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Katie Has a Guardian Angelby Michelle Wilson
It was Tuesday, September 26, no different from any other day. During mid-afternoon, Karen Daily prayed with her youngest
daughter Katie before her afternoon nap. This is something she did everyday.
"I prayed with her and we sang a little song, 'Jesus Loves Me', said Karen. "We asked for forgiveness of sins and that God would send an angel to protect her. This is something that, with having five children, I just knew that I needed a little extra pair of eyes watching," said Karen.
As Karen tended to Katie, her husband Bud was assigned to shuttle duty. His job was to take the other children to their various after-school activities.
"We got all of the kids out in the car and one of them said, 'Dad, I forgot my cleats.'" I said, "Well, we're in too much of a rush, I'll come back and get you. And we started backing up the car," said Bud.
Unbeknownst to Karen and Bud, two-year-old Katie awoke from her nap and slipped out the front door and ran towards the family's station wagon.
"I felt the car run over something and I felt the bump as the car lifted up and ran over it and I thought, 'Oh, no, I ran over the cat.' That's when I saw Karen running out the front door in a panic. I didn't know what had happened at the moment," said Bud.
What happened was every parent's worst nightmare. Bud had just run over his little girl Katie. She had run behind the driver's side of the 3,000-pound station wagon at the exact moment Bud began to back up. Katie was hit by the bumper and pinned underneath the left rear tire.
"Seeing her was a horrible sight. I got to her and I tried to pull her out, but the car was sitting on her whole left side of her chest from her shoulders down to the top of her legs. I was thinking it has to get off her chest. That was the main thing, all of her vital organs are there," said Karen.
"All I saw was the arm and the leg sticking out from underneath the tire. And I went into a panic. I had no idea what to do and I asked Karen, 'What do I do?'" said Bud.
In a panic, Bud quickly backed up the station wagon. Karen watched as the car rolled off of Katie's fragile body.
"Katie remained conscious the whole time. She was crying and I scooped her up. I told her, 'Everything's going to be all right. It was an accident'. But inside, I was thinking, 'Things aren't going to be all right,'" said Karen.
"Katie said, 'Daddy, you runned over me.' And it was like what do I say? How do I deal with this?" said Bud.
The only visible signs of injury on Katie were surface bruises. No one knew the extent of her internal injuries. While waiting on paramedics Bud and Karen cried out to God for help.
"I remember just looking up at the ceiling and screaming, 'God we need you now.' We needed to get back in control, we needed God to just come and help us," said Karen.
Distraught, Bud went inside to pray. "I walked in the house and into the bedroom where my oldest daughter was pacing back and forth, wringing her hands because she was so upset. I said, 'Well, we pray every night before we go to bed, and God answers our prayers, let's pray'. And we knelt down for a minute and we prayed," said Bud.
Paramedics arrived and rushed Katie to the trauma center. Pediatric surgeon, Dr. Ronald Hill prepared for the worst.
"This is the kind of thing that just makes you sick at your stomach and you're afraid of what you're going to find and so I left immediately and went to the emergency room," said Hill. After a thorough examination the doctors were astounded.
"The CAT scans show that the left side of Katie's body is flattened down more that the right side where she had been run over. There's no evidence of any internal bleeding or other injury to the organs. The neck and chest x-ray and were surprisingly normal as well," said Hill.
"Medically speaking there isn't any way to explain this. If you take a station wagon and run over a little two-year-old girl, and the results are a little bruising and some minor scratches, there is no way we can explain that. It was a miracle that Katie wasn't killed," said Hill.
"The doctors came out and said, 'Katie, you must have a guardian angel, there's nothing wrong with you.' I was so grateful that everything was going to be all right. I really felt certain that we would be out of the woods then," said Karen.
"A load was lifted off my shoulders because it meant she wasn't going to die," said Bud.
Katie was on her way to recovery, but her father Bud was wracked with guilt over what had happened to his little girl.
"I couldn't believe that I'd run over my girl. It was almost impossible to believe that it happened and for a long time afterwards I kept asking God, 'Why?' He gave me a scripture. He said, 'What Satan intends for evil, God will use for his glory.' And that's the scripture that I hung on for grace from him," said Bud.
Today as the Daily family looks back over the events of what could have been tragic, they realize that God was in control.
"Someone said to us, 'Why didn't you jack up the car?' Common sense leaves you in a time like that. You just react," said Karen.
"Everything was wrong and yet the amazing part was how God worked it out. When I backed up I stood a chance of rolling over her head and at the time I didn't even think about that," said Bud.
"If there's one lesson to learn, and there were a lot of them here, God is able to do anything. When every situation, every circumstance is out of control, know that there is the Lord who will intervene," said Karen. "He'd given me back my little girl whole and complete, she had a scrape on the back of her leg. She was whole and I was so grateful that I vowed to the Lord that I would tell of His wonders. I owed him everything. He had won my heart."
"There's hardly a day that doesn't go by that I see the grace of God. There were no extra prayers, there was no leading somebody to the Lord, and there was just the love of a Savior and the grace of a Savior. I see grace every day I see Katie. I see the love of Christ in her eyes, in her life," said Karen.
"The doctors think that it was a miracle that I didn't have any injuries, just my left side was squished down. I say, 'Thank you, Jesus'. I love Jesus because he saved my life," said Katie.
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