WAKING
UP ON CHRISTMAS

Topics: Christmas; Healing; Miracles; Supernatural Occurrences

References: Matthew 8:17; Hebrews 2:4

Patti White Bull, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in a coma for sixteen years. But on Christmas Day, she awoke and resumed normal activities: she dressed herself, walked without support, and talked in complete sentences. Unlike most coma patients, who awaken gradually, White Bull became fully conscious and showed no signs of any mental or physical disability.

Neurologist Randy Chestnut of Oregon Health Sciences University says White Bull’s awakening is “extraordinary but not out of the realm of possibility.” He speculates that decreased brain stimulation may have been caused by a kind of brain-stem blockage that finally shifted. White Bull may have been interacting with people in subtle ways that went unnoticed, he suggested, adding, “Maybe on Christmas Day, people noticed more than they ever had before, and that made it seem like a dramatic recovery.”

Her family and friends prefer to think the spontaneous healing was a Christmas miracle.

—Shawna Vogel, “A Christmas Miracle? Woman Out of ‘Vegetative State’ after 16 Years,” ABCNews.com (December 29, 1999)