Yesterday, after we had dinner with my family, Amy and I met her parents to drop them off at the airport. They were on their way to Washington DC to take some additional education classes. We stopped at my parents house again for an hour or so, then headed home. Amy drove her parents car and I followed in our car. We were on I-15 in the far right lane when I saw that just in front of me, Amy started swerving back and forth. Initially I thought she was playing around. Then the SUV swung left very sharply across four lanes of freeway traffic. I knew instantly at this point that her tire blew out. I was obviously very panicky, and felt helpless as I knew there was nothing I could do but watch. Just before running through the ditch in the median (and possibly ending up in oncoming traffic), the SUV swung back right about as sharply as it had gone left. This time, because there was an on ramp to the right of her, the SUV had to travel across five lanes of traffic. From what I could see, the SUV had almost done a 180 (so she was practically facing traffic) when she hit the front driver side into the barricades. This initial hit caused the front of the SUV to ricochet away from the barricades, causing the back end of the SUV to receive the most damage as it slammed into the barricades.
Amazingly during this whole escapade, no other vehicles were damaged. From my viewpoint, as she swung left and right, there were cars in front of her and behind her the whole time, but never directly in her path. She clearly was, as her Father puts it, in a bubble, while her and others were kept safe from serious injury.
As soon as the SUV came to rest, I stopped my car in the right hand lane with my emergency lights on, ran out to Amy, not knowing what to expect, and was very glad to she that she escaped serious injury. She was very shaken up and repeated over and over, “I don’t know what I did wrong, I just couldn’t keep the car straight”. I was glad that I was able to be there to comfort her and let her know this wasn’t anybodies fault. After realizing my car was still on the freeway, I jumped in and moved it to the side of the road. The EMT’s checked her vitals and so on, and everything came back ok, so she didn’t even need to go to the hospital.
We both feel extremely blessed and protected. This situation easily could have been much much worse. We feel that the Lord had his hand in protecting Amy, and keeping me calm so I could support Amy and handle most of the logistics of the accident. We don’t know exactly why this incident occurred, but it has increased our faith. We also don’t know why we were so blessed when others with similar incidents had to go through a lot more. All we know is that the Lord has his hand in all things, and all things work to the greater good of all mankind.
Here are some pictures I took from our camera phone. The quality isn’t good at all, but it may give an idea of the scene.
From this picture you can see how busy the freeway was, and how much the SUV spun (about 200 degrees)
A close up of the first part of the SUV to collide with the barricades
Sorry about the finger on this one
A close up of the blown out tire
This is a bad shot due to lighting from the emergency vehicles, but I wanted to get some from the back side where most the damage occurred. From this picture, it looks like the SUV it partly raised from the ground and resting on the side wall of the barricade.
The lighting from the back was really bad, but this picture shows the view from behind the barricade.
After hitting the barricade, it was pushed back about half a foot from the road pavement. From the other pictures you can see that these were strong barricades as well.
This shot shows the area where the barricade began to separate from the road pavement
Or we’ll have to bribe someone to come and help Steve with it. (This is the bribe I’m offering–you get to dunk Steve in our pool!!) So now it is just sitting there while we figure out something to do with it for the rest of the summer!!