September 2013
I work in tourism at INATEL. We organize many trips and once
I went to the Holy Land. I invited Fr. Geraldo to participate
on the journey, to be the spiritual guide. At the airport in Tel Aviv, Father Geraldo
shared something with me: "I'm praying to Don Alvaro for the trip to go well."
And then he took the prayer-card out of his pocket and he said: "You'll see, he's going to help us."
After Nazareth, we went to the hotel and at the hotel
there was a pool. It was a warm day and I suggested to the
participants, if they wanted, before dinner there was time
to freshen up a little bit in the pool. I went to my room.
As soon as I got to my room, someone started knocking on my door, one of the
our pilgrims. Hitting strongly...
and says, "Fr. Geraldo died, Ana! Fr. Geraldo is dead!"
"Fr. Geraldo died!"
I was at the front desk and received a call from Adnan. I ran to the pool to check what happened.
I see Father Gerlado looks blue, with their eyes closed and I called the ambulance.
He was unconscious and had a cardiac arrest: his heart stopped beating.
We call it "coma." He was completely unresponsive.
He was in a very critical situation. When the neurologist came, he said to me, "There's nothing to do with him."
"There's nothing to do with him."
I was sitting in my office behind me, and I started to see the camera registration.
The first person who helped him was the Adnan guide. He helped to take him out of the pool.
We thought he was floating ...
I thought it was too long for him to hold that position, that it wasn't normal.
There were two people, two ladies, who were the ones who caught my attention saying:
"Something happens to the priest."
And we turned him over and we realized that
he was idle, he was out of breath.
With the limited medicine background, I tried to resuscitate, but I couldn't.
I saw Father Geraldo dead. I never thought Father Geraldo could survive.
He wasn't breathing anymore, he was completely...
"From my point of view, he was dead."
From the first moment I prayed a lot to D. Alvaro telling him: "Now that you've put me in this situation
and I have so many good memories of you, please don't leave me!
We opened the target artery that put him in that critical situation.
When we open it and stabilize it, he was still unconscious.
Our protocol continued to take him into a suit to decrease his temperature to 34 degrees.
Respiration, intubation, infusion to keep the body functioning.
We had this protocol for two days and then we'd warm him up.
"D. Alvaro, don't leave me!"
I received a phone call that
a sensitive phone call preparing me for the final outcome that my brother
would be very short of time life and I truly realize that the situation
was very bad and you couldn't see another a way out unless the eternal life.
Almost at the end of the trip I called the hospital again.
They already knew my voice, of course. And I heard on the line: "Miracle, miracle."
Fr. Geraldo opened his eyes and talked. Yes!
He woke up and we talked about the situation.
I don't remember, but he asked me all the time: "What happened to me?"
He recovered from something that was very very difficult for him to survive.
You couldn't expect almost total recovery,
because he turned out to be what he was before. In these circumstances, what is predictable
whether physically or psychically it is to stay deeply limited.
My intention was to rest, swimming because I was used to swimming and
I got tired and I thought, "I'm going to rest." And I stood up, but they say that at that point
I fell straight ahead and lost my senses. I had no idea how
I was passed out, but since I was intubated, I thought, "Something serious has happened to be intubated here."
I didn't know how many days before. As I heard everyone
speaking in Hebrew, I remembered to do writing sign and they brought me a piece of paper and
I wrote in the local language, in Hebrew, "Where am I?"
Where am I?
The statistics were against him, but he had this chain of events... and everything went well for him.
We are doctors and nurses and we believe in medicine. But in this case there is a miracle.
If the miracles existed, this was one. Because I wouldn't expect Father Geraldo to come out alive from the pool.
I received a lot of miracles from Don Alvaro in my personal life.
His beatification was no surprise because I knew he was a saint.
I consider, in fact, that this really was an extraordinary grace.
I attribute to Don Alvaro because I prayed
a lot to Don Alvaro before this accident. I always take the prayer card with me.
and I keep that prayer card with the pacemaker ID, which I always have to bring with me.
It goes along with D. Alvaro prayer card.
He gave me this picture and told me: "I leave this with you and God will save you."
So this stayed with me because I believe in God.
Fr. Geraldo will celebrate his 90th birthday in September 2020.
Acknowledgements