Brian Webb has no doubts about the power of prayer. The 45-year-old plumber from Fenton, pictured left, collapsed at work in March of this year. He then spent days on a ventilator in a coma with abnormal heart function and little brain activity. Doctors prepared his wife, Brandi, for the worst. Meanwhile the medical team scrambled to piece together what had happened to this otherwise healthy husband and father. But soon doctors would be trying to answer another question: How was Brian suddenly and, it seemed, inexplicably healed?

Long before his health episode, Brian recognized that God had moved mountains in his life. In fact, he had already written a 20-page testimony sharing his painful and broken upbringing, which led to years of rebellion followed by God’s leading him to the place where he found peace and love: the Catholic Church.

“God has had me on quite the adventure,” Brian says, smiling, as we meet in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents at Saint John the Evangelist in Fenton. Now an active member of parish, nothing could have prepared him for the role the parish community would play in his life, a role he says is nothing short of lifesaving.

“I owe this church my life,” says Brian.

Waking up and heading to a plumbing job “like any other day,” Brian says, there were no red flags on March 19 (although he and Brandi would later come to understand the date’s significance as Saint Joseph’s feast day and, they believe, his intercession).

“There was nothing different from any other day. I remember drilling to run a drain line and smoke came out of a knot in the wood, which shut down my lungs.” Brian quickly realized something was very wrong.

“My mind went into panic mode, and I asked my boss to call an ambulance. The next thing I knew, days had passed, and I finally woke up.” Doctors would later discover that the lack of oxygen triggered seizures that weakened Brian’s heart, a multi-system emergency that they weren’t confident he would survive.

Once Brandi got word that Brian was unresponsive and being taken to the hospital by ambulance, she dropped everything to get to him. “It was a whirlwind,” Brandi recalls.

Having become Catholic only two years prior, Brandi worried that she didn’t know how to pray in such a moment. “New to being Catholic, all I could think of was the Hail Mary, so I prayed it.” Brandi also felt prompted to call one of the women from her prayer group. “I told her what was happening and said, ‘I just need you to pray for him. I don’t think I’m doing it right.’”

What seemed too simple to Brandi proved fruitful beyond measure, as Brandi’s one Hail Mary, plus her phone call, proved to be catalysts for a chain reaction of intercessory prayer.

“The word spread quickly and everyone started praying. Right away, Saint John’s pastor, Father Robert Copeland, came to the hospital, and then two of the women came along also. From that point, I was never alone.”

Just before receiving the news about Brian, Father Robert had heard accounts of miraculous healings attributed to the intercession of Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901–1925) who was canonized only last month by Pope Leo XIV.

Sensing God’s providence at work, Father Robert entrusted the intention of Brian’s healing to the saintly young Italian’s heavenly intercession. He also made sure that Brian received the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.

Meanwhile, parishioners anticipated Brian and Brandi’s every need, sitting with Brandi at the hospital, caring for their children, providing meals and financial support, and throughout it all, unceasing prayer. The Church was at its best, Brandi says, as she was living some of the worst days of her life.

“My mind went to a very dark place,” Brandi recalls. “It was overwhelming.” Brian’s first brain scan showed significant brain swelling and damage. “They told me ‘how you see him now; this could be it.’” With a devastating prognosis, Brandi says it was the local parish that sustained her.

“Our friends from church played out every scenario. We even talked about how if Brian died, they’d surround us no matter what.” It was with the outpouring of support and a real sense of God’s grace that Brandi says she came to have hope. “The church saved him, but it saved me, too,” Brandi says.

Inexplicably, Brian’s second brain scan showed normal brain function and nothing of concern. A gradual backing-off of Brian’s sedation to test his brain function went so well that doctors extubated him and, within hours, he was sitting up in a chair, chatting and joking with family and friends. “Every doctor was asking, ‘What happened?’” Brandi says.

Upon discharge from the hospital, Brian asked to make just one stop on the journey home. “The only thing that filled me completely was the chapel at our parish.” In awe of what God had done, Brian says he sat and wept before the crucifix out of gratitude.

While doctors call him a medical mystery, Brian’s healing is no mystery to the couple who see God’s hand on it all. “Brain swelling doesn’t just disappear in two days,” Brandi says. “We know what happened. We believe in the power of prayer. It saved him.”