November 23, 2021 was another typical night at home. Our three children were off from school on Thanksgiving break, Christmas decorations were making their way down from the attic, and we were starting to settle in on the couch for a family movie night. I recall asking aloud several times, "Where's Tripp?" but it wasn't unusual for our feisty youngest to be in another room somewhere playing independently.
When the rest of us realized too much time had passed since we had actually laid eyes on him, we discovered him at the bottom of the pool, turning a routine evening into a nightmare come true.
The next 90 minutes involved CPR , an ambulance ride, and knees on a cold emergency room floor, sending up pleading prayers for God to save our son. And after those never ending 90 minutes were over, our boy got his heartbeat back.
We had to sit in the waiting room as they were getting Tripp set up in a room on the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, hooking him up to countless machines. The doctor on call sat down with us and plainly stated that Tripp was his sickest patient on the unit, and that there was a chance he might not make it through the night. Praise God he turned out to be wrong.
We spent the next 116 days living on a pullout couch in the children's hospital, constantly startled by incessant beeps and alarms, hearing the "never agains" from a steady stream of medical professionals, and watching a new way of life unfold before our very eyes.
God saved Tripp that night, and he brought him back to us with an army of people who have prayed for us and held our family upright in every way imaginable since. We believe in God's miraculous healing, and the undeniable power of prayer and community. Our Tripp is living and breathing proof.