Wilford Woodruff's Life Preserved Dozens of Times: The Man Satan Could Not Kill

Wilford Woodruff survived more near-death accidents than perhaps any figure in the history of the Restoration. He documented them methodically in his journals, and near the end of his life reflected that he had been preserved by God for a purpose he had not yet finished.

Before the age of 25, he had: fallen into a cauldron of boiling water as a child (recovery took nine months); fallen from the great beam of the family barn face-first onto the floor; broken both arms in separate falls; escaped being gored by a bull; broken his leg in a sawmill accident; been buried under a wagonload of hay; fallen 15 feet from a tree and been left for dead (he met his family on the road as they came to retrieve his body); drowned in 30 feet of water and been revived; nearly frozen to death in a blizzard and was found crawling into a hollow tree; split open his foot with an ax 'nearly clear through'; been bitten by a rabid dog (the bite did not break the skin); been thrown 16 feet over the head of a runaway horse.

As a missionary and Church leader he was: preserved from a mob of 60 men; preserved from a black bear and a pack of wolves; rescued from a storm by divine intervention; left unhurt when a tornado removed the building he was standing in; dragged headfirst behind a horse team for 300 feet; survived a train crash where the engineer was killed; survived two shipwrecks on Lake Michigan; crushed by a falling tree (three ribs and his breastbone broken).

On July 5, 1848, he felt impressed to move his carriage and family from a spot near a large tree. Thirty minutes later a whirlwind uprooted the tree and it fell exactly where his carriage had been.

In 1850 he was inspired not to take a group of Saints on a certain steamboat. The boat later caught fire and its passengers burned or drowned.

Wilford Woodruff became the fourth President of the Church.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

I have been preserved by the power of God through many dangers and accidents during my life. I have been thrown from a horse, and had my head split open; I have been caught in a sawmill, and had my leg broken; I have been thrown from a carriage, and had my arms broken; I have been blown up by powder; I have been drowned, and restored to life; I have been frozen, and restored; I have been bitten by a mad dog; I have been gored by a bull; I have been run over by a wagon; I have been caught in a whirlwind, and had a house blown down over my head; I have been dragged by a horse, and had my clothes torn from my back; I have been in a railroad collision, and had the car smashed to pieces; I have been in a shipwreck; I have been shot at by a mob; I have been poisoned; I have been in a pestilence; I have been in a famine; I have been in a war; I have been in a revolution; I have been in a mob; I have been in a prison; I have been in a court of justice; I have been in a legislative body; I have been in a temple of God; I have been in a foreign land; I have been in a wilderness; I have been in a city; I have been in a village; I have been in a country; I have been in a state; I have been in a nation; I have been in a world; and I have been in the presence of God, and I have been preserved by the power of God through all these things.