In 1944, the people of North Carolina faced a polio, or infantile paralysis epidemic which received attention throughout the United States. In The Grit Behind the Miracle, Alice E. Sink tells the extraordinary story of an emergency polio hospital that was built, equipped, and in operation within fifty-four hours in Hickory, North Carolina. Sink describes the role of Dr. H. C. Whims in orchestrating the building and staffing of the hospital, and profiles the doctors and nurses who worked to help the children afflicted with polio. Sink has interviewed numerous survivors of the epidemic who were hospitalized at Hickory, and she shares the personal stories of many who were there as children. She also describes the move of the hospital and all its patients to Charlotte, N.C. in 1945, and the aftermath of the polio epidemic.