The young couple lived very full lives managing a bed and breakfast/retreat center. One winter morning, they went to church with plans to stay for the potluck after the service, however, they decided to go straight home. Sitting down at the table for lunch, he thought he heard someone calling out but could not determine a source until he walked out the back door and realized a guest had fallen through the ice and was fighting to get out of the frigid water!
She called 911, while he grabbed a sled and raced to the lake. Lying down on the sled, using the runners, he carefully pushed himself across the ice to the open water where his guest was now unconscious in the water. When emergency workers arrived, they threw a line and pulled them both off the ice.
Unknown to them at that time, the guest had left the house at 12:35, fallen through the ice where some underground springs caused open water under the snow, and had been submerged in the near-freezing water for over an hour before being discovered! Using warming blankets, the emergency team worked for almost an hour trying to no avail to warm him enough to even measure his temperature. Arriving at the hospital, his internal body temperature was only up to 80 degrees.
He regained consciousness. After spending the night in the intensive care unit under observation he was able to be discharged the following day
When the owner of the bed and breakfast was later sharing about having arrived on the scene as they were pulling him out of the water and about his amazing recovery, someone said the body’s systems all shut down in hypothermia so that is probably what saved him, the owner quickly clarified, “It was a God thing. He is now working in full time ministry.”
For sure, the last minute change of plans of this couple to not stay for the potluck was life-saving!