A Matter of Inches | Ep. 80

0:01Speaker 1:I felt a horrible blow to my neck.

0:04Speaker 2:It felt like someone had taken a nice ball bat and just slammed it into my neck.

0:10Speaker 3:Time came to a halt as she stood frozen in disbelief, and then adrenaline crashed through Donna's body and mind. She gripped the arrow tightly with both hands and ran to find her husband.

0:22Speaker 2:I reacted just like a dar does when they're shot. They stop and then I run, And that's what I did. I stopped and ran.

0:31Speaker 3:Ed responded quickly to his wife's screens, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of an arrow protruding from his wife's neck. This is the Miracle Files. I'm Emily Jones.

0:49Speaker 1:And I'm Holly Worthington.

0:51Speaker 4:We're two sisters who love a captivating true story, but we're also seeking more light in our lives.

0:57Speaker 3:So we're in a mission to find and share unforget uplifting stories of God's miracles. We hope you'll join us on this journey.

1:08Speaker 4:Welcome back to the Miracle Files. We have such a crazy story for you today.

1:13Speaker 3:Yeah yeah. This one was submitted to us actually by our sister Julie Hi. A couple of years ago. Yes, Hi, Julie, and she actually read about this story in the Reader's Digest about a woman named Donna. When we read Donna's story, we're like, we have to share this.

1:31Speaker 4:Yeah, But the only problem was we couldn't find Donna.

1:34Speaker 3:I know, I know. We searched and searched, and we could not find Donna. And so finally we just decided to share her story in a short social media reel. And then one day, unexpectedly, Donna happened to see this reel, and then she reached out to us and she said that she would be willing to come on our podcast and share the full story in her own words.

1:55Speaker 4:Yes, and we were so excited. So I heard her full story, Jah literally dropped like I was like, no way, this is not real.

2:04Speaker 3:It's an amazing story and we're not going to make you wait much longer. But before we begin, we just want to remind everyone that if you haven't already subscribed to our podcast, please make sure you do so, and if you would be so kind, please leave us a review. They help our podcast so much.

2:19Speaker 1:They do.

2:20Speaker 4:All right, let's get to the story.

2:22Speaker 3:Okay, let's go. Donna Barber and her husband Ed raised their family in Sunray, Texas. It was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody where. Children were bicycles down quiet streets until the porch lights came on, and we're a teacher never really stops being a teacher. In fact, former students would still call Donna missus Barber for years after leaving her second grade classroom. The town only had a few restaurants and a dollar General, but it had something more important community. By the spring of Donna's sixty third year, as retirement approached, Donna was beginning to realize just how much of her life had been poured into that little town.

3:09Speaker 2:I was in the last month of school, and I was retiring at.

3:13Speaker 1:The end of the year.

3:14Speaker 2:And I came home from school, and it was a typical guy with little children, and I was tired, and I went out to my backyard to just as some gardening and relax. That's my happy place in the spring. I love planning the flowers and getting the yard going.

3:32Speaker 1:So I was out there working.

3:34Speaker 3:As the afternoon wore on. Donna left her garden and walked over to the grill to light the charcoal. It was almost supper time. She stood waiting under her covered patio for a moment while the grill heated, There was no sense that anything could possibly go wrong. Somewhere nearby, children played outside, dogs barked in the distance, and a warm breeze stirred the hanging flower baskets on Donna's patio as she crossed beneath them, thinking about dinner and absolutely nothing else. Behind the houses that bordered her backyard, hidden from Donna's view, one of her former students stood in his backyard, practicing his aim with a compound bow. He was a good kid from a family Donna knew well.

4:25Speaker 3:His mother taught alongside Donna at the school, and like many West Texas teens, he liked to hunt. Today he was practicing his aim. He placed a practice arrow in his bow and stretched the string back smoothly. He pointed the arrow at a makeshift target in his backyard. There was no recklessness in it, no malice. The young man released the arrow. At first, everything appeared to follow the path it should have. The arrow flew toward its target with the speed and force compoun on bows are designed to produce. But the arrow missed its intended target and sailed just over it. Striking the most innocuous of things.

5:10Speaker 2:And the arrow went over the target, and it hit a children's slide, a little plastic children's slide, and rick ascheid turned completely around.

5:21Speaker 3:The arrow initially traveled north, but once it hit the slide, it reversed direction and headed south, launching backward through a maze of obstacles no one could ever have intentionally navigated.

5:33Speaker 2:And it went over three fences and tall shrubs, and the branches of an outree and a twenty two hanging baskets.

5:43Speaker 3:Yes, the hanging baskets on Donna's porch. Donna never saw it coming. One second she was casually crossing the patio, and the next something struck her neck with unbelievable force.

6:03Speaker 2:I felt a horrible blog to my neck. It felt like someone had taken a nice ball bat and just slammed it into my neck. And you know, my Brian was saying, that's not possible. There's no one here.

6:16Speaker 3:Donna's eyes searched her yard, confused, Her hand went straight to her neck.

6:22Speaker 2:I had thought of all kinds of things, but I had not thought of what it was. It was an arrow, and I was a nice and shocked and stunned and just scared.

6:34Speaker 3:Time came to a halt as she stood frozen in disbelief, and then adrenaline crashed through Donna's body in.

6:41Speaker 2:Mind, I reacted just like a dar does when they're shot. They stop and then they run. And that's what I did. I stopped and ran.

6:51Speaker 3:Donna had always heard that if something impaled the body, pulling it out could make the bleeding worse, and even through the shock, that thought surfaced clearly enough to guide her, so instead of trying to remove it, she gripped the arrow tightly with both hands and ran to find her husband.

7:09Speaker 2:And I don't know how I got in the house without bending the arrow. I grabbed the arrow and I ran in the house, yelling for my husband, and he was in the back of the house talking on the Thhe to our daughter, Keyla, and he hired me and came running and grabbed me by the shoulders because I was just frantic.

7:29Speaker 1:I was just running.

7:31Speaker 3:Ed responded quickly to his wife's screens, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of an arrow protruding from his wife's.

7:39Speaker 2:Neck, and he grabbed me by the shoulders and telp me to lie down and I did, and he went and called nine one one. I remember him saying, we need an ambulance and gave the adress and gave his name and everything, and said, my wife's been shot with an arrow.

7:56Speaker 3:Hearing those words was so surreal. Shot by an arrow. Donna tried to grasp what was happening to her. Could these be the last seconds of her life? And in that moment, she knew she needed strength and help beyond her own.

8:14Speaker 2:As soon as allied, Diana started crying, and I just felt pace. It just was a perfect pace come up or May. And I was still scared. I was still afraid of what this day. I didn't know if I could survive, but I felt pace with it.

8:30Speaker 3:Ed sat down on the floor next to Donna, trying to comfort her as they waited for help to arrive.

8:38Speaker 1:And he was very good with May. He was very calm and kept me calm.

8:44Speaker 3:In Sunray, there were no paramedics stationed nearby. The town relied on volunteer EMTs and firefighters, neighbors who knew Donna personally, many of whom had either sat in Donna's classroom years earlier or had children who had been Donna students. The volunteers hurried to gather their equipment and head to Missus Barber's home. Meanwhile, someone else appeared at Ed and Donna's front door. It was the young man who had shot the arrow. He had heard Missus Barber's scream and was convinced in that instant that he had killed her.

9:21Speaker 2:And he stood at the door, and he was very upset, and he just kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I didn't say anything.

9:33Speaker 3:Donna wanted to offer him reassurance, but the arrow made it impossible. Every attempt to speak caused it to shift against her larynx, making it too painful to get a word out. Though Ed could see the young man was distraught, his attention remained fixed on helping Donna. He quickly sent the boy home to get his mother. As soon as the empts arrived. They worked swiftly and calmly, disguising the alarm they truly felt seeing Missus Barbara in this state. Outside.

10:04Speaker 3:Word had spread through Sunray. Some people heard the emergency call over police scanners. Others noticed the flashing lights outside the Barber's house. By the time Donna was carried from the house. Her driveway and yard had been filled with worried friends, former students, church members, and neighbors desperate for updates, offering countless prayers for this beloved neighbor and teacher. And among the familiar faces in the crowd were some of her current second grade students.

10:35Speaker 2:And I putting in the ambulance, and I looked around, and there were even some of my children that I taught that were out there, and I thought, how awful for them to say that.

10:46Speaker 3:That image stayed with Donna, even in the middle of her own fear. Seeing those children standing there, frightened for their teacher broke her heart. The ambulance doors closed thirty minutes after being shot in the neck by a stray arrow. The ambulance took Donna to the airport, where she was loaded into a helicopter. As the helicopter rotor began to turn her Nerve's sword, but then another feeling quieted her fears.

11:26Speaker 2:When I left it off, I could feel those prayers. I remembered the people at my house, and there were a lot of people at the airport, and I didn't even need to be praying because I'd got it.

11:36Speaker 1:You know, that got my back. They're pryingna.

11:40Speaker 3:While Donna was being transported to the hospital in Amarillo, her daughter Kila and son Kyle rushed to be by her side. Hundreds of miles away in Dallas, her youngest son, Mitch, received a frantic phone call from his sister Kila. She managed only to tell him their mother had been shot with an arrow before the call. Suddenly, as they drove through a dead zone, Mitch sat there, stunned, replaying the words in his mind because they sounded too bizarre to be real. An arrow, surely he had misunderstood, but he hadn't.

12:15Speaker 3:As details slowly reached him, Mitch scrambled to book the last available flight to Amarillo. He rushed to the airport, unsure if he would even make it. Southwest employees stayed on the phone with him while he raced toward love Field, assuring him they would hold the plane as long as possible. He ran through security until agents stopped him for additional screening. Panicked and desperate, Mitch blurted out the truth that his mom had been shot by an arrow. The agent stared at him for a moment before finally waving him through.

12:50Speaker 3:When Mitch boarded the aircraft. Every passenger was already seated and waiting for departure. He hurried to his seat, overwhelmed with fear, trying unsuccessfully to steady himself. A man seated nearby noticed immediately that something was terribly wrong and quietly asked what had happened. When Mitch explained where he was going and why, the stranger simply said, let's pray.

13:18Speaker 2:So as the plane was fulling alive from the terminal, thy were prying, and I displayed with almah heart that God sent.

13:25Speaker 1:That man on that plot for Mitch. He needed somebody right there.

13:30Speaker 3:Back in Amarillo, Donna lay in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical professionals trying desperately to save her life. The trauma doctors rushed Donna into scans to determine exactly where the arrow had traveled. They stared at the images, examining what had to be a critical injury, but what they discovered stunned everyone.

13:55Speaker 2:The arrow had gone between the carotid artery and the juggler thye and the sky said it went between was smaller than the diameter of the arrow. The raw just pushed the vines aside and slipped trot again and if it had nicked either one, I would have bled to death in just minutes. That it just stopped at Malaya next, it didn't go all the way through.

14:18Speaker 3:Doctors couldn't believe their eyes. Medical staff tried explaining to Donna how lucky she was, how the trajectory of the arrow was virtually impossible, but she corrected them, not.

14:30Speaker 1:Lucky, blessed.

14:34Speaker 3:As incredible as the trajectory of the arrow was, Donna's journey was far from over. She still needed a very dangerous surgery to remove the arrow. The surgeon available that day was not even from Amarillo. He was a specialist from Houston temporarily filling in at the hospital, and according to members of the medical team, he was also only one of a handful of surgeons who possessed the skills necessary to perform the delicate operation without causing catastrophic damage.

15:07Speaker 3:By the following morning, the arrow was successfully removed, and Donna awoke from surgery surrounded by her husband and children. It was a moment of relief and celebration. But then a doctor entered Donna's hospital room and said he needed to deliver some news. The words that came out of his mouth made Donna feel like she'd been hit with an arrow all over again.

15:33Speaker 2:He said, I need to tell you that the cat scan shouted that you have a brine timor, and I just remember going sort of nan.

15:45Speaker 3:Everyone in the room went silent, once again, trying to process the reality of their situation. The doctor went on to explain that though the tumor appeared benign, its location was extremely dangerous.

16:00Speaker 2:With that to cross the midline of my prime and I would have had a massive strout just with them a short time.

16:07Speaker 3:The tumor, unseen unknown, was only days, two weeks away from ending Donna's life. For Donna, her family, and the doctor's the realization was staggering. Without the arrow, no one would have found the tumor in time. And suddenly what had felt like a blow now became clear as divine intervention. The very thing that should have killed her had instead uncovered a life threatening condition hidden silently inside her body. A neurosurgeon soon confirmed how serious the situation was. They would need to operate immediately. Donna tried persuading him to wait until the school year ended because she didn't want to miss her retirement celebration, but he refused. The tumor could not wait, so only day after surviving an arrow through her neck, Donna underwent brain surgery once again. Hundreds of prayers were offered on her behalf, and once again Donna survived. So right about now you're probably thinking this story is over. Donna's tragic accident led to a discovery that saved her life, an incredible miracle. But Donna's story doesn't end there. Over the next few years, something else began to unfold.

17:30Speaker 2:They tell me that I needed to come in once a year and I would do a cat scan and make sure the timor wasn't going to come back.

17:38Speaker 1:So the first couple of years I.

17:40Speaker 2:Went in, it was fine. And the third year that called me and I said we needed to come in, and of course we knew that wasn't good.

17:49Speaker 3:The doctor entered the room once again with a concerned look on his face. The doctor entered the room, once again with a concerned look on his face. Donna braced herself for more bad news. Had her tumor returned and.

18:12Speaker 2:I said, it's Donna brin timor bit to have a brin aneurysm that we caught.

18:17Speaker 3:The surgeon explained that the aneurysm appeared dangerously close to rupturing, and if it did, she would die. The next few weeks were a whirlwind. The surgical team got Donna into surgery, and once again, through medical prowess and by the power and mercy of God, Donna survived. It was beyond unbelievable. Donna's arrow hadn't saved her life just once, but twice. By this point, God had made it abundantly clear none of Donna's story could be dismissed as coincidence. As the years went by, Donna resisted speaking publicly about what had happened to her because she hated standing in front of groups, and eventually she agreed to share the story at a church women's gathering, and afterward invitations kept coming. Every audience seemed to react differently. Some people cried, some sat speechless.

19:13Speaker 3:Others approached her afterward, wanting to tell stories of their own suffering, grief, fear, or moments when they too had wondered whether God still saw them. Donna understood those feelings deeply, because before the arrow, she had always believed in God, but still sometimes felt small in the vastness of the world. She was just a second grade teacher in a tiny Texas town, one ordinary person among billions. But after surviving the impossible, she no longer believed anyone was invisible to God.

19:48Speaker 3:Even the young man who fired the arrow remained woven into the miracle. At the time of Donna's first surgery, he came to the hospital devastated. He brought Donna flower and apologized again through tears. Donna looked at him and told him something she hoped would transform the way he carried the tragedy, and.

20:10Speaker 2:I said, heney, I think you saved my life.

20:16Speaker 3:Fourteen years later, he still apologizes sometimes, and fourteen years later, Donna still tells him the same thing, He was part of God's plan. Today, the arrow hangs framed in Donna's home, beneath a plaque engraved with two simple words, amazing grace. Because after all these years, that is still the only explanation Donna, missus Barber, beloved friend, teacher and child of the Most High, has ever needed.

20:49Speaker 1:And that's why I think that era wasn't just for me.

20:52Speaker 2:I think it was for people who needed to know, Yes, God's still here, He's still with us every day. I think He's using that story to help everyone understand it. He's still marking and no matter how insignificant you think you are in a world of however many billion people there are, you're important to God.

21:21Speaker 4:I still cannot get over this story. I keep going back to the thought over and over again of what are the odds of her first of all getting shot by an arrow that just barely misses her arteries, but then also finding a brain tumor and an aneurysm.

21:38Speaker 3:It's just incredible, so miraculous. And I love the part where she told this young man who accidentally shot her in the next yes, I think you saved my life. He did.

21:49Speaker 4:Yeah, if that arrow hadn't to hit her, her story would have been completely different.

21:53Speaker 3:And Donna said that this story has been shared all over the world, and I think it just illustrates how God is in the details of our lives.

22:01Speaker 4:Yes, And it reminds me that God is aware of this big picture that we're not always aware of. Because when I first heard the story and I was listening to it, and I was thinking, like, if God could have had the arrow just avoid those arteries, and why couldn't it have just missed her completely?

22:17Speaker 3:Right?

22:18Speaker 4:And then you get to this point in the story where you realize that there was a there was a medical emergency that would have never been discovered if Donna hadn't been shot by the Abdaro.

22:28Speaker 3:And sometimes you don't realize the why until years later. But Donna's faith is so strong, and she stared something with us that was very personal. Recently, her husband ed sadly passed away from congestive heart failure, and as she was driving him to the hospital. She was heading toward Amarillo because that's where all the best doctors were, and he passed away as they were driving there, and so instead of going to Amarillo, she went to a local hospital and here what she said happened next.

23:02Speaker 1:So I took him to that hospital, and I was immediately surrounded by friends and my church family and friends and everybody was right there. If I had.

23:12Speaker 2:Gotten him to Amarella, I don't think the circumstances would have changed, and I wouldn't have had all those people that I loved helping me. And I even had three students who worked at the hospital who came in and hugged me, and one of them said, can we pry and he said a prayer with me, And you know, that was Scott's mercy. It didn't end like I wanted it to, but that's life. We all go through that.

23:39Speaker 3:Wow, this is just another example of how God can really see you through your hardest moments.

23:46Speaker 4:And how many times do we hear people say that they felt peace in the middle of these terrifying or terrible or heartbreaking situations and you just wouldn't expect that, But Donna felt that piece both when she was hit with the arrow and later when her husband passed away.

24:05Speaker 3:And yeah, I know, you'd expect them to feel like despair or fear, and so many people talk about this peace and I'm like, you're in the face of dying or your loved one's dying and you feel peace, and it's hard to comprehend, but it's such a gift.

24:22Speaker 4:Such a gift, and we both experienced that ourselves. Like I've mentioned this before, but years ago, my husband was run over by a car and it was such a terrifying moment and everything around me was in chaos, but at the same time, I said a prayer and I felt so much peace come over me and amazing. It's a piece that I cannot explain other than to say that it was from God.

24:48Speaker 3:Well and it's not like it removed the situation. No, but amazing that God could comfort you in that horrible moment exactly. All right. Well, we want to thank Donna for share her story with us. She is the sweetest lady. I absolutely love.

25:04Speaker 4:We love her and she's such a godly woman.

25:07Speaker 1:You have so much faith. I admire for so much.

25:10Speaker 3:Yeah, and we want to thank everyone else for joining us today. If you know somebody who could use an uplift in their life, or who could use a reminder that God is still a God of miracles, please share this podcast with them. We'll see you next time.

25:24Speaker 1:See you then, thank you for joining us.

25:29Speaker 4:If you have a miracle to share, contact us at the Miracle files dot com or find us on social media. We release new episodes each Monday.

25:37Speaker 3:Yeah, so don't forget Miracle Mondays. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content as well.

25:45Speaker 4:Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles, and don't forget to look for His light in your own lives.