Wichita, Kan., Jun 24, 2009 / 05:15 am
The Congregation for the Causes of Saints is preparing to investigate an alleged miracle in Wichita, Kansas, where doctors are baffled by the unexplained recovery of a young man who had suffered a severe head injury in an accident that had broken his skull.
When her 20-year-old son Chase was seriously injured in a pole-vaulting accident on October 2, Paula Kear and her family began to pray fervently for the intercession of Fr. Emil Kapaun, and asked their friends to do the same.
“It was my sister who had the presence of mind, on the night of the accident, to ask if we should put Chase on the Church prayer line to pray to Fr. Kapaun,” Paula explained to CNA. The family also added Chase to the CaringBridge website and had prayer cards printed out to distribute to people at the hospital.
Chase’s father, Paul Kear, told The Wichita Eagle that the family was informed “that it was really severe, and that he had fractured his skull from ear to ear, and that there was some…bleeding on his brain.” The Kears were told by the doctors that they “didn’t have a lot of hope” for Chase, and that he would likely die either in the necessary surgery to remove the damaged piece of his skull or from an infection after the surgery.