God’s Timing Orchestrated a Miracle

Lamar Erdman had always been the picture of health, often taking hikes into the woods to fish and hunt in his home state of Pennsylvania. On Sunday, January 5^th, 2020, he and his wife Karen had settled in for a relaxing afternoon after church. She called a friend to chat while he went down the hall to his home office to watch football and rest. The 67-year-old had just come home from a hunting trip two days earlier.  

A minute later Karen thought she heard him call to her. She recalls, “So I showed him the phone and said, ‘I'm on the phone.’ He's not a rude man, so when I heard him call again, I looked towards him, he was motioning for me to come to him. I knew something was wrong.”

Karen, a retired nurse, hung up and hurried to the office. She found her husband in tremendous pain and slurring his words. She says, “I immediately knew, this is not good. My heart started to immediately pound. My husband was in trouble.”

Suddenly, Lamar’s body seized up and he started gasping for air. Karen recognized it as agonal breathing – confirming he was having a heart attack. She recalls, “Panic sort of set in. Sometimes people look like they're like a fish out of water. His was like a moan, sometimes it's a growl which means he could be ready to die.”

Karen yelled loudly and shook Lamar trying to get him to come out of it. After about a minute his body relaxed and he was breathing normally again. Karen moved him to the floor and dialed 9-1-1. He was still in tremendous pain and starting to turn pale. She says, “He was alert, didn't really want to talk. But he was conscious again. I could actually pray for him, laid hands on him and prayed for him. Asking God to touch him and keep him, keep him alive and keep him breathing and keep his heart beating.” 

Less than five minutes later the EMTs arrived. As they started working on Lamar, Karen noticed the EKG readout. She recalls, “It was a troubled heart. There was definitely still a risk that he could die. It was a scary moment.”

The EMTs loaded Lamar into their ambulance and rushed him to the fire station where a helicopter waited. Karen stayed behind and started calling friends and family for prayer. She says, “The first thing on my mind was, Lord, we need you. And I needed prayer warriors.”

Lamar was flown to Penn State Health Medical Center in Hershey, PA. Meanwhile, Karen began the long drive, praying as she went. She says, “At any time when someone is having a heart attack, usually there is a blockage somewhere. And until you get the blockages opened, there is a risk that the person could die at any time. But I, there was something in my heart, almost this relief that he was being taken care of and the Lord had ahold of him.”

At the hospital doctors discovered Lamar had two blocked arteries: one 90%, the other 100%. He was taken into surgery immediately where the medical team inserted a stent to clear the worst of the two. Karen arrived a few minutes after the surgery and saw Lamar being wheeled into his room. She recalls, “When I saw him, I was elated. I could see the difference in his color already. He had rosy cheeks, he had normal flesh color. He wasn't that pale gray that he had been when the ambulance took him.”

During surgery his kidneys had been compromised. So, in order to avoid further damage, doctors had to wait until they recovered before doing another surgery to clear the 90% blockage. Karen recalls, “At any time that one could have had a clot, the blockage completely close up. So that was a danger yet.”

Two days later, Lamar’s kidneys had recovered enough for the second stent surgery. Lamar recalls, “I almost felt 100% normal.”

The next day on January 8^th, he was released to go home. As they thanked God for healing, they began to see the Lord’s protection even before Lamar’s heart attack.

Karen says, “Two days before, he was out hunting in really cold weather. He didn’t die. He didn't have the heart attack then. If he would have been driving, that would have been bad. There's so many things that God just orchestrated for him to live.”

Today Lamar’s heart is still going strong, and the couple are back to enjoying life and looking forward to having many more years together. Karen says, “We were just grateful to God for allowing him to live.”

Lamar adds, “He just loves everybody. And He's willing to help anybody who's going to ask Him. The more people that pray for you, the better the results are going to be. I felt blessed that I had those friends who would take the time to do that.”

Karen concludes, “Hang on to God, no matter what, that's where your help comes from.”