A St. Charles teen became a worldwide household name when he fell through the ice on a frozen lake and walked out of the hospital days later, unharmed.
Featuring Breakthrough: The Impossible Book Adapted to Movie
Based on his mother, Joyce Smith’s book, The Impossible: The Miraculous Story of a Mother’s Faith and Her Child’s Resurrection, his story is unfolding on the big screen and will premiere on Easter. The movie is an enthralling reminder that faith and love can create a mountain of hope—and sometimes even a miracle.
From producer DeVon Franklin (Miracles from Heaven) and adapted for the screen by Grant Nieporte (Seven Pounds) from Joyce Smith’s own book, the movie recounts the gruesome moments that happened on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2015, when John Smith, then 14 years old, decided to go out with two friends onto the partially frozen Lake Ste. Louise in St. Charles County.
That decision would be almost fatal.
John fell through the lake’s frozen exterior and spent almost 20 minutes at the bottom.
“The screams I can still hear, and you know when you’re in a pool and you're coming up and…floating there…I kind of remember brief moments of that,” John told KSDK-TV in 2017.
He was without a heartbeat for almost an hour.
As doctors told Joyce there was nothing left they could do for her son, she did the only thing she knew to do: she prayed.
Shortly after, a nurse yelled out to the doctor who was walking out of the room that John had a pulse. Sixteen days later, John left the hospital almost fully recovered.
Joyce says her biggest hope for the movie, was “that people would know there is hope. That in a world with too much chaos… so much bad news, and it seems like it’s hopeless … the truth is you can see that God loves us and cares for us and there is hope.”
The first official movie trailer dropped on Dec. 5 and was viewed 12 million times on Facebook in a mere 24 hours.
Breakthrough features Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) as Joyce Smith, Josh Lucas (Yellowstone, Sweet Home Alabama) as Brian Smith and Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3, That ‘70s Show) as Pastor Jason Noble.
The Impossible book is available in stores and online at Amazon.com.