Healing of Pierre de Rudder

The first cure without any use of Lourdes water. In 1867 Pierre de Rudder had his leg crushed by a falling tree—an open fracture of both bones. Despite treatment, a pseudoarthrosis set in; the bones would never unite. Doctors advised amputation; he refused. Eight years later he went to Oostacker, Belgium, where a replica of the Grotto had been built. Setting off as an invalid, he returned in the evening without crutches. The bones had united in minutes. The Bishop of Bruges officially recognized the cure as miraculous on 25 July 1908.

The Lourdes Medical Bureau gathered documentation; the International Medical Committee (C.M.I.L.) affirmed the cure was inexplicable in the current state of medical knowledge. The Bishop of Bruges recognized it on 25 July 1908. Nonunion fractures do not heal spontaneously. Pierre de Rudder's bones were exhumed; the healed site is preserved at the Medical Bureau.