What Is It Going To Take?

 

“I’m going to die,” thought Jordan Wells as the car she was driving hydroplaned out of control. For Jordan, the car crash wasn’t the only accident in store for her that rainy night on Sept 27, 2008.

Jordan was enjoying life as an 18-year-old. She attended Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Bryans Road, Md., plus the youth group at the Grace Brethren Church in Clinton.

A few days before the accident, Jordan had an argument with her dad. The night before the accident her dad asked God to “chase her down”. Then he prayed about himself, “God, chase me down, too.” God answered those prayers in an amazing way.

Ashley was riding in the car with Jordan as the car hit a tree on Ashley’s side. It spun out a couple of times then stopped. Both girls were shaken and injured by the accident. Medics came to the scene and both girls were put on a helicopter to be air-lifted to a local hospital.

What should have been a routine flight was complicated by the bad weather that caused the car accident. The helicopter couldn’t land at the closest hospital due to the storm, so a second hospital was chosen. But on the way there, Jordan heard the chopper rub against something. As the helicopter crashed into deep woods, she was thrown through a hole in the roof. She woke up, lying on her back on a white blanket, her legs still inside the helicopter. God had put her in a situation with the three things she hated the most: pain, cold, and being alone.

Her mind was fuzzy from the accident and she remembers trying to move, but couldn’t. She blacked out again and woke up a second time. This time her mind was clear and she was aware of being trapped by the helicopter.

At that point “I knew I was being a luke-warm Christian, living for myself.” Amidst the rain, she looked up to the sky and cried out, “God, please save me from this. Send someone to save me.” Then she cried for help for the first time. Two paramedics, John and Scott, were looking for Jordan and heard her cry. They stopped to listen as Jordan cried out again. That second cry led them to her.

“It was such a relief to have someone find me,” says Jordan.

Her ordeal wasn’t over as they worked to free her from the helicopter before it exploded. The pain was intense, but Jordan says she “sucked it up” as she was removed from the chopper. Finally in the ambulance, Jordan says she felt “such peace.” She knew she wasn’t going to die.

Jordan’s injuries were severe and the hospital staff worked hard to keep her alive, putting her in a drug induced coma. It wasn’t until October 6 that she finally regained consciousness.

Two days later, her parents told her that Ashley didn’t survive the accident. It was the same day she learned that her right leg would need to be amputated below the knee. The pain of losing Ashley was much greater than the pain she went through in the accident. When Ashley would have turned 18 in October, Jordan threw a birthday party in her hospital room complete with pictures of her friend on her walls.

The ordeal has definitely “brought me closer to Jesus. Before the accident I was living a life for myself,” she says. “Before I was dead spiritually. When I cried out to Jesus, I became alive again.”

This is Jordan’s first time to Momentum Youth Conference. She came “to grow closer to God and my walk with Jesus.” She was scheduled to have her 25th surgery last Monday, but she “snuck away from Maryland” so she wouldn’t miss youth conference.

Jordan wants to see God use her accident to help others. She’s not sure exactly how, but has aspirations of becoming a Christian speaker and a physician’s assistant. She’s already volunteered in a trauma ward, talking with recent amputees.

On the three-month anniversary of the tragedy, Jordan went back to the crash site for the first time. John, the EMT, now like an older brother to Jordan, accompanied her and handed her his new-born baby, named Jordan for the heroic young lady he had rescued.

“It took that much for God to get my attention,” Jordan asks. “How much will it take to get your attention?”