Prayers to Father Emil Kapaun are Answered with a Miracle

As girl lay near death, family prayed to Kapaun - Wichita Eagle

The following excerpt is from Wichita Eagle - Kansas.com:

In October 2006, 12-year-old Avery Gerleman scored a goal in a soccer game.

She did not celebrate. She walked to the sidelines and threw up a gob of bright red blood into the grass.

She told her coach, "I need to get back in there."

The coach sat her down. After that, bad went to worse.

Doctors in Wichita put Avery in a drug-induced coma and pushed a breathing tube down her throat. Avery's lungs filled with blood. Her kidneys shut down.

There was so much air and fluid leaking into her chest that her heart nearly stopped beating from the pressure.

Doctors told Melissa and Shawn Gerleman that their daughter was going to die. Melissa cried.

She and Shawn began to pray; to Jesus and to a priest from Kansas who had been dead for 55 years.

Doctors say what happened next is the most mysterious medical recovery they have ever seen.

Avery's two primary physicians are scientists, with intellectual allegiances rooted firmly in facts and skeptical reasoning. And they are Protestants, with none of the Gerleman family's training in the Catholic traditions of sainthood, guardian angels and miracles.

But the doctors have told the Vatican that Avery's recovery is so unusual that there is no other explanation for what happened: They say it's a miracle.

Avery's parents say Father Emil Kapaun heard the prayers, and tipped the scales in heaven.

Read more: As girl lay near death, family prayed to Kapaun