We got into a bit of an accident Saturday night. It snowed Friday and then continued to snow all day Saturday which made our drive to and from the Detroit Temple quite interesting. We barely got to the 4:00pm session to see some friends go through the temple for the first time. Unfortunately some other members of our ward did not. The roads were packed down with snow and had become so icy that cars were off the road left and right. Plus, it was still snowing! Everyone in the car was OK, but the car wasn't drivable after that. They were left stranded at a grocery store about 25 miles from the temple. We were all made aware of their circumstances after the session, and after determining that there were just enough seats in all of our cars we went to pick them up. What would have been a half hour drive to where they were stranded turned into about an hour due to highway closures and icy road conditions.
It was after we picked up Sister Francie Smith that our day (it was actually night by now) became even more interesting. Kris drove slowly and we were about 30 miles from home when another car switched lanes in front of us. We began to slide left as we passed an exit and came up an incline. We were about to go off the road when Kris was able to turn the truck and get it sliding right. We were coming up on the guard rails by now when the car spun 180 degrees (still on the road) and began to slow down. That's when the truck slid off the road (between the guard rail and a highway sign, just missing both) and down the hill then came to a stop at the bottom. We were stuck in 18-20 inches of snow. Amazingly we were all OK. The girls didn't even realized what had happened because they were half asleep and watching a movie in the back seat. Everyone's adrenaline was running but we remained calm, and poor Sister Smith was in her second accident that day! While Kris got out of the truck, still in his suit, to assess the situation, I explained the details of what had happened to Sister Smith who lost most of her vision about 30 years ago.
To make a long story short, we called 911, a deputy came to our aide, and about 15 minutes after that a tow truck arrived to pull us out. Kris also called our bishop who made a valiant effort to come get us girls but surprisingly, the tow truck beat him to us. I should mention however that while we waited for the deputy to arrive, Kris was very creative because he used our snow blower (which was in our truck) to make two tracks that led up the hill in hopes that if we just got onto the tracks we could get ourselves out. Unfortunately, the truck wasn't going any place without a tow truck. Thankfully there wasn't any damage to the truck. By the time we took Sister Smith home and returned home ourselves it was 11:45 pm.
We are so grateful that the outcome wasn't worse. We feel like Heavenly Father was watching out for us because no other cars were around, and had we gone off the road as we slid left, we probably would have rolled.
On a lighter note, as I mentioned above, the girls were pretty oblivious that anything had happened until one of them realized the truck wasn't moving anymore. "We slid off the road girls," I told them. "See there's a tree right there." (It was about 15 feet off to the side of us.)
Alyson replied, "I thought so because there usually aren't trees on the road."
No comments:
Post a Comment