A Miracle Wrought in Faith: Joel Rogers’ Story of Survival
December 13, 2023, was just another day at the office for Joel Rogers, Christian education director for the Chattanooga, TN Area Command. He was overseeing the annual Angel Tree distribution day at the Cleveland Corps, one of his favorite events of the year, with families picking up Christmas gifts for their children. But by the end of the day, Joel’s life had drastically changed course to an unexpected fight for survival.
It started with just a feeling of being a little off and fatigued. Joel brushed it off as a lack of sleep from pre-event anxiety. But soon, excruciating lower back pain set in. “My back was on fire, I knew something was wrong,” Joel recalls. He alerted his wife Cheryl that he needed to go to the emergency room immediately.
By the time they arrived at the local hospital, Joel’s heart was palpitating rapidly. Despite administering heavy pain medications, nothing could dull the agonizing pain he was experiencing. Tests like EKGs and X-rays couldn’t pinpoint the issue, except for an alarming grey area on the backside of his heart. Joel had suffered an aortic dissection, a life-threatening condition which can have a mortality rate as high as 40 percent.
The doctors knew they were ill-equipped to handle Joel’s escalating condition. He needed to be immediately transferred to the advanced heart facility at Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga. The situation was so dire that the doctors warned Cheryl she may need to say goodbye, as they weren’t sure he would survive the medical transport.
In those shocking moments, Joel maintained remarkable spiritual peace, even praying over the panicked medical staff tending to him. “Lord, give them peace. Lord, help them,” he recounts praying. He also prayed for himself, his wife, and his 12-year-old daughter Eden. This became the first of many opportunities for Joel to share his faith during his harrowing medical ordeal.
Joel did go into full cardiac arrest during the helicopter medevac to Chattanooga, having to be resuscitated by the air crew. Upon landing, he was rushed into 10 hours of emergency surgery, having to be revived three more times during the procedure. At one point, a doctor had to manually massage Joel’s heart for 20 minutes to keep it pumping.
“Even though we got him here, he has less than a one percent chance. I just need you to be prepared,” was the devastating update the head surgeon gave Cheryl in the lobby packed with friends and family from the Cleveland Corps anxiously awaiting news. Cheryl maintained a brave face, initially carrying that heartbreaking revelation alone.
But against all odds, with each passing hour of the marathon surgery, Joel’s chances at survival incrementally improved, until they had risen to 30 percent by its conclusion. Joel credits Dr. John Craig of the Chattanooga Heart Institute for saving his life that night. It turned out that Dr. Craig, who specializes in the aortic root, had just ended his shift when Joel arrived. But he chose to stay on through the intensive 10-hour operation. Dr. Craig was so dedicated to monitoring Joel’s precarious condition that he spent the night on a hospital bed outside his room.
The surgery was a success, but Joel’s fight was far from over. He remained in a medically induced coma for 22 days as his body slowly recovered from the trauma. During that time, a cavalcade of complications emerged – kidney and bladder failure, necrosis in his legs potentially requiring amputation, and pneumonia.
“God started doing some crazy things,” Joel recounts of his recovery experience. “My kidneys were the first thing to start back up, all of a sudden. Then my bladder started back up.” And incredibly, the necrosis in his legs miraculously reversed course. “I can’t believe you are healing like this; you shouldn’t be healing like this,” one nurse marveled to Joel.
“I know…but God!” Joel confidently responded, recognizing yet another opportunity to proclaim his faith in Christ’s healing powers. He credits the healing power of prayer from his Salvation Army church community as playing a vital role.
Joel has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he’s received from across the Southern Territory and especially the Kentucky- Tennessee Division during his recovery. He’s received constant prayers, visitations, donations, cards, and well-wishes, including from Salvation Army members from as far away as Cambodia. Joel is tremendously appreciative of this widespread support network that has upheld him and his family and provided reminders of God’s restorative love.
A particular worship song, “I Speak Jesus” by Charity Gayle, became an anchor for Joel during his grueling recovery. “So much was happening that I didn’t have words for…there were lots of days where the only thing I could muster was ‘Jesus, Jesus.’ That pulled me through some really dark times.”
Upon being discharged from the hospital, another obstacle nearly prevented Joel’s admission to the inpatient rehabilitation facility at Siskin Hospital until his tracheotomy was finally removed just days before the scheduled transfer.
At Siskin, the real work began as therapists pushed Joel to regain basic functions like walking, talking, and eating. He had to relearn everything from scratch. Doubt would sometimes creep in, as he wondered, “God, why me, why now?” But Joel’s faith never wavered. “God’s promise is never a rescue from trials, but a presence with you during them.” His presence at Siskin became a living testimony to that promise.
In an inspiring role reversal, Joel became a spiritual leader of hope at the rehab facility. Nurses would send people to “the Miracle Man in room 305” to hear his testimony of perseverance and miraculous healing through the power of Christ, which he would recount while they visited with him. Joel embraced these opportunities to witness about his journey. After 129 days in the ICU and then at inpatient rehabilitation, Joel was finally well enough to be released and go home on April 19.
Through this entire life-changing crucible, Joel’s wife Cheryl has been a constant source of reassurance, prayers, and caretaking. She, too, had to lean on her faith during the initial dire prognosis. “God told me to take it one day at a time, and that is really hard for me, because I’m a planner,” Cheryl says. But empowered by the Holy Spirit, she was able to be spiritually and physically present for her husband.
Over $47,000 has been raised through an online fundraiser to support the Rogers family and Joel’s long road to recovery still ahead, an effort coordinated by Sergeant Ruth Forgey of the Cleveland Corps.
Both Joel and Cheryl remain resolute voices of hope, faith, and devotion as key members of the Cleveland Corps community which has rallied around them with prayers, visitations, and generosity. Their unshakable trust in God has only grown stronger through the harrowing trials. And at every turn in Joel’s medical journey, he has boldly witnessed about Christ’s healing presence.
“I needed to not see the exit,” Joel says, referring to his lack of a transcendent near-death experience that may have made him reluctant to remain earthbound. “He was faithful in that too.”
Through it all, Joel’s extended Salvation Army family from across the Southern Territory has remained faithfully committed to uplifting the Rogers family with fervent prayers, visitations, generous financial support, and loving encouragement. From the KT Divisional Headquarters to corps around the world, Joel’s brothers and sisters in Christ have embodied God’s love by walking patiently beside him and his family through each hard-fought step of his miraculous healing, recovery, and restoration journey. They have witnessed firsthand the Lord’s power to not just revive the body but revive the spirit through life’s darkest valleys.