The thing that happened on it was not.

This is, in a way, the most resonant aspect of Jean Hilliard’s story: the ordinariness of the setting.

This was not a laboratory, not a hospital, not a venue designed for medical miracles.

It was a porch step on a farm in rural Minnesota.

The people involved — Wally Nelson, a cattle rancher; Dr.

Sather, a physician in a small-town hospital; Jean Hilliard, a 19-year-old on her way home from a Saturday night out — were ordinary people in ordinary circumstances, facing something that was not ordinary.

The extraordinary outcome of those six hours on an ordinary porch step is what makes the story worth telling and worth studying.