Posted on 09/27/2004 2:03:24 PM PDT by churchillbuff
SEGUIN — She is a different lady than she was less than six months ago. Today she is a patient at Guadalupe Valley Hospital, waited on by staff she has for more than 20 years called colleagues.
A patch covers one eye, and a plastic brace immobilizes her upper body to heal the fractured bones in her back.
Shirley Casanova sits in a wheelchair and smiles, as her husband Richard — who is also on staff at GVH — holds her hand.
She is lucky to be alive — a miracle — according to her sisters Patricia Luna and Rosalinda Gonzales.
It was June on a Friday afternoon when Shirley was on her way to Windsor Park Mall in San Antonio to shop for a new outfit.
“We were going to fly to Raleigh, N.C. and spend all week there, [Richard] had a seminar there. I was going with him, because he asked me to go with him,” Shirley said.
She came to an area on Interstate 10 slowed by traffic.
As Shirley slowed to a stop, she heard the sound of squealing brakes as a tractor-trailer bore down on her tiny Honda Accord.
Then, she heard what she says was a voice next to her.
“Lay down,” the voice told her.
Shirley ducked as a tractor-trailer smashed into her car a split-second later, pinning her inside.
She was conscious, and suddenly aware that someone — a woman — was holding her hand, and telling her over and over to pray.
“She kept telling me to pray to God and he would help me,” she said.
The woman was close to her. Shirley recalls a Hispanic woman with short dark hair.
Shirley, who was traveling alone that day, is convinced she was visited by a guardian angel.
“There was somebody in the car with me,” she said. “I don’t know how anybody else would be able to get near my car. When the EMTs and fire department came, that lady suddenly disappeared.”
Within a few minutes, Shirley was freed from the wreckage and taken by AirLife to University Hospital.
“I don’t know how they got me out, or how that lady every came that close to me,” Shirley said.
Her husband had worked late that night, and was contacted shortly after he got home that his wife had been in an accident.
“All they would tell me was that she was stable and alert and to come down to the hospital,” Richard said.
Shirley’s family members were contacted and within an hour, they were all at University Hospital, where they learned she was in the surgical trauma intensive care unit.
Shirley was alert when Richard and her sisters saw her a short time later.
She told them about the guardian angel, and how she stayed with her until rescuers arrived.
“I thought it was a passerby who reached out to her to offer comfort,” Richard said. “But the more she talked about it, the more I thought there was something to it.”
Luna and Gonzales are as convinced as Shirley that she was being waited on by heavenly hosts.
“She has a guardian angel,” Luna said. “She kept talking about the lady and kept asking us to find out who the lady is.”
Shirley looked a little beat up, but Richard was still concerned.
“She was talking at the time,” Luna said. “She kept saying, ‘I’m OK. I’ll be fine.’”
Doctors performed scans from her head to her pelvis and found nothing wrong other than a fractured vertebrae.
“When I found that out, I though we had dodged a bullet big time,” Richard said. “She looked very good, and she was alert.”
The next day, Shirley suffered a stroke brought on by undetected injuries that put her in a coma for eight days.
Three days later, family members met with doctors who didn’t give Shirley much hope of a full recovery.
“They used terms like ‘constant vegetative state, institutionalized, or she won’t know you when she wakes up,’” Richard said. “They did not give us any hope at all.”
Richard described the next day as a turning point for the family.
Four days after the accident, Dr. Michael Dwyer arrived at University Hospital to see Shirley and reassure the family.
“He just showed up like an angel,” Richard said.
They embraced, and Richard told Dwyer doctors had painted a grim picture for Shirley.
Richard said Dwyer listened, and reassured him to remain hopeful.
“His message was so inspirational. It just lifted us up and gave us hope,” he said weeping as he recalled the events of Dwyer’s visit.
Shirley regained consciousness and stayed at University Hospital until she was transferred to GVH Aug. 6.
Shirley said she expects to go home in early to mid-October.
Richard said medicine, along with a strong belief in God and the power of prayer, helped bring his wife out of her coma and put her on the road to recovery.
“God has plans for her. She isn’t ready to go,” Richard said.
She is convinced God performed a miracle in her life and he has a purpose for her.
“Why else would I still be here?” Shirley asked.
ping
I believe in miracles.
When I was in my senior year at the Academy - My Maternal Grandpa was on the downward slide. I was finishing my semester Finals in Dec. when he was admitted into the hospital. I prayed to the Lord and said, "I know that if you've decided it is his time then it is; please, for my mother's sake stay your gentle hand until I can be home to comfort my mother."
I left Annapolis at 3 on Friday and arrived home at 3:30 the next morning. Spoke with mom for a few minutes and then laid down to sleep. I woke at 6 to the phone ringing. It was the hospital. My grandfather, God rest his soul, had just passed away.
I don't consider it a miracle, but I have never questioned such tellings since.
I love hearing the stories of "God-incidences"!
"I don't consider it a miracle..."
Who are we to determine the depth or degree of a miracle? Not all that seems small, is.
There will be a malpractice law suit, angels or no....
God is here,He answers prayer,nuff said.
Understand your point - I guess it is just that I think there are interventions and then there are miracles. I consider it more of an intervention.
True I don't hold ownership to the definition - for me each person has their own because faith is so personal; but I've always felt a miracle was something where someone's fate is changed dramatically. My grandfather's fate was not changed, just shifted a bit; my mother still grieved, just with me at her side; and I still grieved, but was eased knowing I could support her.
One could say it is semantics - but I think that drags us down the ugly and unnecessary legalese path. The important thing is not the word used to describe it, but the strengthening of faith that resulted. I have had the sparks of recognition; AND I have had questioning looks from some when I relate this story and I can only smile with a gleam in my eye realizing from another time "..there go I". I offer my story and my belief - but it is not for me to judge. As I said..faith is so personal.
"As I said..faith is so personal."
Amen
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