'Glassback' Chris now a vision of health

A Doncaster man left with crippling back pain following a teenage accident says he has lived pain-free for more than 30 years after church elders prayed over him.

Chris Axelby, now in his sixties, was just 18 when disaster struck during a summer job on a Sheffield building site in 1970.

“Standing somewhat awkwardly, I was lifting a window frame when two of my vertebrae popped out and suddenly I was in agony,” he recalled. “My back and left leg were so painful. I remember afterwards being propped up in bed at home and plied with painkillers.”

The injury left him with constant back problems, a weakened left calf and a slight limp. At Platts tractor company in Doncaster, colleagues jokingly nicknamed him ‘glassback’ – meaning there was no point in asking him to lift anything.

Over the years he tried chiropractors, acupuncture and medical treatment, but nothing worked. Then, in his thirties, he came across a passage in the New Testament Book of James: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.”

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