God's Answer to Prayer Shocks Family
June 24th, 2016. EMT Greg Clark of the Fort Worth Fire department, responded to an accident involving a car and an eighteen-wheeler.
“We were the first ones to arrive. And sure enough a large truck T-boned another vehicle, hit him in the driver’s side door. My immediate thought was, it’s probably going to be a body recovery, not a rescue situation.”
Amazingly, they found the driver, 23-year-old Charles Priest, unconscious, but alive. He was airlifted to Texas Health Forth Worth Hospital in critical condition.
Moments later, his mother Sheri, drove up on the accident.
“It was unbelief, ‘What am I looking at? What am I seeing? Is this really him?’ At that point, I think all the emotions turned off, and it was a matter of ‘you need to get to your son.’”
After an officer filled her in, Sheri went home to pick up her younger son Texas, and husband Chuck. Speeding towards the hospital, they prayed.
“Okay God, what’s going on? You know, if he going to be ok? I was just praying that God was gonna be in the midst of it.”
When the family arrived at Texas Health Fort Worth they learned Charles was in a coma. Dr. Mohammad Siadati was one of the medical staff caring for Charles.
“CAT Scans revealed severe head injury, neck injury, broken ribs, blood in the chest, broken pelvis. His head injury was the most sever one, and there are micro tears, it’s damage at cellular level that not necessarily obvious.”
“To see your son lying there, and not know if you would ever see his eyes open again, and not hear him talk again. It was just overwhelming, heart wrenching.”
Although hoping for the best, Doctors could make no guarantees
“And it was those kinds of things. If he survives, if he wakes up, and we don't know when, and there's nothing and there's no way for them to predict what's gonna happen.”
As the staff worked round the clock, friends and family gathered to pray, holding on to hope.
“I may never get to speak to him again. I-I may never get to see him again. We may never get to laugh together again. I thought I was about to lose my son.”
After three days, it was clear Charles would live, but he still faced the possibility of several, permanent disabilities. His fractured neck might require surgery, severely limiting his mobility. But doctors’ main concern was the elevated cranial pressure. The longer it remained, the more brain damage it could cause. His parents feared their son would never be the same.
I mean, there was absolutely nothing we could do, um, except for praying and-and-and trusting in the Lord
“Pleading with Father and asking Him to allow us to have another day to play basketball.”
Alone in the waiting room one evening, Sheri says she was praying, when the Lord gave her a promise.
“I was sitting in the waiting room and I was looking out the window. I saw a dark cloud out in the distance, when I saw that cloud and He took me back to Psalms 18. And it’s such a beautiful passage it starts out with 'My cry came to the Lord's ear and He heard me.' The next several verses describe nature responding because he got up and - came to my rescue. And the Lord gave me those four things: he's going to wake up, he's going to know who God is, he's going to know who his family is, and he's gonna run.”
A week later, Charles’ cranial pressure stabilized, and the doctors took him for an MRI. The family waited for the results.
“They said, um, ‘What we expect is for his brain to look like dog food.’”
“And then they put the images up on the screen and the image of his brain is a healthy brain.
“And the doctors were surprised. They didn't expect to see it intact that way.”
Over the next several days, Charles started waking up from the coma, responding to verbal commands. To the staff, it was great improvement, to the family, it was confirmation that God was answering their prayers.
“The doctor would come in and say, ‘We're going to do a breathing test, but don't be shocked, it's going to take him a while,’ and then a couple of days he's-he's-he's breathing on his own. And within a week he’s eating solid food.”
Only six weeks after his accident.“He exits the hospital, walking?”
Then after wearing a neck brace for 4 months, Charles was released by doctors with no surgery needed, and no medical restrictions
“So when it was done, it was done. That was the last part of my recovery, and for me to walk away from that with no restrictions there’s no way I can look at any of the stuff that happened to me and realize it’s not a miracle.”
Charles not only finished his college degree, he was deemed physically and mentally fit to pursue his dream, and serve in the Texas national guard.
“God is who He says he is. God will do what He says He will do. And if I doubt that, all I have to do is come look at my son.”
“He's not good because of the healing. He's good regardless of whether or not my son was healed. He revealed himself to us in this. And all – all I can do is say thank you.”
