Unlikely Providence

“When the plane leveled off at 14,500 feet, Joan Murray took a deep breath and jumped out the door. The bank executive from Charlotte, North Carolina, was enjoying her free fall through the air until she pulled the ripcord for her parachute and nothing happened. Just about then she had an extreme rush of adrenaline.

“But she didn’t panic – she knew she had a back up parachute. She was falling 120 miles per hour when she released the reserve chute. It opened just fine, but she lost her bearings and in her struggle to right herself she deflated the chute. While the chute briefly slowed her descent, she continued to fall at 80 miles per hour.

“She struck the earth with a violent blow shattered her right side and jarred the fillings from her teeth. She was barely conscious and her heart was failing. Just when it seemed things could not get much worse, she realized she had fallen into a mound of fire ants that didn’t appreciate her disturbing their solitude. All told they stung her about 200 times before the paramedics arrived.” [People’s Stories of Survival, 15]

It reminds you of the old “Hee-Haw” song, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

But things are not always as they seem. The doctors that treated Joan believe that the ants actually saved her life. They theorized that the stings of the ants shocked her heart enough to keep it beating!