A sergeant with the Kern County Sheriff's department says he's alive today because of a true miracle.
Sgt. Larry Studer is a former SWAT team member and now assigned to the Sheriff's Department's Metro Team. He was on duty when he first felt the symptoms of a rare and sometimes fatal pneumonia.
"I was at work the first part of November 2009. I was in a foot pursuit of a suspect and my chest started burning real bad and I almost passed out," said Studer.
It was a feeling he wasn't familiar with. The law enforcement officer was fit and thought he was in good health until what he thought was a bad cold led him to nine weeks in the hospital unable to breathe on his own.
"They diagnosed it as AIP - Acute Interstitial Pneumonia which is a very rare pneumonia that they have only seen three other times," said Studer. "I was the fourth person in the last five years."
"I can't give you a percentage but yes, the vast majority of these patients don't recover from this disease," said Dr. Sam Weigt, Associate Professor at the UCLA Department of Medicine.
The pneumonia severely damaged Studer's lungs and Studer was forced on to high flow oxygen to breathe. He became the first candidate in the western region for a lung transplant. He was on the operating table twice to receive his new lungs only to be denied because of complications.
And then the miracle.
"They called it off and then his oxygen needs kept going down. We were shocked. We couldn't believe it. The doctors were shocked," said Kathy, Larry Studer's wife.
Studer's need for oxygen continued to decline for no reason and the Studers are attributing it to the overflow of prayer coming from local churches.
"We called it a miracle. Doctors wouldn't call it that they base everything on science. We call it a miracle," said Kathy.
"I'm comfortable with that," said Weigt. "Most of what we see can be explained by science. But I'm a believer in miracles and the truth is most people don't get this kind of recovery."
Just weeks ago Studer had only twenty percent of his lung capacity today his ability to produce oxygen has grown to thirty percent and he's getting stronger everyday.
Studer is currently undergoing six to eight weeks of physical therapy to try and increase his ability to produce oxygen and says if his recovery continues to improve, he hopes to one day be back on the job.
