Multiple miracles spare pastor's life

[Amelia]

Multiple miracles spare pastor's life

October 16, 2007

AG News Service

"I'm in big trouble."

That was the last thing Pastor Terry Fulton of Christian Life Fellowship, an Assemblies of God church of about 90 to 100 members in Newberry, Florida, remembers thinking on that fateful Wednesday afternoon.

And in reality, that was the last thought that should have ever run through his mind.

June 20, 2007, was the typical summer day in Florida. It had rained earlier, but it had turned out to be a beautiful day. Fulton, who has pastored Christian Life Fellowship for the past nine years, was going about with a congregation member, Ross Edwards, trimming large oak trees limbs away from the church building.

"As a pastor of a smaller church, you wear many hats," Fulton explains.

Edwards had been doing the more strenuous work, climbing the 16-foot ladder while Fulton held it steady. Edwards would then use a pole saw to cut a branch a little over half way through, tie a rope to it and then pull the branch the rest of the way down using a pick-up truck. Perhaps not an arborist's delight, but the two were getting results.

As the men came to the last tree, Edwards was tiring so Fulton quickly volunteered to do the last branch.

"I'm 62, but I think I'm 32," Fulton says, chuckling a bit. "I was two steps from the top of the ladder and I started sawing on this big branch with the pole saw."

Thinking he was about halfway through the limb, Fulton had stopped sawing and was making his way down the ladder, when he heard a loud cracking sound - the branch was giving way!

"I had forgotten about the rain and how much weight that can add to a branch," Fulton admits.

In the next instant, the large limb came crashing down on Fulton, striking him in the forehead, hurling him to the asphalt parking lot more than a dozen feet below, and then pinning him to the pavement.

Instinctively, Fulton tried to get up, but fortunately for him, the limb held him down, unable to move - which, due to the nature of the injury, proved to be the first of many "God" things. Edwards helped as best as he could, but sensing Fulton was seriously hurt, hurried off to call for help.

According to Fulton, the 9-1-1 emergency rescue vehicle "just happened" to be in the neighborhood and was by his side in less than five minutes.

After removing the large limb from Fulton's body, the paramedics carefully strapped him to a "hard board," immobilizing him. Fulton was then rushed to Shands Hospital trauma unit in Gainesville, Florida. He has no memory of those first six days in the hospital, but relies on what his friends and family have told him about the details of the events to follow.

When he arrived at the hospital, Fulton says, one of the best neurosurgeons in Gainesville "happened" to be on duty. After taking several MRIs of Fulton's neck and back, the surgeon was stunned, identifying a number of dislocated and fractured vertebrae.

"He explained to my wife Lynn, daughter and son-in-law," Fulton says, "that he had been a neurosurgeon for many years and could count on one hand the number of persons that had this kind of neck trauma and survived or was not a quadriplegic."

In fact, due to the vertebrae that were dislocated and fractured, the neurosurgeon came to the conclusion that there was no medical explanation for why Fulton was alive or, at best, not a quadriplegic.

"My daughter, Debbie, was quick to suggest the perhaps the neurosurgeon should write "G-O-D" in parenthesis on his report to explain the miracle," Fulton says.

However, Fulton was far from being out of danger. In fact, he was blissfully unaware that he was only moments away from having his spinal cord unintentionally totally severed.

But Fulton wasn't in the hospital alone. Along with his family members, God was present. His church was on their knees seeking God's mercy and hand of healing upon their pastor. They also sought for God to guide the doctors and surgeons.

"At about 9:30 p.m.," Fulton says, "the church stopped praying as they felt a release, a peace from God, that what was needed to be done had been accomplished."

What had been accomplished?

Originally, Fulton's neurosurgeon had scheduled to have him placed in a halo apparatus to straighten his spine before surgery.

"A halo is a metal ring that is secured to the patient's skull with large metal screws," Fulton explains. "Weights are then attached to the halo to apply pressure to straighten the patient's spine"

But as the medical technician came into Fulton's room to attach the halo later that evening, the neurosurgeon suddenly called. He said to stop the procedure until another MRI could be done - even though several had already been done. He said he felt "a check" due to not knowing where the spinal cord might be at this time.

The next morning, after the neurosurgeon reviewed the new MRI, it revealed that Fulton's spinal cord was "floating like a limp noodle between the fractured vertebras and would have been severed" if the halo had been installed.

God also worked a second miracle that first night. Although the neurosurgeon had left orders that Fulton was not to be moved under any circumstances, two CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) came into Fulton's room to change his sheets - requiring that he be rolled over. But fortunately, Lynn was there and would have none of it, despite the CNAs" insistence. Sending them to the head nurse, the two were quickly set straight and apologized.

"If they had moved me," Fulton says, "it would have severed or damaged my spinal cord and I would have died or been paralyzed." The neurosurgeon would tell Lynn that "the train wreck" in her husband's neck would require surgically attaching two titanium rods to Fulton's vertebrae using long surgical screws - surgery that would require not only a foot long incision on his back, but another four-inch incision through the front of his neck to attach a titanium plate - a very delicate surgery.

"Three surgical teams spent 14 hours removing bone fragments, rebuilding vertebrae by using bone grafts from my hip, cutting around numerous nerves, arteries and spinal cord without causing further damage," Fulton says. "That in itself was another miracle."

With major surgeries on June 21st and the 24th, Fulton would spend six days in the Shands Trauma Unit and weeks more in the hospital - and he still is attending rehab to help fully restore his strength.

But the "problem" is, Fulton isn't dead - though the surgeon doesn't know why. Fulton isn't a quadriplegic - and with the vertebrae damaged, he was supposed to be. He isn't a paraplegic, and that would have been considered a miracle. Fulton isn't even partially paralyzed - though he does have some "ingling feelings" in a couple of his fingers!

When Peninsular Florida District Superintendent Terry Raburn was informed about Fulton's life-threatening accident, he and his wife Athena were preparing to board a plane, but immediately stopped to pray for him.

"When we landed, I was literally afraid to call Presbyter [Arnold] Lastinger due to what I might hear," Raburn recalls, "but amazingly Terry was alive and the doctors were planning for surgery in a couple of days. That started a miraculous series of reports on God's protecting and healing power."

Raburn says that after each triumph the surgeons would celebrate the improvement, but would warn that the recovery was already beyond normal limits and would probably go no further.

"Over the many weeks of Terry's ordeal," Raburn says, "my feelings went from utter despair to utter joyous worship. His continuing recovery is a medically documented miracle. Pastor Terry Fulton is a living, walking, talking display of God's ultimate power!"