‘I thought he was my guardian angel’
Nolan Ostrowski felt as if death was close at hand. h “I felt a lot of despair and a lot of darkness over me,” said Ostrowski, 52, who was
Blessed Solanus Casey truly saved me, Michigan man says
hospitalized in late July with COVID-19 at Sparrow
Hospital in Lansing. “When I closed my eyes, it was like death was coming.” h He began to pray, thinking of his wife, Kathleen, and their three children. That’s when he saw the legs of a man wearing a brown robe near his
Kristen Jordan Shamus Detroit Free Press USA TODAY NETWORK
bed. h “I thought he was my guardian angel,” said Ostrowski, a carpenter who lives in Eaton
Rapids. “There was a certain comfort in that.”
Though he didn’t know it at the time, Ostrowski’s family was praying for his recovery and asking the Blessed Solanus Casey, a Capuchin priest who worked for two decades at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit and who has been said to heal the sick, to intercede. Casey, who founded the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, died in 1957, but in the years since, reports have streamed in from people who say he has continued to answer their prayers, interceding on their behalf to help heal sickness, reunify troubled families and help people overcome addiction, said the Rev. Edward Foley, a Capuchin priest who is the vice postulator for the canonization cause of Blessed Solanus.
“There have been thousands of favors that have been reported, thousands, after he died in ‘57 ... but Rome has recognized one miracle,” Foley said.
That miracle was acknowledged by Pope Francis in 2017, when Casey was beatified following the healing of Paula Medina Zarate, a retired teacher from Panama. She prayed in 2012 at Casey’s tomb in Detroit, and afterward, the genetic skin condition that had plagued her most of her life vanished.
It was the first step in Casey’s path to sainthood. July 30 was chosen as Casey’s feast day. That also happens to be the same day Ostrowski saw the brownrobed figure by his hospital bed for the first time.
The next day, Ostrowski said he told his wife what he’d seen. And he learned that his loved ones were asking Casey to intercede.
The next night, Ostrowski woke yet again to feel the darkness surrounding him. But this time, he said, he could see the man in the brown robe more clearly. The man he believes was Casey was sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed.
“I said, ‘I’ll make you a deal. If you get me out of this, if you save me, I’ll never use God’s name in vain again.’ And it was like he had won the lotto, is the best way I can explain it, because he just became overjoyed,” Ostrowski said.
“He jumped up. And then he came running around the bed . ... It was like he was floating . ... I lifted my arm a little bit and he touched me under my arm and touched me at the bottom of my rib cage with his finger . ... Then he just stepped back. I felt this very calm and comfortable feeling come over me, where I felt confident that I was going to be OK.”
Despite the visions and the feelings of comfort and calm Ostrowski said he felt, his physical condition continued to worsen after he saw the man in the brown robe.
By Aug. 3, doctors said he needed a ventilator and he was put into a medically induced coma. Soon after, his wife was told Ostrowski needed the support of an artificial heart-lung device called Extracorporeal
Membrane Oxygenation, or ECMO, to survive because his heart and his lungs were too weak to keep him alive.
But Sparrow doesn’t offer ECMO treatment for patients who are that critically ill. And no hospitals in Michigan had beds available to treat Ostrowski with the potentially lifesaving device. His doctor widened the search, while his wife continued to pray.
That’s when the family learned that a hospital in Indiana had an available ECMO device and was willing to take him.
Ostrowski, who has diabetes and was unvaccinated when he contracted the virus, remained on the ECMO machine for six weeks at a hospital in Indiana. He was later released to a rehabilitation center and finally was able to return to his home in Eaton Rapids in early September.
He spoke with a deacon at his church and a priest in the Diocese of Lansing about the man in the brown robe who brought him hope when he had little in his hospital bed.
“Throughout his earthly life, Father Solanus Casey was well known across Michigan, and far beyond, as a saintly wonder worker who had a particular love for the sick and, hence, it’s really not surprising that Blessed Solanus Casey continues to work wonders for those who continue to ask for his Heavenly assistance,” said David Kerr, a spokesman for the Diocese of Lansing.
However what happened to Ostrowski isn’t considered a miracle by investigators in the Catholic Church, but rather a favor. Such a designation could propel Casey to sainthood.
Foley explained that in cases like these, the Catholic Church works with independent medical experts to determine whether there could be a medical explanation for healing that has occurred.
“The pope has the prerogative about dispensing with a second miracle if he chooses,” Foley said. “But the ordinary process is that you have one miracle recognized by Rome for the beatification and then ... we need a second miracle that occurred after the date.”
Even if what happened to Ostrowski isn’t recognized as a miracle by the church, it’s miraculous to him.
“It was divine intervention,” Ostrowski said. “And I believe that as much of a miracle as it was that he presented himself to me and, and touched me, that was only one part of the story. I think, from the beginning of this all the way through to the end of it, there was intervention.”