I have embedded deeply in my memory a story I read a few years ago about someone [I don't remember the person's gender] here in Israel who had been in a horrible car accident. They lost consciousness. A lady nearby saw what happened and started fervently saying Tehillim as medics attended to the person. Some time later, when the injured person came back to consciousness, they related that they were totally aware of this person's tfillos [whom they didn't know and obviously couldn't see them davening] and felt enveloped by them and protected from harm.
A few days ago I was reading a book and saw an identical description of the power of tfilla.
A man from Orange County, California who describes himself as an 'ardent rationalist' related the following:
"About ten years ago my wife went into the hospital for routine surgery. Due to a surgical error she developed a life-threatening blood infection, coupled with pneumonia and other complications. The doctors gave her less than a ten percent chance of survival. She had a tube inserted in her throat to aid her with breathing, which prevented her from speaking. When they finally removed her breathing tube, she said, “While I was declining in strength and my pain was increasing, I became aware of all the prayers that people were saying for me. I could actually hear their voices. The prayers formed a cocoonlike structure around me. Each prayer added to the enveloping support. Why is it,” she asked, “that our friends the Weisses weren’t praying for me?” What she could not have known was that the Weisses were in Europe around the time that she went in for routine surgery. They did not know she had been gravely ill. I still have no way to explain her uncanny knowledge and the sense that words of prayer had kept her alive."
[From the introduction to the book "Does The Soul Survive". I will "spoil" the ending for you and tell you the conclusion that it MOST CERTAINLY DOES!!].
