The day was bright and sunny. It was a beautiful spring day in late May. I was in my junior year of college, 19 years old, and on an outing with my two best friends. This event was to be the finale of a semester that resulted in total burnout. I had stopped going to class, failed to turn in assignments and was banking on good finals' scores to squeak out a passing grade. The day was a free day, ironically referred to as "dead day," designed as a study time in preparation for finals which would begin the following Monday. The combination of the reckless attitudes and judgments of youth, and the speed of a brand new Ford Mustang yielded the formula for an activity gone bad, and turned deadly.
We were on a day outing to a Southwest Missouri theme park. We were traveling on curvy, hilly roads, challenging the terrain that was characteristic of the Missouri Ozarks. It was almost noon. The accident occurred when the driver lost control of the car, the car crossed the center line, left the roadway, hit a concrete culvert, and slammed head-on into a tree. The tree kept the car from plummeting over a cliff and spiraling out of control to the bottom of a deep ravine. The bounce from hitting the culvert caused a gas leak resulting in an explosion and fire. The car burned in a matter of minutes.
I guess the first miracle was how we got out of the car. The two front seat passengers, who were wearing seatbelt, had serious injuries, the driver, a severely broken arm, and the front seat passenger, a broken back. I was riding in the back, between the seats and not wearing a seatbelt. When the car hit the culvert and bounced, my head tore through the fabric ceiling liner and the inertia from the impact with the tree, slammed it forward into the metal ribbing supporting the roof of the car resulting in serious and extensive head lacerations. The crash impact also forced my whole body forward. My left leg was caught behind the drivers seat, slammed forward, and was twisted, resulting in six inched of ground bone just above my right knee.
My first after crash memory was sitting on something near the roadway. My head was wrapped with a tee shirt. I felt the heat from the flames and remember the crackling sound of the car as it was consumed by the fire. I remember it being dark, the tee shirt was covering my eyes. I remember the shirt was heavy, and wet from the gushing blood. I remember being lifted into an ambulance at the crash scene and being unloaded at a local hospital near the crash site. The local ER doctor sent me on with the ambulance driver to a large city hospital 40 miles away. The doctor told me later that he sent me on because there was nothing he could do and death was only a matter of time. My traveling companions were admitted to the local hospital and were told that I didn't make it. Leaving the hospital was the last thing I remember before awakening in the operating room at St. John's hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Truthfully, I did die in the ambulance on route to the hospital. My blood level plunged below the lethal level resulting in clinical death. This also resulted in a diving blood pressure and cardiac arrest. The ambulance attendant reported to the ER doctors that I had died and had to be revived.
Thus, the beginning of the second miracle, the main miracle. While in the hospital I was in awe over the whole experience and it took time for me to understand. I soon realized that I had experienced that walk through the valley of the shadow of death and had emerged on the threshold of eternity. My life on earth would never be the same.
That was almost forty years ago but I remember it as only yesterday. That experience was my true "Awakening Moment," and the event responsible for the creation of the blog. Much more will follow in future posts.
Keep your eyes, ears, mind, and heart open and you to will experience "Awakening Moments."
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