The Miracles Among Us

Dr. Marc Siegel, a practicing internist and Fox News medical analyst, argues that medical miracles are far more common than generally acknowledged, often manifesting as accumulations of coincidences, skilled care, and faith working together. He frames this thesis through conversations with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, who describes "soft miracles" in which physicians serve as "the hands of God," and theologian Michael O'Neill, who details the Catholic Church's rigorous process for validating miracles in sainthood causes, the formal proceedings for declaring someone a saint. Siegel introduces his father, Bernie, a 101-year-old World War II veteran whose survival through severe COVID, weeks on a ventilator, and years of dialysis exemplifies an accumulation of miracles enabled by skilled physicians.

The book opens with Paul Baier, son of Fox News anchor Bret Baier and his wife, Amy, born in 2007 with five congenital heart defects, including transposition of the great arteries, in which the heart's two main arteries are reversed. Declared healthy at birth, Paul was identified as critically ill only when a nurse noticed his paleness and summoned Dr. Gerard Martin, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's National Hospital. Dr. Richard Jonas, one of the top pediatric heart surgeons in the world, performed the first of 5 open-heart surgeries and 10 angioplasties, balloon procedures to open narrowed blood vessels. Amy views the chain of events, including a 2024 X-ray that caught a life-threatening aneurysm, as divine interventions.

Siegel recounts the January 2023 cardiac arrest of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin during a Monday Night Football game. A blow to the chest caused commotio cordis, a rare and usually fatal cardiac disruption. The Bills' medical team began cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) within a minute and shocked Hamlin's heart back into rhythm. Hamlin woke two days later, returned to professional football, and became a spokesperson for CPR awareness.

In 2015, 14-year-old John Smith fell through lake ice near St. Louis and was submerged for 15 minutes. He remained flatlined for over an hour until his mother, Joyce, prayed at his bedside and a pulse suddenly returned. Three days later, John woke fully oriented, a recovery his doctors called unprecedented. The story inspired the film Breakthrough.

Siegel profiles Dr. Tom Catena, a Catholic medical missionary and the only doctor for over a million people in Sudan's war-torn Nuba Mountains. Catena performs surgeries at Mother of Mercy Hospital that he was never trained for. When three-year-old Rita arrived with cancer in both kidneys, Catena prayed for internet access, which activated long enough for him to watch a surgical instruction video. He removed one kidney and excised the tumor from the other. Rita survived and remained cancer-free years later.

Ethiopian-born pharmacist Helen Wolday had a vivid dream in 2021 in which a famous actress handed her a dying baby with a heart condition. Helen discovered the dream corresponded to a real infant named Chrstuyan, an Ethiopian girl with Down syndrome and a hole in her heart. Helen donated her own money to fund surgery in India, and Chrstuyan survived.

Marine Corporal Dave Smith accidentally shot and wounded a fellow Marine during a nighttime mission in Iraq in 2004. After his discharge, he struggled with depression and alcohol addiction. A fellow Marine veteran named Clay introduced him to mountain biking. After Clay died by suicide, Dave put a loaded shotgun in his mouth but did not pull the trigger, describing Clay's presence holding him back. An invitation to President George W. Bush's Warrior 100K ride arrived soon after, beginning his recovery through faith.

Siegel tells the story of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, the Rebbe, seventh leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. When Nathan Litkowski's infant son Israel failed to thrive in 1989, the Rebbe instructed Nathan to check the mezuzah, a scriptural case affixed to a doorpost, on Israel's door, where Nathan found a broken letter. The Rebbe then directed a heart examination, which revealed a congenital narrowing of the aortic valve. He insisted on immediate surgery, and Israel survived. The Rebbe's resident during his final illness, Dr. Ludmilla Bronfin, later became Siegel's wife.

Siegel examines the cure of Sister Bernadette Moriau, a French nun with severe spinal conditions, incontinence, and morphine dependence who visited Lourdes, France, in 2008. Days after returning home, she heard an inner voice telling her to remove her medical apparatuses. She did so, experienced no pain, walked freely, and stopped morphine without withdrawal symptoms. Her cure was later recognized as the 70th official miracle at Lourdes.

Dodie Osteen, matriarch of Lakewood Church in Houston, was diagnosed in 1981 with terminal metastatic liver cancer and given weeks to live. Through sustained prayer, she gradually recovered, a spontaneous remission occurring in only one out of every 60,000 to 100,000 cases.

Rabbi Barry Mittelman recounts his father Isaac's Holocaust survival. Caught praying on Yom Kippur in 1944, Isaac was hanged from a tree overnight in freezing temperatures; by morning he was the only survivor. Later, while saying the Shema, Judaism's central declaration of faith, in a hospital, he survived an Allied bombing that killed everyone else in the building.

Dr. Ellay Hogeg-Golan, an Israeli anesthesiology intern, survived the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Kibbutz Kfar Aza with her husband, Ariel, and their infant daughter, Yael. After attackers set fire to their home, the family escaped with severe burns. Ellay breastfed her baby during hours of hiding, likely saving the child's life. At Sheba Medical Center, she was on a ventilator for 53 days. She completed her internship at Sheba and decided to pursue her critical care residency at Soroka Medical Center.

Transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery discovered a hereditary cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, after his brother and father both died young. He survived seven cardiac arrests and received a heart transplant in 2018, deliberately accepting a hepatitis-C-positive heart to validate a protocol he had developed. His near-death experiences deepened his faith and drove his pioneering work in xenotransplantation, the transplantation of genetically edited pig organs into humans, at New York University Langone Health.

Dan Redfield, son of former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield, suffered a catastrophic brain injury in a golf cart accident in January 2023. His family was told to prepare for his death. After an emergency hemicraniectomy, a procedure removing part of the skull to relieve brain pressure, Dan was transferred to the University of Maryland's Shock Trauma Center. Under trauma chief Dr. Tom Scalea's care and sustained by family prayer, Dan gradually awakened, regaining vision in a previously blind eye.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was shot during a congressional baseball practice in June 2017 by a bullet that entered his hip and shredded internal organs. Congressman Brad Wenstrup, an Iraq War veteran and surgeon, provided battlefield first aid. At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Dr. Jack Sava and Dr. Arshad Khan performed an unprecedented procedure, stopping the bleeding one vessel at a time. After months of recovery, Scalise walked back onto the House floor.

Twenty-two-year-old Shane Dennehy nearly lost his leg after a boat propeller accident in 2019. Surgeons Dr. Jason Spector and Dr. David Wellman performed months of coordinated procedures, repeatedly averting amputation. By 2024, Shane walked without a limp and worked as a surgical physician's assistant.

The final chapter features forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden recounting cases of people wrongly declared dead, which Siegel connects to a broader history of premature burial fears. In an epilogue, Siegel reflects on decades of treating patients, affirming that medical technology and prayer together form the foundation of healing, complemented by patients' courage and hope.