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The 700 Club

Newborn Wears the Fingerprint of God

Tim Smith - 700 Club Producer

“It took two years for us to get pregnant with Katie. We were just so thankful to get her, and she completed our family,” says Katie’s mother, Amy.

Katie was just six weeks old when her parents Amy and Gary noticed something was wrong.

“She was breathing real hard and heavy,” remembers Amy.

“Katie looked like she was struggling,” says Gary. “She looked like she was having a lot of trouble.”

They rushed Katie to the ER, where doctors discovered she had an acclerated heart rate.  She was sent to the ICU and diagnosed with SVT - Superventricular Tachycardia - a condition caused by electrical defects in her heart.

“And so I went to the floor, and the big doors opened up,” says Amy. “And he was standing there and just white and eyes huge and he says, ‘She’s not breathing!’ So I rushed to her room and there she was just tiny, white, pale as a ghost and the nurse had already started CPR on her. And it just knocked the breath out of me. And we prayed. I mean, from the gut begging God to please, please save her, please bring our baby back. And it was just unimaginable. But we held on to hope, and we kept on praying.”

Dr. Athos Colon, a pediatric cardiologist, also performed CPR on Katie. He says, “Technically Katie was dead. I mean, she was asystolic. That means the heart wasn’t beating. And that lasted quite a long time.”

Word spread among friends and family that Katie was fighting for her life.  Amy’s cousin Moose rushed to the hospital.

“During all the chaos and all the commotion, I just felt an urge to go down to the sanctuary there in the hospital and it was just me in this small little chapel inside the hospital,” says Moose. “And I began to pray. Just as clear as day I heard God said, Katie’s not going to go today. Today’s not her day.”

For over an hour and a half, the doctor and his team continued CPR on Katie’s lifeless body.

“They had done CPR for so long… And she she still wasn’t coming back. So when we were sitting outside the doorway, Katie’s dad and I discussed calling off the code,” says Amy. “At that point in time, it was just torture for her little body.

Dr. Athos says, “Normally we do that for about half an hour and normally after that, we consider the brain to have suffered and we stop. But for some reason Katie, we kept going.”

Amy recalls, “And then we heard them say it. She has a heart beat. And she was alive.”

Gary says, “We still weren’t out of the woods and we knew it. But it was a lot of hope, that it could, you know, possibly be – or that she could possibly be okay.”

Katie was alive, but would require surgery for her heart condition.  And how the trauma affected her brain was still unknown.  

Dr. Athos says, “We thought that we had saved her life but probably the brain was damaged.”

Amy says, “There was probably a 70% chance that Katie would have severe brain damage. To the point that she would be unable to function. I left the ICU. And I went outside. And I sat on a bench. And I just cried. I was so grateful to God for giving her back, but at the same time I was still so devastated.”

Amy’s best friend Judy started a facebook page, asking for prayer on Katie’s behalf.

Judy says, “We got responses from all over the country. We got responses from outside of the country. We had prayer chains from, I would say, 1,000 churches. It was amazing.”

After 48 hours, Katie’s condition improved and doctors were able to implant a pacemaker. Amy remembers the day Katie was put back in her arms.

Amy says, “It was better than holding your baby for the very first time. To be able to hold her again. Because there for a little while we weren’t sure we was going to be able to hold her again.”

After 12 days in the hospital, Katie returned home. Today she is a healthy, active five-year-old, with no signs of brain damage.  

“If there’s something called a miracle, this is one of them,” says Dr. Athos. “Because that part I cannot explain. How can her brain survive so intact? Every time I see her, I call her my ‘miracle kid’.”

Gary says, “She’s definitely a miracle from God. She went from a total lifeless person to thriving, happy young girl now.”

Amy says, “She plays softball. And she dances. And is so smart. When I see her scar, it reminds me of how blessed we are. And I used to say that it was God’s fingerprint. I realized later that the fingerprint is inside her heart.”

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