Luke Bennard grew up in a Christian home, but by age 25, decided he couldn’t be the person he thought he should be. So he tried being someone else. Luke said, “I ended up drinking a lot consistently and getting drunk all the time.” On March 9, 2013 Luke remembers only what he’s been told. After having a couple of drinks with friends, Luke was driving home alone when he lost control of his car. He was flown to Los Angeles County Medical Center in critical condition. Luke’s father, Daniel, was in Houston on business when he got the call and took the next flight to L.A. His wife Kathy arrived at the hospital from their home in Florida.
Luke’s mother, Kathy said, “When I walked into the room, I looked at him and I knew it was bad. I couldn’t even recognize my son, his head was swollen, his eyes were shut, tubes everywhere. My mind was going, here’s the situation, which is very, very bad, now it’s time to get to work.”
And that meant prayer. Luke was in a coma with little hope for survival. The family was told if he did live, he’d be in a vegetative state or seriously disabled due to a traumatic brain injury. He had also broken his back and neck. But Luke’s family refused to believe the prognosis.
Kathy said, “With all of our hearts we believe that it wasn’t Luke’s destiny to die at 25. We just knew that. And so we said, ‘we’re going to pray desperate, specific, unified prayers for him.’ And we got everyone – we launched an initiative to – for everyone around the country to pray. There were thousands of people praying. This is how we want you to pray.”
Luke’s parents stayed at his bedside reading scripture and praying. Eleven days later he woke up. “When he woke up I was there beside him,” said Kathy. “And Daniel asked him, ‘cause he was looking at me, he couldn’t talk. And Daniel said, ‘this is your mom, if you see your mom, if you recognize your mom, squeeze my hand.’ And he did.”
He was moved out of critical care and placed in rehab. But Luke was still in a back brace and doctors didn’t know whether he’d walk again. “Then he started moving his legs,” said Daniel. “He’d pick them up and move them, pick them up and move them. I’m going like, ‘okay.’ We called the doctors and said, ‘look.’ And they said, ‘that’s really good because that’s a voluntary movement.’”
So more x-rays were ordered. Daniel said, “They kept on saying ‘stable,’ and I said, ‘what does stable mean?’ It means we can’t find the breaks anymore.” Less than a month after the accident, Luke was able to leave the hospital and return to Florida with his parents. He wore a helmet until surgery could be performed to replace a piece of his skull. Little by little, Luke began forming new memories from what others told him.
“It starting hitting me like one, the actual injuries that I had sustained and then the realization of ‘okay, something rare happened here,’” said Luke. Luke’s medical records show that he arrived at the emergency room with a Glasgow Coma Scale of 3, the worst possible score. No one knew if Luke would fully recover, not even neurosurgeon, Dr. Peter Gruen.
“Somebody like [Luke] who comes in with a Glasgow Coma Scale of 3 and then a few months later is walking into my brain injury clinic, I could count those on one hand, so very, very, very uncommon, and I even hesitate to say it but the first word that comes to mind is miraculous,” said Dr. Gruen.
Luke said, “Okay. All I know is that people were praying for me.” That led Luke to ask more questions. “’Why God? Why me?’ I was thinking that I had to be this perfect Christian to be right with God.” Then he realized something. Luke said, “You can’t be a certain way to earn God’s love because you already have it. It’s a gift from God. He loves you and he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for you cause He loves you and He wants to spend eternity with you.”
Luke now read the Bible with fresh eyes and recommitted his life to Jesus Christ. He said, “It felt like a burden was taken off of me.”Luke worked daily in rehab to recover from the brain injury. One morning he awoke from a dream and began writing a screenplay. “I ended up finishing writing the script in one month, when six months before I was in rehab, relearning how to write my name,” said Luke. “It’s called ‘The Favorite.’” Luke is in development for his film, about two brothers portraying Luke’s spiritual and physical healing.
Daniel said, “Sometimes I’d tell Luke, ‘Luke, you’re a miracle.’”
“God’s goodness and his faithfulness is everlasting,” said Luke’s mother, Kathy.
Luke said, “So maybe God wants to use me for something. I don’t necessarily know what the end result is going to be, but I’m like ‘I don’t need to. I’ll just wait and listen and just respond to where I believe He’s leading and directing me.’”