Spending the night in the hospital after a car accident that resulted in a concussion is no fun, especially if you're pregnant. The whole time I was in the ER, the nurse checked the baby's heartbeat numerous times. She even put a little heart shaped sticker on my tummy where she found him so she could always go back to that spot. For the most part, he cooperated and was still enough for her to hear him. When the got me in a room, however, he had had enough! The nurse in the L&D unit got so frustrated with the little stinker at one point that she just gave up. He was obviously moving around a lot, because every time she would catch him he would scoot away! So I got hardly any sleep there, between waking me up every few minutes because of the concussion and trying to hear the baby, I was exhausted when we finally got home!
Let me rewind a little bit here. After the men pulled us out of the car, other people rushed to "duty". Our car landed on it's top in the road, right in between the two driveways of the church. People started to direct traffic through the parking lot so the ambulances could actually get to us and the traffic could keep going. Of the many people that helped us that day, three beautiful souls come to my mind. I don't know their names, perhaps I never will. One of the men introduced himself as a nurse (we found out later that he was actually a Corpsman in the Navy), and another young man introduced himself as an EMT. The other was a beautiful blond lady that was pouring water on my hand while she shook like a leaf. She was trying to wash my hand the best she could without hurting me.
Let me just insert here, how wonderful our God is! These people were put there specifically for my husband and me, that day, at that time; no question in my mind! Not just one medical professional, but two! What's even more miraculous was what we were told by the EMT. He was a young man; usually went to church with his Dad somewhere else, but that day, he just felt that he was supposed to come to church with his Mom. Praise God that he was there!
Ok, back to the story. After I took a long nap, I called Bethel Baptist church to thank them for all their help, and to let them know we were banged up, but ok. The woman that answered the phone sounded very excited to hear from me; she had apparently been getting phone calls all day long asking about us. She was so happy to know that we were ok, and that she could tell people that very thing now. She then asked if there was anything they could do for us. I jokingly said, "well, if you know of anyone selling one, we're in the market for a new-to-us car!"Basically, we had just totaled our car.
Tuesday afternoon, the phone rang. We didn't recognize the number, so we let the answering machine pick it up (wow-this was even before voice mail!) We heard someone saying something about the accident, so Shawn quickly went and answered it. After a few minutes, he got that nervous laugh that I know so well. He kept saying "thank you!" and I could hear the excitement in his voice. When he hung up the phone, he rushed into the living room, put his head in my lap and said, "they want to give us a car!" Wait. What? Surely he didn't say that right. Give us a car?
Apparently there was a young couple a little older than us that had just had a second child. They had already bought a bigger vehicle, but had planned on selling their car. Instead, they decided to gift it to us! I really didn't believe it; not at all.
Shawn did all the arranging; I had to make a surprise trip back to the ER that week for a severe headache. The next Sunday, exactly a week after we wrecked, these angels brought a 1996 Mercury Sable to my parent's house. (We lived in Virginia Beach at the time in a, how shall we say it, rough neighborhood. No place to park a car with no tags!) I think I was still a little in shock, to tell you the truth. Why would someone do this for total strangers? But there it was, free. Ours.
Not only did they give us the car, but they knew it needed new tires to pass inspection by the end of that month. So they put $200 cash in an envelope in the glove compartment so we could buy new tires. The car that was wrecked was a 1995 Ford Taurus. If you know anything about cars, then you'll know that a Ford Taurus and a Mercury Sable are practically the same car. We had just put new tires on the Taurus, and they weren't damaged (remember, we landed upside down?). So we were able to harvest the tires from the Taurus and put them on the Sable. Funny thing, though; it was almost exactly $200 to get the car title changed over and registered to us, because it was a gift.
No. Not a funny thing at all. God's hand was at work.
Pokeberry Boys Cover Photo
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
The Car Accident that Blessed our Socks Off
Looking through my blog last night, I realized that I haven't written out my pregnancy stories! Now, I know what you're thinking; "Pregnancy story? She's gonna get bloody and gory, isn't she?" Nope! Well, there is a teeny bit of blood, but not in the way you think. This story starts 6 months before the baby was even born!
Let me set the stage for you:
It was May 16, 2004. (I am freaky with dates like this; don't know why, just always have been.) Shawn and I were young (he was 29, I was 28), youth leaders at the church we attended, and had already gone through a miscarriage the year before in August. I was 16 weeks pregnant, and it was a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning. The day before, we had been with our youth group all day; we picked strawberries, cleaned them and made strawberry syrup out of them. We canned them with the purpose of selling the jars for a fundraiser. Shawn and I were going to church early that Sunday morning: him to teach Sunday school, and me to finish preparing the jars for our customers. (I was going to put pretty ribbons and fabric on the tops, you know? Make them cute.) I had all the orders in a metal cash box in the backseat of the car.
What we had forgotten was this: The bridge was closed that weekend. We lived in Virginia Beach at the time, and traveled over that bridge every time we went to church, or to my parents house, or anything. We had just been at church the day before, and we had remembered that the bridge was closed, so we went the other way, over the other bridge. But Sunday, we remembered too late to go the easy way. By the time we remembered, we had to go down Elbow Road.
For those of you that don't know this area well, Elbow Road is what one might call a death trap. It's a long, winding, narrow road with no shoulder to be seen on either side. Many people have lost their lives in crashes on this road. Shawn had never driven down this road before, nor was he very familiar with the car he was driving, because it was the car I usually drove. So when we went around one corner and he caught the gravel on the non-existent shoulder, that was it. The car fell down into the ditch, we hit a culvert head on, and then the car flipped back up into the road, upside down. We spun around like a top for a minute before coming to a stop, facing the same direction we were traveling, just upside down. We never crossed the center line, and we landed right in between two driveways of the church across the street.
When we stopped moving, I could hear my husband crying out, "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." over and over. I think he was in shock. For some reason, I was very calm, almost peaceful (I later realized that I had been hit in the head, most likely the console piece where the air bag comes out, but we'll never know for sure) and I remember hearing what I believe to be God speaking to my heart saying "The baby is OK. Get out of the car. Now." You don't need to tell me that twice! The problem was that I was hanging upside down in my seat belt. My right hand had been badly injured (though I didn't really realize it at this time) and I couldn't use it to push myself back into the seat so I could unhook the belt. Shawn was trying to get out, too. His driver's side door was jammed, so he put his seat back to get out the back door. I needed him to help me get out of the seat belt, and by the time he'd done that (and we were both on our hands and knees in glass shards and whatever else <shiver>) men from the church across the street had come and pried his door open and were pulling us out.
At this point, I lost sight of my husband. I knew he was OK; I had seen him walking around. People flocked around me. They walked me a safe distance away from the car and sat me down in a grassy spot. I couldn't figure out why everyone was fussing over me so much. I was pleading with someone to call my parents. They were at church where we were headed by this time. I was hollering out the number to the church (I still have it memorized; I told you, I'm weird that way!) begging for my parents to come. All this time, I remember a beautiful lady with white blonde hair kneeling beside me, using a water bottle to try to wash off my badly mangled hand. She was shaking so badly that I wanted to hold her had to calm her down! When we had started to crash, I had reached out the window to hold onto the roof of the car. My right hand had been crushed between the roof of the car and the asphalt. It was not a pretty thing to look at. One of the men told me that I also had a "pretty big goose egg" forming on my forehead.
By the time the ambulances arrived, my parents had gotten there. They were putting me in the ambulance when I heard my Mom's voice, telling me that Shawn was in the other ambulance and that he was going to Chesapeake General. I asked them to take me there, too, but Chesapeake refused me. I was hurt worse (not to mention PREGNANT!) and had to go to the big hospital in the city, Norfolk General, and their trauma center. My Mom rode in the ambulance with me while Dad stayed at the site andbossed everyone around got the car towed back to the farm. Then he joined us up at Norfolk General. My sister-in-law went to Chesapeake and stayed with Shawn; he was released quickly with some minor scratches on his face and arm. She brought him straight to me when they were done.
When we got to the hospital, I was hollering out that I was pregnant, because the EMT hadn't told them that over the radio as we were headed in. The doctors and nurses immediately began working; cutting my clothes off, ultrasounds, x-rays, sent me for a CT of my head, the works. I insisted that they check the baby first. When they did the ultrasound, there he was, be-bopping all over as if to say "Mommy, that was fun! Let's do it again!". It was obvious that he was fine.
They did an x-ray of my right hand right there in the trauma bay. The doctor saw it and I know he immediately thought "surgery practice!" because of how bad it looked. When the first x-rays came back and revealed there was NO damage to the bones, he made them do it again. He didn't believe that my fingers weren't at least dislocated or something! But nope, just badly skinned. Each finger on the side, from the bottom knuckles to the tips of each finger. The doctor called it my "hamburger hand"". I had complained about my backside hurting, and the thumb on my left had was turning all shades of purple and black and hurt like the dickens, but he didn't seem concerned about those. I did find out a couple of weeks later that my thumb WAS broken. Quite a few years later I found out that my tailbone had been broken, as well. Since I was pregnant, they didn't want to expose the baby to more x-rays than were needed, and there's nothing you can do for a broken coccyx anyway!
They kept me overnight for observation in the Labor & Delivery unit so they could monitor the baby and my head injury, and then released me the next day, Monday. Shawn and I went home and rested for a while (because let's face it, you get no rest in a hospital!) and then I placed a call to the church where we crashed, Bethel Baptist church. I wanted to thank them for all that they did and let them know that we were ok. What happened next is the next part of this story. It was one of the biggest blessings in our lives.
Come back tomorrow and I'll finish the story!
Let me set the stage for you:
It was May 16, 2004. (I am freaky with dates like this; don't know why, just always have been.) Shawn and I were young (he was 29, I was 28), youth leaders at the church we attended, and had already gone through a miscarriage the year before in August. I was 16 weeks pregnant, and it was a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning. The day before, we had been with our youth group all day; we picked strawberries, cleaned them and made strawberry syrup out of them. We canned them with the purpose of selling the jars for a fundraiser. Shawn and I were going to church early that Sunday morning: him to teach Sunday school, and me to finish preparing the jars for our customers. (I was going to put pretty ribbons and fabric on the tops, you know? Make them cute.) I had all the orders in a metal cash box in the backseat of the car.
What we had forgotten was this: The bridge was closed that weekend. We lived in Virginia Beach at the time, and traveled over that bridge every time we went to church, or to my parents house, or anything. We had just been at church the day before, and we had remembered that the bridge was closed, so we went the other way, over the other bridge. But Sunday, we remembered too late to go the easy way. By the time we remembered, we had to go down Elbow Road.
For those of you that don't know this area well, Elbow Road is what one might call a death trap. It's a long, winding, narrow road with no shoulder to be seen on either side. Many people have lost their lives in crashes on this road. Shawn had never driven down this road before, nor was he very familiar with the car he was driving, because it was the car I usually drove. So when we went around one corner and he caught the gravel on the non-existent shoulder, that was it. The car fell down into the ditch, we hit a culvert head on, and then the car flipped back up into the road, upside down. We spun around like a top for a minute before coming to a stop, facing the same direction we were traveling, just upside down. We never crossed the center line, and we landed right in between two driveways of the church across the street.
When we stopped moving, I could hear my husband crying out, "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." over and over. I think he was in shock. For some reason, I was very calm, almost peaceful (I later realized that I had been hit in the head, most likely the console piece where the air bag comes out, but we'll never know for sure) and I remember hearing what I believe to be God speaking to my heart saying "The baby is OK. Get out of the car. Now." You don't need to tell me that twice! The problem was that I was hanging upside down in my seat belt. My right hand had been badly injured (though I didn't really realize it at this time) and I couldn't use it to push myself back into the seat so I could unhook the belt. Shawn was trying to get out, too. His driver's side door was jammed, so he put his seat back to get out the back door. I needed him to help me get out of the seat belt, and by the time he'd done that (and we were both on our hands and knees in glass shards and whatever else <shiver>) men from the church across the street had come and pried his door open and were pulling us out.
At this point, I lost sight of my husband. I knew he was OK; I had seen him walking around. People flocked around me. They walked me a safe distance away from the car and sat me down in a grassy spot. I couldn't figure out why everyone was fussing over me so much. I was pleading with someone to call my parents. They were at church where we were headed by this time. I was hollering out the number to the church (I still have it memorized; I told you, I'm weird that way!) begging for my parents to come. All this time, I remember a beautiful lady with white blonde hair kneeling beside me, using a water bottle to try to wash off my badly mangled hand. She was shaking so badly that I wanted to hold her had to calm her down! When we had started to crash, I had reached out the window to hold onto the roof of the car. My right hand had been crushed between the roof of the car and the asphalt. It was not a pretty thing to look at. One of the men told me that I also had a "pretty big goose egg" forming on my forehead.
By the time the ambulances arrived, my parents had gotten there. They were putting me in the ambulance when I heard my Mom's voice, telling me that Shawn was in the other ambulance and that he was going to Chesapeake General. I asked them to take me there, too, but Chesapeake refused me. I was hurt worse (not to mention PREGNANT!) and had to go to the big hospital in the city, Norfolk General, and their trauma center. My Mom rode in the ambulance with me while Dad stayed at the site and
When we got to the hospital, I was hollering out that I was pregnant, because the EMT hadn't told them that over the radio as we were headed in. The doctors and nurses immediately began working; cutting my clothes off, ultrasounds, x-rays, sent me for a CT of my head, the works. I insisted that they check the baby first. When they did the ultrasound, there he was, be-bopping all over as if to say "Mommy, that was fun! Let's do it again!". It was obvious that he was fine.
They did an x-ray of my right hand right there in the trauma bay. The doctor saw it and I know he immediately thought "surgery practice!" because of how bad it looked. When the first x-rays came back and revealed there was NO damage to the bones, he made them do it again. He didn't believe that my fingers weren't at least dislocated or something! But nope, just badly skinned. Each finger on the side, from the bottom knuckles to the tips of each finger. The doctor called it my "hamburger hand"". I had complained about my backside hurting, and the thumb on my left had was turning all shades of purple and black and hurt like the dickens, but he didn't seem concerned about those. I did find out a couple of weeks later that my thumb WAS broken. Quite a few years later I found out that my tailbone had been broken, as well. Since I was pregnant, they didn't want to expose the baby to more x-rays than were needed, and there's nothing you can do for a broken coccyx anyway!
They kept me overnight for observation in the Labor & Delivery unit so they could monitor the baby and my head injury, and then released me the next day, Monday. Shawn and I went home and rested for a while (because let's face it, you get no rest in a hospital!) and then I placed a call to the church where we crashed, Bethel Baptist church. I wanted to thank them for all that they did and let them know that we were ok. What happened next is the next part of this story. It was one of the biggest blessings in our lives.
Come back tomorrow and I'll finish the story!
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