c. 2004 Religion News Service

FOND DU LAC, Wis. _ When a brown bat fell into the aisle during a Mass at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, 15-year-old Jeanna Giese didn’t hesitate to scoop up the furry mammal and hurry it outdoors to freedom. The soft-hearted teen was well-known for rescuing creatures in need.

A bite or a scratch, so tiny it seemed insignificant, took the parochial school girl on a journey to hell, with a return so triumphant that believers around the world have deemed it a miracle of prayer made possible by the connecting power of the Internet.

Medical experts say Jeanna is the first person in the history of recorded medicine to have survived a full-blown case of human rabies without having been given an initial series of anti-rabies injections.

Her father, construction worker John Giese, explains the recovery this way: He simply called people to say, “We need to start praying _ if there’s anything you can do to think about her.”

From there, “it snowballed.”

Jeanna’s story turned global through Internet prayer chains. The International Herald Tribune, circulated widely throughout Western Europe, carried her story. It quoted Dr. Charles Rupprecht, the leading expert on rabies at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, calling the recovery a miracle.

“By all indications, she’s cleared of infection,” Rupprecht said during a press conference in Milwaukee. “What makes it historic is that she’s the first.”

When Jeanna picked up the bat on Sept. 12, her parents thought it was just another act of kindness by their animal-loving daughter.

But around Oct. 13, Jeanna began experiencing initial symptoms: malaise, fever and a headache. Her family thought it was the flu. By the time she was admitted two days later to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, she suffered from double vision, had slurred speech and was losing consciousness. The CDC confirmed the worst. Jeanna was diagnosed with human rabies.

“Rabies is considered 100 percent fatal,” said Rodney Willoughby, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital and an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “We didn’t have much to offer.”

The five known survivors of rabies, besides Jeanna, received immediate anti-viral treatment after contact with a rabid animal.

Using a maverick approach they called an informed gamble, the teen’s medical team put Jeanna into a coma to protect her brain and give her immune system “time to catch up.” On the third day she was started on a “cocktail” of four drugs, one that needed CDC approval.

While Jeanna was in the coma, her mother, Ann, read her daughter e-mailed letters of prayer and hope that came from across the country, and eventually from around the world.

“I received the prayer chain from my husband’s cousin in the United States,” said Karina Staudinger from the city of Alix in Alberta, Canada. “I sent it on to people in Great Britain, Australia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Aruba and Iraq. I know that prayer can heal and thus I have no doubt that this was partly responsible for Jeanna’s return to health.”

Lee Mielke, who leads a men’s Bible study in Lynden, Wash., said his group made Jeanna a “person of prayer” from the onset of her reported battle with the fatal disease.

“Christians are often criticized for their theological differences and skeptics often cite those disagreements as excuses for not accepting Christian beliefs,” Mielke said. “Seeing and hearing about Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists and nondenominational community churches joining Catholics in prayer for Jeanna is exciting. In the things that really matter, we come together.”

In secret, Aaron Geis prayed along with other American teachers at Wenling High School in the province of Wenling, China.

“Any attempt at trying to preach to my students or evangelize would result in a quick plane ticket home for me and something much worse for any Chinese citizens involved,” Geis said.

But when he shared the story with his Chinese students, they were overjoyed and admired Jeanna’s love of animals, kindness and courage. They also thought it was amazing that a community could bond together so closely over one sick child, he said.

“It was truly an eye-opener to the students whose only glimpses of America come from TV and movies,” Geis said.

Lisbeth Birkmose shared Jeanna’s story with her English students in Loegumkloster, Denmark, and continued to move the prayer chain through her country.

“I am so moved that she came out of her coma. May God still let her recover fully,” Birkmose said.

Once the call for prayers reached Carrie Monti in Falling Waters, W.Va., she spread the need to friends living all along the East Coast.

“The whole story just gives me the `willies.’ Here is a child of God, who is in God’s house and helps one of God’s creatures and ends up suffering from rabies. I believed all along God would perform a miracle for all the world to see and learn from.”

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The Rev. John Radetski, a priest at St. Patrick’s Church, cautions against calling his parishioner’s recovery a “miracle” because of a quantity of prayers. He believes conversations with God should be in the context of servitude and seeking God’s will.

“I don’t think this happened because some kind of prayer quota was filled. Why would he grant healing in one instance, but not in another?” he said, citing the case of a 6-year-old girl he knew who just recently died of leukemia.

“That family was deserving too. What about their loved one? They prayed just as hard, were good people, went to church, and believed in Jesus as Lord,” Radetski said.

Some people would like to view prayer from the standpoint that if they get enough people together they can “lobby to God” and change his mind, the priest noted. He doesn’t believe it works that way.

“Prayers can be directed at healing, but we don’t call the shots. Mass prayer is not going to change the outcome of something. Maybe science made a breakthrough in this case. But when God worked a healing through Jeanna, it was for the glory of God and for people to witness his saving grace,” he said.

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On Nov. 18, Willoughby declared Jeanna officially cured, even though she remains under close supervision.

The teenage girl with a soft spot for animals is expected to be home by Christmas.

Skeptics can say what they want, but Jeanna’s family believes her healing is an act of God. Said her father, John Giese, “We believe that prayer got us to this point.”

MO/PH END RNS