ANGELS ARE HERE!
The Boy Who Drowned
"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I
tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my
Father in heaven...."
Matthew 18:10
It was April 1981, and the Hardy family of Palestine, Texas,
was enjoying a visit with their cousins in Houston. The house had
a backyard pool, and three-year-old Jason Hardy had been
cautioned by everyone to stay in the front yard, away from the
pool.
Soon, however, Sue Hardy realized that her little boy was
not where he was supposed to be. She ran immediately to the pool,
but its surface was undisturbed. "I thought Jason couldn't have
fallen in, because he would be floating on top," Sue says. "I
didn't know then that drowning victims sink to the bottom." Sue
ran back to the front yard, down the street, then into the house,
her concern mounting by the minute.
Finally, following an instinct, she and her niece returned
to the pool - and this time Sue saw something on the bottom. Her
niece jumped in and brought Jason to the surface. "My world
turned upside down when she handed me my dead baby," Sue says.
"He had no pulse, no heartbeat, and was turning black." Clutching
her child's limp body, Sue screamed in anguish. Then she began to
pray. The family called the paramedics, and when they arrived Sue
went upstairs, "I phoned an elder from my church in Palestine,"
she says, "and I told him we needed a miracle right now. Jason
had been without a heartbeat for almost an hour, but I knew God
could do anything He decided to do." After the phone call Sue lay
down on the floor of the bedroom and prayed "Jesus, Jesus;" was
all she could find the strength to say.
A few minutes later, one of Sue's daughters came to tell her
that the paramedics had gotten Jason's heart started again.
"Immediately, I was filled with peace," Sue relates. "I had Jason
when I was forty-one, after my three older children were almost
grown up. Somehow I knew that God had not given me this late
blessing only to have him taken away."
Herman Hospital sent its Life Flight helicopter to take
Jason to intensive care. By the time Sue drove there, doctors
were painting a bleak picture. "They said that when a brain is
deprived of oxygen for three to six minutes, damage begins," she
explains. Jason had been clinically dead when he arrived at the
hospital, and doctors felt that if he survived, he would be
paralyzed and profoundly brain damaged.
"No. You watch and see," Sue told them. "Jason will walk out
of this hospital by himself."
The physicians looked at one another. Obviously this little
boy's mother couldn't yet absorb what had happened. They decided
not to explain any more of the terrible consequences she faced.
Jason, in a coma and still considered clinically dead, was placed
on a life-support system. On the fifth night he developed
pneumonia, and hospital personnel felt the end was near. Clinging
to the peace she had experienced in the bedroom, Sue phoned
elders from a local church in Houston and asked them to visit her
son. They did and anointed him as Sue and her family waited in
the hall. "Mrs.Hardy?" One of the elders came to the door. "Your
little boy's eyes are fluttering." The three-year-old had just
wet the bed. His brain was apparently waking up!
Not only did Jason walk out of the hospital twenty days
later, he soon began to talk. Seven months after his terrible
accident, his physician pronounced him healthy. Today, Jason is
an active handsome boy, completely normal in every way. Sue gives
thanks to God every day for His awesome miracle. And maybe for
some extra protection as well.
Being only three, Jason was far too young to talk about why
he went to the pool and how he happened to fall in. As years
passed, Sue assumed that he remembered nothing except what his
family had told him about his accident and hospitalization. One
night when Jason was about six or seven, however, he was watching
a television show when a shot of a swimming pool came into view.
"It was dark underneath that pool," Jason suddenly said.
Sue was immediately alert. Was he remembering something about his
accident? "Tell me about it," she said. "It was dark," the little
boy repeated, "but the angel stayed with me" "The angel, Jason?"
"Uh-huh. He was there so I wouldn't be afraid."
That is all Jason has ever said about his miraculous rescue.
But to his family, it is enough.
................
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