I'd be interested in seeing a link. At first blush, it sounds most likely to me someone lost their outer ear structure along with, perhaps, some actual functionality (presumably in a traumatic event). Then the remaining "stump" of an ear healed and functionality improved over time. Maybe a significant perceived improvement was experienced as something quite dramatic during a charismatic faith healing service?

Are you going to claim that they were lying/deceived?

Maybe it's something less malicious than that? Maybe they just projected their beliefs onto a circumstance? Maybe the story got a bit inflated in the repeated re-telling?

Couple other examples of similar miraculous healings:

Charles Templeton, one of Billy Graham's preaching partners, before his deconversion. I found this account on a blog, and I've read it elsewhere. (I found a more detailed account from Templeton's memoir here...but it might be more interesting to start with the account I've pasted.)

It was during the time spent as minister of the Avenue Road church in Toronto that Templeton witnessed two cases of instantaneous healing. Not to say that he is in favor of mass healing rallies, which he has always viewed as a health hazard rather than a blessing "since they leave behind an emotional wreckage and illnesses often worsened by neglect." The two instances that Templeton witnessed occurred in private. In neither did he expect a healing to occur. In the first, an infant suffering a big defect—a muscle that was misattached, causing the baby's head to be twisted to one side—was healed within minutes after Charles laid his hands on the child and prayed. The child's condition prior to and after the healing was documented at the time by hospital physicians. New World, a Canadian version of Life magazine, ran the story and a full-page picture of the mother and child.

In the second instance, Templeton prayed for his aunt after exploratory surgery revealed that her stomach cancer was both malignant and inoperable. As he laid hands on her and prayed, he says he "felt something akin to an electrical charge flow through my arms and out my fingers." Within hours his aunt, who had been bedridden for weeks, was up and about. The cancer did not return, the pain from the adhesions ended, and she lived for another forty-two years.

Despite his opposition to "the public healing services of contemporary evangelism--wherein "the 'healers' are often simpletons or rogues or both"—Templeton says he is convinced that "what may loosely be called faith healing is an area of medicine with unrealized potential".

Interesting accounts since Templeton left the ministry. My my understanding, he did hold onto a belief in some sort of spiritual faith healing throughout his life, despite leaving the Christian faith.

It's hard to know what actually happened in these cases. In the case of the infant, it's my guess the child had something like this going on. Checking out the memoir account, the child received daily treatment and visited the hospital weekly. Also, notice the story in the New World was written four years after the event, something not mentioned in the blogger's account.

In the case of the woman with cancer, I don't know. It is my understanding spontaneous remission of cancer is possible. As far as the "electrical charge" Templeton felt, maybe he felt that as a result of the rather dramatic and emotional situation?

(Anytime I hear faith healing accounts, I always think. "Why don't they just set these faith healers loose in the world's hospitals??? Have them go room to room!")

My general sense is that there are improvements—sometimes dramatic improvements—in people's health that coincide with prayer. If it's a one-in-a-million chance and you pray for one million people, you're gonna see a miracle!

Further, I think people sometimes get a boost in adrenaline/confidence after being prayed for which perhaps masks their symptoms for a few days. In non-terminal cases, maybe they get out of bed and start eating right, exercising and being more active? Maybe their whole perspective changes and they become more positive and healthy?