Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I remember watching the St. Louis Cardinals-Houston Astros
NLCS game, and going to sleep.
The next thing I know, I woke up, and it was three weeks
later in the hospital.
On October 16, 2005 early in the morning, my neighbor
directly across the way on the second floor was cooking
French fries.
He left his kitchen for a moment, and came back and
found his kitchen on fire and tried to put the
fire out with water.
It spread up into the air ducts and then just shot right
over to my condo.
He went around to everyone's door, knocking on them, trying
to tell them there was a fire.
I'm a very heavy sleeper.
Apparently, he said that he knocked on my door, but I did
not hear him.
ADT contacted my parents, which thankfully, they only
lived about five minutes away, less than two miles.
The fire had been burning for about 35 or 40 minutes.
The firemen came in and rescued me.
I remember asking what had happened.
And they told me that I was in a fire, I had third and fourth
degree burns on 35% of my body, I had a carbon monoxide
level of 37.4%.
There was a neurologist there who knew from all her medical
study and research that anyone with a carbon monoxide level
of 37.4% should not survive, should not even have the
ability to thank her, talk.
And she told my parents that I would not survive.
My mother looked at her and said, No.
We believe in God.
He's going to be OK.
They cut open the bandages.
I was really confused a lot of the time.
They took donor skin from my own skin.
I remember screaming.
Scary, vivid, scrubbed my wounds.
It felt like they were pulling duct tape.
I didn't really comprehend.
I'd never been tortured before.
Torture would be very close to what I went through.
I really don't know how I would have made it if I did
not know Christ. That was my main thought when I was going
through all the pain.
He knew that he was going to die.
He knew that He was going to die a painful
death, nailed to a cross.
He knew he was going through it.
And he even prayed for the people that were putting him
through it.
He shouted, forgive them, Father, they do not know what
they're doing.
And you know, by no means am I trying to compare myself to
Him, but I thought that that was an outline of how someone
should be when they're suffering.
And I believe that if I did not know God or have Christ in
my life that it would have been completely different.
I am second, because I believe that this experience is
ultimately going to be used to serve Him.
He's always there.
He will always be there, even in the places where
you think He's not.
He will always be there.
And whether you know Him, you hate Him or you love Him, He
will always love you.
I am Lee Lucas and I am second.