It's Monday, the 28th of November, 2011. It is decided that I'd work that night; therefore I went home early, to get some rest.

Earlier the same day, my brother decided to make a few changes to his Christmas lights on his roof. His daughter came home earlier than usual from school, and she and her mother (my sister-in-law ) were in the house, working with an application on her phone. Her mother decided that she'd better go outside to watch my brother on the roof while she pulled some weeds.

I just recently moved into a house across the street from them, and had just arrived home, gone into the house, and began to get ready to rest, when I remembered that I forgot to run by the dry cleaners. I started out the door, and then decided to wait until the next day to pick up my clothes.

I walked back into the house and to my bedroom, when I began hearing screaming at my front door. I opened the door to see my niece frantic and pointing to their roof. I looked over to see my brother lying doubled over and face down on the roof.

I ran and somehow climbed the ladder that was really too short to use for roof access, with my sister-in-law immediately in front of me, while directing my niece to call 911.

My brother had one leg hanging off the roof. I rolled him over, and started searching for a pulse and/or breath, and found neither.

By now my niece had 911 operators on the phone but was having difficulty talking with them. I told her to throw the phone up to us. I asked if I should start CPR. She kept telling me to check for pulse, breath and God knows what else. I told her that I was CPR certified, and asked again if I should start my compressions. You see, I would have already started them except that he has a pacemaker, and I didn’t know if that changed procedures for some reason.

I had already checked for anything in his mouth that may have caused choking and found nothing. I handed the phone to my sister-in-law and began compressions. This and breaths went on for what we believe to have been about 7 or 8 minutes, until the Fire Department arrived and took over. My brother was rushed to the hospital.

The reason for all the detail is to help everyone understand how God’s divine choreography worked to make this miracle happen. Without any one of the circumstances below, we would have likely had tragic results:

• 1st, if my sister-in-law hadn’t decided to put off working on the app for her phone until later, she wouldn’t have been out there watching my brother.

• Next, realize that if my niece hadn’t been home, my sister-in-law wouldn’t have had her there to come get me. Would she have left her husband on the roof, with the potential to roll off, if she had come to get me, or worse yet, gone up on her own to help my brother and to have waited 8 to 9 minutes for the Fire Department to get there, if she had had a phone with her. He’d have been brain dead by then.

• 3rd, what if I hadn’t been scheduled to work that night. I’d not have been home. What if I had gone to the dry cleaners? I, in any case, would not have been home.

Moreover, in a neighborhood that almost always has someone outside, nobody came out when the Fire Department arrived with sirens blaring!

My brother went home yesterday from the hospital with no visible signs that his accident even occurred, except for the stitches where they replaced his pacemaker, and a very sore chest from the compressions that I gave him.

Thank God for providing my brother with this miracle.

Michael P.

Arlington, TX