We are True Believers

We are True Believers

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Miracle Priest in Missouri

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/391819/3/Priest-comes-out-of-nowhere-to-aid-accident-victim

Emergency workers and community members in eastern Missouri are not sure what to make of a mystery priest who showed up at a critical accident scene Sunday morning and whose prayer seemed to change life-threatening events for the positive.
Even odder, the black-garbed priest does not appear in any of the nearly 70 photos of the scene of the accident in which a 19-year-old girl almost died. No one knows the priest and he vanished without a word, said Raymond Reed, fire chief of New London, Mo.
"I think it's a miracle," Reed said. "I would say whether it was an angel that was sent to us in the form of a priest or a priest that became our angel, I don't know. Either way, I'm good with it."
Carla Churchill Lentz, mother of the teen who was critically injured, said emergency workers have told her there is no way her daughter should have lived inside such a mangled car. Of the priest, she said, "I do believe he certainly could have been an angel dressed in priest's attire because the Bible tells us there are angels among us."
The scene unfolded Sunday morning. Katie Lentz, a sophomore at Tulane University, was driving from her parents' home in Quincy, Ill., to Jefferson City, Mo., where she has a summer internship and planned to attend church with friends. The Mercedes she was driving collided with another vehicle on a highway near Center, Mo. The accident crushed Lentz's vehicle into a ball of sheet metal that lay on the driver's side, Reed said.
Reed's team and emergency workers from several other jurisdictions tried for at least 45 minutes to remove the twisted metal from around Lentz. Various pieces of equipment broke and the team was running out of choices. A helicopter waited to carry Lentz to the nearest trauma center. Though Lentz appeared calm, talking about her church and her studies toward a dentistry degree, her vital signs were beginning to fail, Reed said.
"I was pulled off to the side by one of the members of the" helicopter evacuation team, Reed said. "He expressed to me that we were out of time. Her condition looked grim for her coming out of that vehicle alive. She was facing major problems."
At that point, Reed's team agreed to take the life-threatening chance of sitting the vehicle upright so that Lentz could be removed from it. This is dangerous because a sudden change in pressure to the body can be critical, he said.
That's when Lentz asked if someone would pray with her and a voice said, "I will."
The silver-haired priest in his 50s or 60s in black pants, black shirt and black collar with visible white insert stepped forward from nowhere. It struck Reed as odd because the street was blocked off 2 miles from the scene and no one from the nearby communities recognized him.
"We're all local people from four different towns," Reed said. "We've only got one Catholic church out of three towns and it wasn't their priest."
Reed and the other emergency workers were on their knees. The priest of about medium build, maybe 6-feet-tall, stood above them.
"This priest approached Katie and began to pray openly with her," Reed said. "He had a bottle of anointing oil with him and he used that."
Another firefighter who had been watching said it appeared as if the priest also sprinkled Reed and two other emergency workers nearby with oil.
Everything happened quickly after that. Twenty emergency workers pulled together and sat the car upright, Churchill Lentz said. Katie Lentz's vital signs improved and a rescue team from a neighboring community suddenly appeared with fresh equipment and tools. Lentz was removed and rushed to the hospital.
With Lentz gone, the rescue team prepared to clean up, Reed said.
"We all go back to thank this priest and he's gone," he said.
Initially, they assumed he had to get to his home church to lead Sunday services. But then they looked at their photos of the scene.
"I have 69 photographs that were taken from minutes after that accident happened - bystanders, the extrication, our final cleanup - and he's not in them," Reed said. "All we want to do is thank him."
Meantime, the Missouri State Highway Patrol reports a 26-year-old male was arrested Sunday on charges of DWI, failure to drive on the right half of the roadway and second-degree felony assault. He was treated and released from a local hospital, according to the report.
The Facebook page of Lentz's mother, Carla Church Lentz, indicates Lentz is on the mend despite suffering two broken femurs, a broken tibia and fibia, broken left wrist, nine broken ribs, a lacerated liver, ruptured spleen and bruised lung.
Churchill Lentz said her daughter has undergone two surgeries at Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Ill., and will undergo two more, but has been upgraded from critical to serious and is doing well.
"She sustained a lot of injuries, however, her face is beautiful, her teeth are perfect, she is sunshine, and everyone who's contacted us - those emergency personnel, the Missouri State Patrol, the deputies, the firemen - they are all saying the same thing, she never cried, she never screamed, she would just say, 'pray for me and pray out loud.' "

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Woman saved in drowning SUV

http://www.godvine.com/Woman-Drowning-in-her-SUV-is-Miraculously-Saved-1342.html

How did she get out?

A miracle.

All accounted for after Navy fighter jet crashes into apartments

Residents who were missing after a Navy fighter jet crashed into apartment buildings in Virginia Beach were accounted for Saturday, but authorities have yet to give the "all clear" until they check under the wreckage, the fire department said.

Rescue workers had been searching for three people who were missing. No one had been reported missing, but rescue crews used a checklist of occupants in the buildings in an effort to account for all residents, said Virginia Beach Fire Department Battalion Chief Tim Riley.

At least seven people, including the two pilots, were injured. Only one of the pilots still remained at the Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital on Saturday. He was listed in "good condition."

More than two dozen people spent the night at the temporary shelter.

The fighter jet experienced a "catastrophic mechanical malfunction" during takeoff Friday, raining jet fuel over the military community of Virginia Beach before its fiery crash that damaged five apartment buildings, according to residents and Navy officials.

The jet carried a student pilot in the front seat and an experienced instructor behind him, and the leakage of jet fuel was "one of the indications that there was a mechanical malfunction," Navy Capt. Mark Weisgerber told reporters


Saturday, March 3, 2012

2 y/o survives tornado 3.2.2012

In Salem, Indiana, about 60 miles west of Chelsea, a 2-year-old girl was found alive in a field after a twister cut through the area, authorities said.

"When she was brought down here they didn't know who she was," said Brian Rublein, a spokesman for Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, where the girl was taken by helicopter.

"At last report she was in critical condition," Rublein said.

Monday, December 26, 2011

The butterfly people of Joplin

In the chaotic first days after the tornado, when nothing seemed real, word of the butterfly people began to spread.

The stories were shared in hospital waiting rooms and in lines for donated food. They were told by neighbors on streets so devastated there was nothing to do but stand and stare. A Red Cross counselor heard the stories as she handed out water and work gloves to residents in a hard-hit part of town. She got goose bumps. She told her pastor, who asked her to tell the congregation. She remembers how the crowd gasped.

The stories about butterfly people coursed through Joplin, passing one by one and then by the many, tales describing what children reported seeing on that Sunday night in May as the tornado bore down. The children said the butterfly people protected them.

These stories, tales of guardian angels, could be dismissed as a child's fanciful imagination. But the stories have taken hold here. And as the months have slipped by, the adrenaline fading along with some of the terror, the stories have assumed a new, maybe even more important role. To understand why, you have to understand what this town of 50,000 went through — and what it still faces.

The tornado killed 161 people. It shredded entire neighborhoods. More than 900 homes were lost. Big box stores collapsed. The destruction was complete, the landscape rendered foreign.

The tornado unleashed stories about death and unlikely survival: A teenager sucked from an SUV, a toddler plucked from his mother's arms, houses that exploded in 200-mph winds as families huddled in bathtubs and closets. For months, just about any place people gathered, the stories spilled out, including stories about the butterfly people.

The stories eventually found their way to Marta Churchwell. She is the skeptical sort, tough, a raspy-voiced former newspaper reporter. The longtime Joplin resident is not religious by the standards of a town known as the buckle on the Bible Belt. She is not inclined to believe in angels. But she saw what the May 22 tornado did to her town. The experience, she said, 'seared me clear to the bone."

"Looking out over the landscape, how did anyone survive? I don't know. I can't give you an answer," Churchwell said. "But it's human nature to try to find an answer."

And that's where the stories of butterfly people take flight.

• • •

The stories changed with passing time and telling. But two versions dominated.

In one, a mother and daughter fled their vehicle as the tornado neared. The girl is 3 years old. In some versions, she is 4. They have no time to reach a nearby house. The mother and daughter hit the ground. The mother covers her child. Sometimes they jumped into a culvert. Other times, into a front yard. The mother watches as the winds hurtle her car toward them. She braces for the impact. The tornado passes. They are not hurt. The mother is astonished. "Weren't they pretty?" the daughter asks. The mom is confused. "Didn't you see the butterfly people?" the daughter says. In some versions, the daughter describes seeing the butterfly people also ferrying men and women into the sky.

The other story involves a father or grandfather and two young boys. They also are trapped outside during the tornado. In most tellings, the winds are so strong the soles of the father's shoes are ripped off. But no one is hurt. Again, it is the young boys, usually described as 3 or 4 years old, who saw butterfly people hovering above them, offering protection.

Shelley Wilson heard the story of the mother and daughter. She works as a high school counselor. After the tornado, she volunteered for a Red Cross disaster mental health team. She drove through neighborhoods distributing supplies, assessing how people were holding up. She doesn't remember who told her the butterfly people stories. She heard them several times. It was never firsthand — the stories never seemed to come from someone who experienced them.

But that didn't lead Wilson to doubt.

"It's the only way we can really, honestly understand how more people were not killed," she said. "When you walk through what was left, it just kind of took your breath away."

Wilson told the story to her church. That's where Mary Parks heard it. Parks shared it with her women's golf group, including Ellen Desmond. Desmond told her brother, who lives in upstate Illinois. He recounted the tale on his community news blog.

Marsha Sherrod heard the story while volunteering at a tornado donation center. She shared it with her Sunday school class at Forest Park Baptist. One boy, a quiet 11 year old, raised his hand. The boy said he saw the butterfly people that night too, Sherrod recalled.

She believes angels were there.

"If you had seen what I saw," she said, "you would understand."

She told the story to a friend in the church choir. Darlene "DJ" Bates is an artist. The story inspired her. She painted a watercolor showing an angel above a cowering mother and daughter in the tornado. She titled it "Butterfly People."


Snowbound ASU Student Survives 10 Days

An Arizona State University student missing for 10 days survived on a Snickers candy bar, a bag of M&M's candies and melted snow for drinking water, authorities said Wednesday after the 23-year-old was found in a desolate area of east Arizona.

Lauren Elizabeth Weinberg, a senior at ASU, was found in southeastern Coconino County just before noon, Coconino County sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said. Two U.S. Forest Service employees on snowmobiles found her Wednesday about 45 miles southeast of Winslow while they were checking gates on forest roads.



"I am so thankful to be alive and warm," Weinberg said in a news release from Flagstaff Medical Center. "Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, because they worked. There were times I was afraid but mostly I had faith I would be found."

Weinberg, who was released from Flagstaff Medical Center early Thursday, was last seen leaving her mother's home in south Phoenix on Dec. 11 and told authorities she became stuck in the snow a day later, Blair said.

"She told us she left on a paved road out of Winslow that turns into a dirt road, which makes sense cause that would be that Forest Road 34," says Blair.



Sunday, September 25, 2011

Miracle Pocket dialing to her dad

An accidental pocket dial from a cell phone may have saved a 20-year-old Town of Lima woman from greater harm.

According to a criminal complaint, 21-year-old Floyd Rashid, of Sheboygan, is accused of pinning his girlfriend to the ground and threatening her life Monday night.

The complaint says while the attack was happening, Rashid's cell phone pocket-dialed his girlfriend's father, who heard his daughter screaming and heard Rashid ask her if she wanted to die.

The Sheboygan Press reports the father sped to the couple's house and found Rashid still pinning the woman. He then grabbed Rashid and threw him against a wall and Rashid ran away.

Rashid was charged Wednesday with felony counts of false imprisonment and strangulation and suffocation as well as misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

"When I saw my dad I was shaking, and I hugged him. And I was like thank you," said Mauer-Pfister


Sunday, March 27, 2011

From World War 2

The story of Fr. Maximillian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest who with four monasty companions was imprisoned at Auschwitz.

When a prisoner went missing (his body was later found stuffed into a latrine), the Nazi guards selected ten prisoners to death as a reprisal - they would be sent to a strarvation hut where they would slowly die.

One of the men selected exclaimed in grief at the prospects for his family if he were to be killed, and Fr. Kolbe volunteered to receive the man's punishment in his place.

He and four other prisoners took too long to die, and the guards needed the cell for other purposes, so a Polish trustee injected them with lethal doses of carbolic acid. The man Fr. Kolbe saved survived, and lived to the age of 95. Kolbe was beatified a Saint by Pope John Paul II.

http://www.auschwitz.dk/kolbe.htm

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Miracle rescue 9 days after Japan earthquake

An 80 year-old grandmother and her 16 year-old grandson were found suffering from hypothermia but otherwise unharmed nine days after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed their home in the Miyagi prefecture city of Ishinomaki.

More than 20,000 people are dead or missing in the devastation from a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11 but Sumi Abe and her grandson Jin Abe managed to survive the bitter cold in the wreckage of their home for over a week.

The two, who were in the kitchen when the quake struck, survived on yogourt, Coca-Cola and water from the refrigerator, media are reporting.

Miyagi prefecture was the hardest hit of the Japanese prefectures with a confirmed death toll of 4,882.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Belief, prayer the heart of a miracle

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/specials/mary-mackillop/belief-prayer-the-heart-of-a-miracle/story-fn6qd4pl-1225936844614

Ms Barnett said the miracle of Mrs Evans' recovery from lung and brain cancer in 1993 was "mind boggling".

"All I had left was prayer," Mrs Evans told Australia in January when she went public with her story.

Ms Barnett said the Evans' family home in Windale was always flooded with friends there to support her.

"I was just thinking about her then, I don't think anyone dying of cancer would have had so many people in their house every day," she said.

The Evans family moved to Lightning Ridge and travelled around the state to maintain their anonymity while the Vatican considered Mrs Evans' case as a miracle.

Another Australian woman will also be watching the canonisation ceremony with more interest than most.

She is the second woman who was near death when she suddenly recovered from terminal leukaemia, a recovery the Vatican also attributed to Mary MacKillop.

It has been 49 years since the woman prayed for Mary MacKillop's intercession and returned to good health but she has never let her identity be known.

Hers was the first miracle that allowed MacKillop to be beatified in 1995 but the Vatican needed the second miracle which Mrs Evans received, to make her a saint.

"Certainly [she is alive], she has subsequently had a family. She has always been very cautious of her privacy," said Father Brian Lucas, who is general-secretary of the Australian Bishop's Conference.

"There is not much you can say. It was a woman who was terminally ill with leukaemia, very close to death and there was a very sudden cure."

A mother of six, the woman gave birth to a boy in the early 1960s soon after her recovery.

Mary MacKillop's Sisters of Saint Joseph have detailed the arduous process of proving the MacKillop miracles.

Two specialist doctors first examine the nominated person's case to determine if the recovery "can be explained by scientific means". In Mrs Evans case and that of the leukaemia sufferer, there was no medical intervention or treatment. The Vatican requires X-rays, tests and a patient's medical history.

It is then determined if the "cure is outside the normal medical process" and "if there is evidence that surgery or medicine did not bring about the cure".

The cure must also be "complete and permanent".

Miracles must then undergo a theological study to determine the role of prayer.

The Pope will only receive the cases after they have been pored over by cardinals.

There are a host of unofficial miracles the Sisters of Saint Joseph call "favours".

They include Sophie Delezio's remarkable recovery from two horrendous car accidents and Irish man David Keohane who woke from a coma after being bashed in Sydney

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Two-year-old survives after heart stops beating for an hour

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=217105

NBC -- A remarkable story of survival about a toddler who came back to life, after his heart stopped for nearly an hour.

It was supposed to be a fun Fourth of Julyvacation for the Otteson family, way up in the Colorado mountains. But when their two-year-old son Gore wandered away, everything changed.

"Absolute panic. I was crying so hard I couldn't even run anymore," said Amy Otteson, Gore's mother.

Just a few hundred yards from the family cabin was an irrigation ditch. They little Gore inside. He had been underwater almost half an hour.

His grandfather, a retired orthopedic surgeon, frantically started CPR. Ten more minutes past and still nothing. Gore's grandfather said he was pale, like somebody that was already dead.

After nearly an hour, doctors finally got Gore's heart going again, but that was it.

That water was unrelenting. But there is one element that the Colorado Rockies give to almost every drop of water that rolls out of them, that in this case was potentially life-saving: the water was cold. Gore's temperature had dropped to just 87 degrees. In a last ditch effort, doctors decided to keep him that way-stone cold-in hopes of protecting his brain.

"They pumped ice cold fluids into him, they put him on a cooling blanket," Amy said.

For two days, the family sat huddled by his chilly bedside, themselves frozen in fear. Then doctors slowly started to raise his body'stemperature.

"All I ever really ever hoped for was to be able to hold him again, and here, he's waking up," said Dave Otteson, Gore's father.

He was rushed in for an MRI and the results shocked everyone.

"It came back no abnormalities not one single thing in his brain MRI that was wrong," Amy said.

Doctors aren't sure if the cold therapy is what saved him or not. No matter. For Gore it was the end of a big adventure; for his family, it was faith renewed.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Trenton house fire kills 7-year-old but spares 18-month-old

On the second floor of their Vine Street home, 7-year-old Aldrey Anderson was found dead after a raging fire gutted the house and forced Anderson’s mother to jump from a second-story window, leaving him behind.

But in the basement, Aldrey’s cousin, 18-month-old Augustine Pope, was discovered more than two hours after the fire began, alive and unhurt. The youngster was treading water to keep himself afloat in the flooded basement when a fire chief happened to look in the window.

“And I just saw these two eyes staring back at me,” Battalion Chief John Gribbin said.
Gribbin ordered an immediate rescue, and within moments the boy was brought out to cheers from bystanders on the street.

“It was a pretty sad night when we realized we lost the boy on the second floor,” Gribbin said. “I know everybody took that really hard.”

“This is a good thing,” he said of the 18-month-old’s rescue. “I still didn’t believe that it happened.”

“In essence, it’s a miracle on Vine Street because more lives weren’t lost,” Mayor Tony Mack said.

Aldrey’s mother, Evie Anderson, suffered a compound fracture to her leg when she jumped from the window. Two young children who escaped the home with another adult were treated at the hospital for smoke inhalation.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation by police and the county prosecutor’s office. Gribbin, the city’s fire marshal, is also investigating.

“At this point, we don’t have anything that looks suspicious,” he said of the fire.

Evie and Aldrey Anderson were asleep on the second floor of the house while young Augustine and his mother, Monkanjay Sengblah, along with family friend Mamie Deah and her 5-year-old daughter, Ferdisha, and Sengblah’s 7-year-old goddaughter, Bithia Jeanpierre, were in the finished basement.

Around midnight, Sengblah left the house to drive her boyfriend to work. While she was away, a fire broke out on the first floor, police said.

The blaze spread upstairs, and the house was soon engulfed in flames.

“So when I opened the door from my house, I saw flames rushing from the kitchen,” said a woman whose house has a rear entrance just feet from Anderson’s back door.

“But the fire was blasting out,” she said.

Neighbors raced into the house and woke everyone in the basement while Anderson escaped through the second-floor window.

At 12:18 a.m., firefighters were alerted. Engine 1 arrived four minutes later to find the first and second floors fully involved in flames, fire officials said.

Sengblah returned and pulled up to the house, saw it on fire, and desperately alerted firefighters about the children remaining inside the house.

“I kept saying, go upstairs, my nephew is upstairs,” she said. “Go downstairs, my son is downstairs.”

Firefighters tried to gain entry, but the flames were too intense.

“It was a really hot, fast-moving fire,” acting Fire Director Leonard Carmichael Jr. said.
Crews struck a second alarm at 12:31 a.m. and a third alarm at 1:16. The fire was not brought under control until 2:52 a.m., Carmichael said.

Neighbors all along the narrow one-way street heard the commotion and went outside their homes to see what was happening.

“I woke up and saw a lot of smoke and heard a lot of screaming and saw a lot of cops,” said a neighbor, who asked that her name not be used.

“It was out of control,” she said.

Flames spread next door, gutting the second half of the duplex and threatening to jump across a narrow alley to more homes. Firefighters had the blaze mostly contained when Gribbin, who had been called in from home two days after returning from a long medical leave, walked to the side of the house.

“For some reason, I went over and I wanted to look in that basement window,” Gribbin said.
Pipes had burst during the fire, and the water, combined with hours of flow from hoses, had left about 3½ feet of water flooding the basement, Gribbin said. It was there that he saw little Augustine, struggling to stay afloat with his head nearly submerged.

“I started talking to him,” Gribbin said.

The boy waved. Gribbin called to firefighter John Barone.

“John come over here. I got a kid here,” Gribbin remembered saying. “Get inside man, he’s drowning! You got to get him out, you gotta get him out!”

Augustine’s head slipped below the waterline twice as Barone rushed into the home. He got into the basement and grabbed Augustine.

“The little boy put his arms around John and hugged him,” Gribbin said.

Despite Augustine’s salvation, there is still grief for Aldrey.

“Evie was just crying when she saw me,” said Anderson’s neighbor. “Because every morning she opened the door for him to come to my house.”

Both the neighbor and her mother said Aldrey was a mature, intelligent, special boy.

“He’s so grown up,” the mother said. “He had that ambition that he would be someone someday.”

“He was like a grownup,” the neighbor said. “He was so sweet.”

The neighbors knew Aldrey so well because of the close nature of the city’s Liberian community.

“They come over. We eat with them. They eat from us. We are family, together,” the neighbor said.

Anderson and Sengblah’s father came from Liberia and raised them in the Vine Street house. Last night, dozens of members of the Liberian community gathered at Father Rocco Park in Trenton’s North Ward for an emergency meeting of the Liberian Community Association of Central New Jersey & the Metropolitan Areas.

“Actually, there’s no Liberian vernacular that calls someone a cousin,” said Andrew Gursay, a member of the group. “It’s, ‘my mother’s sister’s child.’”

Instead of that cumbersome term, even distant relatives refer to each other as immediate family members.

“So it’s my mother, my brother, my sister, my child,” he said.

The Liberians filled the bleachers at the soccer field, as group president Tarlow Miller spoke about paying for a funeral for Aldrey and a new home for his mother. A goal of $5,000 was set.
As others were speaking, Sengblah arrived, quietly filing into the bleacher row with Augustine in her arms. She sat among friends and her sister Saycon, her voice raw after a grueling night and day. One of the friends broke in to introduce Sengblah and Augustine.

“This is the miracle baby!” she said. Attendees gasped and applauded. Another woman stood up.

“I don’t have much to say, but I want to start with $50,” she said, offering a donation.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Thirty-three miners

Thirty-three miners who have been trapped underground in a Chilean gold and copper mine for the past 17 days are all alive

Thirty-three miners trapped underground for more than two weeks after a cave-in said they are all alive in a message tied to a drill, Chilean authorities said on Sunday.

President Sebastian Pinera said the piece of paper was tied to a drill that rescuers used to bore through to the area where the miners are located. But he said it will take months to get the trapped miners out.

"The 33 of us in the shelter are well," read the message held up by Pinera on television.

"It will take months (to get them out). It will take time, but it doesn't matter how long it takes, but to have a happy ending," the president said.

Relatives hugged and kissed as news of the message reverberated outside the entrance to the mine, where they have been camped out since the mine caved in on August 5.

Rescuers plan to send narrow plastic tubes down the narrow borehole with food, hydration gels and communications equipment. Deep in the mine, there are deposits of water and ventilation shafts that could help the miners survive.

Relatives of those trapped said rescue workers had found a message painted on a small drill used to perforate around 700 meters down into the mine confirming they were alive in the small gold and copper mine near the northern city of Copiapo.

Rescue workers said a small-bore drill had reached nearly 700 meters underground and had perforated a tunnel near to where the miners are believed to have sought refuge.

Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said rescue workers would lower a camera and microphones in a bid to locate and contact the miners

Colombian Plane Crash: 'Miracle' Accident?

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/colombian-plane-crashes-131-board-claims-life/story?id=11410601

The crash landing of a Boeing 737 in the Caribbean is being called a "miracle" by the region's governor. The jetliner broke into three parts on the runway, but remarkably all but one person survived the crash of an aircraft known for its improved design and relatively clean safety record.

The Boeing 737-700, carrying 127 passengers, crashed while landing at Colombia's San Andres island during a thunderstorm, killing one person on board. Local police say the lone fatality was a 73-year-old woman who reportedly died of a heart attack moments after the crash.

The Colombian Air Force was investigating reports Aires flight 8250 from Bogota to San Andres was struck by lightning before crashing at the San Andres airport. Of the 121 passengers and 6 crew members on board, 66 were injured and 34 were hospitalized. The Colombian Civil Aviation Authority reports 5 Americans were among the passengers. The National Transportation Safety Board says it will send investigators to Colombia to assist with the investigation.

"It was a miracle and we have to give thanks to God," that only one person died, said Gov. Pedro Gallardo.

Officials said 119 people were treated or checked at local clinics and five of them were seriously injured.

"It was going down pretty fast when it hit the ground," said William Voss of the Flight Safety Foundation in an interview with ABC News. "it's very hard to break an aircraft into pieces like that."

Survivors of the crash in Colombia said everything seemed normal as the pilot announced they were landing. But suddenly, the aircraft hit short of the runway and slid on its belly as the fuselage broke apart. One Colombian official credited the pilot with keeping the plane from crashing into the airport terminal.

The state government said in an e-mail that passengers aboard the plane that left Bogota about midnight included eight U.S. citizens and four Brazilians. Later, airline representative Erika Zarate said only five U.S. citizens were aboard, as well as two Germans, two Costa Ricans and two French citizens. They were not identified.

Passenger Ricardo Ramirez, a vacationing civil engineer, told Caracol Radio that all had seemed normal, even though the plane was flying through a storm, with flashes of lightning, as it neared the airport.

"The plane was going perfectly, we practically going to land, everything was under control," he said. The accident "appeared out of nowhere."

The plane slid forward on its belly as the fuselage fractured and bits of landing gear and at least one engine were ripped off.

"When we fell, we wound up on the pavement still in the seats, said Ramirez, who struggled to free himself and his wife from their safety belts.

"We tried to get out of the plane because the plane was starting to shoot flames," he said. "In a few minutes, a police patrol arrived and helped us."

Caracol Radio quoted Transport Minister German Cardona as saying the accident was caused by weather and not by technical failure. The plane, he said, had undergone standard maintenance checks eight days ago.

For those who cheat death, life is the light at end of tunnel

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-16/features/ct-talk-brotman-cheatdeath-0816-20100816_1_preservers-death-life

There is an invisible club out there, a web of people who have undergone the same transformative experience.

We escaped death.

Some of us survived a crash or accident; others, criminal violence. Me, I was in a freak hiking mishap. But one way or another, we nearly died — but didn't.

On Aug. 6, two young women who survived a Lake Michigan sailboat tragedy joined our numbers. They were rescued after spending nearly five hours in the cold water. One of the two young men with them drowned; the other is still missing.

As the young women go on with the lives they so nearly lost, they will make their own paths through shock, grief and the task of making sense, and possibly meaning, out of what happened.

They will join those who already have.

Laura Maychruk, of River Forest, was stabbed in the back 10 times by a man who attacked her on a street in Washington, D.C. Maychruk, then 27 and working as a researcher for the Tribune, was so close to death when she got to the hospital that emergency room doctors rushed into the parking lot and cut open her chest while she was conscious to insert tubes in her collapsed lungs.

But she survived. And then she upended everything.

She returned to Chicago, quit her Tribune job here, opened the Buzz Café in Oak Park and turned it into a center of the village's community life. She rethought her intention not to have children; she and her husband now have four.

"It changed so many things in my life," said Maychruk, now 40. "The decisions I made from then moving forward were totally based on different things.

"It is so valuable that you can really grip how wonderful your life is and how important every minute is. I'm so thankful."

So is Bill Lipsit, of Niagara Falls, Ontario. In 2001, he and his father and a friend survived after their scuba dive boat sank off the Gulf Coast of Florida. They spent 46 terrifying hours floating with a few life preservers and bumpers in shark-infested, stormy waters before they were spotted by a search plane.

Between praying and tilting his head back to drink rainwater, Lipsit re-evaluated his life. Up to then, it had been a somewhat wild one; he had spent his time after work drinking with buddies instead of with his family.

But there in the water, "literally all I could think of was my wife and my kids," said Lipsit, 46, manager of a trucking company. "It's amazing how quick it can open your eyes when you're staring at death. You look at your life and realize how stupid you were."

Monday, August 16, 2010

People send in their Miracles......

If you think you got a miracle, then send it. We are adults and do not need to make judgement. I will post after editing.

Story 1 - the jacket
This happened today. Is it a miracle? There is no survivor or near death. You can decide.
Our unit at work won a unit award in the the winter. We ended up picking a rain jacket with the embroidered with our organization's logo in March. We got one shipment and the XL and XLL sizes were on backorder. There were a total of seven jackets order, sizes M, M, L, XL, XL, XLL, XLL.
James was the person ordering them and he and I were checking sizes to the original order. We had gotten three mediums vs. two. We thought someone would get the wrong size so we going to call the company about it. We got the shipping invoice and it showed the seven sizes with two mediums that were shipped.
We recounted again. Then James picked up there were eight jackets vs. seven. We had the right sizes with an extra medium.
Nancy came showing us her XL. She had lost 51 lbs since March. It was verry baggy. We explained that we only had this spare Medium. She tried it on. It was loose and looked great! She went from an XL to Medium for the first time since she was a teenager. The glow and smile were something to see. A custom miracle jacket in the order.

Story 2
11:49amJack

sorry105 emails:P:P

11:49amLeigh

sorry about what?

11:49amJack

i missed you

11:49amLeigh

I miss you. I could use a hug

11:50amJack

I bet. Me too. Can I make a confession?

11:50amLeigh

what a hell of a month. make a confession? sure

11:50amJack

yes it has been. well I confess that i believe in signs. sorta like the miracle blogs. so don't think i am crazy. maybe i am

11:51amLeigh

no, you not crazy.

11:52amJack

what was the sign that we were solid to be exclusive? it came to me today. I knew. maybe we talked. but i forgot. cause it is a miracle. take a guess.

11:54amLeigh

I am thinking it was because we never knew it could be that good.

11:55amJack

what was the miracle? so clear. in hindsight

11:55amLeigh

timing was one

11:55amJack

timing in?

11:55amLeigh

our lives

11:56amJack

the statistical miracle was?

11:56amLeigh

yes, what was the chances

11:57amJack

what event separate others from you?

11:57amLeigh

besides 8 & 5...I work

11:58amJack

see. even you. like me. like millions. not see the miracles. like the miracle blog. let me back up.

11:58amLeigh

k

11:59amJack

i was supposed to go w L tonight to the concert. what event would change that? or could?

Evie has wedding. she out thu-fri. fest tix bought in July. Thu was big presentation. Fri i cant take off cause she at wedding. so i cant go. on friday

12:02pmLeigh

right

12:02pmJack

to see the bands that i wanted to really see. i accepted it

12:02pmLeigh

yes

12:02pmJack

what happened mon?

12:02pmLeigh

death of M

12:03pmJack

old Jewish saying. man plans, god laughs.

12:03pmLeigh

oh yes

12:03pmJack

i rem it. on mon. all these plans go away. i find Friday, i not needed. watch dog. and i get to go. see the bands. millions say just a coincidence. but the miracle blog shows diff. i didn't or ever want to see her die. but it happens

12:05pmLeigh

yes

12:05pmJack

then jury. judge said trial in crim sex assault minor only be 1-2 days so not excuse me at beginning of jury trial for wed conflict. long questions by defense. to my shock they accept moi. then prosecutor in 10 min into questions. "could you weigh equally the testimony of a police officer vs a defendant". i said I prolly have a leaning to the police because I worked with them for years vs an unknown defendant. the judge stops the prosecutor. first time ever seen that. say i have worked a long time in my comp. said i have set beliefs.

12:08pmLeigh

yes

12:08pmJack

and thanks me and dismisses me. certain not a miracle. you see. sept is like this connecting dots. then back to the concert w L. it starts at 9pm

12:09pmLeigh

ok

12:09pmJack

she wants to go eat before. no prob. i get her tix. since not sold out and cheap. then this. let me find the link. no email. nada. L finds it.

12:12pmLeigh

hang on...

12:12pmJack

i like have heart attack

12:12pmLeigh

let me open it first

12:13pmLeigh

oh wow...ok...so L. sends this...k

Charlatans U.K. Drummer Hospitalized After Collapse

Charlatans U.K. drummer Jon Brookes is hospitalized after collapsing on stage at a show Wednesday (Sept. 15) night in Philadelphia. Brookes keeled over part way through the band's set at Jackny Brenda's and briefly stopped breathing, reports NME . A doctor in the audience resuscitated him, and paramedics responded, taking the drummer to a hospital. The band hasn't revealed what caused Brookes' collapse, but indicated that doctors expect him to make a full recovery.

Jack

so amazing. third time this month. another sign. or miracle.

12:14pmLeigh

go on...

12:15pmJack

so i respond. omg. that it. we talk. then our miracle come to me. which was. Las Vegas. so clear

12:16pmLeigh

OMG

YES

12:16pmJack

i am still stunned. all this morn. it is like Moses at the burning bush

12:17pmLeigh
wow. now clear

12:19pmJack

and i could add grain work done just before all hell breaks out in sector. or the crane research which went viral 2 days after email friends. so i needed to get this to you. and there you are chat. cause texting would been hard. and email not efficient.

12:20pmLeigh

yes. you are right

12:21pmJack

so man plans, god laughs. or helps.

Leigh

yep...it really is. it is a miracle. how you put this all together is amazing in itself.

12:22pmJack

then the M death. conversation w father D. i said i never meet a person for 20+ years that embodied all the things the Bible said Christ was like. he agreed. her death gave J and C freedom. to announce single. and she got a nice guy. although 3 ex navy, prior enlisted among C and you

12:24pmLeigh

ha

12:26pmJack

just another coincident. never a miracle. yet statistically 1 in million

12:26pmLeigh

yes. how long did this take you to figure out?

12:29pmJack

all this month. it is like how many miracles do you need to see. or are you like the rest. man plans, god laughs. and i just wonder what others are shown

12:30pmLeigh

and don't pay attention to

12:31pmJack

cause society always ridicules these as coincidences. miracle blog shows differently. so nothing better evidence to see several in one month. right in front

12:34pmLeigh

wow...I am still thinking about all this

12:35pmJack

big wow.can you send the chat?

12:35pmLeigh

yes. I am saving it

12:35pmJack

I want to see if they post it in the miracle blog

12:35pmLeigh

no problem

12:35pmJack

it not have to make sense to others. just us

12:35pmLeigh

true. i was holding my breath for a while there

12:36pmJack

i know. freedom

12:36pmLeigh

when you had a confession to make...I thought omg...not this... not now!

12:36pmJack

i am exclusive w Leigh. because I love you. and I see the signs. and we are so compatible. so any person will know this right up front. then we can talk.

12:38pmLeigh

yes...that makes sense... and yes...we have so much happen in tandem...so many things similar...it was a 1 in a billion chance we meet in the time of our lives that we did

12:39pmJack

yes it is. it be easy to see an event here or there and we pass like two ships in the night. never see or know we exist. one last thing.

Janny is my counterpart. she confessed a secret. cause people telling her crazy. last Wednesday. no one believe her.

12:42pmLeigh

hmmm

12:42pmJack

she saw something on Israel. she not Jewish. really fascinated her. hubby said ok. was dreaming of going maybe. then church group announce a special trip for 8 days the next day to Israel.

12:43pmLeigh

wow

12:43pmJack

then Monday she picked up mag w page turned to article on Israel.

12:43pmLeigh

that is a sign

12:44pmJack

she books the ticket. gets kinda made fun of. like why ya going. walking in street. paper falls in front of her. she picks it up. about Israel. all in one week. so i said i believe in signs. and you have to do it

12:45pmLeigh

many make fun of going there? that sad. many people would have ignored the signs and not even pick up paper, etc.

12:46pmJack

like told her they kill Americans. not safe

12:46pmLeigh

well, depends on where you go I guess

12:46pmJack

despite her saying this tour guide did 28 trip for churches

12:46pmLeigh

in group safer

12:47pmJack

ya

12:47pmLeigh

that alone

good sign

12:47pmJack

yet 35,000 die in cars here. risk is present everyday. ya got to have faith

12:47pmLeigh

yes

12:48pmJack

so hard sleeping last night. connecting dots. then no concert. was the final dot. among many dots, coincidences, or miracles.

12:49pmLeigh

maybe not last dot...we never know

12:49pmJack

true. more dots in a month. people look for signs for ever. many never see it. not sure why. there is a certain madness about seeing what others aren't. sorta like Copernicus who said the earth was not the center of the universe. they killed for heresy.

12:51pmLeigh

many people not believe

12:51pmJack

maybe the ghost-buster said it best. I used not believe in ghosts. but these last few weeks, I seen stuff that would turn your hair white. and that what i say

12:53pmLeigh

we saw evidence of ghost no one else believe so we don't tell...no one would believe all these dots.

Jack

i know. so we ask to present case on the miracle blog. get people to see events. and maybe. maybe it sinks in.

12:55pmLeigh

people need to look and not just "see". they need to listen and not just "hear"

Jack

i agree, reading the blog made me believe. and now the dots are popping up all over. i cant explain the wicked. but i can see the good. maybe that is all people need.

12:58pmLeigh

"true believer" book

12:59pmJack

omg. another

12:59pmLeigh

yes

12:59pmJack

true believers. so easy an concept. another dot. among several. i ask mod to change title. send email.

1:03pmLeigh

it is the planets aligning

1:03pmJack

hehe ya. so any chance you can email this?

1:04pmLeigh

wow...what a chat!

1:04pmJack

because talking i would have forgotten much of it. like usual.

i love you

1:05pmLeigh

I love you too...very much

1:05pmJack

smooch, bye!

1:05pmLeigh

xxxo later