My name’s Doug. I’m a ski patroller at a major Southern California resort. One snowy day I was doing a “hill-check” looking for problems. I skied through an area closed to the public because the snow guns were blasting. Suddenly, my skis ran across a sticky pile of un-groomed snow. They froze up and stopped dead. I blew out of my bindings. My head hit the ground. My body slammed in behind it. There was an explosion inside me, like a concussion through my entire body. I tumbled downhill, ending up face-down, spread-eagle, looking up the hill.
I couldn’t get up or even move. I couldn’t feel my arms, legs, chest, anything. I couldn’t breathe. My training told me the news: a spinal cord injury paralyzing my breathing. I couldn’t key my radio. I could only lie there, feeling my life leak out of me like air from a punctured balloon. I knew I was dying.
I glanced uphill, looking for help.
That’s when I saw my father standing there. Dad had been dead for seven years.
He did not look ghostly at all. He was wearing his usual old brown pants and yellow windbreaker, as if he’d just come out for a walk. I guessed he was there to guide me over to the other side.
Breathless, I mouthed the words, “What do I do now?”
Dad said, “Just breathe.”
I looked down. My chest was beginning to rise and fall. Cold air rushed into my lungs. Warm vapor puffed out. I looked up to say thanks, but Dad was gone.
Within minutes, a team of my fellow patrollers arrived, six guys I knew very well – Rick, Josh, Scott, Eddie, Chuck and Alex. Top notch patrollers, best of the best. All six of these guys were devout Christian men, active in their churches. Eddie was an ordained minister.
They went into the routine: C-collar, oxygen, backboard. When they rolled me over, I looked up into their faces and knew I was in good hands. Overhead, the clouds broke. A shaft of bright sunlight hit us. Just then, the boys went “off-book.” They put their hands on me and prayed that I would be healed, that my healing would be a sign of God’s love, compassion and will, and that I would be forever a witness to that.
As they prayed, all my fear vanished. I felt I was only playing a part here, that this was something bigger than me, and whatever it was, I was willing to accept it.
After they prayed, they went to secure my hands across my chest. When my right hand touched my chest, I said, “I feel that!” Again with my left hand, “I feel that.” The feeling was far away, but it was there. I felt an immediate rush of gratitude, a sense of divine grace. I knew a miracle was taking place.
Medically, I was a mess: multiple spinal cord contusions in my neck, deep-cord syndrome, incomplete quadriplegia.
My recovery progressed at an extraordinary rate, mind-blowing even to my doctors. Soon I was able to wheel myself around to share my story with other patients at the hospital. It seemed to truly resonate with people, to inspire them, to connect them with their own faith.
My old friend Vicky came to see me. Her husband, Michael, had died five years earlier from melanoma. We were sitting in the hospital garden under a giant banyan tree and I was telling her my story of how my comrades had prayed over me and saved me. I said, “I know there are angels in this world, and some of them wear red jackets with white crosses.”
Then something happened. I looked at Vicky and said, “There’s one more angel. It’s Michael. He’s here.”
For the next several minutes, I had the clear sense that Michael was speaking through me to his wife. The words are not important. What is important is that is that there was a beautiful love, forgiveness, completion. They got to say, “I love you,” one more time.
The next day I was in the garden again and Michael came to visit… just as Dad had. He told me something specific to tell his wife. It made no sense to me, but I knew it would to her. I didn’t call Vicky right away. I didn’t want to dilute what had happened the day before, in case maybe I was just crazy. I held onto it all day, until the last phone call at night.
“Vicky,” I said, “Michael came to see me. He wants me to tell you to re-read the letter he wrote to you when the two of you first found out he was terminal, the one you keep in the box under the bed.”
Vicky just lost it on the phone. She confirmed the existence of the letter in the box under the bed. She said, “I haven’t been able to read that letter for years, but I was compelled to read it again today, after what happened in the garden yesterday.”
And the miracles after my accident just kept coming!
There was a very old woman named Macie in the spinal wing. She couldn’t walk, wouldn’t participate in her therapy, was awake all night and had bedsores. The hospital was planning to transfer her out to a facility where she would eventually die.
One day I wheeled into her room. She was blown away that anyone would care enough to talk to her. I told her my story. She told me hers. We got to be friends.
The next day I was out in the garden again. I held up my hands to heaven and said, “If it’s possible for a group of guys to put their hands on me and transmit this healing energy, why can’t I do that for someone else?”
The voice in the garden responded, “What makes you think you can’t?”
“Oh,” I said, and spun my chair around. I rolled back up to the unit, grabbed my friend Pat, an amazing 300-pound Christian woman, a patient who rode around on a little power scooter who had become my friend when she’d heard my story.
“Pat, come on,” I said, “I need a witness.”
The two of us wheeled into Macie’s room and beside her bed. “Macie,” I said, “I’ve been out in the garden and God told me he was going to allow me to heal people be putting my hands on them.”
I’ll never forget the look of love and soul in those old eyes when she looked at me and said, “Oh, would you put your hands on me please?”
I put my hands on her and prayed for her, just as the men on the mountain had prayed for me. Pat prayed with eloquence and passion. There was a powerful, moving energy in the room for a half-hour or more. When it was over, it was clearly over.
I was drained, elated but exhausted. I headed to my room, fell into bed, and didn’t move all night.
The next morning, I rolled out into the hall. Pat was just coming out of therapy and we circled up together, talking about last night. Suddenly, we heard a small, high-pitched voice.
“There he is,” she exclaimed. Pat and I both turned around.
“There he is,” Macie rejoiced. The power of Christ has done come through Doug and I can walk again today!”
“I know it was Macie’s own faith that healed her. I was only called upon to facilitate that. Macie and I both continued to improve, and on the same day that I left the hospital to go home, Macie left the hospital… to go home.
My own recovery had been astounding. Two and a half years after my injury, I completed the L.A Triathlon at the Olympic distance. I now participate regularly in triathlons and other endurance events, as opportunities to celebrate my recovery and to support charitable causes.
My comrades on the mountain put their hand on me and prayed that day, that my healing would be a sign of God’s love, compassion and will.
And I will forever be a witness to that.