May 8, 2000

Aggie credits angels with safety
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___BRYAN--Alex Jones is convinced. It wasn't adrenaline-- but angels--that rescued him from the massive logs of the Texas A&M bonfire stack after it collapsed last fall.
___Jones had been about 15 feet in air, working on the Texas A&M bonfire stack in

ALEX JONES

preparation of the annual yell rally prior to the Texas football game. He felt the logs begin to move and took about two steps. He was on the side that fell, but the stack began to twist and pushed him away from the center of the collapse.
___His fall ended with his heading hitting something hard. He still doesn't know if he struck a log or the ground, but it knocked his "pot"--his combat-style hard hat--from his head. Logs then began to fall on him, and three or for came to rest on his lower back and legs.
___"From the belly button up, I was sticking out," he remembered.
___"And all of the sudden, I don't really know how to explain it, but it was kind of like you had been under the water for a really long time and had come up out of the water and taken a really large breath--I just felt this surge go through me.
___"The next thing I knew, I had gotten all the logs off me."
___Jones, a freshman from Marshall, said many people have tried to explain what happened to him as a surge of adrenaline after having narrowly escaped death. But he doesn't believe that.
___"I've played football all my life, and I know what an adrenaline surge feels like. Besides, these logs were huge. Whole groups of people had to pick them up to move them. I really believe there were angels lifting the logs off and God was that surge that went through me," he asserted.
___Jones said he believes he was rescued for a purpose.
___"There were 12 people who died--I could have very, very easily been number 13," he realized. "I know there's a purpose for me out there, or I would have died. But I don't know what that purpose is. It may just be to help someone across the street someday, or maybe it is to smile at someone on a day that they really need it. But my life does have a purpose."
___Jones is determined to make his life count for Christ, and as a part of that will participate next week in a mission trip to Las Vegas with a ministry team from First Baptist Church in Bryan. He said he also finds it easier to ask friends not to curse, and many are beginning to try to police themselves.
___John Herring, college minister at First Baptist Church, said Jones has grown spiritually since the accident and has become one of the leaders of the group.
___Jones, on the other hand, sings the praises of the church he had only attended a few times prior to the accident.
___"I just love that church. After the stack fell, they sent me 15 to 20 prayergrams, and Brother John came and got me and took me out for burger and to his house. It's a big church, but it still feels like my church back home (Central Baptist Church in Marshall). Everyone always has time to smile, shake hands--it's just a real loving church."
___Herring said that love goes both ways.
___"He's a terrific young man, and this church has just wrapped its arms around him."


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