My Daughter, The Miracle Girl

It was a warm sunny afternoon on March 14, 1995. Little did our family know the tragedy that awaited us before the day would end. Most of our family was at Wal-Mart for a closing day sale.

My father-in-law, Homer Arnold, and I were out running errands when we saw our family at Wal-Mart. We went in the store to be with our families.

At about 5:30, my father-in-law decided to take his youngest daughter Rachel and my daughter Jessica with him to get the Girl Scout Cookie money and take Rachel to her Scout meeting. He lived on Lakecrest, which starts at the Wal-Mart parking lot and winds its way through the neighborhood located behind Wal-Mart.

As he was coming down Lakecrest Drive about 5:45 pm, he was struck by a train at the Lakecrest Crossing.

My daughter, Jessica, who was almost three, was thrown sixty feet from the car and was found laying on the breather that had been torn from the engine. Jessica was rushed to the hospital, along with my father-in-law.

Jessica was unconscious from a severe head injury, and she was only breathing six times a minute. She also had a fractured right femur, aspiration pneumonia, and pulmonary contusions. Jessica had many more injuries that are too numerous to mention. Brother Homer was pronounced dead at 9:00 pm in the operating room from multiple traumatic injuries.

The doctors who worked on Jessica were friends of mine. I worked in the operating room at the VA Hospital at that time. One of my jobs was to help train doctors to be surgeons.

When they saw that the little girl that they were trying to save was mine, they immediately began to tell me how sorry they were and that they did not see how Jessica could survive the injuries she had received.

They informed me that their biggest concern was Jessica’s severe head injury. The swelling of her brain had shut the blood supply off to the back part of her brain. This caused Jessica to suffer a stroke that knocked out both occipital lobes of her brain. It also involved the part of her brain that controlled her heart rate and breathing along with the thermostat of her brain that regulates body temperature.

They informed me that if Jessica did manage to live, she would be nothing but a vegetable.

She would never walk, talk, eat, laugh, 
or do anything again.    

On the morning of the funerals of Brother Homer and Rachel, the doctors informed me that Jessica needed to go to surgery right away; that they felt she had sucked chewing gum down in her lung, and they needed to go get it out. I asked if they could wait till after I buried my family. They informed me that they needed to go in right away.

I signed the permission slip and called my brother Dwayne to come to sit with Jessica while I went to the funerals. I stood at this window looking outside the hospital, and I felt like the loneliest person in the whole world.

I began to pray, ” Father, Jessica is hurt bad. She is hurt more than I can do anything about it. I cannot help her. So, father, I am giving her to you. If you take her life, I will love you as much as I always have and will preach as hard as I always have. But, if you will let her live, I will try my best to let the world know what you have done for her.”

That afternoon, after the funerals, I came back to the hospital, and they informed me they did not have to take Jessica to surgery. I was sitting in the ICU waiting room, and Jessica was still in a coma, just laying lifeless.

Sitting there in the waiting room, all at once, this warm feeling came over me, and a voice spoke these words to me, “Your Daughter Shall Live.”

Friends, I cannot express to you the joy that came over me. I started telling my doctor friends that she was going to be alright. They just looked at me like I had slipped over the edge.

Praise God; she started getting better.

THE RECOVERY

Jessica’s recovery was not instant. She remained on life support for nine days. After the voice had spoken to me that she would live and not die, there was very little change in her condition. She was still in a deep coma.

All we had to face the giant of overwhelming circumstances was the promise that she would live. So, with that promise, we started our journey to bring Jessica back to us.

Jessica was in two different hospitals for a total of nine weeks. As Jessica slowly started coming out of her coma, she had no control of her body. Jessica could not swallow because of the damage to her brain. So they placed a feeding tube in her and fed her through her stomach. They put Jessica in a wheelchair that supported her head, her chest, and her legs. Jessica would have to learn to sit, walk, talk, and eat again.

Slowly, Jessica started making progress. It was over a month after the accident before she spoke her first word. I will always remember the first word she spoke “momma”. I will never forget how happy I was when she said it.

Jessica started making progress, and the girl they said “That was hurt too bad to live” received a new nickname.

They started calling her “The Miracle Girl.”

Jessica’s control of her body started returning, and they began to get her up on a walker. Jessica tried to learn to walk again without the use of her eyes. She was a real trooper. I can see her yet coming down the hall with that walker wearing sunglasses because she was blind. Jessica continued to make progress, but one thing that was not coming back was her eyesight.

The doctors told me that Jessica would never again see. That was so hard to hear from them to say to me that my baby would be blind. But, my wife and I agreed that if God could preserve her life, he could open her eyes. For this miracle, we waited on the only one who could perform it.

I began to read to her out of the bible, Isaiah 53, and as the prophet said, I placed Jessica’s name in the scriptures. “He was wounded for Jessica’s transgressions, and by His stripes, Jessica was healed.”

I would ask her every day if she could see me and every day she would answer me that she couldn’t. I told her she would see again because God had provided a Lamb for her eyes.

One day I asked her if she could see me 
and she answered NOT YET Daddy!

I realized she believed what daddy told her that she would see again. I do not know when Jesus came through the hospital, whether it was in the morning or in the night. All I know is He came by her room, and when He left, He took her blindness with him.

Jessica has spent most of her young life recovering from the injuries she received in the train car collision that cost us two of our family members. Though the feeding tube and the wheelchair and braces are all gone, she stills carries scars on her body from that tragic day.

Tokens to remind us of just how close she came to dying and just how great and powerful our God is.

Today, Jessica is doing very well and has no memory of the accident. She is a real testimony to the healing power of the mighty God. Today, People would never realize that when she was almost three, she was struck by train while riding in a car with her Aunt and Grandfather.

Though our hearts are still heavy from the loss of Brother Homer and little Rachel who was 8, there is comfort in knowing that God is in control of every situation, and Satan cannot take our lives until God is done with us.

No matter what mountain or valley your family faces, we serve a God who can deliver us out of darkness into His marvelous light.