It was just like any other day. I woke and prepared myself for work. On reaching the Resort, I rushed Jedaiah to the teacher’s house for studies. It wasn’t even 45 minutes later when I received a phone call from unknown number. Answering the call, I hear my husband’s voice asking, “Where are you?” to which I replied that I was at the workplace. 

He asks another question, “Don’t you know what has happened?” I tell him I don’t know. Now he breaks the news to me that he had driven over our 1 year, 10 month old son, Jayden, in his truck. 

My joints trembled weak to the floor. I held my stomach like it was disintegrating from its normal position. I remember him asking if I could go find them at the hospital as they were going for a scan, I answered no. That was the end of the phone call. 

After like 5 minutes, I composed myself to call my mum who was then at my home. I asked her to tell me what happened. She broke to tears. Immediately my neighbour, who happened to be around, took the phone from her. She told me “Maama Jedaiah, don’t worry, Jayden will be fine. Good thing, he passed out the blood and he was alive while they left.” Now that’s when my mind came back to life. I call the boda man to take me to the hospital.

Upon reaching the hospital, I found Jayden in the emergency room surrounded by men and women in white gowns and blue gowns. With cables on his chest and almost everywhere and an ultra-sound tracing for any damaged organs. My husband then tells me that as he was turning home, he felt the tyre pass over something. He stopped to look through the mirror to see what it was. 

He says, he saw a child lying down, got out and lifted the boy, splashing blood through the nose, off the ground to his shoulders, shouting whose child is this? Jesse comes and tells him, “Daddy, that’s Jayden.” He looked the boy in the face, and realised it was indeed Jayden. I imagine how he must have felt. I was told he cried tears and said, “My own son, how could it be.”

That day was dark for me, my family and the whole neighbourhood. No one ate anything on that day. Jesse (Jayden’s best friend at home) went to their bedroom crying to God to bring back his little brother. My sister Julie (Jayden’s other ‘mummy’) came from wherever she heard the news, crying like she had already lost him. It was dark. It was terrifying. It was horrible. It was all frightening. It was sorrowful. I don’t know how that day ended, but it actually did end. I literally saw the sun falling dark on me. 

The neurosurgeon came after reviewing the head scan. He said Jayden had three fractures on his head. I couldn’t bear feeling after hearing that. I went and sat on the nearby chair, I remember my body shaking the chair like an earthquake was inside me, with tears just rolling down my cheeks. In my mind, it was like Jayden is going to grow up with a mango shaped head and maybe won’t understand me anymore. 

We were taken to the ICU, where we met with the heart surgeon who told us that Jayden’s right lung had collapsed because of the trauma. I remember my husband telling me that while in the radiology, the radiographer was able to see that Jayden’s chest had swollen. He acted very fast, asked the nurse for a grey cannula, and pierced it through Jayden’s chest which made a sound like a tyre losing air. And he says that was the moment Jayden’s life was saved. 

The doctors and nurses had not recognised that issue. After all that time, God makes the radiographer see it. The chest surgeon operated on Jayden by fixing the tube through the ribs to remove any remaining air so the lung could come back up. He advised that it usually takes 72 hours before it’s removed. After that procedure at around 4pm, we had to go back home. We left Jayden in the hospital when he hadn’t opened his eyes.  

On our way back home, my husband kept on taking very big breaths, shaking his head and with words, “How could I? My own son? When will this day end?”

To cut the story short, everyone went to bed at around 10pm. I stayed in the sitting room, with the TV on, holding my Bible. Not praying and not thinking. I sat there until about 1am in the night then I said these words, “Lord, I know You are God. If you were able to create a new womb in the woman who had lost hers and she was able to bear children again, I ask that You create Jayden again.” I went to bed. 

My husband woke up at 3am to pray. We prayed but our prayer was mostly thanking him. We thanked him for the fact that Jayden was alive. We thanked Him for having not let the guilt stay on us forever. We thanked Him for not humiliating our faith. What would people have said – ‘where is their God?’ He indeed took away our shame. They would have said we sacrificed our own child. Our God never sleeps nor does He slumber. Our God is faithful and good at all times. 

The next day we went back to the hospital. God amazed us:

  • Jayden had woken up crying for mummy and daddy, the nurse said.
  • Jayden’s head had sunk in on the side where the tyre passed, an implication of a broken bone. To my surprise, the bone had grown back to normal shape. How could a bone straighten itself in just hours?
  • We took Jayden for the x-ray, and the lung had come back up to normal. Initially, the doctor said that it normally takes 72 hours, but this was less than 24. The tube was immediately removed. 
  • Jayden could recognise me, call me mummy and smile at me. Not only me, he could remember his daddy and all his siblings.
  • We spent 3 days in the ICU and 1 day in the ward, just four days. However, I remember the nurses telling us on the first day that we may spend 3 weeks in the hospital. 

This is a story that has touched many and still is touching more. Jayden is a living testimony of God’s power. People in the hospital would whisper behind my back, “She is the mother.” Some people left their patients and prayed for me. Everyone that hears this story shakes. If that’s not God, then WHO?

Thanks to my husband – you were strong to drive Jayden to the hospital and being there throughout. My church – Pastor Deborah, worship team and the church members, thank you, you strengthened us, you prayed for us. My mother and my mother-in-law, my in-laws, my sisters (Julie and Pauline). Sandra – you were pregnant, but you carried Jayden and got yourself covered in mud in blood. Maama Anna, my neighbour – thanks for encouraging me though you didn’t even see what happened. And all who prayed for us during that trying moment.

ALL GLORY TO GOD ALMIGHTY