Excerpt from draft of “Apostle to the Pygmies – The Doctor Jerry Galloway Story”
Another year had passed. At the beginning of January, children with measles and the related complications filled the hospital. On Friday, Sister Paula and I did an amputation of a leg that had become infected with gangrene. The man was not in good condition, and we debated whether we should operate. The man begged us, so we proceeded. We had just finished removing the leg and were suturing the wound when the man's heart went into arrest. Despite our efforts, there was no heartbeat or respiration. We informed the man's relative, who was present in the operating room, that the man had died.
It was a policy that a family member be present in the operating room when we operated. The reason was that in the past, people had many distorted ideas about what happened in the operating room. By having a family member present, he or she acted as a witness to the rest of the family. The relative of this man was an older man and a Christian. I had just walked up to him and informed him that the patient had died when I heard a sound behind me. On the operating table, the patient began to breathe again. At first, he had gasping breaths, but slowly, he started breathing normally, and his heart began to beat again. I and everyone in the room could not believe it; the man was alive! I excitedly told the relative that the man was now alive. The relative began to cry, saying, "God has pitied us!"
Comments