Don & Mamie Smith
Both Hips Crushed in Head-On Collision - Supernatural Recovery
December 1993 - Belize / Houston, Texas
The Mission Trip
In December 1993, Don and Mamie Smith joined a church group traveling to Belize, Central America. The mission was simple: visit an orphanage and deliver Christmas gifts to the children. They brought two extra suitcases full of presents.
They had no idea they were about to experience both near-death trauma and miraculous intervention.
The Accident
On the morning of December 19th, the group needed to travel to the nearest town, Belmopan, to buy locks for the orphanage. The van had been lent out, so they piled into an old Ford pickup truck. About ten people total. Don had a slight fever from drinking the local water, so he rode in the front cab. Mamie and others sat on benches in the truck bed.
They were heading toward a one-lane bridge over a creek when someone in the back shouted: "Y'all hold on. We're gonna take a hit."
A Pepsi bottling truck had lost its brakes. It was barreling toward the same one-lane bridge from the opposite direction. The two vehicles collided head-on at high speed.
Don was thrown into the windshield. Both his femurs exploded. The ball joints in his hips shattered into pieces.
"The doctors told me later that only a small percentage of people live through that kind of trauma to your hips. Those bones break and splinter up into pieces and push into your body. You bleed to death or destroy other organs. They said if it would've went another fraction of an inch into my body, I would've died."
Mamie was thrown out of the truck bed toward the bridge railing. The drop to the creek below was about thirty feet. But something pulled her back. She landed in the grass with a severe bruise on her leg and a concussion, but no broken bones.
Apostle Delmar later testified about what happened: God yanked her back.
No Pain
Here's the first supernatural sign: Don had no pain.
Despite a severe concussion and both hips destroyed, he felt nothing. No medication for over 24 hours because of the head injury. The doctors wouldn't allow it. Yet he experienced no pain the entire time.
"From the minute I was in that wreck, from the head injury and both hips, I had no pain. Even on the ride in the ambulance. That's a supernatural thing."
Praying in the Spirit
Neighbors loaded Don and Mamie into a small pickup truck to transport them to a clinic. The roads in Belize were full of holes. Every bump should have been agony.
Mamie had a concussion. She wasn't fully conscious. But the others in the truck bed heard her praying in tongues the entire journey. She doesn't remember any of it.
"They said as I prayed in the spirit, the peace of God would come in the back of the truck. And they all had peace. As long as I was praying in the spirit." — Mamie
Her mind was gone, but her spirit kept praying.
"When the Spirit prays, your mind is not there. My spirit was praying. God was using my tongue, my mouth, my breath."
The Word from God
At the British hospital, before they airlifted Don to Houston, Mamie saw her husband curled in a fetal position, completely broken. She began to pray.
God spoke to her: "Everything is going to be all right."
She grabbed that word and held onto it. All night. All the next day.
"I said that all night long. Father, I thank you. Everything's gonna be all right. You spoke that to me. And I take that."
Getting on the Plane
The next day, Continental Airlines had a flight to Houston. But there was a condition: if you can't walk up the steps to the airplane on your own, you cannot fly. They wouldn't be responsible.
Mamie couldn't stand without getting dizzy and feeling like she would pass out. The concussion was severe. But the next flight wouldn't be for three days.
She looked at those airplane steps and prayed: "Father, I need to be on that plane."
They wheeled her to the bottom of the stairs. She stood up. She walked every single step to the top.
"I never had a problem with dizziness ever again. From that moment on."
The Surgery
In Houston, doctors at Hermann Hospital (now Memorial Hermann) worked on Don. They put weights on his legs to pull him out of the fetal position. He had a fever they couldn't explain. They ran tests for days.
Finally, on December 24th, they performed surgery. Eight hours.
The doctors took all the shattered bone fragments, pieced them back together, and secured each hip with two screws. They didn't know if the bones would survive. They had been without blood supply for nearly a week. Dead bones.
Don and Mamie prayed: "God, let those bones live and not die."
The Turning Point
After surgery, Don was in intensive care. His vital signs were failing.
Mamie called Apostle Delmar and Charlotte. They came to the hospital.
Apostle Delmar laid his hands on Don's feet and prayed.
What happened next was witnessed by the nurses and Charlotte in real-time: Don's color came back. His vital signs normalized. Everything changed.
"As Pastor Delmar was praying, I had my eyes closed, but I heard the nurses. I heard everything that was going on. Charlotte saw the readings on the monitors. She was looking at all that. I believe that was the turning point of Don's recovery." — Mamie
Don didn't even know this had happened until Apostle Delmar told the story years later.
Supernatural Recovery
The doctors said Don might never walk normally again. He wouldn't be able to sit cross-legged. Couldn't twist. Couldn't do many things.
They were wrong.
Don was in a wheelchair for about two weeks. Then a cane. Then back to work in eight weeks.
"I never, not one time, doubted that I wouldn't just get up and be completely normal again. I never had a doubt come into my mind."
A couple months after returning to work, he was climbing hundred-foot towers at the plant. The same things he did before the accident.
Years later, he did need hip replacements as the original repairs wore down. But even with two hip replacements and one revision, he could still do everything he did before.
"I could do anything that I could do before that surgery. The doctors said I wouldn't be able to. I don't even know I have hip replacements. I don't even think about it."
The Power of the Word
Don and Mamie attribute their survival and recovery to several things:
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The Word hidden in their hearts. They had spent years studying Scripture and listening to generals of faith like Kenneth Hagin.
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A word from God. When Mamie heard "Everything is going to be all right," she repeated it constantly. She believes it shaped their recovery.
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The laying on of hands. When Apostle Delmar prayed over Don in ICU, something shifted in the spiritual realm that manifested physically.
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A church that knows how to pray. People around the world heard about the accident and interceded. For years afterward, Don would meet strangers who said, "Our church prayed for you."
"You really need to be hooked up with a body of believers that know how to pray. That you can count on. I can call on Pastor Delmar and he's on it. He's praying for us. It's not just talk. It's real."
Don and Mamie's Background
Don and Mamie have known Apostle Delmar since he was a teenager. They were youth pastors at a church where Delmar was part of the youth group. He formed a band called "Soul Patrol" with their son Kyle and other young people. Don ran the soundboard. They traveled together doing ministry for about seven years.
"He's the most consistent, turned on for God person I think I've ever met. What he says from the pulpit is the person you'll see everywhere else. He's genuine." — Don
The Smiths received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the 1970s. They've been walking in faith and the gifts of the Spirit for over fifty years. They attend Encounter Church on Wednesday nights and remain close to the Coward family.
Other Healings
Don received another healing at a home prayer meeting about seven or eight years ago. Two doctors had told him he needed a knee replacement. Bone on bone. The only option was surgery.
People at the meeting prayed for him. He hasn't had pain in that knee since.
"I know God does miraculous things."
In Their Own Words
On having the Word in you:
"If you don't have the Word in you, you're lost. You have to depend on other people's faith. But we had the Word in us. We quoted the Word. We read that little Charles Capps book every day. And God brought us through."
On the enemy's attacks:
"The devil did the destruction, but God saved us out of it. He's tried to take us out a couple times. But God delivered us out of them all."
On their 58-year marriage:
"God put me with a godly woman. If we hadn't got together, I'd probably have been playing my horn anywhere they'd let me play. She put me on the right track." — Don
On Apostle Delmar:
"Ever since he was young, he was always a person of integrity and compassion. He loves people. There's been a love of God that we've seen throughout his life. He's the same today as he was back then." — Mamie
"God doesn't say you're not gonna have problems. But the thing is to be prepared. Have the Word in your heart. He delivers us out of them all." — Don Smith