The Power of Prayer?

I get the feeling that this particular blog could split a lot of opinion, so I'm just putting that out there right from the off.

Last weekend, as I'm sure almost everyone will be aware, Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba suffered cardiac arrest on the pitch during their FA Cup quarter final match against Spurs at White Hart Lane.

Medical staff rushed on to the field to treat him, and the game was quite rightly abandoned.
Fabrice was taken to hospital and is thankfully making brilliant progress considering that doctors have since said that he was "in effect dead" for 78 minutes.

I have absolutely nothing but best wishes for Fabrice, his family, friends, team mates, and fellow professionals in general. It is a trying time for them all.


But what I wanted to say is this:

In the aftermath of this terrible incident, tweets were being sent left, right and centre. Television and radio interviews were pretty much non-stop. And the vast majority of people were "praying for Muamba" or made comments along the lines of "God willing he'll pull through".

Now let me make it absolutely clear here that I have no problem with people who are religious. Most religious people are lovely, and simply don't share my views of the world. But a small part of me felt some anger towards those people when I saw these messages being sent.

With the world looking on, two club doctors and a Consultant Cardiologist who happened to be at the game rushed to the aid of Fabrice, along with several ambulance staff.
They spent minutes trying to revive him on the pitch before carrying him to the ambulance to take him to hospital, never once stopping their efforts.
In the 78 minutes that this man's heart was not beating, nobody once thought about anything other than saving his life, however unlikely that might have seemed.

And once he had been revived, and his condition was stabilised, a great number of these same people announced that thanks to God he had been saved.
It's at times like this that I think God takes far too much of the credit, and doctors, paramedics, nurses, and everyone else involved get too little.

Throughout the entire ordeal, I never once prayed for Fabrice Muamba, but I was nothing short of astounded by the medical staff that brought him back from beyond the brink.