Buchan 'brought back by Jesus'
2009-04-27 11:41
Ryan Calder and Neels Jackson
Pietermaritzburg - "I was brought back from the brink of death by Jesus," evangelist Angus Buchan told a crowd estimated at 200 000 at the last session of his Mighty Men Conference near Greytown on Sunday.
The previous day, he collapsed twice after preaching a sermon that included star jumps and several press-ups on the stage, while dressed in a warm winter shirt.
As a precautionary measure, he was flown to Medi-Clinic hospital in Pietermaritzburg for a check up by a cardiologist. He returned to the farm the same evening.
"Two doctors assessed him on the scene, and they ran an electro-cardiograph test and discovered low blood pressure and an irregular heart rate," said media spokesperson Bruce Winship.
"He was flown into hospital for precautionary check ups, and the cardiologist ran him through a series of tests, which he passed."
Dr Nthobeka Ntuli, who was part of the event's medical team, told the crowd how he was called to treat Buchan, who was flat on his back under the stage. He said the signs seemed "sinister" and could have indicated a heart attack, so the decision was taken to airlift Buchan to hospital.
No other problems
Winship said that other than Buchan's collapse, there were no major problems for the medical team to deal with.
"The potential for disaster is huge when you have this many men," said Winship. "But when you consider the level of tolerance among this group of men standing in long lines, queuing in traffic, and having to share tent space and rough it with that many other men for more than 48 hours, it's unbelievable that there were no major accidents. It's supernatural."
To give perspective, one of South Africa's top music festivals - Splashy Fen - had a record attendance of around 9 000 this year. Mighty Men is 22 times the size of that, and four times the size of a capacity-filled Absa rugby stadium.
The delegates came from all walks of life.
A group of 270 deaf men attended with an interpreter. "One or two of them got lost at 01:30 [on Saturday morning]," Winship said, "and it was a bit difficult finding out where they came from. But the helpers managed to communicate with them."
Over 1 200 men from various Christian motorcycle organisations around the country attended the conference. "It's incredible to see the turnout, and that so many men inconvenience themselves and go the extra mile to be part of something that's going to change this nation," said John Anderson from the Gauteng contingent.