A Missouri teen who fell through ice on Lake Sainte Louise and was clinically dead for 45 minutes and then miraculously came back to life after his mother prayed.
John Smith, 14, was playing on the lake with two friends when all three fell through the ice. One boy made it out of the water and another boy held to a piece of ice, but it took rescuers 15 minutes to find Smith.
The teen arrived at a local hospital, clinically dead after 27 minutes of CPR. When Dr. Ken Sutterer informed Smith’s mother, Joyce Smith, of the news, she started praying.
John Smith, the miracle survivor photo/ screen shot from local video coverage
“I don’t remember what all I said,” Joyce Smith told a local news station afterward. “But I remember, ‘Holy God, please send your Holy Spirit to save my son. I want my son, please save him.’”
Immediately after Smith’s prayer, her son started showing signs of life.
“In my mind this is a very grim, very poor chance of survival already,” said Dr. Kent Sutterer of the moment Smith was brought to the hospital. “The question was raised: how long should they continue [CPR]. He was dead for 45 minutes.”
Sutterer was so shaken and moved by the experience that he penned a letter about it, writing that Smith’s “heart was jump started by the Holy Spirit listening to the request of his praying mother.”
Another physician, Dr. Jeremy Garrett, helped Smith through his recovery and later called the entire spectacle a “bonafide miracle.”
Smith opened his eyes just 48 hours after the accident and began answering doctors’ questions. His recovery has been so rapid ever since that even doctors are having a hard time keeping up, according to KDSK-TV.
Smith’s father, John Smith, said that the situation might seem confusing, but that he’s confident it’s miraculous.
“I know it doesn’t fit into our neat little box of today, but again, you can’t refute the clinical evidence,” he told the outlet.
“After listening to what the paramedics and doctors said I’m pretty surprised at the outcome,” Smith told KDSK. ”I’m surprised I’m alive but it’s a real miracle that I’m alive, and I thank God I’m alive, and there’s a reason I’m alive, so I’m just going to kind of follow what God has in store for me throughout my life.”
Kaye Wonderhouse - Catherine "Kaye" Wonderhouse, a proud descendant of the Wunderhaus family is the Colorado Correspondent who will add more coverage, interviews and reports from this midwest area.
