Tracey and Dann Stadler had a very close call with death. The couple was out celebrating their 4th anniversary when they were in a horrible car accident. They had been hit head on by a drunk driver. The driver had been going the wrong way down their lane on the highway when their cars collided and the couple was trapped inside a fiery nightmare.
“There was so much wreckage pushed in on us that we just couldn’t move. Tracey was literally trapped by the engine and everything else had collapsed in on her,” Dan recalls.
“I looked at my husband and he reached over to try to unbuckle my seatbelt,” Tracey said. “And then whoosh, he started on fire. I tried getting to him but I couldn’t move. I was trapped.”
The driver of the other car was already dead while Dann and Tracey were already badly injured and fighting for their lives. Tracey recalls, “The whole entire car was filled with smoke. I could smell the burning leather. I could smell the burning flesh. I knew that I was going to start on fire very soon because I couldn’t breathe. I could feel my lungs burning.”
Other motorists were quick to arrive at the deadly scene and they attempted to rescue the couple.
“They stopped their car and ran up to our car which was now engulfed in smoke and flames,” Dann said. “They began praying as soon as they came upon the wreckage and they moved into action almost as quickly. They were doing everything they could spiritually to help rescue us; however God’s will was going to play out; they were there involved in it.”
“I remember leaning up and looking at all these people lined up and they were hysterical. And I remember even locking eyes with a woman,” Tracey said.
The rescue efforts continued but time was quickly running out. The couple was becoming more and more desperate and they had a very limited amount of time left to get out of the car alive.
Tracey said, “I realized, ‘This is it. I’m leaving.’ And so I prayed. I said prayers I never even knew were in my mind. I said, ‘Father I pray that You forgive me for my sins. You said You have many mansions in Heaven and I pray there’s one for me.’ And I said, ‘Please don’t let me burn to death.’ And then I looked up and there he was.”
Then something even more amazing happened, according to Tracey:
“When I say ‘He’ it was a person who I knew wasn’t of this world. It was a Heaven sent person in an angelic form. And at that point he just lifted me up and I went with him. He pulled me out and we started getting further away from the accident site. At that point I know I left my body. I know I did. He told me I could look back if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. And the further we got away from the accident site the more peace I felt – such peace. And the love? The love can’t be explained; we’re too finite in our words. It can’t be explained in human terms. The love, like you are going home. There was no pain, no regret, only anticipation. The only thing that mattered was my relationship with Christ. And I felt like I was in the arms of God, of Jesus Christ himself.”
Dann said: “And they saw him come closer and closer to the car and he appeared to have a glow about him. And, at the same time there was another man who was behind all of this going on. He was praying fervently for our rescue and our recovery. And, he said just as the angel came upon the scene, he was buckled to his knees because he felt the healing power of Jesus Christ so intensely that it just overpowered and overwhelmed him. One of the rescuers was able to free Tracey, and that’s when he said she was just as light as a feather. She just essentially popped out right in his hands. As the angel was there he bent over her, and he put his hands over her face.”
That is when the healing took place. The couple soon snapped back to reality and were alive! Now they have written a book called Angels in the Fire where they share their amazing story of survival. Watch the amazing video below to hear more of their story: