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A Fall In The Woods
By Gary Young
If a man fell in
the woods and no one saw him fall, did he really fall?
If a man were in the woods all alone
there were no women around
and he spoke, would he still be
wrong?
This is the true story of a man who
fell in the woods and also spoke
in the woods! The difference
was that there was another man and women
in the woods when this happened the
they witnessed all of this!
Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005
about 7:00 a.m., I was up in a large pine tree about 35 feet
above the ground lowering my pots and pans that I always tied up
in this same tree every year rather than pack them in and out
each time we camped. I was standing on two large limbs
with my feet against the trunk with one limb between my legs
that I was leaning against. I was pulling the rope back up for
the second time after lowering the camp gear to Ruel Thompson
who was on the ground below.
Eldon Knittle had climbed this same tree two weeks earlier when
he and I went in to set up camp. Without any warning, not
even a cracking sound, all three limbs mysteriously broke off at
the same time. I grabbed two other limbs on the way down
and they also broke.
Ruel, standing at the foot of
the tree, never heard a single limb brake and yet his wife
Karen, 300 yards down the mountain in camp, heard the limbs
brake like a gun shot.
I landed in a semi-reclining
position, cutting my face on a broken limb on the way down from
my chin to the left temple and snapped back hitting my head on a
rock cutting my head open. On impact, it felt like an
atomic bomb going off in my spine. I wanted to scream, but
did not have enough air left in my lungs. I have had the
experience
of breaking 12 ribs at one time
and thought there was no worse pain on earth until this
experience. I have had a multi-line fractured skull, a
lance in the groin at a closing speed of 45 mph, blowing my
bowels out, resulting in 7 ½ hours of surgery, a horse rolling
over on me driving the saddle horn in my arm resulting in a
compound fracture
with surgery to put in a steel
plate, seven pins and a bone graft. I have not known any
pain as extreme as this.
I knew my back was broken.
Ruel tried to make me as comfortable as possible. Then he
headed to camp to get some oils and help. I asked him not
to wake Mary as I did not want her to come up on the mountain
and see me lying there bloodied and crippled, and yet what was I
to do? Many thoughts raced through my mind. If I
couldn’t walk, I certainly couldn’t get on a horse, and they
couldn’t land a helicopter where I was, and it would take two
days to get out and get a chopper in anyway. I couldn’t
even get something for the horrible pain that was screaming
through my body. I knew that I was in a serious situation
that would put a horrible stress on my family and friends.
No one really knew how to get back out of this rugged Frank
Church, River Of No Return Wilderness Area in central Idaho 40
miles from the closest community of Challis where I had brought
them.
I knew I had only one choice
which caused my mind to go back to my accident of 1973 when God
healed me from a devastating injury. I knew I had to and could
do it again. I prayed with all the strength that I had
left and prayed the prayer of faith in Jesus Christ (James 5:15,
1:6) and asked that He make me whole, and take the pain away
that I could no longer endure, so that I could stand and walk
off the mountain. I prayed for about a half an hour until
Ruel and Karen returned. They put the oils on my back and
I then stood up. Karen and Ruel wanted to help me stand
but I said “No that would say that I didn’t have faith.”
They wanted to help me off the mountain, but again I declined,
believing that this would also demonstrate a lack of faith.
I even bent over, picked up the shovel, asked Ruel to hand me a
set of big pots and pans, and I walked off the mountain 300
yards to camp and 100 yards up the creek to the natural hot
water. I took off my shoes and got in the hot water.
I was washing off the blood and relaxing when Mary found me.
She asked me if something was wrong and I told her my back was a
little sore. She asked me what happened to my face?
I said, “Oh, I just cut my face on a limb when I was getting
everything out of the tree.”
I soaked in the hot water and
the cold creek three times that day putting oils on each time I
got out of the water. Wednesday morning I got up and
soaked again in the hot water and the cold water in the creek,
had breakfast, and told everyone I felt so well that in a couple
more days I would be able to ride out and then took out my
fishing pole and went fishing.
About two hours later, I
returned to camp feeling a little fatigued. Later that
afternoon I started running a fever and taking chills. I
thought, “Oh no, I’ve injured my spinal cord. What if it
is punctured and I’m getting an infection?”
The very moment my thoughts went
there, the pain exploded throughout my entire back. I
wanted to scream, but didn’t because my little sons, Jacob and
Josef were there and Jacob was already pretty upset and didn’t
know why. He just kept asking Mary if Daddy was ok?
Ruel, Karen and Tamara came in the tent with Mary and me and
they all prayed for me. Ruel gave me a blessing and they
continued praying throughout the night as well. I realized
what I had done and prayed feverishly through the night asking
God to forgive me, for doubting and not trusting in the healing
He had given me. The pain, after five hours, started to
subside and I finally fell asleep in the early morning.
However, it did cause a little unrest in everyone and it was
finally decided that Ruel would ride out and get help. He
returned late that afternoon just at dusk and informed us that
Life Flight would be coming the next day.
I continued to soak in the hot
water and Karen and Tamara did
Raindrop and energy work on me both Thursday and Friday
which really helped a lot. The Life Flight helicopter
arrived about 7:00 p.m. Friday evening and transported me to the
Steele Memorial Hospital in Salmon, Idaho. They first did
a CT scan and then x-rays were taken later.
The diagnosis was a compression
fracture crushing the L-2 vertebra pulverizing 50% of it along
with swelling and edema to the spinal cord reported by Dr.
Meyers. He then said, “You must work out and have a pretty
good diet as it was only because of your physical condition that
your life was saved.”
It was said that the only thing
that could be done was to put me in a body brace with bed rest
for eight to ten weeks with morphine for pain control and a
recovery time of six to eight months. Mary arrived at the
hospital Saturday evening. I had already checked myself out and
was waiting for her. We stayed in a hotel that night
waiting for Emily and her husband Cory to pick me up in the
motor home. They had flown Saturday afternoon to St.
Maries to pick up the coach and drive it to Salmon and pick us
up. We left Salmon Sunday morning arriving
home that evening.
By the time I got in the house
the pain was shooting off the rector scale. Mary was busy
trying to help me get comfortable and I was at the point of
screaming again. I started wishing I had some morphine,
Jack Daniels, anything to stop the pain.
I wanted to “check out” as the
pain was so unbearable, draining me of my strength. I
asked Mary to call Eldon, who is a friend I knew would pray with
me without a biased opinion who believed unconditionally.
He suggested I talk with a friend of his by the name of Thurman
who had experienced many Godly healings through faith. I
called him and he prayed with me. After I hung up the
phone, Mary asked, “What do you think?” I said, “Mary, God
healed me and took the pain away and I walked off the mountain.”
(St John 15:7) Wednesday, when I began to doubt, the pain
came back with a vengeance. I prayed and asked God’s
forgiveness and the pain left just as quickly as it had come.
In the Salmon hospital, as I heard the diagnosis, I began to
doubt again and the pain came back again.
As I pondered my situation, I
realized that God had healed me but I lacked the faith in
sustaining that healing because of worldly conditioning.
It became evident to me that either I believe, and trust, and
live it or I don’t. (James 16: 23-24) If what God says in
His word is true, then how can I question it? If I take
the pain pills then I am saying that I don’t believe in His
word. I absolutely have to believe. Mary said,
“Well, do you,” and I said, “Yes,” and stood up and walked
absolutely pain free. I bent over, touched my toes, ran
around the house, and ran up and down the stairs. Mary was
crying with joy seeing this absolute miracle.
I ran out to the barn, up to the
apartment where Vallorie was watching Jacob and Josef. I
picked Josef up, and through him up to the ceiling and catching
him, all of his 30 pounds – and I had a broken back with no
pain?!
I slept like a baby Sunday night
100% pain free. I awoke Monday morning, jumped out of bed
and had a small muscle spasm. Again the thought rushed
through my mind, “Oh no, it didn’t last!” The pain
exploded through my spine as I crawled into the shower feeling
my hopes dashed on the rocks as pain and depression engulfed me.
I realize now that if I had had medications available, I would
naturally have taken them. That would have been the conditioned
thing to do in our world today rather then turn to God. I took
control of my thoughts and prayed for Jesus to take the devil of
pain from my body and my home and prayed again for forgiveness
for my lack of faith. Slowly the pain diminished and went
away. Tuesday, I resumed my activities as normal.
On Wednesday, August 17, I went
to the University of Utah Hospital and was examined by two back
specialists who were in absolute shock that I could work out,
bend over, and touch my toes without pain. They said it
was impossible for someone with an injured spine, to that
degree, to get up and walk off the mountain. The doctor in
the Salmon Hospital said the same thing to me and then
apologized for talking as though I was lying to him. The
University of Utah doctors were just astounded and hardly knew
what to say. They kept asking me what I did for the pain.
I told them I took the
essential oils of valerian and vetiver internally for the pain
on Wednesday evening and Thursday when the pain was so severe
but have not taken any since that time.
By the following Monday morning
I was back in the gym running on the elliptical and lifting
weights again.
I bear testimony to the
truthfulness of this experience with many other people who
witnessed the things which I have written here. I bear
witness of the knowing of God and His son Jesus Christ, that He
does hear and answer prayers through faith as He has promised in
James 1: 5-6, John 14: 12, 15: 4-7, 15: 10,
16:23-24, Romans 1:17, Hebrews 11:6, Luke 1:37, 10:19, 17:19,
Peter 1:7, just to share a few of the scriptures of faith.
I desire to offend no one, only
to share the truth of a miracle that I was blessed to receive
and pray that through sharing this with you it will strengthen
your faith in Jesus Christ in knowing that He still works
miracles. But, we can’t pray and then turn our backs on
Jesus and run straight away to the doctor, or take the
poisonous drugs (1 Corinthians 2:5, 3:16-22) that are the
gateway for Satan to enter our bodies simply because we put
our faith in the arm of flesh. One thing among many that I
learned was that when we pray we can not put conditions in our
prayers. Like if it is the Lord’s will or God’s will. God is not
a will God. He is a faith God and when we pray with escape
clauses then there is no faith. You must pray with absolute
knowing and then demonstrate it in faith by acting as though
nothing had happened, by getting up and walking. When God has
given us the herbs of the field and the anointing oils for our
medicine, and a sound mind to demonstrate faith, why do we allow
ourselves to be conditioned away from God to our own
destruction?
D. Gary Young
August 29, 2005
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