Life sometimes throws unexpected circumstances our way. A fun-filled day turned into a family’s worst nightmare when their daughter was involved in a freak accident.
Sarah Faulkner, 7, was enjoying a refreshing swim at a Waverly swimming hole. While swimming in Hurricane Creek at Loretta Lynn’s campground, a teenager jumped from a 30-foot rock and landed right on Sarah’s back.
The 7-year-old child is now being treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. She’s paralyzed from the lower chest down.
According to her father, Tre Faulkner, the girl landed on her back, causing her entire body to freeze as she hit her head at the bottom of the creek. “And she said, ‘Daddy, my whole body froze, and I couldn’t move my arms, then my arm started working again, and I swam to the top and started screaming.’”
Sarah needed 19 staples in her skull, but that was the least of her family’s concerns. Her injury has rendered her paralyzed, which has the entire family concerned.
“I said, ‘Sir, man to man, just tell me the truth. Will she ever walk again?’ He said, ‘No, I do not believe so, but there is something out there more powerful than me,’” her father recalled her conversation with the doctor.
“I believe God can and will heal my daughter, I need a miracle. My wife needs a miracle. My children need a miracle. You need a miracle. Our country needs a miracle to show that God is real and God is alive,” Faulkner said.
The family is very religious, and they are relying on their faith during this difficult time for them as their daughter recovers from this freak accident.
Sarah has three siblings who, along with her mother and father, are all hoping for a speedy and complete recovery for their sister.
The family expressed gratitude for the number of people praying for Sarah after posting about the incident online and creating a GoFundMe page to help with her medical expenses. They say that even atheists have agreed to pray for the baby girl’s delivery.
“And I personally have never in my life ever seen so much prayer over one incident flowing and flowing. Not just prayer, but people saying, ‘Lord make her walk again’ and saying ‘She will walk again,” Faulkner recounted.
The identity of the teenager who landed on Sarah is unknown because she apparently fled during the confusion, but the family has no ill will toward her.
“And I asked her what she thought we should do with this girl, And she said we should forgive. And so we literally prayed for the girl. We can’t imagine the kind of pain she is going through right now. And what we want to do as a family is we want to be used by God to express the same type of love that Jesus did when he hung on the cross for the world,” Tre Faulkner said.
Sarah’s family firmly believes in the power of prayer and is confident she will be able to walk again. Her father already has the evidence he needs to make the case that his daughter will fully recover.
“Because the first day she went into the hospital she had no rectal tone, which means there’s no muscle tone in there. That’s what happens to paraplegics. The very next day, she had rectal tone. Last night, she moved her toes, not her toes but moved her feet like this, just barely moving them. So we’re believing that God is in the process of healing this girl for his glory, his honor,” he said.
They have titled the GoFundMe page “Sarah WILL walk again” to demonstrate how much they believe Sarah will walk again one day.