By Dee McGeough, as told to Steve Badger
Early on the morning of February 23, 1993, I was at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport leaving on a business trip, when I suffered cardiac arrest. Bill Rowell, a man standing in line behind me, tried to catch me as I fell. He later said he thought that "she just passed out from standing in line and probably the blow to her head has knocked her out."
When Bill realized that I wasn't breathing and he couldn't detect any heartbeat or pulse, he began screaming for help. Later he told us, "I looked around and couldn't believe that people were just standing around doing nothing." A nurse in the crowd responded to Bill's pleas and immediately started CPR. She worked on me for about 10 minutes and then the paramedics arrived. They performed CPR for another 20-25 minutes, but for the entire 35 minutes, my heart failed to respond.
Bill and his wife, Sherri, overheard one paramedic say to another, "Shall we put her in the body bag here in front of everyone? Or wait until we move her to the ambulance?" The other paramedic said, "No. Let's try CPR one more time." They did, and with that final attempt, my heart began to beat again.
I don't remember going to the airport, collapsing, or the ambulance ride to the hospital. I don't remember anything that happened to me for the next ten days. Sherri told me everything that happened at the airport. She stayed beside me, praying virtually the whole time--often in tongues. Bystanders at the airport asked Sherri what they could do to help. "I told everyone to pray," Sherri told us. "Pray like you've never prayed before." And many of these people did start praying with Sherri.
The paramedics then transported me to a local hospital where a cardiologist and a neurologist evaluated my condition. Though I had lapsed into a coma, the physicians were sure that my swollen brain had a blood clot and that I had lost my eyesight. The doctors also believed that my hearing had been impaired and that my brain had been damaged--but they weren't sure yet how extensive the damage was.
The medical team began preparing my family for what they were confident would happen. The neurologist told my husband that I was in a coma and, based on what he could determine from the tests, that I would be in a coma for a week or two--maybe even three. He warned my family not to expect much. Since I had been "dead" for 35 minutes, I might never see again, I might never hear again, I might never speak again--and most likely I would never again know who they were.
To them, my future looked pretty bleak, reasonably nonexistent. But Christians had been praying for me almost since I first collapsed at the airport.
To the astonishment of both my cardiologist and my neurologist, I came out of the coma within six hours! My family was overjoyed. The medical team was amazed. One of my doctors told my husband that a power far higher and greater than he had been responsible for bringing me out of the coma.
After two days in intensive care--during which the doctors also treated me for pneumonia--I was transferred to another hospital where more extensive and sophisticated tests were run to determine my condition. The doctors at this second hospital agreed that the entire incident was an almost unheard of miracle.
Though I don't recall anything that happened at the airport, the trip to the hospital, or any of the events of the next few days, I do remember walking through a totally black void--not at all a dream-like experience. I was rational; I knew who I was; I simply did not know where I was or how I got there.
As I walked in this black void, great fear overwhelmed me. So I called out, "Jesus! Jesus, please let me see You!" At that instant, I sensed His presence all around me. And then the Lord spoke to me in a voice more beautiful than anything I could have ever imagined. He said, "No. It's not time yet."
My husband Jack told me later that the first complete sentence he heard me say was my first day in the hospital room: "I want to see Jesus." He also told me that the next day in the hospital he heard me say, "Jesus said it isn't time yet."
The next thing I knew, I awakened at the hospital--eight days after I'd collapsed. My eyesight and hearing were normal, the blood clot was gone, the brain damage was gone, and I knew who I was and who everyone else was. I was extremely tired and weak.
Upon awakening, I felt an intense joy--not because the Lord had sent me back, but because I knew that I had spent a moment in His precious, holy presence. That has been the greatest experience in my life.
The doctors surgically implanted a pacemaker/defibrillator to prevent another "sudden death" episode. I have no idea why the Lord sent me back but did not heal my heart condition, but I praise His name for every day of life He gives me!
I thank God for placing Bill Rowell behind me, for providing a nurse to begin CPR immediately, for sending Sherri to intercede, for allowing the paramedic team to be so quick, and for prompting that paramedic to want to try CPR just once more.
But I concur with the doctors. This was a miracle of God. And this miracle also provided an answer to an earnest plea I'd made to God seven days before I collapsed at the airport. I'd confided in a friend that "everyone I know can do something for the Lord--teach, sing, preach, or something. But I can do nothing for Him." This really bothered me.
"Let's pray about it," she said. And we did. I thought, "Maybe God will give me a wonderful singing voice," because I love to sing His praises.
Since my near-death-experience, I've not had to seek people out to witness to them. On Easter Sunday morning we were back in church and Pastor Lebsack had me tell the Christian Life Cathedral congregation what God had done in my life.
Everyone at work has either come by or called and asked me about what happened. I described the medical details, but I also told all of them that Jesus heard the cry of one of His little, "insignificant" children, and He immediately made His Presence known and answered my cry for help. I now testify with certainty of the reality of the resurrected Savior and of everlasting life.
And Jack and I keep telling people, "The Lord REALLY answers prayer!"
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Copyright (C) 1994 Steve Badger
Document last revised: February 7, 1997
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