The Story of Bill One of many miracles as told in the book -- In the Name of Jesus, Be Healed |
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BILL'S STORY In December 1981, I went to the island of St. Lucia on business. I owned a typewriter rental business and had rented IBM typewriters to the Organization of American States for a meeting in Castrice, the biggest town in St. Lucia. My technician, Bob Adams, and I went to St. Lucia to set up the machines. All of the Heads of State or their representatives were at the meeting. Around noon on December 4, after preparing for the meeting, Bob and I went to downtown Castrice. As we walked down the main street, I bought a bag of popcorn. We encountered a woman who was begging, asking me for my popcorn. I walked over and gave it to her. As I turned around and took a few steps, I was thrust forward, landing on all fours. I didn't know what had happened. I opened my eyes to see the sidewalk filling with blood. As I turned around and looked up, I saw, standing over me, a guy with matted reddish-black hair that stuck straight out. He was a Rastafarian4. He had a machete in his hand and his second blow was aimed for my forehead. I instinctively raised my right hand for protection. The machete came down, cutting through my right wrist. My hand was hanging by a few threads of skin. All the muscles were hanging out and blood was spurting everywhere. Bob was trying to distract my assailant, but he swung at me again. I grabbed the machete blade with my left hand and held the machete long enough to get up. He pulled the blade away, deeply slicing the fingers and thumb on my left hand. As he prepared to strike again, I threw my left elbow up to keep him from hitting me in the head a second time. Then I started running down the street holding my injured right hand with my left hand. Seeing shops along the way, I rushed into several to seek protection and something to wrap around my severed hand. Everybody shooed me away, fearful of the terrible sight, since blood was spewing all over. I finally got down the street and a man grabbed me by the arm and said, "Come with me, I'll help you". He took me to an ambulance. There were ambulances strategically placed throughout the city because of all the OAS VIP's in town. The man took my ring and Rolex watch. Before we went very far, the ambulance stopped so that Bob could join us. I told Bob that the man had my watch, so he got the watch back but I never saw the ring again. There is still a machete blade mark on the watchband, evidence of the bloody deed. I was taken to a hospital that was built in 1790, when the pirates still roamed the Leeward Island. There was neither glass nor screens in the windows, just big, wooden, storm shutters, as protection from the frequent tropical storms experienced at those latitudes. I was put on a piece of plywood with 2 by 4 legs, the standard emergency personnel transport device for these economically poor islands, and carried up a flight of stairs to the operating room. The room had a big, round light fixture in the ceiling with a lot of bulbs in it. Only one bulb was working. The doctor sewed my hand and head back together without giving me any anesthesia or pain medication. While his work was not perfect, it stopped the bleeding and saved my life. They gave me three or four pints of blood and took me into another room. The next thing I remember was that I was out of my body, up in the corner of the room where the ceiling and wall met. I was looking down at my body. I could also see what was happening outside my room, on the other side of the wall. The OAS representative who hired my company was there as well as three or four nuns who were praying the Rosary for me. I was still looking down on my body when my brother, Joe, and Tom Talbot, my doctor from Miami, walked through the door. Even though I could look down at my body, I could not communicate with my rescuers. It was a terrible struggle to get from the ceiling corner back into my body again so I could talk with them. I kept trying. Soon I re-entered my body, woke up, and talked to them. I told them how painful it was and begged them to help me. Dr. Talbot asked the surgeon if he could examine the wounds and, after being given permission, unwrapped the bandages on my arms, hands and head. He then re-bandaged me and gave me pain medication. I next found myself being loaded into a small single-engine Cessna plane in which the rear seats had been removed to accommodate my stretcher. Dr. Talbot and my brother, Joe, were my escorts for the trip home. The local pilot flew us to the international airport that was about forty miles away, at the extreme southern tip of St. Lucia. From there they transferred me to a Delta Airlines flight for transport to Miami. Joe was forced to buy the entire first-class section of the plane for us in order to prevent the other passengers from becoming alarmed by my wounded condition. We boarded last, and the first-class cabin curtains were kept closed for the entire flight. When we arrived in Miami, I was taken immediately to Jackson Memorial Hospital where I underwent twenty-two hours of surgery. The Miami surgeons had to revise much of what had been repaired in St. Lucia since ligaments had been sewn to tendons and tendons to nerves. They said it would have been better if no surgery had been performed in St. Lucia as additional trauma was incurred in order to try to make corrections. The first machete blow to the right side of my head, just missing the neck, severed the nerves at my temple as well as my facial nerve. The blow to my right wrist severed the nerves to my hand. The doctors explained that a nerve is like a phone cable with many little wires in it. They could sew the outside together, but they could not correctly reconnect all the little fibers inside. Those fibers had to grow back slowly at their own pace if ever at all. The nerves never recovered to normal. That is why, even today, I can rub one finger and feel it in my thumb. Microsurgery does wonders but it has its limitations. After that, I lost count of how many times I had additional surgery, but it continued for over one year. When I went to see Father Lubey, the right side of my face did not work at all. There was no nerve supply to the muscles, so I looked like I had a severe stroke. That whole side of my face hung down and the eye did not work well either. I could not blink and the eye stayed open even when I slept. Luckily I could actually see out of both eyes. I often noticed the alarmed look of many people who saw me for the first time and could imagine their thinking, "What an awful face; what a poor man". My right hand had very little joint movement and poor sensation. I could not make a fist with the hand that was less damaged since the tendons that bend the index finger and thumb had been cut and repaired, but were not functional. We had finished decorating my apartment in College Park, Maryland, and my sister, Googie, and her husband from North Carolina, were visiting us for the weekend. Googie has Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and had arranged to see Father Lubey in Olney to obtain a private blessing. She invited several family members to go along. I went as a courtesy to my sister, skeptical but curious about this "healing priest". At the time, I was still single, running around, and having a pretty good time. I had started dating Linda, who I met at my hand therapy sessions. We drove to Olney. On the way, I was making jokes, trying to soften the moment. We met Father Lubey and he took us to a little office. We all sat down and he sat behind the desk folding his hands over his stomach. This was some time after the Star Wars movie was released. I whispered to Linda, "You know who he reminds me of? The little guy with the wrinkly face, Yoda." Linda got mad with me. But that's exactly what he looked like. He talked to everyone in the room. There were probably five of us, and we chatted for a while. He also asked me about myself. I told him I had had a few problems. When he asked me what they were, I told him about my machete incident, my still not-perfect hands and head injuries and added that my previous back problems after surgery were still with me. He said, "Well, would you all like me to bless you now?" We said, "Yes". So he got up, started at one end of the group, and went around and blessed each of us. Father Lubey then asked everyone individually, "How did you feel when you were blessed?" He started with Googie and she said, "Well, I felt peaceful." As he asked each person, the response was a feeling of peace. When he got around to me, I said, "No, it wasn't like that at all for me. I had a vision of a bright blue sky with some nice, white, fluffy clouds floating by." Father said, "Well, let's all come over here and put hands on Bill." As they gathered around, placing their hands on me, he said, "We are going to give Bill another blessing." He took his right hand and touched me on the back of the neck with his index finger. Out of the index finger came this "thing" that felt like a small ball with points on it. It moved from his finger, into my neck, and down my right arm. As this went into my arm, the two people holding my arm could feel it moving down. They wondered how I could cause the vibration they felt. But I was not doing anything. It went into my right hand. I had no control over it. My hand started opening and closing by itself. This "thing" stayed down there for a long time. Then, it came back up, went down my left arm, and into my left hand, which also started working. Next, it went up the right side of my face where it "picked up" the whole side of my face. I started making very grotesque faces but I did not have any control over it. The facial muscles that had not worked since the machete attack just started working. Then the prickly object returned to my neck and disappeared. Stunned, everyone sat down as Father Lubey walked to his chair and sat down. I guess with all of the stress of having this happen, all these uncontrollable things happening in my body, I started perspiring. Father Lubey asked me why I was perspiring and I said, "I don't know, but that was very powerful!" Then he quietly said, "That was the Lord." When we were ready to leave, Father Lubey said goodbye to everyone else, then grabbed my arm as I was going out of the room, asking, "Would you stay just a minute, Bill?" I said, "Sure". I stayed, and he closed the office door. He looked me right in the eye and said, "Would you mind if I embraced you?" I said, "No". He gave me a big bear hug, I gave him a hug back, and he thanked me as he led me out to the door. When we got into our car, I noticed that my right hand was still working. One of the things I could feel in the hand was a tremendous amount of strength. The car we were in had a great big handle. I said, "You know, if I wanted to, I could take that handle off". My sister, Ruth, was in the back seat and she warned me. "Please do not take the handle off!" I know that if I had wanted to, without any stress at all, I could have. I had that much strength in that hand. We went home. Everyone went his or her way. I think my sister, who had MS, was probably disappointed that she did not experience anything more than a peaceful feeling. Many people were excited for me about what happened, but others did not believe us when we told them the story. I had been left-handed all my life. Since the attack, I was completely unable to use my right hand. The day after we visited Father Lubey, I was in the shower, facing my shower mirror, ready to bathe, shave, and brush my teeth. I put shaving cream on my face when suddenly and uncontrollably my right hand reached for the razor! Without even looking in the mirror, I shaved myself faster than I have ever shaved in my life. Frightened, I looked at the razor to see if there was any blood. Then I called out to Linda, "Come quickly! Am I bleeding anywhere?" There was no blood. We marveled. I had not attended Mass regularly since raising my children after my divorce. After Father Lubey's blessing, I began going to Mass weekly. In church, I could feel the same uncontrollable movements in my hands and face that happened when Father Lubey blessed me. My right hand would start opening and closing very tightly, but I was not doing it. At the same time, my facial muscles began working. It seemed to me that there was a very strong presence of the Lord in the churches where it happened. I especially remember the time it happened at a church in Naples, Florida. We were visiting one of my sisters and went to a church that was a distance from her home. I do not know what prompted us to go there except that we had heard that the church had been refurbished. It was beautiful! I had never seen anything so pretty in my life. The church was huge, with a round altar. The phenomenon was very strong and dramatic there. It has happened ten or twelve times, at different churches. After Father Lubey's blessing, my hand opened and closed better than before. The most amazing thing was the memory of the prickly object that the others and I felt traveling in my neck, arms, and hands. Father said I would heal more in time. Now my face is completely lifted and I can make a fist. This was a strong wake-up call for me. Bill Florida |