It was a summer day in Visalia, a small town in California’s San Joaquin Valley, just a two-hour drive south of Sequoia National Park and its famous General Sherman Tree. 

Tim Farmer’s wife, Arlene, told her husband she wanted to make the drive to visit their daughter an hour away. 

“Honey, let me wash the car before you go,” Farmer said. And since no wife can argue with an offer like that, he headed outside while she finished prepping for her trip.

At the same time, Dr. Utkarsh Singh, a hospitalist at Adventist Health Tulare, was driving home from work when his phone rang. Opting not to use Bluetooth that day, Singh pulled to the side of the road and stopped to answer the call. As he was talking, he glanced up at the house next to him and saw a man washing a car in his driveway. Then he saw the man stumble and fall to the ground. 

Tim Farmer was having a heart attack, and Singh was there in front of Farmer’s house watching it happen.

Quickly hanging up his call, Singh jumped out of the car, dialed 9-1-1, and hurried toward the house. Ringing the doorbell to alert anyone in the house, he then rushed to Farmer to begin CPR as he talked with the emergency dispatcher.

“After some intense resuscitation efforts, we managed to restore his heartbeat,” said Singh. “EMS arrived swiftly and took him to the hospital for further care. His wife was beside herself with gratitude, clutching my hand and thanking me over and over. I told her she should head to the hospital.”

Farmer had quintuple bypass surgery and a defibrillator installed, spending the next 16 days in the hospital. One day not long after Tim returned home, his daughter asked him, “Dad, did you ever get to meet the doctor who stopped? Do you know who it was?” When he said no, she decided to make a sign and post it in the front yard. “Maybe he lives around here, and he’ll see the sign and stop by,” she said.

The day Singh providentially stopped along the road and helped Farmer, Singh wrote in his journal: “I hope one day I can go visit that man. I hope one day I’ll be able to see him and see how he’s doing.”

One day as he was driving home again, Singh saw a sign hanging from a tree outside the Farmers’ house. It said: “Thank you for helping me!!! You were a miracle sent by God to save me! Please stop by so we can thank you in person!”

Singh’s heart pounded as he knocked on the door and stepped inside the home. “There he was, sitting in his chair, smiling—the same man I had seen fall that day. The sight was surreal,” said Singh. “In that moment I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and joy. I thank God every day for that moment, for the opportunity to be a miracle in someone’s life, and for the reminder that sometimes the greatest medicine is simply human compassion. That incident recharged my spirit and transformed my perspective. It reminded me why I chose this profession—to serve, to heal, and to connect.”

Ezequiel Nichols is the Mission and Spiritual Care director for Adventist Health Tulare. He loves to share this miracle story. It’s an example of the love the hospital has for the community. “God used Dr. Singh to save someone’s life,” Nichols said. “That is what Adventist Health is all about, living God’s love by inspiring health, wholeness, and hope.”

— Kim Strobel is Adventist Health program manager for religion, faith, and mission.