EDMOND, Okla. –There is good reason for Michael Buckingham’s giant smile.
He’s grateful to be alive after a recent swimming accident.
Michael was in a neighbor’s pool when a child jumped in, landing on top of the 37-year-old father of 4.
“As soon as it hit me, it paralyzed my entire body, my eyes were functioning, but nothing else was working,” Buckingham said.
Michael sank to the deep end; 6 to 8 minutes passed before anyone realized something was terribly wrong.
“He wouldn’t just go under water and put his head on the floor. Unless he was trying to do a breathing thing. He wouldn’t scare us that he was dying,” Michael’s son, Braden, said.
Bryson and Braden each grabbed a hand and pulled their unconscious dad to the sundeck. Little Beckett retrieved a raft to prop his head.
“We just tried to get help,”Braden said.
Michael Buckingham would spend several days in ICU. The prognosis was bleak, until friends launched a Facebook page “Prayers for Buck.”
“There is power in prayer. Now, it’s 105, 110 -thousand people who have prayed for me. It’s a miracle,” Michael told us.
Michael has made a miraculous recovery. He’s grateful to his courageous boys, EMSA medics, and above all, God — for giving him a second chance at life, when few others thought it was possible.
“No way I shouldn’t be here at all. And its a miracle from God. and so I’m thankful everyday,” Michael Buckingham said.
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