Mystery Priest

ABC News – A small Missouri town is looking for a man not suspected of a crime but, rather, a miracle.

“I think that this time I’ve actually witnessed a guardian angel at work,” Jeremiah See of the New London Fire Department told ABC News.

An unidentified allegedly drunken driver hit Katie Lentz, of Quincy, Mo., head on Aug. 4 while traveling on Route 19 near Center, Mo., pinning the 19-year-old in the front seat of her convertible. With her vital signs failing fast, she asked rescue crews to pray with her.

That’s when first responders say a man who looked like a catholic priest seemed to appear out of nowhere, despite a 2-mile perimeter blocking the scene.

“He began to pray and use the anointing oil,” New London Fire Chief Raymond Reed said. “There was a calmness that, to me, seemed to come over the entire scene.”

But that’s not the only seemingly divine detail. Firefighters say their equipment kept failing until the mystery man showed up.

“The words were to remain calm, that our tools would now work,” Reed said. “Instantaneously, at that moment, our neighboring department arrived with fresh extrication tools.”

Lentz survived, but the man vanished before crews could thank him.

The young woman is recovering in the hospital with broken legs and ribs, but some say it could’ve been worse, if not for the mystery man on the highway.

“Whether it was just a priest as an angel, or an actual angel coming down,” Lentz’s friend Travis Wiseman said, “he was an angel to everyone and to Katie.”