A Conversation With Pat Boone
Ryan's Journey of Miracles
April 1, 2003 - June 19, 2001, began normally for Pat Boone. The popular recording artist was in his office writing memos, meeting people, taking calls. Then came the call that brought him to his knees. On the phone was his wife, Shirley, who said their 24-year-old grandson, Ryan Corbin, had crashed through a skylight at his apartment building and had fallen 40 feet. After a rush to the hospital, they soon found that Ryan was teetering between life and death.
by Jim Dailey
Since that day, the Boone family has ridden a roller-coaster ride through worrying, weeping and waiting ... and praying, learning and marveling. Executive Editor Jim Dailey talked with Pat Boone about the bittersweet journey of crisis—with all its puzzling twists—and about a God whose love is nearer to us than our own bodies. Boone even found a new way to pray. For the entire Boone family, chapter one is behind them, but chapter two is just beginning.
Q/ Pat, take us back to the day Ryan had this horrific accident.
A/ Shirley and I met at the hospital after we heard about the accident. She ran into the paramedic who had brought Ryan in and asked how he was doing. He said, "Don't get your hope up, lady." They had shocked his heart, and he had lost a lot of blood.
At the hospital, they gave him 36 pints of blood. The fall burst his spleen and damaged his lungs and kidneys. His skull was fractured and his jaw was broken in four places. His brain was injured. Yet, miraculously, not a tooth, a rib, a finger or his spine was broken. The damage was primarily to his head and to his internal organs. They took out his spleen immediately and tried to stem the flow of blood.
The neurosurgeon came to see us that night. He said they had done all they could, but he wanted to warn us that Ryan's injuries were severe and that most people in his condition don't make it through the first 24 hours. They were doing all they could, but he was preparing us for the worst. Ryan made it through that night. It was a day or two before they could try to move him to do a CT scan on his brain. The first time they tried, his heart stopped. They had to drill holes in his skull to relieve the bleeding and swelling. They hooked him up to just about every device known to medicine.
After two or three weeks, we had another family meeting with the doctor. The prognosis wasn't good. We were told that Ryan probably would never breathe without a tracheostomy and a ventilator. We were also told that he would never have much brain function, that basically he would be in a permanent vegetative state. At that point, Ryan's dad, Doug, spoke for all of us. He said that we appreciated what the doctors were doing—but they are the medical team and we are the faith team, and we should work together. The nurses told us later that that was music to their ears. The doctors see so many grave injuries and so many people who do not make it, and they feel it's incumbent on them to give us what they feel is the realistic and negative prognosis. The nurses, though, see people who, they feel, could recover if they were given a little more hope.
We camped out there for six or seven weeks. There was never a time when several family members weren't there. Lindy, Ryan's mom, mostly took blankets and slept in the waiting room, night after night. Lindy's second husband, Mike, who became a Christian because of Ryan's sharing with him, was always there, too. The nurses said that they had never seen a family who surrounded someone like Ryan with 24-hour-a-day love and prayer. That situation has not ended to this day.
Q/ How is Ryan doing now?
A/ Ryan has astounded them all. His tracheostomy has been removed. He sings. He speaks. He laughs. He feeds himself—although he still has a tube in his stomach for medicine and to make sure he gets proper nutrition. He can sing, "This Is the Day That the Lord Has Made." When he gets to the end of the song and sings "I will rejoice and be glad in it," he gets animated and pumps his fist. He is now starting to have motion in both legs and can move his left arm some. He feeds himself with his right arm. He can write, read, laugh and joke with us. He has a wonderful twinkle in his eye.
Even before he could eat food, I would have communion and pray with him. He knew that we were communing with Jesus. The first time he was able to mouth a word, he mouthed "Amen."
When I prayed in the emergency room after he had been hurt, I prayed like I had never prayed before. I said, "Lord, I am not asking You to reach down. You have inhabited this boy; he has been a temple of Your Spirit since he was 4 years old. I am asking You to rise up in this vessel of Your Holy Spirit and to repair Your temple." It had never occurred to me to pray for people like that before. I knew that Jesus inhabits Ryan. He knows Ryan inside and out. I almost see God like Leonardo da Vinci, tile by tile, cell by cell, stroke by stroke, reconstructing Ryan from within. The medical team warned that if Ryan did come out of his coma, which took seven months to do, to not be concerned if he becomes angry as he feels the frustration of the situation he is in. Not one word of anger has come from Ryan. There has been a patience, a love and a confidence that he has exuded. I simply attribute all this to the marvelous hand of God.
Q/ Many people heard about Ryan's accident and recovery on CNN's "Larry King Live." What response have you gotten from that kind of global exposure?
A/ We've been on "Larry King Live" on four separate occasions for the whole hour. Larry King himself acknowledges that he's an agnostic. CNN got a huge response from people all over the world. Larry himself got word to me that they were getting calls from Israel and that people were going to The Wailing Wall to pray for Ryan. It tore us up. It was so moving to think that a program seen by millions of viewers in more than 200 countries was dedicating a whole hour to Ryan's story.
Larry views it, I think, as a test case. He's looking to see what God does in Ryan's case. Perhaps he is thinking, "Is God going to hear your prayer? What is your faith based on? Why do you think prayer makes a difference? Why does God let things like this happen to begin with? Why would something like this happen to your grandson?"
Larry is asking the tough questions, and I think that inwardly he would like nothing better than to see that there is a God and that God does hear prayer. After each show has ended, I've asked the various ministers who appeared on the programs with me, "What do you think the Apostle Peter or the Apostle Paul would have given for this opportunity we've just had to share our faith?" On the program, I was able to say that we are not appealing to a god who doesn't understand what we are going through or to a god who doesn't have the power to have prevented it or to instantly change it. Rather, we come to a God who heard His own Son cry out from the cross in agony.
Ryan Corbin is having an impact on millions of people all over this world through this accident. I go to the gym and Jewish guys that I don't even know tell me they went out and gave blood because of my grandson. I hug them and tell them that I am going to bring Ryan walking into the gym one day, and he will thank them himself.
Q/ Your family has had to go through such a range of emotions. How did you handle these intense feelings?
A/ We wept; we prayed. And God has given us a faith through this. We have never doubted for a moment that Ryan was going to live. We believed Ryan would one day declare what God had done for him. He has had high temperatures, seizures and setbacks, and we've had to rush him back into ICU, where he would lose consciousness. It is unnerving, unsettling—but we have never for a minute doubted that God was going to see him through. He now has a shunt, which doesn't show, in his head, down his neck and into his chest cavity to let liquid drain off from his brain. It has been rugged and wearying.
My wife, Shirley, hasn't had a weekend at home since the injury. For nine months, wherever Ryan was, she rented a room at a nearby hotel and spent all day, every day, holding his hand and praying for him. Now, Ryan is at Lindy's home, where they can handle everything for him. Therapists come to help him to stand and to use his arms.
Q/ What do you say to those who have prayed for healing and for the recovery of loved ones without success?
A/ One of the first things I say, because it has happened to my mom and dad now, is that if they are Christians, then they have new bodies when they die. They are with Jesus; they have made it home to where we want to be. We don't have the whole picture; we don't see things from His perspective. I loved what Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church, where Ryan attends, said to Larry King when he was asked if God couldn't have prevented this. "Well, of course He could have ... ," Rick said, "but God doesn't owe us an explanation." He has His reasons and they are good reasons. If we could understand God like God does, we could be God, and that is not going to happen. But God does say that He will work everything together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Cf. Romans 8:28). We see all kinds of good through this.
Q/ What do you think is next for Ryan?
A/ God's work isn't over. There is another chapter or two to be written. Ryan, I'm confident, is going to walk into Larry King's studio one day and share what God has done. I pray that God will allow me to be there with Ryan and say, "Larry, has God shown you what you needed to see? Do you doubt that God has done this for Ryan?" I would like to hear him saying, "No, I don't doubt it. There is no other explanation. It is miraculous."
The neurosurgeon who didn't think Ryan would recover told Ryan that he didn't need to see him for a year. The neurosurgeon said, "By the looks of things, you may walk into my office under your own steam. Come see me in a year."
We have a long way to go, but he is getting there.
