A medical doctor is testifying that a woman was raised from the dead by the power of prayer hours after emergency room staff had done everything they could to revive her.
Dr. Landon D. Vinson, M.D., an emergency room doctor at the Coffeyville Regional Medical Center in Coffeyville, Kansas, recently told members of the First Assembly of God about the miracle he witnessed along with their pastor, Rev. Randy DePriest.
In a video posted to YouTube, Vinson gives his testimony to the congregation. It was during the spring of 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when an unnamed woman was taken to the emergency room in Coffeyville. She was receiving CPR when she was brought into the emergency room and was given CPR for an entire hour after arriving. But she had died.
“We did get her heart beating again, but essentially the only thing keeping her heart going were shots of adrenalin in her bloodstream and putting her on a ventilator,” Vinson said. “From a medical standpoint, she wasn’t alive. She was what we call ‘brain dead.'”
He described to the congregation the numerous ways medical officials determine a person has died. In this instance, they found no signs of life. The woman’s eyes were fixed and dilated; she showed no gag reflex, and her limbs showed signs of mottling, all of which precede the onset of rigor mortis. So, Dr. Vinson, his staff, and the woman’s husband decided to remove her from life support.
According to Vinson, the woman’s husband had asked someone to call DePriest to come and pray.
Vinson said he told the man, “Sure. We’ll wait for the pastor to get here.” He thought that he and the nurses would simply wait for the pastor out of respect for the woman and her husband.
After a few minutes, DePriest arrived at the hospital. The staff had not told him about the woman’s condition so he placed his hand on her shoulder and began to pray.
“We began to pray over her,” the doctor recalled. “My head was bowed. There was a nurse in the room. Maybe just a couple minutes into the prayer, a machine began sounding an alarm. I thought I would just turn it off so it would not be distracting. When I looked up, spontaneous breath began coming back. I saw a hand moving on this woman.”
As the pastor prayed over her, he began to ask her questions. She started nodding her head and responding.
He called her by name, and said, “This is Pastor Randy, and I’ve come to pray for you.” Her eyes opened, and he asked, “Can you hear me okay?” She nodded, “Yes.”
Then DePriest said, “Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior?” Again, she nodded “Yes.” He continued, “That’s great news. Today we’re going to do what scripture says. Where two or three agree, touching anything, and believing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, asking Him, it shall be done. So I’m asking God to restore your health and to heal you. Does that sound alright?” Again, her reply was, “Yes.”
“This made no sense to me because she did not have any sign of life,” Dr. Vinson said. He continued, “We had taken her off all medications. We had given her four medications to keep her heart going. Those were all turned off. But now her blood pressure was strong. It was going through the roof.”
She was blinking her eyes. I leaned down and asked, “‘Can you hear me?’ She nodded her head ‘Yes.’ I asked, ‘Do you want us to keep going and fight?’ She aggressively shook her head ‘Yes.'”
“That was the first true miracle that I’ve ever seen. It was a very humbling moment. I kept hearing God saying, ‘That is my child. I decide who lives.'”
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As the woman began responding, DePriest described to the congregation how two nurses quickly left the room to prepare her for sedation since she was becoming agitated from her intense pain. He noted when the medical professionals returned to transfer her from Coffeyville to another hospital for possible surgery, observation, and recovery, that she was fighting to remove herself from the gurney on which they had placed her.
As Dr. Vinson wrapped up his testimony, he described how he told a nurse, “This was a miracle.”
Vinson said he attempted to find reasons for the event in his medical books. He couldn’t find anything. It was then he heard a voice in his head, saying “It’s me. There is nothing else. It’s me,” the doctor told the congregation.
As an emergency room doctor, Vinson is very familiar with death. He told CBN News in an email that the event from his viewpoint was fairly simple. The woman was braindead.
“She was on multiple medications we call vasopressors, or pressors for short. These IV infusions keep the heart beating, increase the heart squeeze, and constrict blood vessels, all in an attempt to keep blood pressure high enough to perfuse the brain and vital organs. Other than these infusions keeping her heart beating and generating a blood pressure, and the ventilator giving oxygen and ventilating the lungs, there were no clinical signs of life. Her neurologic exam would classify her as braindead, and therefore justifiable to remove her from artificial life support,” he said.
“As Pastor DePriest came in we had just turned all her vasopressors off, and were preparing to extubate (take the patient off the ventilator) and anticipated rapid progression to the pronouncement of death,” the doctor explained.
“In summary, she was clinically dead and we were preparing to pronounce her so. She began moving and responding to the pastor’s questions during his prayer. She was not just generating her own heartbeat and blood pressure now, she was fighting the ventilator by her own breathing. She needed sedation medication to keep her on the cot and to facilitate transportation,” he noted.
“I see no other explanation than a miracle for this phenomenon. I am not claiming that a pastor raised a woman from the dead. I am saying his steadfast faith and prayer triggered or released something spiritual that transcended realms. I don’t know that I’ll ever understand the mechanism, but I know she was dead before the prayer, and alive after.”
Vinson told CBN News he could not remember the woman’s name or had no follow-up on her condition, but said it may have been a lesson about humility – not to put God in a box.
“I do know she was alive and responsive when she left in the ambulance taking her to another hospital. I don’t pretend to know the intent of God’s will, but I can’t help thinking her living or dying was not the point. I think it may have been a lesson in humility, and a warning not to limit God in your faith,” the doctor wrote.
Editor’s Note: Special thanks to James F. Linzey at the Military Bible Association for his help with this story.
Watch Dr. Vinson’s testimony below. His testimony starts at 7:47.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN