After an evening of running errands, going out to eat, watching Cannon play at Dino Land in the mall, and being with our family, we finished the evening by getting my haircut and heading for home just after 7:00PM. We turned off the state highway onto the two lane road that leads into our town. About three miles from our city center, the dark green, four-door SUV that we were following slowly drifted to the right shoulder of the road. The driver quickly maneuvered the truck onto the high way but quickly veered to the right shoulder again. Attempting to correct his vehicle from reentering the right shoulder of the road, the driver soon lost control and at over 70 mph careened across the left shoulder flipped forward crushing the front end and rolled over caving in the passenger and driver side doors. At the onset of the front flip, the car became entangled with barbed wire as it ripped from a dozen or so fence posts before the car came to a rest; destroyed in a cow pasture.
I pulled our car off the road and ran to the demolished car while instructing Ashley to call 911 and dispatch an ambulance. I hurdled through the web of barbed wire, broken glass, and items from the car, finding a disoriented but conscious man covered in dirt, blood, and glass. I told him my wife was already on the phone with the ambulance and they would be there shortly. I asked if he felt any pain in his neck, back, or legs and if he could still move. He indicated he everything was in tact and showed me his left hand. As he pulled his arm out of the broken window a two-inch gash across the back of his hand squirted with blood that quickly lined the outside of the door and the dirt around where I was standing. I tried to open the door but it was crushed along the windshield and the hood was resting on top of the broken caved-in portion of the doorway. I was able to open the door behind him and rummaged through the car and found a sock that I wrapped around his bleeding hand. Blood quickly soaked the sock and other bystanders quickly found napkins and other miscellaneous items to add to the saturated dressings while blood pooled down my hands and arms.
The man wanted desperately to find his phone so he could call his wife. His phone was not in sight and he didn't think it stayed in the car. While holding his hand, I dircted another bystander to grab my phone out of my pocket and call his cell phone. We found his phone crushed under the windshield and the dash that required lifting the hood off the window. His phone was deemed worthless as it was set to work with a hands-free device that was nowhere to be found. A trucker pulling a load of sod used his phone to call the man's wife and "J", our driver now in shock, peacefully asked his wife to come be with him at the crash site. During his phone conversation the ambulance arrived and began checking him for signs of additional trauma. The paramedics placed a brace on his neck through the rear door I opened. When his neck was immobilized, they moved to the large cut on his hand I was holding with 5-6 inches of soaked dressings.
The paramedics produced additional gauze and wrapped his hand with a bandage. The ambulance driver tried to open the drivers door but it wouldn’t budge. As he left to discuss the situation with the now arriving fire engine, I unlocked the driver’s door and unlatched the door from the inside. I yanked the door open and began prying it back so they would have access to the driver. While I was bending the door backwards, I noticed a sheriff disconnecting the car battery with two pairs of pliers. The paramedics and engine crew directed the placement of the driver onto the backboard. I noticed the vehicle description of the man’s wife and saw two car seats in the back of her car.
Before I ran back to our car, I told one of my neighbors, that also came to the scene, to be with the wife and tell her Ashley would take care of her kids so she could go to the hospital and be with her husband. I hurried back over to our car to tell Ashley to pull around to the wife’s vehicle and assume care for their children. As Ashley rolled down the car window, Cannon peered through the partially unobstructed window and yelled with a smile, "Firrr’ Trukk", pointing at a road blocking array of lights.
Ashley and our neighbors readjusted the car seats to load our car full of children and headed back to our house. The wife was in the ambulance speaking with her husband as the trucker and I began collecting the belongings that littered the cow pasture. The wife gathered some items from the car into a box that we carefully loaded into her car where the car seats had been. She gave me her cell phone and I programed our home telephone number under the contact "KidsJarom." She was concerned her son would soon begin to melt down because of a brown stuffed bunny. She took her home key off her key ring and told me where they lived if her son began freaking out so we could retrieve his beloved rabbit.
We assured her that her kids would be well taken care of and to hurry off and be with her husband. The scene slowly cleared and I asked a sheriff for a lift home and some alcohol wipes to clean off the now dried blood on my hands and arms. Upon my arrival home with an armed chauffeur, I found our two new friends playing in the backyard. Four-year-old boy "G" shoveling dirt out of our planter box and two-year-old girl "S" adjusting to the new surroundings. Cannon’s new friends eventually made their way to play in our basement preschool, eat a late dinner of chicken nuggets, fruit cups, CapriSun and an Ashley-snuggled viewing of Kung Fu Panda. The mom retrieved her children near mid-night following positive reports from x-rays and an MRI.
We were blessed to have had the opportunity to serve unexpectedly. Our family was prepared to meet challenges of this scary, near-death accident. I thank my Heavenly Father for the opportunity see His hand direct the actions of perfect strangers in the time of crisis. You will never know what may be expected of you while on your journey Home!
