Teenager 'back from the dead' after crash
AN ELIM Church in Belfast is claiming that a teenager came "back from the dead" after a serious car crash.
The case is being linked into an international Pentecostalist healing phenomenon, which began in Florida.
Dozens of people are now flocking nightly to services at the church in Tigers Bay, north Belfast.
Members say that 18-year-old Andrew Duffin was dead for 16 minutes on a hospital operating table, but revived after his father, who is a Christian, sent out a prayer appeal through American preacher Todd Bentley.
But last night other observers voiced a note of caution and a Presbyterian minister who has worked in divine healing said that while miracles can happen, he had not personally witnessed any on that scale.
The 18-year-old was seriously injured when the car he was travelling in smashed into a wall along the Newtownbreda Road at around 5am on Saturday, May 3.
He says he was unaware he was being carried in a stolen car and was left to die in the backseat after the driver and front seat passenger ran off.
Andrew said: "I was taken to the Royal Victoria hospital. I have only been told this, of course, as I remember nothing. I had been drinking for a few hours before the crash.
"I know now that my bowel was ruptured and I was filled with poison but the hospital did not operate on me until the Sunday.
"When I was taken to theatre the doctors opened me up and I had a heart attack. The doctors then told me I died for 16 minutes on the table.
"I had a heart attack, my lungs collapsed, my kidneys stopped and then my organs all stopped I was told. They had given up on me.
"The first thing I remember is the feeling of sinking into black. I suppose that was me dying. Then I remember hearing one of the doctors saying 'he is alive'."
He said: "I was in hospital a total of six weeks. I am now totally healed, have no brain injury which is pretty unheard of for what I have come through."
Andrew admitted he had not believed in God.
"I am not a Christian nor a church-goer but I do believe this is a miracle. I know it was God who saved me.
"I am going to change my life now this has happened because I have been given a second chance."
Last night the Rev Stephen Williamson from Ballywillan Presbyterian Church – who once worked in divine healing – said he did not want to comment specifically on Andrew's injuries because he had no personal knowledge of it.
He said: "Miracles can happen. No miracles on that scale have happened in my experience. But I have contacts all around the world who report incredible things happening. If you read through the New Testament amazing things were happening and God has not changed but what may have changed along the way is our expectation.
"Even the fact we are talking about a miracle it is something out of the ordinary. Not the normal way that God would work. It is something beyond our understanding whether it happened medically or spiritually.
"To say that God cannot do that would be wrong because that limits what God is. We believe that God is all powerful and therefore quite capable of bringing something back from the dead but it is not something that happens normally.”
Last night, a spokeswoman from the Royal Victoria Hospital said: “We can confirm this man was a recent patient in intensive care.” She declined to comment on his injuries.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South west
