Editor's Note: The following article is a followup to Priest comes out of nowhere to aid accident victim, posted on Thursday.
Katie Lentz's lay pastor said her supporters have seen "miracle after miracle after miracle" since the Jefferson City intern's Sunday wreck, and that the truly amazing thing is how many lives she's touched - both before and after her accident.
Travis Wiseman, a pastor at the Lentz family's Quincy, Ill., church and a family friend, said the story of a priest appearing at the scene of the accident to pray with Lentz and then assure rescue workers that she would be OK has already inspired believers and non-believers alike.
Wiseman said emergency workers have 69 photos taken from all angles of the crash scene, yet none of the photos have the priest in it.
"None of us are even Catholic," Wiseman said. "Our church is an Assembly of God church. "(But) where in the world did this guy go?"
Lentz is a Quincy native who had internships in Jefferson City at the Community Health Center and Missouri Primary Care Association. Her family said she's going to school to be a dentist.
He said it inspired rescue workers at the scene and members of the public who are now inquiring about when they can attend the next church service.
Wiseman spoke to the News Tribune from Quincy's Blessing Hospital, where he was with Lentz's family while she was undergoing her third surgery since Sunday. This week, he said, surgeons are concentrating on her broken leg bones, and next week will work on more minor issues, such as her broken wrist.
He said she didn't suffer any serious internal organ damage or head trauma.
Lentz was conscious throughout her ordeal and when she was brought to the hospital and, at one point, asked to pray with Wiseman and two other pastors at the church. When Wiseman entered, the first thing Lentz did was to offer congratulations to Wiseman's daughter for a pageant she had recently won. Then she asked the youth pastor why he hadn't left for an out-of-state youth trip yet. They postponed the trip because of Lentz' wreck.
"Seriously, she was so concerned with other people, even though she's lying there on a possible death bed. She's bleeding, she's broken. That's the Katie we know," Wiseman said.
He said first responders from the crash scene who have come to the hospital to check on Lentz have told him that was the worst wreck they've seen in which someone has survived.
"Prayer is what saved her life, and there's not a single fireman or deputy sheriff (who responded) who will disagree," he said.
Related Articles:
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Priest comes out of nowhere to aid accident victim
Related Links:
Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report