Not every one of us believes in miracles. However, sometimes the occurrences around us make us want to believe in the existence of a higher power and miracles. Taylor Hale‘s life is a testimony to it. When she was 14 years old, the teenager went through a fatal incident. However, the events that followed were unbelievable.
Back in September 2011, just two weeks into her freshman year, Taylor suffered a traumatic brain injury while horsing around with friends after a high school football game. She slid off a car hood and hit her head, hard, against the pavement. Her incredible trajectory – from being declared brain-dead, according to her family, to now getting ready to go to college – was first documented in the Des Moines Register.
“‘Taylor’s been in an accident. She’s laying in the middle of the street, and the ambulance is on its way,’” Taylor’s mom, Stacy Henningsen, recalled one of Taylor’s friends telling her that night four years ago.
Taylor went from being a high school cheerleader and “spunky little thing” to lying unconscious in the intensive care unit of Des Moines’ Blank Children’s Hospital. Doctors put the Waukee teen in a medically-induced coma and told her family that they would know more about her chances of walking, talking, and being able to eat without a feeding tube as the days passed.
Machines monitored the swelling in Taylor’s brain. A constant stream of family and friends came to see her, but doctors warned visitors they couldn’t talk or make any loud noises that would overstimulate Taylor. Her parents softly read her the “Twilight” book series as she lay motionless covered in tubes.
“She was the most serious patient there,” Henningsen said.
Jeff Stickel, a family friend, and chiropractor came to the hospital one day after the parents received the difficult news. As a devout Christian, Stickel wanted to pray for Taylor and her family. He told her parents that he felt God was calling him to help heal Taylor.
Taylor’s parents told Stickel there was nothing he could do for their daughter, but agreed to let him pray with them anyway. He placed his hands on Taylor’s neck and asked God to spare her life.
Her family said their goodbyes. But when they turned off her life support, the determined teen slowly started waking up. Incredibly, Taylor finally awoke from her coma.
“It was the hand of God at work,” her father Chuck Hale told the Register. “That’s the only thing that can explain it.”
She fought to keep up with her schoolwork, as she painfully relearned how to walk. Taylor has no recollection of the accident and can no longer remember her childhood, the devastated teen told reporters through tears.
But on Monday, she’ll put on a cap and gown and graduate with the rest of her class. Then she’s off to Des Moines Area Community College, where she plans to study to become an event planner for two years.
“Something I learned from this whole experience is you never know when life is going to take you or your loved ones, so you need to keep them close to you and spend as much time with them as you can and just keep fighting,” she said.
Sources: OpposingViews, Daily Mail, KCCI
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