At Andale High School in Andale, Kan., Chase Kear played football, wrestled and won a state championship in the pole vault. "I liked it. Fell in love with that sport," Kear told ABC News. Asked what he liked about it so much, he said: "You get shot into the air." But in October 2008, Kear had a pole-vaulting accident that would change his life.  Teenager Chase Kear was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after missing the mat during pole-vaulting practice and landing on his head. Doctors had to cut a hole in his skull to relieve pressure in his brain. They told his family to prepare themselves for the worst. Here, brothers Cole and Clay Kear hug Chase at the Via Christi Regional Medical Center in Wichita, Kan.  Chase Kear (with a young family friend) was unresponsive for a long seven days after he underwent surgery to relieve swelling in his brain. Then his mysterious recovery began. Family members see a connection between Chase's comeback and prayers they offered, joined by friends and strangers, to a late war-hero priest from Pilsen, Kan., Father Emil Kapaun.  Father Emil Kapaun, a Kansas native, volunteered as an Army chaplain during the Korean War. "He was always willing to go out and be with the men where they needed him the most, and that was usually on the front lines," said Father John Hotze, vicar of the Wichita diocese. When Kapaun was captured and imprisoned with his troop in Pyokong, North Korea, he gave away his food and ministered selflessly to his comrades, fellow POWs later reported. Kapaun, pictured saying Mass in the field of battle, died in the camp.  The family of injured teen Chase Kear put out a call on Facebook for people to pray to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on Chase's behalf. The family's Kansas parish passed out prayer cards. Chase's parents affixed one of the prayer cards to his hospital bed.  Kansas teen Chase Kear underwent months of rehabilitation after an October 2008 pole-vaulting accident. Chase's original prognosis was dire. "Institutions, diapers, a vegetable, I mean that's what we were facing," said his mother, Paula Kear. "We knew that." But Chase would walk again. He is pictured with friends outside the Via Christi Regional Medical Center in Wichita, Kan.  After being captured with other soldiers, Father Emil Kapaun died of pneumonia in a prison camp in Pyokong, North Korea, pictured. The Vatican is investigating whether the recovery last year of Kansas teen Chase Kear from a sports injury was a miracle that could be attributed to Kapaun. In the Catholic Church, the attribution of two confirmed miracles to a religious figure is a criterion for sainthood.  Chase Kear, pictured participating in emergency training, is now a volunteer firefighter and works as an assistant track coach at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas. "They asked me what I thought about all this and I said honestly, if I'm the miracle that makes Father Kapaun a saint, that's great," Chase told ABC News. "And if it's not me and it's someone else, you know, that's great. I really just want him to be a saint, 'cause I think he helped me. There's no way that I could be that tough to come from my deathbed to where I am at now. I couldn't have done that alone."
See a slide show of the life of late war-hero priest Father Kapaun and of Chase Kear, whose recovery from a dreadful pole-vaulting accident has been credited to Kapaun's intercession after the Kear family turned to prayer.