30

The Scars to Prove It

After being electrocuted and pronounced dead, Art Walters returned to life—and the miracles didn’t stop there.

On the morning of September 18, 1971, Art Walters rolled out of bed as he usually did—straight onto his knees. Having escaped a few years ago, with God’s help, from a dead-end life of addiction to drugs and alcohol, he knew better than anyone how easy it would be to let temptation drag him back into the past. It had become his habit to avoid that possibility by dedicating each day to the Lord right from the beginning.

He’d been married for two years to Vicki, a woman who shared his dream of reaching out to street people, especially those whose lives had also been ravaged by drugs and alcohol. Together they had helped create Casa de Vida (House of Life), a Christian halfway house in Santa Barbara, California, whose mission was to assist people trying to break free from the downward spiral of homelessness and addiction. As live-in counselors, Art and Vicki provided shelter, job training, and spiritual guidance to anyone who sought it.

To help make ends meet, residents often took odd jobs around the community—landscaping, painting, or minor renovations and repairs. On that day Art was planning to supervise several ongoing projects. But first, on his knees in the bedroom, his former lifestyle came to mind. He thought of all his old friends who were still partying, ruining relationships, living only for themselves.

“I asked God to burn bridges in my life that morning,” he said. “I asked him to get rid of everything in my life that might still tempt me to turn back. I guess it really is true you have to be careful what you pray for.”

Later he set out on his rounds under a gorgeous, sunny blue sky. His first task: Check in with Bud, a Casa de Vida resident who’d become a believer two weeks earlier. Bud was tackling a variety of odd jobs at a local motel being remodeled, and the manager had offered an almost-new fifteen-foot TV antenna to the halfway house—provided they would remove it from her roof. After a quick assessment, Art and Bud decided to take her up on the deal.

With a stepladder the men climbed onto a wooden trellis covering the patio alongside the building. From there they stepped onto the clay tile roof and made their way upward to the antenna, attached to a long pole that fitted into an even longer one anchored in the ground below. All they had to do was lift the top portion free and lower it down. They took positions on opposite sides, got a firm grip, and lifted. According to plan, it came free.

But the antenna on top was heavier than they imagined. Furthermore, its weight wasn’t balanced—and the pole slowly began tilting to one side. They strained with all their might to hold it upright but lacked the leverage to counteract its growing momentum.

“I don’t have it!” Bud shouted.

Art didn’t either.

As if in slow motion the antenna toppled onto a cluster of high-voltage electrical wires strung too close to the building. The force of the impact broke through the wires and sent the live ends falling to the rooftop. Two cylindrical transformers atop the utility pole exploded, showering the roof with sparks. A ball of fire traveled down the pole and engulfed Art and Bud in flames. The repulsive electrical force threw them both like rag dolls onto the tiles.

Art was instantly knocked unconscious. And his clothes were on fire.

“The last thing I remember,” Art recalled, “was holding on to the pole and watching my hands start to bend over with it. Then everything went black, like I had been shoved into a dark closet.”

He believes he died at that moment. “I was still awake and aware, I just couldn’t see anything,” he said.

Suddenly he felt a cool breeze on his face, as if a fan had turned on. He looked to his left and saw something in the distance coming toward him—or maybe he was moving toward it. He had the impression of looking through binoculars and trying to focus on the image as it drew closer. Then he saw clearly that the object was his own body. Looking down at himself, lying on the roof, charred and burning, he knew he was dead.

“Then I looked to my right and saw the huge chest of a man, from the neck down to the hands. I knew right then I was in the presence of the Lord. It was like he was too big for the picture frame. His chest took up the whole sky. I watched as his hands scooped up my body, held it for a few seconds, and then set me back down. I could feel his wonderful presence in those hands and in that embrace.”

When Jesus put him back down, Art awoke in his body again—and stood up. He was surprised to see he was now off the roof and surrounded by fire department and ambulance crews. He looked down at his horribly burned body.

Then he passed out.

Like Art, Bud had been thrown down by the high-voltage force. His first thought upon seeing Art’s unconscious body was that his friend was dead. The sparking wires dancing wildly across the rooftop occasionally made contact with Bud’s torso and legs. It occurred to him that he also would be dead soon.

Though his relationship with God was so new, he cried out, “Jesus!” He thought it would be his last word. Instead, a surge of strength passed through his body and stood him on his feet. He patted out the flames on Art’s shirt and pants. He had severe burns over 30 percent of his body, but he dragged his friend to the roof’s edge, to the patio covering where they’d climbed up. Leaving him there, Bud descended the ladder. At the bottom he tried to figure out the best way to get Art off the roof.

When he looked back up, Bud was astonished to see a man standing on the roof. He held Art’s limp body in his arms and was handing him down the ladder. Bud took his friend and laid him on the ground. When he looked up again the man had vanished. He later told Art he was certain it was an angel of God, sent to help.

Emergency medical technicians arrived and pronounced Art dead. They estimated he’d been dead at least ten minutes. He had second- and third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body—and no measurable signs of life.

Bud sat and began to repeatedly pray, “Please, Jesus, don’t let him die!”

At that moment Art abruptly stood up from the stretcher as if someone had lifted him to his feet. He looked around, then at himself—and collapsed. The EMTs sprang to action. They packed his body in ice gathered from the motel ice machine. On the way to the hospital his heart stopped beating five times. Each time he was revived.

Over the next three weeks Art Walters had every reason to wish he’d remained dead. Once he regained consciousness he was in constant, excruciating pain. The renowned British plastic surgeon John Chapple “coincidentally” was on duty when he was rushed in, so he got excellent care. But there was nothing anyone could do to diminish the agony of his deep, widespread burns.

The prognosis was not good. Doctors told Art and Vicki that he could die of fluid loss, infection, even exhaustion from treatment. If he survived, he might be paralyzed or might have heart or brain damage. Certainly there’d be severe scarring over his entire body, including his face. In fact, Dr. Chapple had already decided that the facial damage warranted immediate surgery.

“I heard that and visualized myself as a hideous monster for the rest of my life,” Art said. “I cried out to God, ‘What are you doing to me?’”

God answered with a promise—and a question. “I can heal you completely. But would you be willing to carry these scars for my glory, as a testimony to what I can do?”

Art agreed, though he didn’t know exactly what that meant for his future.

God said, “As a sign to you, I will heal your face so there is no scarring.”

The next morning Dr. Chapple took one look at Art’s face and canceled the surgery.

“He came in, looked at me, and in that British accent said, ‘My, how remarkably your face has healed overnight.’”

Still the pain went on. The rest of his body remained in critical condition.

Every day he underwent the horror of having his bandages changed. Nurses stood him upright using his specially designed mechanical bed frame. Then he spent half an hour stepping away from the mattress that had stuck to his seared flesh. Once free, he was taken by wheelchair to a whirlpool and immersed in body-temperature water. There he endured more agony as nurses pulled away the old bandages to prepare his body for new ones.

“I screamed and screamed night and day,” he said. “I couldn’t eat or drink. I couldn’t sleep. It was horrible. Not knowing when the pain would end was the worst part.”

Doctors expected Art to be in the hospital undergoing treatments for at least three months. After four weeks things were not going well. Infection was a constant concern, as was keeping his body hydrated. He was allowed no visitors except Vicki, dressed in full protective clothing so that only her eyes were visible to him. On top of everything else he battled growing despair.

A bright spot in his day came when a nurse would snatch a few fleeting moments to read to him from Scripture. One verse in particular gripped his heart: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

A way out. That sounded good. “I knew God was telling me to keep looking for the way out he’d provided and not to give up,” he said.

Several weeks into recovery, Art spotted greenish smoke pouring into his room around the door. His first panicked thought was that the building was on fire. But he quickly realized that an evil spirit had entered and was filling the room with thick, oppressive smoke.

“It was a satanic presence. I started hearing a voice in my head that said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to be done with this pain? It could be over in a matter of seconds. Go on, you can do it.’”

Art’s right arm had been burned from his armpit to his fingertips, but he somehow managed to reach for a pair of scissors on the bedside table. He picked them up and felt an unseen force pushing his hand toward his body.

He began to pray. “I’m a Christian! I serve God. I know this isn’t right.”

Still something pressed on his hand, moving it closer to his chest. He kept praying—then felt another force take hold of his clenched fist and push in the opposite direction. He felt it was the Holy Spirit responding to his prayers.

“I was in the middle of a spiritual battle, a tug-of-war, with my life on the line. Then all of a sudden the room was filled with light. I looked and saw the Lord Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. He was radiant and beautiful! He smiled at me and put his hand on the end of my bed. Instantly I fell asleep—a miracle in itself, as I’d been unable to sleep for at least four weeks until then.”

The next day when nurses entered the room to begin the daily bandage-changing ordeal, they were astonished to find Art asleep. As usual they proceeded to stand his bed up and to free his skin from the mattress.

“This time, as I stepped away from the bed, I closed my eyes and saw the face of Jesus smiling at me, just like he had the night before. He told me, ‘I am the way out.’ I knew he was talking about the verse in First Corinthians. I kept my eyes closed, looking at his face. It seemed like only a few seconds.”

But when he opened them again, his body was already wrapped in fresh bandages—without a trip to the whirlpool. The nurses had painlessly removed all the old covering and replaced it with new.

“From that moment on things began to turn around. Surgeries were more effective, infection reversed course, and the pain was more manageable. Contrary to the doctor’s prediction, I was able to walk out of the hospital two weeks later. I looked like Frankenstein, but I was walking.”

Art’s road to full recovery was still arduous and lasted many months. Yet he did recover. As for Bud, he overcame his injuries as well. Though Art and Vicki lost contact with him over the years, they’ll never forget how his remarkable faith and fervent prayer brought Art through the fire that day.

Not even Vicki can see a trace of scarring on Art’s face now. And true to his other promise, God has used Art’s remarkable story many times through the years to draw people to him. The couple has continued in full-time service as missionaries to Central America and in various U.S. churches and ministries.

He sums up: “I was given a gift—more time on earth to help people and to serve God. Each day is an opportunity I try to use to the fullest.”