Last Thursday, March 4th, my heart nearly stopped when I answered a potenially fatal phone call. The person on the other end of the line told me my dad had been in a car accident…
While driving around a curve, his front left tire blew out causing the vehicle to be pulled into the ditch. Because of the mud and the lack of a tire he couldn’t steer and slammed the suburban into a cement culvert. The impact caused his chest to hit the steering wheel even though he had his seat belt on. The air bags went off and as he hit the culvert, the impact caused the engine and dashboard to be jammed into the interrior at least four inches. The pedals were embedded into the floor boards and the roof was buckled in three places.
Dad had immediate chest pain and couldn’t breathe because of the smoke from the air bag. His cell phone battery was gone preventing him from making any calls. The driver door wouldn’t open so he crawled over the console and finally got out the passenger door. As he lay in the mud by the side of the highway thousands of thoughts tormented his mind. After about 5 minutes, people stopped to help him. They called the ambulance and got him to Smith Center’s ER. The doctors decided to send him to Kearney, NE in a choppper to make sure that he wasn’t bleeding internally. While in Kearney, they discovered that he had cracked his sternum (breastbone) as well as a couple of ribs. They elected to keep him overnight to make sure that his pain was under control (he was really shaky, almost like he was in shock whenever the pain got to be too much). The ER Doctor in Kearney told dad that if he wouldn’t have had his seat belt on and if he would have been in a smaller car he wouldn’t have made it. Praise God that his injuries are able to be healed. He was released to go home on Friday and has been doing great ever since. They say that it will take six to eight weeks for him to totally heal. Keep praying, we all appreciate it!