Injured Police Officer Experiences Miraculous Healing

On December 19, 2008, a winter storm blanketed Little Falls, New Jersey in snow. 39-year-old police officer, Bryan Lapooh was redirecting motorists away from an icy road condition—when he slipped. “The only thing I remember is waking up in a hospital as they were trying to intubate me,” says Bryan.

After further examination, doctors discovered Bryan had broken two vertebrae in his neck and had to perform emergency surgery. When Bryan woke up, the right side of his body was paralyzed. “I was panicking, scared,” says Bryan. Adding to his fears, the divorced father of three had remarried, and his wife, Meg, was expecting.

“He’s paralyzed? My husband’s paralyzed?” says Meg. “I was newly married; I had just lost my father. I was like, ‘this can’t be real.’”

Still, doctors were confident that, in time, he would fully recover. After his release four weeks later, Bryan went on disability and would spend countless hours in physical therapy, relying on a walker and leg brace to get around. As the weeks and months ticked by, there was no improvement, and he was in constant pain. And now he and Meg had a newborn in the home.

“I spent a lot of time asking God for Him to help me and get through all of this,” says Bryan. “I would always say, ‘Lord, why—like why-why is this happening to me? You know? I’m supposed to be a child of yours and I feel like I’m getting beat up worse than somebody else.’”

Then, after more than a year of fighting, Bryan began losing function on the left side of his body and doctors operated on his neck again. Afterward, not only was Bryan still paralyzed, he had debilitating migraines. Now doctors were saying Bryan would never recover, forcing him into early retirement.

“If this is what I’m going to be for the rest of my life, I can’t--I can’t do it. I can’t--I can’t be like this,” says Bryan. “I can’t be in this much pain and not have any relief. I cried out and I said, ‘Lord, you need to do something because I can’t take it anymore.'”

In all that time, and the years to come, Meg refused to give up hope. She turned to friends, family, and their church for prayer, and even took Bryan to some healing conferences. Bryan on the other hand...“She always believed I was going to get healed. And I didn’t always believe that. I-I'll be honest,” says Bryan.

For ten years Bryan tried to come to terms with his paralysis. One saving grace was that he was left-handed and could at least try to enjoy some of the things he loved, like hunting, fishing, and being with his wife and kids. Even then he was limited. Then in August 2019, Meg convinced Bryan to go to yet another healing conference.

“Right before we left, he had packed, you know, he would pack his brace, his charger, his crutches,” says Meg. “And I told him, you don’t even need your crutches because you’re not going to need them.”

Bryan had been down this road before. “The last thing I wanted to do is hear another person talk about healing,” says Bryan. “And I didn’t want to get prayed for again because I’ve been prayed for hundreds of times before.”

At the conference, many people were being called forward for prayer. Bryan wasn’t one of them. Furious, Meg stormed out of the room.

“Oh, I can’t believe it,” says Meg. “I can’t believe it! Yeah, I was mad at God.”

While she was out...

“It felt like somebody grabbed me by the back of my neck and picked me straight up and made me start walking forward," recalls Bryan.

Moments later...“I came back, and-and he was on the floor,” says Meg. “They were praying for him. I see his hand go up, moving. And uh and then he sits up in-in his chair and on this—on the altar, he said he wants to get up on the altar—and he’s smiling, he’s--I’m-I’m just watching in shock—in amazement and shock, you know, it’s happening, right? It’s happening,” says Meg.

“I looked at my hand and I—and I said, well, ‘move,’” says Bryan. “And like I’ve tried a million times before, it was crunched up and curled over, it started to straighten. And then my fingers would wiggle. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God,’” says Bryan. “And it’s all twitchy and it’s all spasming and it’s all, you know, crazy, but it’s moving and it never did that before.”

“Then he takes his brace off and he starts walking around,” says Meg. “He walked around—this is probably at 11 o’clock at night. Walks around the sanctuary a couple of times and then they let go and there are three people holding him and then they let go and he walks around by himself.”

Six months later, in a report from Bryan’s pain management doctor: “He was attending a prayer service about six months ago and miraculously and quite acutely, regained function of his right upper and lower extremities.”

Bryan still shows no signs of disability. Now working full-time at a rock quarry, he’s grateful to have his life back, and especially enjoys every minute he has with his family.

“I mean, you stop and you’re like, ‘What just happened? What happened?’” says Meg. “Like he broke his neck, he was paralyzed, this fight, and then he gets healed. Like what—again, this is another thing. This just doesn’t happen to people like us.”

“I tell everybody when was the last time you saw a paralyzed guy walk? says Bryan. “I never did until it was me. It’s still mind-boggling. I can’t explain it other than I’m living it. And-and it happened to me firsthand.”