!
His preacher and brother were there at the time. We were outside the local hospital, and we all held hands and started to pray for Douglas. I was praying with all my heard that God would let him die and not leave him here in that shape, when God spoke to me. He said "What a perfect time for a miracle." And I just said thank you for giving Douglas back to us. Because I knew at that moment that God was going to show us HIS power.
Douglas came home withstill a lot of healing to do. He has fluids dripping from the brain. He can only whisper and most of that you can't hear. He wants to go somewhere all the time. He goes to church every time the doors open. He has more surgeries he has to go through later.
