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A doctor in the Gallup emergency room handed Kim an envelope with Krickitt's rings and watch. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Carpenter," he said. She's dead, Kim thought. Miraculously, the former Division I collegiate gymnast was hanging on to life by a thread, despite severe bleeding in her brain. Her chance of survival was less than one percent; the decision was made to airlift Krickitt to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, 140 miles away.

Kim made a decision, too. Refusing treatment for his own injuries (a punctured lung, bruised heart, concussion, broken hand, and facial lacerations), Kim called his dad to pick him up. He would follow his wife to Albuquerque. "If she was going to die, I was going to be there beside her."

After midnight, Gus and Mary Pappas's phone rang. One of Krickitt's girlfriends was calling to give them the news. The still to be made home-ground wheat rolls and pumpkin pies, and the traditional Pappas day-after-Thanksgiving get-together to cheer on the University of Arizona's football team weren't that important anymore. Getting a flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque with their son, Jamey, a Campus Crusade for Christ staff member, was.

Almost upon arrival, after seeing Krickitt and talking with the doctor, the family (with Kim) began daily prayer vigils on the ICU wing. As specific medical problems arose, the group would pray. They asked the Lord to lessen the pressure on Krickitt's brain. Then on Saturday, when Krickitt's blood pressure dropped dangerously low, they prayed for it to come back up. Pastor Fred Maldonado and members of the Carpenters' church, Calvary Baptist Church, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, drove two hours to join the intercessions. Jamey's wife, Gretchen, started a prayer chain originating from Phoenix, fanning out across the country and even reaching fellow Campus Crusade for Christ staff in Russia. The swelling began to subside in Krickitt's brain.

"I can't emphasize enough the power of prayer," Mary Pappas says. "There was a peace and a real presence of the Lord with us as we prayed for Krickitt."

In five days, Krickitt was taken off life support. Five days later, she was transferred to Phoenix's Barrow Neurological Institute. There, after ten days, she began to come out of her coma. Miracles were happening. But for the newlyweds, the trials were just beginning.

Barrow is among the finest facilities in the country for head trauma victims. A week after the transfer, Krickitt continued to make progress physically. That in itself was another miracle: for head trauma victims, you can't predict at what moment improvement will stop. Krickitt's twenty-some years of athletic training and fitness helped her body respond relatively quickly. But a routine series of questions asked by a nurse revealed a deeper wound.

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