Faith Brings Waukesha Couple Through Dangerous Fall

This Easter, Jim and Teri Downing have plenty to be grateful for.

Jim is able to walk and Teri has her husband—whom she met when they were young children in Sunday school at Waukesha Bible Church—alive and healing.

Earlier, this month, she wasn’t so sure.

“There were a lot of unknowns for a long time,” Teri said.

On April 9, Jim was cutting down a hickory tree damaged in a storm last fall. He planned to take the trunk to a lumber yard and make the tree into boards.

Jim was tied with ropes into the tree about 30 feet off the ground. The first branch came down exactly as planned, and Jim began working on the second branch.

The next thing he knew, his neighbors were around him, calling 9-1-1 and telling him he shouldn’t be walking.

The rope that had Jim secured in the tree was severed by the force of the branch coming down as it landed wrong. The Downings believe Jim was knocked unconscious when the giant branch knocked Jim out of the tree. They also believe he was unconscious for about 10 minutes.

“I got swatted out of the tree, basically,” Jim said. “I don’t really know what happened. … I was up and talking but I wasn’t there. ”

While paramedics provided medical attention to Jim, Teri rounded the corner after completing a few errands. She looked up the street to see the emergency vehicles and instantly knew something went wrong.

“Even though you are numb and your human nature can take you all over the place, having that peace through it all,” Teri said. “He is God’s to begin with.”

When Teri left the hospital, it was 4 a.m. She didn’t know at that time if her husband would make it or if he would ever walk again. The Downings' two daughters – they also have a married son – had stayed at other places that night, and Teri dreaded coming home to an empty house. She didn’t want to be alone, she said.

“I just prayed all the way home,” Teri said. “I needed God to show me that I wasn’t by myself.”

Teri walked up the stairs and into the bathroom, where she found a note stuck to the bathroom left by her 11-year-old daughter. In her bedroom, the daughter had piled stuffed animals in Teri’s bed for the night.

 “I see this Post-it note from afar, and I am thinking it probably says ‘I love you, Mom,’” Teri said. “I walk in there and the Post-it note said three words ‘You’re never alone.’”

Jim is going through the painful healing process, but the couple's strong faith is getting them through the injury, which includes four broken ribs, four broken vertebrae and four fractures in his shoulder.

The couple said there were many miracles during the day, like the neighbor hearing a noise and knowing something wasn’t right and the renowned surgeon at Waukesha Memorial Hospital who specialized in shoulder repair – Jim’s shoulder was severely broken – who happened to be working that weekend.

Miracles, they said, that came from God, which is a perfect Easter reminder.

“I look at that tree and think ‘I would never want to sacrifice him,’” said Teri. “Yet God, on purpose, chose that tree to sacrifice his son. …  We just pray that everything is for God’s purpose and glory. We know it is part of God’s story for us and that we get to be part of his story.”