Pothole!

May 9th, 2026| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Earlier this year, a miracle happened.

Vineeta Shukla, 50, of Bareilly, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, who had collapsed in her home, had subsequently been declared “brain dead” by doctors in a local hospital. So she was being transported back home in an ambulance with her husband, Kumar, who said:

I was preparing for her funeral. I told my family to prepare for her last rites. She was not breathing, there was only a sinking heartbeat. And medical professionals said she was showing no signs of life and there was no hope of survival.”

But that ambulance journey was the miracle. Specifically, a pothole. And a substantial jolt to vehicle and its occupants, including the once-deceased Ms. Shukla. And an act of God.

Because she immediately became “undeceased”! Mr. Shukla:

Then the ambulance struck a large pothole and the vehicle moved violently. And that pothole revived her, and she started breathing normally again.”

What an unexpected outcome.

Kumar continued:

I immediately informed my family to suspend all the funeral preparations.”

Upon being readmitted to the hospital, Vineeta was assessed by Dr. Rakesh Singh, a neurosurgeon at Neurocity hospital, who reported:

Her brainstem reflexes had been found to be absent while she was in the hospital earlier, while her Glasgow Coma Scale (a 15-point test that helps determine severity of brain injury) had dropped to 3 points: pretty severe. But now, she’s improving!”

After returning to critical medical care and “conquering her death,” she came home a couple of weeks later. She is fine, they said.

Her husband:

She is now not just awake, but talking to us.”

Another neurologist opined on social media about this whole thing:

It is possible the woman’s brain could have been herniating at the brain stem [being squeezed downward due to high pressure inside the skull cavity], which leads to pressure at breathing center so she was not breathing, but the jolt could have relieved the pressure, and restored her.”

Bottom line: Potholes aren’t all bad!

But to get you safely out of a hole? Only God can do that!

The psalmist, in a hole, pleads for deliverance, claiming that those in holes, dying, cannot praise God. So, God, help me:

What profit is there in my blood,
when I go down to the hole?
Will it give You thanks You—dust?
Will it proclaim Your faithfulness?
Hear, Yahweh, and be gracious to me.
Yahweh, become a helper to me.”
You turned my lamenting into dancing for me;
You undid my sackcloth and You girded me with joy,
so that [my] inner being can [now] make music to You and not be silent.
Yahweh, my God, forever I will give You thanks.
Psalm 30:9–12

God should, instead, cast evildoers into the hole!

He will:

Cast upon Yahweh your burden and He—He will sustain you;
He will not forever allow the righteous to be shaken.
But You, God—You will bring them down to the hole of destruction;
people of bloodshed and deceit will not [live out] half their days,
but I—I will trust in You.
Psalm 55:22–23

And so the godly ones rest in him.

Blessing [upon] the one whom You instruct, Yah,
and whom You teach from Your law,
to grant rest to him from days of evil,
until a hole is dug for the wicked.
Were Yahweh not a help to me,
soon my soul would have abided in silence.
When my anxieties are in abundance within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.
Psalm 94:12–13, 17, 19

SOURCE: People; Times of India