Emergency workers and community members in eastern Missouri are not sure what to make of a mystery priest who showed up at a critical accident scene Sunday morning and whose prayer seemed to change life-threatening events for the positive.

Even odder, the black-garbed priest does not appear in any of the nearly 70 photos of the scene of the accident in which a 19-year-old girl almost died. No one knows the priest and he vanished without a word, said Raymond Reed, fire chief of New London, Mo.

"I think it's a miracle," Reed said. "I would say whether it was an angel that was sent to us in the form of a priest or a priest that became our angel, I don't know. Either way, I'm good with it."

Carla Churchill Lentz, mother of the teen who was critically injured, said emergency workers have told her there is no way her daughter should have lived inside such a mangled car. Of the priest, she said, "I do believe he certainly could have been an angel dressed in priest's attire because the Bible tells us there are angels among us."

The scene unfolded Sunday morning. Katie Lentz, a sophomore at Tulane University, was driving from her parents' home in Quincy, Ill., to Jefferson City, Mo., where she has a summer internship and planned to attend church with friends. The Mercedes she was driving collided with another vehicle on a highway near Center, Mo. The accident crushed Lentz's vehicle into a ball of sheet metal that lay on the driver's side, Reed said.

Reed's team and emergency workers from several other jurisdictions tried for at least 45 minutes to remove the twisted metal from around Lentz. Various pieces of equipment broke and the team was running out of choices. A helicopter waited to carry Lentz to the nearest trauma center. Though Lentz appeared calm, talking about her church and her studies toward a dentistry degree, her vital signs were beginning to fail, Reed said.

"I was pulled off to the side by one of the members of the" helicopter evacuation team, Reed said. "He expressed to me that we were out of time. Her condition looked grim for her coming out of that vehicle alive. She was facing major problems."

At that point, Reed's team agreed to take the life-threatening chance of sitting the vehicle upright so that Lentz could be removed from it. This is dangerous because a sudden change in pressure to the body can be critical, he said.

That's when Lentz asked if someone would pray with her and a voice said, "I will."

The silver-haired priest in his 50s or 60s in black pants, black shirt and black collar with visible white insert stepped forward from nowhere. It struck Reed as odd because the street was blocked off 2 miles from the scene and no one from the nearby communities recognized him.

"We're all local people from four different towns," Reed said. "We've only got one Catholic church out of three towns and it wasn't their priest."

Reed and the other emergency workers were on their knees. The priest of about medium build, maybe 6-feet-tall, stood above them.

"This priest approached Katie and began to pray openly with her," Reed said. "He had a bottle of anointing oil with him and he used that."

Another firefighter who had been watching said it appeared as if the priest also sprinkled Reed and two other emergency workers nearby with oil.

Everything happened quickly after that. Twenty emergency workers pulled together and sat the car upright, Churchill Lentz said. Katie Lentz's vital signs improved and a rescue team from a neighboring community suddenly appeared with fresh equipment and tools. Lentz was removed and rushed to the hospital.

With Lentz gone, the rescue team prepared to clean up, Reed said.

"We all go back to thank this priest and he's gone," he said.

Initially, they assumed he had to get to his home church to lead Sunday services. But then they looked at their photos of the scene.

"I have 69 photographs that were taken from minutes after that accident happened — bystanders, the extrication, our final cleanup — and he's not in them," Reed said. "All we want to do is thank him."

Meantime, the Missouri State Highway Patrol reports a 26-year-old male was arrested Sunday on charges of DWI, failure to drive on the right half of the roadway and second-degree felony assault. He was treated and released from a local hospital, according to the report.

The Facebook page of Lentz's mother, Carla Church Lentz, indicates Lentz is on the mend despite suffering two broken femurs, a broken tibia and fibia, broken left wrist, nine broken ribs, a lacerated liver, ruptured spleen and bruised lung.

Churchill Lentz said her daughter has undergone two surgeries at Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Ill., and will undergo two more, but has been upgraded from critical to serious and is doing well.

"She sustained a lot of injuries, however, her face is beautiful, her teeth are perfect, she is sunshine, and everyone who's contacted us — those emergency personnel, the Missouri State Patrol, the deputies, the firemen — they are all saying the same thing, she never cried, she never screamed, she would just say, 'pray for me and pray out loud.' "

The riddle of the 'angel priest': Holy man appeared from nowhere to pray with trapped girl and rescuers in traffic accident, told them she would be OK and then vanished

Katie Lentz was hit head-on by a drunk driver on Sunday morning on an isolated stretch of Missouri highway
Emergency workers battled for over an hour to rescue her but they couldn't free her from the car wreck
Lentz requested a moment of prayer and a priest appeared - even though the road was blocked off
He prayed and told the rescuers that Lentz would now be freed - and she was
They turned to thank him - but he was gone

By JAMES NYE

Pinned inside her mangled Mercedes, seriously injured and fading fast, Katie Lentz turned to her rescuers on the lonely open stretch of Missouri highway and asked them to pray.

Struck head-on by a drunk driver on Sunday morning, emergency workers had been battling for an hour and a half to free Lentz, but to no avail.

But as they joined hands a Catholic priest appeared, even though there were no bystanders and the road was blocked, who offered a prayer and an instruction to the rescuers that they would now be able to free her.

Suddenly, heavy equipment needed to cut through the metal arrived from a nearby town and Lentz was pulled from the wreck in time to be saved - but when they turned to thank the priest, he was gone.

Mangled Wreck: Emergency workers were struggling to save Katie Lentz when she was hit head-on by a drunk driver on Highway 19 near to Center, Missouri

Prayer: When emergency workers could not free her - Katie Lentz asked them to stop so that a prayer could be said

Effort: The desperate effort to save Katie Lentz was blessed by a Catholic priest who appeared from nowhere and just as mysteriously vanished

'He came up and approached the patient, and offered a prayer,' Chief Raymond Reed told KHQA-TV.

'It was a Catholic priest who had anointing oil with him. A sense of calmness came over her, and it did us as well.

'I can’t be for certain how it was said, but myself and another firefighter, we very plainly heard that we should remain calm, that our tools would now work and that we would get her out of that vehicle.'

That is when officers from the neighboring Hannibal Fire Department arrived with their jaws-of-life and Lentz was pulled to safety and put into an air ambulance to hospital.

Turning to thank the guardian angel who had arrived from nowhere at their lowest ebb, the emergency crews could not find him.

The highway had been blocked for a quarter of a mile each end during the hour and a half rescue and no bystanders and parked cars were anywhere near the crash site on Highway 19 near Center.

Divine Intervention: Katie Lentz was saved after emergency workers from Hannibal fire services arrived with heavy duty cutting equipment

'We would like to find this gentleman and be able to thank him,' Reed said.

'As a first responder, you don't know what you're going to run into. We have a lot of tools, and we have intensive training.

'In this particular case, it is my feeling that it was nothing more than sheer faith and nothing short of a miracle.'

Lentz suffered several broken bones to repair her legs, but her friends and family say that her spirit has been boosted by the apparent divine intervention.

'Both of her legs are very damaged,' Lentz's friend Amanda Wiseman said.

'Her wrist is broken, several broken ribs, so she's had a lot of broken bones to deal with.'

Scene: Dozens of emergency workers battled to free Katie Lentz as she lay pinned in her Mercedes wreck on Highway 19

Chief Raymond Reed said rescue crews were struggling to cut through the strong metal of Lentz's Mercedes.

'It was a very well-built car, and when you compact materials like that one, they become even stronger because you're cutting through multiple things instead of one layer,' Reed said.

Reed says Lentz was pinned in between the steering wheel and the seat and the prayer was offered just as he was told by the paramedics that Lentz was failing.

'Where did this guy come from?' Lentz's friend Travis Wiseman asked.

'We're looking for the priest and so far, no one has seen him. Whether it was a priest as an angel or an actual angel, he was an angel to all those and to Katie.'

Empty Stretch: The road was closed for a quarter of a mile either side of the crash and there were no bystanders

The driver of the other car in that accident, Aaron Smith, has been charged with a DWI, second degree assault and failure to drive on the right half of the roadway.

There are several Catholic churches in the area to Highway 19 - the nearest being St Paul's - however, the mystery priest has still not come forward.

Do you know the guardian angel priest of Highway 19? If so, call 646 885 5149