Prayer Stands Between Life and Death
Oxford, NC
Captain Clifton Peace of the Oxford, NC Fire Department has responded to hundreds of car accidents in his career as a firefighter. He says, “You never know what you're gonna run up on. The worst is always what you are expecting, and you are hoping for better circumstances.” September 31, 2016 would be one of the bad ones. A car carrying a young woman and her 2-year-old daughter crashed into a tractor trailer at highway speeds. As Captain Peace and his team worked to free the driver, it was about to get worse. He recalls, “Once we got the door cut off, and I turned around and I looked. It's my first cousin and um I couldn't do anything but call her name and she didn't respond.”
Moments later, they pulled 24-year-old Lakeisha Daye from the wreckage. Her daughter, who had been strapped in her car seat, was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Meanwhile, EMTs worked to revive Lakeisha who was badly injured and unresponsive. Clifton says, “She was breathing, but she was lifeless at the time. They were working diligently, you know, trying to get her to, you know, to wake up at least.” Once stable, Lakeisha was taken to Duke Memorial Hospital. Clifton rode along in the ambulance and started calling family. Lakeisha’s parents, Carla and Michael, arrived at the ER to find doctors still assessing their daughter’s many injuries. Her dad recalls, “You see your baby girl laying there, your daughter. It was horrible. I mean, it was - it hit me dead in my heart.” Orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Rachel Reilly, was one of Lakeisha’s doctors, “So she had her neurologic injury with the damage to her brain, she had a spine injury, she had damage to her thoracic cavity with the multiple rib fractures and the pneumothorax, she had damage to her abdominal area with the spleen laceration and then as well as damage to the extremities with both the scapula fracture, the pelvic fracture and the tibial plateau fracture.” Lakeisha’s dad recalls, “They didn't really have high expectations of her making it the next couple of hours, really.” Dr. Reilly says, “When people have multiple injuries like, their risk of having a poor outcome obviously goes up.”
Then, Lakeisha’s brain started to swell, increasing the pressure, and further diminishing her chance of survival. Her family prayed for a miracle. Michael says, “We just started believing God that she will live and not die. That's when we just started confessing.” Carla recalls, “All I know is I had to trust God. That's all we could do it.” Within two hours, her brain stopped swelling and the pressure dropped to normal. Michael recalls, “It was just an amazing sight to see that, it was very encouraging.”
Lakeisha’s daughter, Kennedy, was released the next day with a broken collar bone and cut on her head. But Lakeisha’s battle was just beginning. Over the next week, she had multiple surgeries to repair her extensive injuries. Through it all, her church and family kept praying. Michael recalls, “They just kept her in a coma, you know, because she was in a lot of pain. We just put it in God's hands and asked Him to lead the doctors and showed them what to do.” Carla says, “At night I would pray, and pastor gave us stuff to read over her or read to her to just encourage her cause she's a fighter.” After a week and a half doctors began weaning her off the sedatives. She was conscious and able to communicate. Then she started rehab. Lakeisha recalls, “I woke up and I was at Wake Med and Rehab. Cause I didn't know what was going on. You know, I just know had this big thing around my head and couldn't walk. Each and every day was hard.”
Michael says, “She just started picking up, picking up, picking up and you know, just going forward. Her body began to heal fast and they were just amazed at that.” Over the next two months, Lakeisha’s family and friends continued to lift her up in prayer. Her physical healing continued, but her emotional recovery wasn’t always easy, and she sought God for answers. Lakeisha recalls, “I questioned God a lot. I did. Why did this happen to me? And I used to ask Him, ‘Why didn't you let me die? Why would you let somebody stay here and then go through all this pain is suffering?’ But I know He has a bigger plan and He wouldn’t leave me. He hasn’t left me yet.” After two and a half months in the hospital Lakeisha was released to go home and continue her outpatient rehab. She says, “I was happy to be home, but I was nervous at the same time, just because of the fear of something happening. God gave me the strength and motivation to keep going because I know how far He brought me.”
Dr. Reilly says, “The fact that she had her spine injury, her brain injury, the pelvis injury, the knee injury, all of those and was really getting back too many of the things that she had done before um within six months is a great recovery.” Clifton says, “Today she looks like she's uh regular Keisha, you know, same old Kesha that-that's - that we've grown up with and love.” Lakeisha is now back to being a mom, and grateful for each new day. She and her family believe there’s only one reason she’s here today. Michael says, “Prayer was the key in all of this, you know. The prayer warriors, we thank them for praying for her, but that was the key, praying. He gave us our hearts' desire. All our prayers was answered.” Carla believes, “Prayer was instrumental. Yes. Yes. Well, I don't know what we could have did without it.”
And Lakeisha now understands why God brought her through this experience. She says, “I know my purpose now and it is to minister to people and to bring people to God. And I try to give them hope and motivation by them seeing me and see how far He brought me. And that can happen for them too.”
