Scary Sunday

I witnessed one of the scariest things EVER at church yesterday.

I was scheduled to run one of two cameras for the 11:30am and 1pm services yesterday at Elevation. A new girl named Rachel ran camera with me for the 1pm service and was doing a great job. As Pastor Steven was wrapping up his final sermon of the day, I heard Rachel say (through our head-sets that we use to communicate with the video trailer outside), "Is there anyone in the trailer who can come run my camera? I feel like I'm going to faint."

I immediately looked over at her (she was positioned on her camera stand 4 feet to my left) and clearly saw that she needed help. No one in the trailer was answering our calls for help...so I started to panic a bit. Between trying to keep my camera steady, watching Rachel, trying to stay quiet so I wouldn't disrupt Pastor, and attempting to let the trailer know what was happening, I felt helpless. I think I was the only one who knew what was going on at that point.

About 20 seconds after Rachel's initial call to the trailer for help, I was able to communicate with the guy switching between cameras in the trailer. I told him that Rachel was feeling faint and asked him to switch the live shot to my camera. As I looked back over at Rachel to let her know she could leave, her eyes began to roll back in her head, she blacked out, and she and the camera took a dive off of the front of the 3-foot high camera stand into the back row of seats in the auditorium.

There were a few people standing to the left of Rachel when she began to plunge forward and they did what they could to minimize her fall. The camera and tripod crashed into the last row of seats and Rachel ended up on the floor between the last two rows of seats.

Larry Brey was over her immediately and took control. Pastor Steven stopped his sermon, let everyone know what had happened, and immediately began praying for everyone's safety and well-being. If it wasn't for Pastor's prayers and ability to keep everyone calm, I'm not sure what would have happened next. Thank you, Pastor Steven, for immediately going to the Lord in prayer on behalf of Rachel and anyone else who could have been hurt.

Even though I wanted to leave my camera and make sure Rachel was okay, I knew the most important thing for me to do was to do my job. I was the only camera left and the trailer was depending on me to finish up the service. Rachel was unconscious for about 10 seconds and once Pastor got the thumbs-up that everything was okay, he left the stage, the offering was taken up, and everyone quietly exited the auditorium. Rachel sat up in one of the back row seats, drank some water, and rested until the paramedics arrived. Because she was experiencing a tingling sensation in her arms and hands, they wanted to take her to the hospital just as a precaution.

Thank God that Rachel wasn't seriously hurt. Thank God that no one was sitting in the seats where the camera fell. Thank God for people who are cool-headed enough to handle emergencies.