‘Miracle Man’ Has Vision of Heaven

“It was just tough to breathe. I knew that that wasn’t normal and wasn’t right,” explained Thomas Carpenter. It was March 18, 2020, just one week since he had been sent home from the hospital with severe flu-like symptoms. “The doctor on the phone said, ‘I’m calling the ER. I’m telling them that you’re coming, so go now,’” recalled Thomas’s wife Angelia.

By then, the World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and visitors were no longer allowed in hospitals. After dropping Thomas off, Angelia watched helplessly as he walked into the ER, alone. “And I tried to reassure her, and I’m gonna be fine,” Thomas noted. “You just let them take care of me.”

“I just remember on the way home bawling my little eyes out,” said Angelia. “I just let it out before the Lord. I walked back into the apartment, the Lord said, ‘Angelia, what was the word that I gave you this morning?’ And I was like, 'yeah, Lord, You gave me the word hope.' I remember saying out loud, ‘Lord, You did not give me that word, hope, for my husband to die. And I held onto that.”

Doctors told Thomas his oxygen level was dangerously low and they were admitting him to the critical care unit. Thomas called Angelia, urging her to get people praying. Angelia recalled, “I was on mission to fulfill what he asked me to do and to get everybody praying. I am hanging onto that hope that the Lord had spoke to me.”

“My thoughts were just, Lord, you got this,” Thomas added. The 55-year-old was put in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator. Over the coming weeks as his condition continued to deteriorate, Thomas would be one step away from becoming another COVID-19 statistic. “The doctor would call, and say, 'It’s just touch and go. We’re just gonna have to wait and see,'” said Angelia.

By April, reports of the rapidly growing number of COVID deaths dominated the headlines. Angelia did what she could to be near her husband. “I would drive to the hospital and just sit in the parking lot and look at the building. I would just say, ‘Lord, my husband is somewhere in that building and You’re with him,” she explained. “Our two daughters and their husbands…they left their homes just to come and be with me while Thomas was in a coma. It was kind of like calling the family in because Thomas could pass away.”

Dr. Brent Bergen, a pulmonary critical care physician, explained: “When we were putting people on ventilators or life support, we were having them say goodbye to their family. Back then, very few were coming off the ventilator,” said Dr. Bergen.

As missionaries, the couple knew people all over the world who were now praying. Meanwhile, still in a coma and clinging to life, Thomas says something extraordinary happened. He remembers going to heaven. God was by his side, giving him peace. He saw his son Buck who had died after a car accident when he was just eight years old. “When I saw him, he was laying right there in the crook of my arm,” Thomas stated. “And I looked down there and I saw him grinning so big, and I said, ‘Son, you gotta tell me, what were you feeling?’ He said ‘Dad, what are you feeling now?’ And I said, ‘Man, this is just so much peace.’ And he said, ‘Dad, that’s exactly what I felt, because you’re exactly where I was.’”

He also heard people around the world praying for him. “It sounded like I was in a large football stadium, and somebody just scored a touchdown. It was so loud,” Thomas said. He says, then, one person’s voice rose above the countless others. Thomas explained, “I heard my wife say, ‘Lord, would you heal my wonderful husband, Thomas? I need him.’ And it was right then that I opened my eyes.”

It was late evening, Easter Sunday. Angelia got the call the next day. “I talked to the nurses on that Monday morning, and they said they were just in total, total shock,” she said. In fact, they were calling him “the miracle man.”

“It’s the day after Easter, but it feels like Christmas,” stated Angelia. Thomas added, “It’s an amazing feeling. To know that God is concerned about even the least of us…it is just such a blessing.”

Dr. Bergen believes it was divine intervention that allowed Thomas to beat the odds. “What we do is supportive. We allowed God to take care of him and restore him,” he noted.

After several weeks in rehab, hard work, and prayer, Thomas went home…two months after going into the hospital. He and Angelia are thankful for the healing power of prayer. “He was in a coma for 33 days,” said Angelia. “We actually found out later, after he had been in the coma and everything, that he had a three percent chance of making it. He’s just a walking miracle and we’re so thankful for that.”

Thomas concluded, “For everyone that prayed for me, know that I’m here as a result of your prayers. I wouldn’t be here without your prayers and my wife’s.”

(Please click on the link to purchase Angelia Carpenter's book, "Sweet to Trust, Lessons I've Learned From the Life of My Son.")