Dr. Harold Shryock had another memorable experience as an intern that also impacted his life and career.
It's after midnight. An unconscious young woman with multiple injuries has just been transported to the facility. She's been involved in a deadly high-speed collision and lies on a gurney in shock. The attendants smell alcohol on her breath. Shryock shakes his head. “Another pathetic case,” he says with a sigh, “the kind that leaves doctors and nurses feeling helpless because there's so little we can do to save a life.”
The woman's injuries include shattered bones and deep lacerations. Her condition appears to be hopeless. Her two companions have already died from the accident, and the doctors don't expect her to live more than a few hours.
The patient’s insurance company orders her to be transferred to Los Angeles. As preparations are being made, Harold monitors the woman's vital signs.
Suddenly, she opens her unbandaged eye and looks around the room. She even tries to speak. Though her mind isn't clear, it seems she might regain consciousness. As in all cases like this, next of kin must be notified. Someone needs to ask her how to reach them.
Frank “Monty” Montgomery, a male nurse, steps in. Because of his many years of experience dealing with such sensitive situations, nurses and interns alike look to Monty for help. Unknowingly, Harold is about to learn something profound regarding life’s priorities from a man who boasts no impressive degrees behind his name—someone who is not even on the faculty of the institution. Harold is about to see, firsthand, personal ministry that's generally understood to be a part of the hospital’s mission, but wasn't included in Harold’s formal education or job description.
Monty immediately senses the situation is grave. Wasting no time on preliminaries, he approaches the patient, takes her hand, and says in a quiet, even voice, “You've been in an accident and are badly hurt. Your mother will want to know where you are. Will you share with me your mother's name and address?”
The youthful patient moves slightly, opens her unbandaged eye again, and looks into Monty’s face. “Is that all you want to tell mother?” she asks.
Monty senses that the woman wants to spare her mother the anguish of knowing that the accident had occurred while her precious daughter was intoxicated.
After Monty’s reassurance, the patient whispers the information. Then, without pause or shyness, he asks the woman if she believes in prayer. The young woman opens her eye again and whispers, “Mother does.”
“Would you like for me to get the minister and some of the doctors to come in and have prayer with you?”
The patient’s lips quiver as she nods her head slightly and squeezes Monty's hand. He leaves the room and soon returns with the chaplain and a doctor. Harold joins them as they arrange themselves around the bed and reverently bow their heads as Monty offers a simple prayer, asking their heavenly Father for mercy and praying that His will might prevail. The young woman dies within hours of arriving in Los Angeles.
A few days after the incident, Monty approached Harold in the hallway. “I think that girl’s mother—the girl that we prayed for just before she left the hospital—would like to have us come and see her and tell her that we had prayed with her daughter.”
Harold nodded his head. “That's a good idea, Monty. Let's do it this weekend.” The next Sabbath the two men and their wives drove into Los Angeles, to the address whispered by the dying woman. As soon as they were all seated in the mother’s living room, Monty spoke with great emotion in his voice. “We're so sorry about the recent loss of your daughter,” he said quietly. “Doctor Shryock here and I were part of the team that helped take care of her out in Loma Linda. Would you…would you like us to tell you about what happened that night?”
The mother lifted her hand. “I met the ambulance when my daughter arrived in Los Angeles. I…I already know what happened at Loma Linda. She was conscious for a little while and…and the first thing she said was, ‘Mother, those Loma Linda people were good to me. They prayed for me because I'd been hurt so badly.’”
Later, on the way home, Monty, a man who under the Spirit’s guidance had brought many to conversion, expressed his feelings. “You never can tell how much good it does to pray with a person,” he said soberly. “We can’t tell whether that girl gave her heart to God or not. We won’t know till the Judgment Day whether she accepted forgiveness for her wayward life. But even if our prayers didn’t do any good for the daughter, I’m sure it comforted the mother to know that we prayed with her child and that she remembered the prayer.”
After many years of observation, Harold considered Monty to be a mentor and a hero. His ability to make a person see the bright side of life inspired Harold. He possessed an unusual gift of humor, which he used to help a patient deal with pain; to teach a student nurse how to relate to the patient; or even to keep an intern from becoming too self-sufficient.
Monty Montgomery impacted Harold Shryock’s life in profound ways. Throughout his career, Shryock incorporated his friend's unique brand of compassion, humor, creativity, fearless integrity, and spirituality. When he began counseling young people, many of whom had serious problems adjusting to professional school, Harold decided to end each session with prayer. In a broader sense, prayer became an important part of his personal ministry at the College of Medical Evangelists (CME). Monty had become Harold’s role model—a symbol of the best of CME, a symbol that he himself would exemplify.