Dan Knudsen

Dan Knudsen, a 20-year-old student at Cedarville University in Ohio joined several of his classmates to spend spring break staffing a camp for Christian teens in the city of Puebla, Mexico. Cedarville encourages its students to take part in missions projects, raising their own financial support to go on service projects around the world.

On March 9, while demonstrating a back flip to some campers, Knudsen under-rotated and landed on his head, breaking his neck. His breathing stopped and he might have died had it not been for prompt and just-right emergency treatment by other counselors.

Dan spent the next several days on a ventilator in a hospital in Puebla until he was stable enough to be airlifted to Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Dan has fractured both his C1 and C2 vertebrae and bruised his spinal cord. He is unable to move or breathe on his own because of the swelling of his spinal cord. He is facing a great number of medical challenges, as you can imagine.

I heard about Dan’s accident within hours from friends whose children were participating in the Puebla camp. Since that time, I’ve been praying for him without knowing much about his condition.

Dan’s family has created a blog to report on his progress, called Check in on Dan. I’ll be doing that myself, often, and I hope you will pray for Dan and spread the word among your praying friends.