Eastern New Mexico defensive lineman Chevy Mikaele and linebacker Ben Langford normally go straight home after practice. Instead, last Wednesday night the pair decided to go to church. And now Portales, N.M., man John Reilly owes his life to that random, fateful decision.
While inside the church, the pair heard desperate cries for help coming from across the street. They emerged to find Reilly pinned under his truck, which had switched gears during a repair job and rolled on his chest. Mikaele and Langford lifted the truck off of Reilly, and pastor Johnny Pacheco pulled him out.
Reilly was taken across the state border to a Lubbock, Texas, hospital, where he is now in critical condition with a cracked spine.
"I believe that if God didn't have us placed here, and if he wasn't able to give the strength to these men, he would have died under that vehicle," Pacheco told KOB-TV.
"It wasn't us, it was God," said Mikaele."You can see this truck looks pretty heavy; it wasn't us. It took the strength of God for us to pick this up, so all the glory goes to God, not us."