Kinley’s Miracle

I have a story to tell…a true story. It’s important for me to tell this story for two reasons. First of all it has touched a lot of people spiritually and shows God’s love for us and that he is watching out for us and secondly it shows a danger that too many people are not aware of.

On May 15, the day before Stephen’s graduation, we woke up to a site I haven’t seen since we’ve lived here. We got a lot of rain during the night and our yard was flooded…all the way up to our house by the middle of the morning. Since they weren’t showing any school cancellations on t.v. I went ahead and took the kids to school and then went to my MIL’s to help them sandbag around their doors. About an hour later I got a call that school was letting out so I went back and got the kids and went home.

After we had been home a little while a friend came over to get something and while she was here my kids asked if they could wade out in the yard/ditch to show her how deep the water was. I told them it was okay and we all walked outside. My friend and I stood on the porch and watched the kids wade out to the ditch. I was watching them the whole time and taking pictures. The water by that time was calm except for the water rushing out of a culvert across the road. That’s where all the water from our yard was draining to. At one point I realized Kinley and Landon were up on the road and yelled at them to come back my way. The road was under water, too. I saw Landon start down the driveway and assumed Kinley was going to do the same…I was wrong.

In that last picture you can see that Kinley is looking toward something in the ditch. Kaylyn said Kinley waded out in the water and said “look at that little tornado in the water”. She went toward it to see what it was and as soon as she got close she was sucked under the water. Kaylyn said she came up long enough to yell “Help me” and went right back under. We all heard that help me but for some reason none of us responded to it. I thought she and Landon were playing around, I guess. Here is the whirlpool she saw…

I don’t know how long it was before Stephen asked me what Kinley was doing. I asked him where was she and he said he didn’t know. I asked Kaylyn where she was and Kaylyn said “she didn’t come back up”. At that moment I felt fear like I’ve never felt. I started yelling her name and screaming for her and everything felt like it was in slow motion. I started to run but halfway down the driveway I fell and went under the water. I remember feeling like I was in a bad dream and couldn’t get to Kinley fast enough. I realized by that time that the suction from the culvert had pulled her under and I was trying to get to it so I could pull her out. When I came up out of the water I started yelling her name again and at that moment I saw her shoot out on the other side of the road. I don’t remember getting from there to her. I just remember getting there and seeing her panic stricken face and her blood shot eyes and hearing her say over and over “I thought I was going to die”. It was at that moment that I realized she had gone THROUGH the 18 inch culvert!! I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed. I picked my baby up and carried her back to the house yelling at the same time for Landon to get away from the ditch and in the house…thanking God all the way that Kinley was alive.

We measured later and that’s when we realized the culvert was only 18 inches across. I then measured her shoulders and they are 17 inches wide. The culvert goes under the road and is not straight…there is a bit of a curve in it. Luckily there was no debris in it which is amazing in itself.

She went in on the right side and came out the other side where the water is rushing out. If you look close on the right side you can see the little whirlpool.

Above is where she came out. You can’t see the culvert because it was still too far under the water. It was the next day before the water went down enough to see the culvert. Below is the side she went in. It’s still very hard for me to look at it and I have to see it every day since it’s in my front yard.

Kinley has almost no memory of that day, the whole day. But, she did tell me all the details soon after it happened and a few more the next day before she forgot it all. I’m so glad she told me!! She said when she got sucked under the first time she came up long enough to yell for help and then she said she took in a gasp of breath before going under again. She went into the culvert feet first, face down with her arms above her head. She said she knew immediately where she was and grabbed the edges of the culvert and was trying to pull herself out. I have had many sleepless nights laying in bed thinking of her in there scared and trying to fight her way back out :-(. She said as she was holding on she thought to herself (which I now know was not her thought but God speaking to her) “don’t fight it, keep your body straight and you’ll come out the other side”. That was not Kinley’s thought but she listened and she let go and said she put her arms out as straight as she could. She said halfway through she stopped and remembers bumping her head on the top a few times. That’s all she told me at that time but the next day we were coming home from town and she told me she remembered something else. She asked me did I remember her saying she stopped in the middle and I told her yes. She said well Mama, when I stopped I saw the brightest light!! At that mome

nt my heart stopped and I had to fight tears. Of course my first thought was near death. I asked her what did she think when she saw the light and she said she thought it meant she was about to get out. But, she was not facing the opening and her eyes were closed the whole time so even if the light were outside light she would not have seen it. Now I choose to believe not that she was near death but that God was in that culvert with her at the moment she got hung up in there. The Bible says “Jesus is the Light” and at that moment I imagine that culvert was full of the brightest light any of us have ever seen. I’m sure had Kinley’s eyes been open it would have been more than she could have stood. She said after she saw the bright light she started moving again. I asked her didn’t her feet get hung up in all the mud at the end and she said yes but she raised her feet up so she could come on out. Again, who do you think told her to lift her feet. This is a 9 year old child who just held her breath for we don’t know for sure how long, was scared to the point of thinking she was going to die, had hit her head a few times on the top of the culvert and gone under the road and she still had the frame of mind to raise up her feet so she could come on out.

Kinley asked me the next day why when I got to her I was soaking wet and I told her it was because I had fallen and gone under the water when I was running to get to her. She said Mama, it’s a good thing you fell when you did. I asked her why and she said because if I hadn’t then I would have made it to the culvert before she came out and I would have gotten sucked under too. At that moment I realized not only was God saving my child he was protecting me from getting hurt too. I believe now he caused me to fall and I can almost hear Him saying to me “No, I’ve got her”.

I have so much to be thankful for and I will NEVER forget what God did for Kinley and for our family that day.

I never saw the danger that day. We were all out there…my friend and I and all four of my kids and we were in our own yard. How many times as kids did we play in a ditch full of water? I should have seen the danger with so much water and all that water rushing out of the other side but I didn’t. Maybe by reading this people will be more aware of the danger. Jose’ is now going to put some welding rods in front of our culvert and never again will I allow my kids anywhere near that ditch when there is water in it.

Thank you God for Kinley’s life!!