Spanish Fork miracle rescue told in book ‘Proof of Angels’
Spanish Fork Police Officers Tyler Beddoes, left, and Jared Warner, right, and Spanish Fork City Firefighters Lee Mecham, second from left, and Paul Tomadakis, second from right, answer questions during a TV interview at the police station in Spanish Fork after last year's stirring rescue of 18-month-old Lily Groesbeck, who was stranded upside down in her car seat overnight barely above frigid water following a car accident that took the life of her mother.
"I discovered I was writing a book not only about what happened at the Spanish Fork bridge, but about what it’s like to be a police officer today," said "Proof of Angels" co-author Ptolemy Tompkins.
“Overall, it’s tough to pull that uniform out of your closet and put it on knowing that there are a lot of people that are anti-police,” said Spanish Fork police officer Tyler Beddoes. Beddoes' experiences are told in the new book "Proof of Angels."
Monday marks the one-year anniversary of what many have deemed a local miracle.
On March 7, 2015, members of the Spanish Fork Police Department rescued Lily Groesbeck, an 18-month-old, from an overturned car that was partially submerged in water. She had been strapped in her child safety seat for 14 hours when police and firefighters removed her. It was approximately 42 degrees over those 14 hours. Lily’s mother, Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck, had died on impact.
“It’s a miracle for a baby, for anyone, to be in that frigid air for as long as she did and survive,” said Paul Tomadakis of the Spanish Fork Fire Department in a Daily Herald interview last March.
The miracle didn’t stop there, though. All the responders later reported hearing a distinct, mysterious voice that said, “Help me. Help me now.”
Was that voice an angel? The rescue crew, including police officer Tyler Beddoes, thinks so. For Beddoes, the event altered his career, his faith and his life. His story is told in the new book “Proof of Angels,” co-written by Ptolemy Tompkins, author of the New York Times bestseller “Proof of Heaven.” The book has been getting national attention since its Feb. 16 release. Beddoes and Tompkins spoke with the Daily Herald about the unique book.
INTRIGUE AND CAUTION
Tompkins has some experience writing about the supernatural. In addition to authoring seven books, he’s written for Guideposts Magazine, a popular publication that focuses on true stories of hope and inspiration. While at Guideposts, Tompkins worked on a lot of tragic stories — “stories that really had a component of tremendous, brutal sadness,” he described. When Tompkins heard about the crash in Spanish Fork, he was intrigued but cautious.
“I did not want to capitalize on somebody else’s tragedy,” Ptolemy said. “And it can’t just be another angel book, too, because if you do a brief bit of research on Amazon, you’ll discover that there are approximately 3.2 billion books on angels. The last thing anybody needs is a book on angels.”
Ptolemy asked Beddoes right out, “Why are you interested in doing a book?” Beddoes’ response was simple: “Because I heard that voice and I want to tell people about it.”
“And I said, ‘That’s the right answer,’ ” Tompkins recalled, “and ‘I can do a book with a guy who has an answer like that.’ “
THE WEIGHT OF POLICE WORK
As Tompkins and Beddoes began talking, he realized there was a lot more to the story than one supernatural event. Beddoes’ own struggles, with both his job and his faith, became the central theme. The police officer had witnessed terrible things: He was among the first on the scene of police officer Joshua Boren’s murder suicide, in which Boren killed himself, his wife, two children and mother-in-law.
Over time, citizens began treating Beddoes and other officers with increased suspicion and disdain. Passersby would flip him off while he was on duty. In time he grew to hate being a cop.
“I started out loving my job, but I think the pressures of the negativity, and some of the things that I saw, really started to weigh heavy on my shoulders,” Beddoes said in a phone interview while he was in Chicago for an appearance on “Steve Harvey.”
“Overall, it’s tough to pull that uniform out of your closet and put it on knowing that there are a lot of people that are anti-police,” he continued. “It’s a tough job. You really just try to go out and make a difference, and hope that you uphold the law and do what you’re supposed to do, but oftentimes people will kind of take that away from you.”
SUPERNATURAL GRIT
Tompkins and Beddoes had a number of in-depth phone conversations. Beddoes would send Tompkins journal entries that detailed what he’d experienced on duty. It was uncomfortable for Beddoes at times — “I mean, I’m putting a lot of my life on those pages,” Beddoes explained.
All the while, reports of police violence swept the national news. “It was like the summer of police brutality,” Tompkins remembered. Those reports stood in stark contrast to ones from Beddoes, who Tompkins described as a sensitive soul who’s seen horrific things.
“Proof of Angels” weaves Beddoes’ personal history as a cop with his experience saving Lily, in addition to other outside evidence for the existence of angels.
“The idea of an angel is not a stupid idea,” Tompkins said. “It’s actually a tremendously sophisticated, and kind of shocking and fascinating one. An angel is by definition a supernatural being that is entrusted with helping other people, and that’s what a cop is supposed to be. So there are all these interesting pieces layering together.”
According to Tompkins, “Proof of Angels” isn’t exactly a breezy read. In his opinion, the best books on the supernatural are ones that are as gritty as possible. Writing about the spiritual dimension, he said, should be like Hemingway writing about a trout fishing trip — all laser-focused detail and specificity.
“I want every book I write on this subject in the future to feel like a slap in the face,” he said. “I’m not doing a sugary, soft book. The way you make people take this stuff seriously — or the way you drive it home to people who are already believers but are struggling — is you make it gritty and bloody and messed up, just the way life is. And you drive it home that you’re not making a book that’s helping you escape from life, you’re writing a book that’s helping people take on life and deal with it with more strength than they had before.”