Our near-catastrophe

Last week Jean and I were being driven to the Birmingham (AL) airport.

As we got on to an 8-lane Interstate with traffic zooming at 70+ mph, we saw just ahead what looked like a movie scene.

In the far left lane a car was clipped by another, and was forced toward the rounded concrete barrier on the left side.

Suddenly this car shot up twenty feet into the air.  Then it rolled completely over–while still up in the air–not just once but  four or five times.  Finally, after what seemed far longer than was possible for a ton of metal to be spinning in the air, it came crashing down.

Miraculously, it landed right-side up.  The windows blew out, shards of glass flying everywhere. Traffic slowed, while cars and trucks careened wildly to the right and left trying to avoid a pile-up.

Miraculously again, there were no secondary crashes.

We pulled off to the right.  I ran across the four lanes to see if the inhabitants of the crashed car were alive.

There was only one, a woman driver.  I reached in through the broken-out window, and called out, “Can you you hear me, dear?”

I was relieved to see her bloodied chest moving up and down.  She was breathing!  Blood was pouring from the top of her head.  When I looked carefully, it was part of her scalp that was ripped off.  Thankfully, it was not her skull.

She did not respond to my questions, but her eyes were open.  She winced when I used my handkerchief to wipe blood off her face.  I assumed she could hear me, so I kept talking to her, reassuring her that I would stay with her until we got help, and praying for her.

Her seatbelt had saved her.  But now it was in danger of choking her.  So I held it out from her bruised body, and kept talking to her.  I sensed she could hear, even though she could not respond.

Several others stopped to try to help.  One sweet woman  looked inside the car for clues to her name..  So we addressed her by name and told her,  “We love you and will stick with you.  Don’t worry.  Help is coming.  We’ll get you out of here.”  When she heard her name, she stirred, and started to flail her arm.

After what seemed like forever (probably 20-25 minutes), an ambulance came.  One of the workers used a knife to free her from her seatbelt.  Then we had to pry the bent doors to get her out.  First the back door, then the driver’s door.  They put a board under her, which was not easy, and gingerly pulled her body out to rest on the board, and eventually carried her to the ambulance.

The woman, it turns out, is a mother of two and grandmother of one.  She has a dedicated husband, and is still in the hospital, gradually beginning to talk.  She has lots of healing to do, but I am told she is coming around.  She and her family are Christians.

We are thankful to Carolyn, development director at Beeson Divinity School, who was our driver and who has visited the woman and her family several times at the hospital.

Jean and I have been mulling this extraordinary event all week, and are learning several things.

1. Life is ever-so-fragile.  We are moment-by-moment dependent on God’s holding us up in life.  Think of all the near-misses you have endured.  Any one of them could have taken you out of mortal life.  The woman in the car could have died, and so could we.  Only by the grace of God, and his sovereign mercy are we here today.

2. It was “our” near-catastrophe because this woman and her family are in the Body of Christ.  Her loss would be ours.  The tragedy to her family would have been ours, if we had known them.

3. There are many times in life that we feel like this woman, catapulting through the air out of control, rolling and rolling and terrified of how or if we will land.  We do not know that we are really in God’s hands.  And that all will be well.