Nay. Allah is your Protector and He is the best of helpers.” (Qur’an: Translation of the meaning, 3:150)
asalam alaikum wr wb,
SubhanAllah, it's hard to imagine anyone surviving this but Allah protected this woman from death despite her horrific accident.
http://media.katu.com/images/080205_knife7_470.jpg
http://media.katu.com/images/080205_knife4_470.jpg
Friday, February 08, 2008
BY LAURA McVICKER, Columbian staff writer
When Mary Townsen tripped, she saw the butcher knife below her - pointing up. She fell face first on the blade and it plunged into her left eye. Blood was running down her throat, and she felt a choking sensation as she tried to stand up. "Will you help me," she yelled to her neighbor.
Paramedics and police arrived at Townsen's Battle Ground home and rushed her to Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland. They all had the same question: "Who did this to you?"
Nobody, she told them - she was gardening with the knife when she stood up for a moment, lost her footing and fell on the blade. The knife, which was stuck in the ground with the blade pointing up and braced by a rock, pierced her brain, nearly to the back of her skull.
After her terrifying ordeal, the 72-year-old was hospitalized 15 days and underwent surgery to remove the knife, which doctors said remarkably missed her brain stem, the most critical part of the brain, and left her eye fully intact. The miracle of it baffled surgeons.
That was 2 ¼ years ago.
Now, Townsen suffers only certain memory lapses of information, such as street names and phone numbers of loved ones, which doctors attribute to the trauma to her brain. She has full vision.
Townsen felt no shock or fear during the episode, she said, and now has a simple message.
"I think God saved me so I can tell everybody not to be afraid to die," Townsen said earlier this week from her home.
Her journey included the surgery and relearning tasks she's known most of her life - reading, writing, adding and subtracting and driving a car. Her late husband, Chuck, helped her before his July 2006 death from cancer. She's still learning.
It was Aug. 16, 2005, when Townsen was cutting weeds in her front yard. Neighbor Kelly Eldred's daughter, playing basketball in the driveway, heard a strangled call for help. She saw the silhouette of a knife sticking from the woman's head. She ran inside to tell her mom, who went next door as the daughter called 911.
Eldred, stunned, cradled the woman in her arms while Townsen pleaded with her to take the knife out. Eldred decided to wait until paramedics arrived.
"I thought, 'She's going to die any minute,' " Eldred said. "We didn't know if she was going to lose that eye. We didn't know how she would be mentally - if she would be OK."
Like 911 dispatchers, paramedics were in disbelief while transporting Townsen to Emanuel. It took much assurance from Townsen, Eldred and family members that she hadn't been stabbed by another person.
That moment was the last Townsen remembered. She awoke 15 days later in a hospital bed. She was discharged with her eye intact and little head trauma.
Surgeons waited three days before removing the knife, and beforehand, told Townsen's family members the operation was likely to kill Townsen, said Janice Hook of Clark County, one of Townsen's three grown children. The threat: removing the knife could likely split the carotid artery in the brain.
Remarkably, however, Dr. Kent Grewe, Townsen's neurosurgeon, said when he removed the knife, her eye remained untouched, and there was no bleeding. And a CAT scan showed the knife had missed her brain stem and carotid artery by only millimeters, escaping fatal injuries.
The results were astounding for Grewe, who called it "the luck of the trajectory" that the knife missed these key organs. And Grewe believed the knife went through the eye socket, but narrowly missed the actual eyeball.
"This is one of the most bizarre stories we've had," he said. "It's one of those one-in-a- million cases."
No one was more surprised than Townsen's family. But how would she fare at home in the coming months?
When Townsen arrived home and began her usual routine, she realized she couldn't balance a checkbook. She didn't remember streets. She'd mix up how to prepare a grilled cheese sandwich. She had to use a walker.
Slowly, but surely, her memory began returning, and simple things such as doing addition and subtraction became easier. A year later, her husband taught her to drive.
This wasn't Townsen's first near-death experience. She was 4 when she suffered a reaction from anesthetic during an operation to remove her tonsils and remembers gates and a faceless man telling her her time hadn't come yet. Next time, he said, she could stay.
Doctors who operated on Townsen agreed she' must be on pretty good terms with a higher power.
They told Townsen's daughter: "Neither of us are religious men, but if there is a God, she must know him by his first name."
Online Video: Visit with Mary Townsen at www.columbian.com/video .
Laura McVicker
wa alaikum asalam wr wb
Last edited by aamirsaab; 05-05-2008 at 04:48 PM. Reason: see my post.
La Hawla Wa La Quwwata Illa Billah...oh:
....... whoah.....She was 4 when she suffered a reaction from anesthetic during an operation to remove her tonsils and remembers gates and a faceless man telling her her time hadn't come yet. Next time, he said, she could stay.
Praise God for this miracle!
Doesn't this show that God loves and cares for unbelievers too?
What an amazing story!
The picture made me queasy, but thanks for sharing the story ...
What I deduced from the story, is God gave her yet another chance to find the truth...Doesn't this show that God loves and cares for unbelievers too?
Peace.
Was it ever otherwise? That god didn't show love and cared about the unbelievers?format_quote Originally Posted by glo
... because he is a loving and gracious God.format_quote Originally Posted by - Brok3n -
What I deduced from the story, is God gave her yet another chance to find the truth...
Peace.
I am reminded of this:
AmenThe Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
(2 Peter 3:9)
No, I don't think so.format_quote Originally Posted by Hamada
But in our human self-righteousness we sometimes forget, and call for judgment and punishment ... when God in his mercy still shows patience.
Do you know the story of Jonah and the city of Nineveh?
When God saw that the people of Nineveh repented, he forgave them. Jonah on the other hand was angry with God, because he wanted to see the people punished!
Good thing that God is in charge, and not we who claim to follow him!
Allahu Akbar !!!
Waheguru Satnam Kirpa Dhare!
Amen, may God Bless her.. From this I have come to realise the Human Body is so very intricate... I cant beleive some people think we evolved from monkeys and Life is jus.. a Co-Incidence due to a Big Bang... Her body started to recover and her brain was in good functional order... Im amazed at this miracle, just goes to show God is always watching and protecting..
beautiful.. =D Hallelujah!"I think God saved me so I can tell everybody not to be afraid to die,"
but WOOOW SUBHANALLAH!
MAshallah!
Ther was this other story about this guy who tripped on a biiig loong metal rod and it went from his hip to his neck and missed his heart!! WooW its just the title of that show that killed it..."More than human" thats stupid
anyway
WooW
MAshallah!
Jazakallah khair!
Tha POWER of ALLAH!
ALLAHU AKBAR!
I'm gonna be sick...
There's people dying, being tortured, being kept in basement for 24 years... people of all faiths and un-faiths. And then one woman survives a weird accident and suddenly everyone's flaunting about God being merciful...wait, not just merciful - merciful to the unbelievers!
:X
No offence, glo and everyone. I'm sure you find some of my views as awful as I find yours on this particular matter.
format_quote Originally Posted by Whatsthepoint
You don't even believe in god.....i fink...
We do. we know that GOD did this, and we know that GOD ended this, and we know that GOD planned this but...u dont...
oh btw
UR MEAN! :laugh: (pretend thats crying right now...lol)
^^The point is that us mere humans cannot imagine anyone surviving or at least be seriously injured from something like this, yet God shows that He is above our expectations and saves whom He wills.
Belief does seem to make a difference.format_quote Originally Posted by truemuslim
Don't cry, sweetie.
yep it doesformat_quote Originally Posted by WhatsthepointBelief does seem to make a difference.
Don't cry, sweetie.
like how SOME people believe in all that superstition crap and some people dont...and somthing happens, they say "oh godthats supastition baby! see!" and others say "nah its just natural thing dat happened !"
?
its ok i have no idea wat i just said either...
Edited image to url link. In future, if you are putting up graphic pics/images in your post, please put it in [url] form as apposed to [img]. That way, people can view the thread without habing their eyes pop out.
format_quote Originally Posted by aamirsaab
Edited image to url link. In future, if you are putting up graphic pics/images in your post, please put it in [url] form as apposed to [url]. That way, people can view the thread without habing their eyes pop out.
hehehe lool
yeh i gotta skip it quick before i see it again
ewwwww
!
lol
and jazakallah khair
format_quote Originally Posted by aamirsaab
Edited image to url link. In future, if you are putting up graphic pics/images in your post, please put it in [url] form as apposed to [url]. That way, people can view the thread without habing their eyes pop out.
asalam alaikum wr wb,
Lol ok inshaAllah. My apologies, I forgot about the faint-hearted.
wa alaikum asalam wr wb.
format_quote Originally Posted by gloHi Whatsthepointformat_quote Originally Posted by Whatsthepoint
On second reading I can see that my post can be read to sound superior and patronising - especially to a non-believer.
That was not my intention, and I apologise!
I had been participating in another thread, where we discussed whether God hears the prayer of believers who sin, and I had argued that indeed he did.
That discussion was still in the back of my mind, when I posted here ... and I made a mental leap from one thread to the other, which of course the reader of my post cannot know unless s/he is a mind-reader... (My husband tells me I do that kind of thing all the time, and it is very confusing! :X)
I suppose this thread boils down to the age-old question of why God allows bad things to happen ... when it doesn't seem fair to our human mind.
Some people are put off believing in a God, who lets good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, or who allows bad things to happen per se.
Some believers take this a step further: why do bad things happen to devout believers, and good things to unbelievers?
Ou human sense of justice kicks in, and we challenge God.
I have no answer.
To accept this to be the way of life, means to trust that God knows what he is doing, that there is a justice behind this, and that he has a purpose, even for suffering.
And to trust that, means to have faith.
I guess that's the point.
I don't know if this post clarifies my previous one a little.
Again, apologies if I cause offense.
Peace
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