A week after we moved in to Somerdowns a tragedy stuck.
Wyatt’s business partner, Dave’s niece went missing in the Pacific Northwest. Dave went to Oregon to help search for the girl. Wyatt went too.
About 45 minutes after Wyatt pulled out of town, I was driving down the freeway. I saw the car in front of me swerve wildly. What he missed I saw I had to hit. I couldn’t swerve – I had cars flanking me on either side. So, I held the wheel tight, took my foot off the gas and brake, and braced for the impact . . .
A semi truck ahead of me had dropped a big jack off the back of it’s truck. I mean BIG Jack – the type that are used for tractor-trailers when they aren’t attached to trucks.
Well, I hit it with my front driver-side wheel, going 70 miles an hour. The tire exploded (creating smoke off the front of the car) and I held the wheel until I felt it settle down. Then I switched lanes as quickly as I could to the shoulder of the road. Once I reached the shoulder, that was the first time I attempted to brake (I didn’t want to brake before that because I knew with a blown tire it could pull the van to one side causing more problems). When I hit the brakes, there was absolutely no brake pressure – not even a little. So, I reached over, holding the wheel extra tight, and used the emergency brake. I wasn’t sure if the e-brake would pull as well, but it didn’t. It was effective, and I stopped on the side of the road none-the-worse.
So there I was, on the side of the road. Wyatt was out of town. I was pretty sure the car had some serious damage. I didn’t know what to do. Luckily a police officer must have been following up the freeway behind me, because he pulled up to me within a minute or two of stopping.
Also, the truck that dropped the jack had pulled over as well. Because of that I was able to get his insurance information to pay for the damages (phew!). The police officer changed my tire and I was able to drive off the freeway.
I took the van into the Toyota dealership for a damage assessment. Luckily they gave us a rental minivan since Wyatt was gone and I had no other vehicle to drive! Over the next several days they diagnosed the damage and it was determined that fixing the car wasn’t worth the effort (not only was the tire blown but a whole slew of other problems were caused). They totaled the car and cut us a check.
It was really stressful at the time (mostly because Wyatt was gone and I had kids going to three different schools in two different towns, and I didn’t have a washer and dryer working – but that’s a story for another day).
But all week I kept (trying to) remind myself how blessed we were. When I went to get the final assessment from the dealership the mechanic asked me in all seriousness if I caught air when I hit the jack. He said he’d never seen so much damage to a tire, and he imagined it could have launched the vehicle.
And when Wyatt showed his car-friend Ryan the damage, he too was blown away and told Wyatt we were pretty darn lucky there were no injuries. “Do you know how much force it takes to do damage like that?” he told Wyatt.
So I know we were blessed. I didn’t even so much as have a shot of adrenaline in the accident. I was very calm and clear headed, which was surely a blessing. And in light of the tragedy in Oregon, we felt extra blessed that we only lost a car in the ordeal.
Wyatt and the search party didn’t find the girl that week. It was three more weeks before they located her body. But she was found and has been put to rest, which is an answer to so many important prayers. I feel so grateful for that.