At a writers’ conference, I waited outside a classroom. A wide smile and large blue eyes rolled past me on a scooter, leaving a wake of joy. Later, I saw the woman again— blonde hair streaming, confident grin, wheeling down the auditorium. On Genre Night, dressed as a stunning blue butterfly, she zipped across the stage holding up a copy of her book. Finally, I got to meet her in an elevator. And by the time Sheila Preston Fitzgerald and I reached the third floor, we started a friendship.

After I read her book, One Foot in Heaven, I shelved it with my favorites and resolved to pursue sharing her story. So here we are.

In 2011, Sheila and her husband rode on separate motorcycles. Approaching an intersection with a green light, she slowed for an oncoming car turning left in front of her. A second vehicle followed, illegally crossing her lane, too late for Sheila to avoid a collision. The car hit Sheila, catching her leg between the bumper and her bike. Her upper body slammed onto the hood, head striking the windshield. Then she launched into the air, summersaulting twice as her boots flew off. She smashed to the pavement with such force, when her head hit the ground, Sheila’s full-face helmet detached and bounced away.

Behind her, Sheila’s husband witnessed the whole thing. He dropped his bike and lunged toward her, yelling for someone to call 911. Sheila remembers everything from the time she landed on the ground. In fact, her senses heightened. She smelled and tasted dirt, road oil, plastic, and after first responders arrived, medicinal odors. She heard yelling and weeping, “Omigod, where’s her foot?”

Sheila had felt a horrific crush, but no pain. Now she lay on her right side, legs behind her, unable to move them. She prayed silently. God, spare my parents the agony of two paralyzed children. Sheila’s younger brother had been rendered quadriplegic in a swimming accident years before.

She began to remove her gloves and asked for her purse, still mounted to the bike. A bystander, trying to help, struggled to unlatch it. Sheila instructed the woman to open the flap, turn the toggles, and release her purse from the motorcycle. Conversing normally, Sheila even laughed with EMTs, although she sensed their extreme anxiety. Unwittingly, their eyes told her she needed a miracle to survive.

With gloved hands, EMTs began to cut off her leather jacket as Sheila objected loudly. “Noooo, you can’t! It’s a limited-edition Harley Davidson!” Next, they planned to cut off her pants, but the lead paramedic’s inner voice said don’t move her legs. Unbeknownst to anyone, her femoral artery had severed. Now the twisted jeans acted as a tourniquet which kept her from bleeding to death right there.

Someone prayed aloud. A hand touched her shoulder and Sheila screamed. For, although she did not feel her injuries, the open nerve damage to her flesh sent sickening, tormenting currents throughout her body. Any skin-to-skin contact caused ghastly, horrific pain.

A deep peace settled over Sheila. Sounds and sights faded. She felt God cradling her in His arms like a precious child. As she stared upward, the air turned a vibrant, glorious, blue. Radiating, iridescent, shimmering, reminiscent of the rare butterfly, Blue Morpho.

I will stop here.

Further attempts to share my friend’s experience would fail. Shelia’s description of the Holy Spirit surrounding her as she gazed into Jesus’s face captured my breath.

Faith is easy when we are healthy and comfortable. Sheila grew hers during a prolonged, gut-wrenching, lonely battle, the likes of which I had never heard.

She teetered between living or not. She endured surgeries, setbacks, infections, rejection of skin and tissue grafts.

With nerve endings exposed, no amount of medication gave relief. Due to constantly changing treatment protocols, she suffered entire days without pain medication. One of her descriptions: skin searing on red-hot cast iron.

With every component of Sheila’s leg mutilated—bone, tissue, muscle, and all, she was a constantly-changing 3-D puzzle, impossible to solve. Her body’s systems battled one another during her years-long fight to heal. Some would not have survived the exhausting, no-end-in-sight crucible and instead given up and died.

Determined, Sheila eventually healed enough to enjoy a productive life by submitting to Jesus. Her unwavering faith helped her survive the years of torment and continues to sustain her today. Read her story here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/173332710X/