In the late 1980's Bobby and Debbie Durrance and their sons, Buddy and 12 year old Mark,
moved into a new home in a semi - rural area in Southwest Florida.
The subdivision was so new that telephone lines hadn't been installed yet.
One afternoon, Mark left to play in a recently cleared drainage ditch nearby.
As he leaped across the ditch, Mark felt a vicious pain shoot through his ankle.
A rattlesnake had sunk its deadly fangs into his foot just below the ankle. he shook the snake loose,
but the vemon was already doing its damage.
He was more than 150 yards from home, and the strength was draining from his body. Mark struggled to reach the house and get help.
The next thing his mother knew, mark was calling from the front porch. "I've been rattlesnake bit!" he cried and collapsed.
The family was without a phone and 17 miles from the nearest hospital. The parents scooped up Mark who was already going into convulsions, leaped into the family pickup and raced for help.
All the way to the hospital, Debbie clutched mark and prayed that his life be spared.
At the hospital, Mark lapsed into a coma.
For 12 hours, doctors labored frantically to halt the spread of the poison.
During the next few days, every part of Mark's body stopped functioning, except his heart. The venom bloated him, swelling his eyes so tightly closed that his lashes were barely visible. His kidneys failed.
A respirator moved his lifeless lungs up and down.
" Internal hemorrhaging caused blood to seep not only from his ears, mouth and eyes but also from his pores; he required transfusions of 18 pints of blood before the nightmare had ended. There was a 90 percent chance he would lose his leg, and it swelled so large that eventually the doctors slashed it from top to bottom to relieve the pressure. Every new symptom was worse than the last."
Then, Mark awoke from the coma and gradually improved. The stunned doctor shook his head in disbelief. Mark was too far from home when he was bitten and so much poison was pumped into his system that he should have passed out almost immediately.
Mark's explanation: " The man in white helped me.
" He was just.... there. When i knew I couldn't make it to the house, he picked me up and carried me. He had on a white robe and his arms were real strong. He reached down and picked me up, and i was hurting so bad that I just sort of leaned my head on him. I felt calm.
" He talked to me in a deep voice. He told me I was going to be real sick, but not to worry. Then he carried me up the stairs to the house and I didn't see him again."
Later, as he continued his recovery,
Mark said that while he was unconscious, the spirit of his dead grandfather had come to comfort and encourage him.
When his mother suggested that the man in white might have been the spirit of his grandfather, mark replied
firmly:
" No, Mom, that wasn't Grandpa. I did not dream about the man in white. He was real."

Author Unknown,

Have A Blessed Day,
Love,
Angel