The Vow: The True Events That Inspired the Movie Read Online Free PDF

consciousness; her pupils alternately constricted and dilated—a classic symptom, I later learned, of severe brain injury.
    While the rescue team was still cutting open the car, our passenger and I were loaded into an ambulance. On the way to the hospital in Gallup, the EMTs began cataloguing my injuries. My left ear was almost torn off; my nose was nearly severed. I also had other facial lacerations, a concussion, two cracked ribs, and a broken hand. Doctors would later discover a scraped lung and bruised heart muscle.
    As we sped along, I heard the ambulance attendant call the hospital on the radio. “We have two male accident victims, one in critical condition, one serious. The third victim is still at the scene in severely critical condition.” That didn’t sound good, but I realized that it at least meant Krickitt was still alive.
    When we arrived at the emergency room of Rehoboth-McKinley Christian Hospital in Gallup, I was immediately taken to get an X-ray and CT scan. The medical personnel had discovered a big knot behind my left ear that they thought might indicate a skull fracture. When I was finished, Krickitt was already being given life-saving treatment in another area of the ER, so I didn’t see her, but I knew the news wouldn’t be good. After all, I had seen her in the crumpled car, and it had taken them more than half an hour to cut her out of it.
    Nobody would give me a straight answer about Krickitt’s condition. How was she doing? Was she going to recover? Was she going to be okay? Nobody would tell me, which I realized was not a good sign. I later learned that when one of the ambulance technicians heard Krickitt was still alive hours after being admitted to the hospital, she refused to believe it. She had never seen anyone survive such massive head trauma.
    As soon as Krickitt had arrived at the hospital, the medical staff turned all their attention to her, which didn’t draw any complaints from me. The ER team had given me some preliminary treatment, but I didn’t want to take any sedative or have any other work done until I knew what was happening with my wife. I had been waiting for a while when a doctor approached me. His manner was professional and confident, but when I looked in his eyes I could tell he was exhausted. He handed me a little manila envelope.
    “Mr. Carpenter, I’m terribly sorry.”
    I couldn’t formulate a response before the doctor left the room. There was nothing to do but investigate the contents of the envelope. I opened it with my good hand and slid the items out into the broken one. I stared down at the Highlands University watch I’d had made for Krickitt . . . and her wedding ring.
    When I gave her that ring, I had made a vow to protect her through times of challenge and need. This was definitely a time of both challenge and need, but I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do to protect her now.
    My thoughts and feelings were all scrambled up inside me. I was in pain, and I was exhausted, but most of all I was annoyed that I didn’t know how Krickitt was doing. But all of a sudden, piercing through everything else, was the thought that she was dead.
    I was too incredulous to be sad. It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to believe my wife was dead; I couldn’t believe it. I was incapable of accepting the fact that those blue eyes were closed forever and I would never again see her smile shining at me from other side of the dinner table. I couldn’t believe that the most joyful, most enthusiastic woman I had ever known could be torn from my life so savagely. My brain simply refused to process the idea that after two months of marriage I was a widower. A widower.
    Some time later a nurse came in to check on me and update me on Krickitt’s status. “We’ve done all we can, and she hasn’t improved,” she explained. “She’s beyond medical help.” Maybe she’s beyond medical help, I thought, but she’s not beyond God’s help.
    The nurse continued.