Bashed backpacker David Keohane’s family were told to say goodbye. Glen Williams tells how he lived, thanks, they believe, to an Aussie nun.
David Keohane is renowned for his compassion. A hard-working tiler, the Irishman gave much of his spare time to voluntary counselling for Lifeline. He was 29 ? in his prime ? when last August, in the dead of a Sydney night, while walking home after buying a pizza, David was bashed beyond recognition.
Mary MacKillopwas known as the Battler’s Saint, the tireless nun who stood shoulder to shoulder with the poor, suffering and dispossessed. She died 100 years ago, but many believe her spirit lives on. And if Australian Catholics have their way, Mother Mary MacKillop will shortly become our first official saint.
And David Keohane just might be the final miracle needed to declare her one.
When David was found unconscious in a Coogee street, he was never expected to survive his injuries. But eight months later, he awoke from his coma on Saint Patrick’s Day. His family have no doubt it was the power of prayer and the intercession of Mary MacKillop that paved the way for God to work wonders.
“David was so badly injured I couldn’t recognise him,” says Father Tom Devereux, chaplain to Sydney’s Irish community. “He looked nothing like the young man in the photo they’d placed above his bed at Prince of Wales Hospital.”
For days, Father Tom sat by David’s bed, praying and willing him to live. “He’d make a gradual improvement, and then go down yet again. I didn’t really hold out much hope.”
But Father Tom, a strong believer in the power of prayer, had been praying for Mary MacKillop to intercede on David’s behalf. “Mary MacKillop had been helpful to me in my ministry. So I took David’s nice little family, very faithful prayers, to Mary’s tomb in the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel in North Sydney and to meet the Sisters of Saint Joseph [which Mary co-founded in 1866].”
Then, on March 17 this year, Father Tom received the most joyous of phone calls. David had emerged from his coma. “All our prayers had been answered. We were elated.”
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