Family Fights Back With Prayer
Edmond, OK
It was a mild, summer, Oklahoma morning. The Deer Creek Varsity football team was having a light workout, when number 71 suddenly walked off the field and towards the locker room.
“He just wasn’t acting right,” says Deer Creek Coach Lance Tignor. “And come down with--you know, he was starting to have a seizure in the locker room.”
The player was his 18-year-old son, Sam.
“I was just, at a loss,” says Lance. “I didn't know what to do.”
With help, Lance got Sam in his truck and took off towards the hospital. His wife Dusti arrived in time to see their son.
“I saw a sight that no mom ever wants to see of their child,” says Dusti. “This stiffness, and his eyes were rolled back into his head and he was just moaning.”
Sam was admitted with a temperature of 107 degrees, and doctors began treating him for heat stroke, expecting he would soon recover. But then his organs began shutting down.
“When they come out and tell you, ‘Hey, we need to get Sam to make it 24 hours,’” says Dusti. “Excuse me, did I hear you right? We just couldn't believe it. “It was very scary.”
“His brain activity is not good. And that follows with kidney, lungs, liver failure,” says Lance. “Really, there was no game plan.”
The Tignors got word to their community that Sam was in trouble, and he, and the family needed help.
“We gave it to God,” says Dusti. “I mean the whole thing.”
“It helped us realize we can--you know, we’re gonna be at peace,” says Lance. “We're going to be okay - at this moment, because now God has us. Obviously it’s out of our hands.”
Sam survived the day but was now in the ICU in a coma and on a ventilator and being evaluated for a liver transplant.
“I can’t see his eyes. His beautiful brown eyes,” says Dusti. “And that was heavy, that was hard. I just wanted to see his eyes. I didn't care if I had him back whole, I mean that’s what I wanted, but if God was just gonna give him back to me, you know, unable to talk or - I was gonna take him back and love him regardless.”
“This is what you want, Lord, we’ll--we’ll be at peace,” says Lance. “In the heat of the moment, that’s what--we could lose our son. My father-in-law knew that Sam was a laid-back kind of guy. He just grits his teeth and said, ‘You fight, Sam, fight. Fight, Sam.’”
In the coming days, ‘Fight, Sam!’ became a rallying cry for the community. Still, the family knew their son couldn't win this fight on his own, and clung to Exodus 14:14 – “The Lord Himself will Fight for you...” But as they looked to the past, and into an uncertain future, everyday was a battle to find peace.
“I needed somewhere to go where I could just be with God. But I needed to be close to Sam,” says Dusti. “So, I went in Sam’s bedroom and, you know, everything is left untouched. I just cried out Jesus’ name, probably four or five times. ‘God, I know you’re at work. But I don't know what to say. And, I don't know how to say it, but, I just need You right now.’”
For two weeks the community joined in prayer, as Sam’s condition remained touch and go. And despite several attempts, doctors couldn't bring him out of the coma.
“I really thought he was gonna be brain dead. He’s gonna live, but he’s not gonna be—ever be responsive,” says Lance. “That’s what really got me. I was really scared.”
Finally, doctors were able to take Sam off the ventilator. Two days later, he woke up.
“Can you squeeze it? Squeeze it Sam! Good job buddy,” says Dusti on a home video showing Sam squeezing a hand.
“Seeing those eyes was like, ‘he’s there,’” says Dusti. “Even though he couldn't say anything, he was saying a million things with his eyes.”
“We thought that once he’s starting to squeeze, that he’ll be coming around,” says Lance. “And that was not the case. It took me a little longer to realize that he’s going to be okay in the brain.”
“Waking up and just thinking, ‘That was a weird dream. Okay, this is not my room,’” says Sam. “I didn't find out till maybe later that day or the day after that like, ‘yeah, you've been in a coma for about two weeks.’”
Sam was eventually moved out of the ICU into rehab and went on to make a full recovery. And in some ways, he was even better.
“I didn't have my priorities straight,” says Sam. “Like I had football, work, family. It needed to be the ‘Three F’s, - faith, family, football.’”
Although Sam had to sit out his senior year of football, his teammates elected him Captain, and game nights would find Sam on the sidelines cheering his team on. Sam, now in college, and his family say his story has not only strengthened their faith in prayer, but many others as well.
“When everything seems dark and you have no one to talk to, praying brings in a light,” says Sam.
“God used Sam and used his body and used our family to change other people through prayer,” says Lance. “And that’s our story. Never been about Sam. It was about how God’s gonna use Sam to change people’s lives.”
“Prayer is what got us through,” says Dusti. “And what we went through with Sam, I cannot imagine doing it without prayer.”
