Fished In? Disciple of St. Pete Faith Healer Tells of Rescue by Lauderdale Fish

Flickr: fleuranna

In the prequel to Finding Nemo, the fish protagonists help a barge worker to the surface.

​Bruce Watters is a jeweler and "pillar of the community" during the week and a faith healer on the weekend. That's right -- the kind who summon the Holy Spirit, lay their blessed hands upon the lame and command, "Stand up in the name of Jesus!"

His story, which appeared in Sunday's St. Petersburg Times, is fascinating, though the only indisputable miracle is how Watters and his followers can reconcile their belief in the power of God to heal with their acceptance of sickness and death as a human condition. Among those followers is Ed Morehead who recounts a this brush with mortality off the coast of Fort Lauderdale:

He was presumed drowned in a barge accident in Fort Lauderdale. After three hours, he was found floating near the barge. The stunned superintendent cried out, "Here's Eddie!" Morehead tells the story often. He says he saw a bright light down below and swam toward it, two fish on either side. The light led him to the surface.

After the jump, a video of Watters in his capacity as a jeweler.