I was in a pleasant dream when I first heard the call, but it didn’t wake me up. Life was good. I was content, but the second time it put me on my feet.
“Dad!”
It was my boy, Levi, and it was urgent. I rushed to the door and looked down the hall. The lights were on, and he was there. Regardless of how bad it could be, I knew he was alright, and I was grateful.
“There’s been a wreck. There’s a girl at our front door.”
I ran down the hall and found a girl by the stairs at the front door weeping, barefooted, and bloody. I was in my boxers.
“What happened baby?”
“She’s not moving...she’s not moving.”
“Who?”
“My grandmother...”
“It’s gonna be alright.”
My shorts and t-shirt were on a chair in the kitchen, waiting for a workout which wasn’t going to happen. I threw them on along with the only shoes I could find, black dress shoes. Janine (not her real name) was still standing by the door, shivering. She wore an oversized sweatshirt with the end of the sleeves covering her hands, and her hands covered her face. I yelled down the hall for Colleen to call 911, but she was already on the phone with Caddo Parish Dispatch. It was 5:50 am.
I had been awake less than a minute when I burst through the front door. The road in front of my house is busy during commuting hours but rural the rest of the time. Accidents are rare, but not unusual. In the 32 years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen half a dozen bad wrecks, all of them single vehicle. Normally when there’s a wreck, traffic slows and sometimes stops, but on this morning, traffic was heavy and flew past unhindered. Something was wrong. Maybe the crash was down the road, and the girl walked up to my driveway. I walked past the carport lights so I could see better, but there was nothing but darkness. I shined my flashlight down the driveway. The beam landed on a giant box on the left side near the road. It was a vehicle. It was far enough away from the road that no one saw it.
I ran to the SUV. It was sitting at a 45 degree angle between the ditch and the driveway. It was steaming and the roof was crimped from rolling over. Somehow, it landed on its wheels. You never want to see the effects of a crash like that, but I couldn’t leave it for someone else to clean up. I expected to find her grandmother in the driver’s seat, but there was no sign of anyone in the front or back. Cars sped by, oblivious to the emergency. The speed limit is 45 but 60 feels better, especially at that time of day. I ran to the other side of the SUV and found a woman in the ditch on her back beside the culvert, six feet from the road. She was unconscious but breathing, but it was the labored, heavy breathing of distress. I spoke to her, believing she could hear me. I didn’t want to scare her, but I wanted her to know she was not alone.
I heard the sound of footsteps running down the driveway. It was my boy, and that’s when the tears hit.
I stood up and waved my arms.
“Don’t come over here buddy.” I collected myself.
“Shine your light on the road and keep traffic off us.”
We want to protect our children from traumatic events even though we know we can’t. At 21, he was a grown man who had seen worse things as a teenager, but I tried. Lord knows I tried.
When I turned back to her, I was all business. It seemed disrespectful to disturb her, but I had to. She was down in the ditch and needed to be on flat ground for CPR. She was my age and badly broken, but she was still breathing. She couldn’t respond, so I told her what I was doing.
“I’m here and I’m gonna help you. I’ve got to slide you up a little.”
I straddled her body, put my arms under her arm pits and pulled her up while asking God to have mercy on her. I told her the firemen were on the way, and she would be alright, and I told her about the most important thing in life. “Call on Jesus. He’s your only hope.”
I told her Bible verses I memorized as a child that had nothing to do with the fact that she was on death’s door, but they came to my mind. Right now I can think of dozens of things I should have said, but my thoughts were distracted while I did compressions on her chest and watched cars go by a couple of feet away from us. Levi was at the driveway, and the cars slowed down. Some stopped. I was in the the ditch, eye level with the road. I saw legs approaching in the headlight beams. It was a woman and a man. They stopped at the fog line. I was glad to have help. The woman spoke first.
“What happened?”
Behind me was an SUV covered with mud and grass, missing its windshield with the roof caved in.
“There’s been a wreck.” One-two-three. One-two-three.
This time the man spoke, “I think a deputy lives here.”
“That’s me.” One-two-three. One-two-three.
I didn’t look up. I should have had the presence of mind to pass out orders: move your car down to the next driveway and turn on your flashers; hey you...park your car at the top of the hill and stop the southbound traffic; keep it clear right here for the fire trucks, but I didn’t, and the people drove away, leaving us alone again.
“Call out to Jesus.” One-two-three.
“Hang in there...the firemen are coming.” One-two-three.
“Repent and believe in Jesus.” One-two-three.
“You’re doing great, keep breathing.” One-two-three. One-two-three.
It was ten minutes before the fire truck pulled up beside us. Dustin Pilcher hopped out, told me I was doing good, and to keep going. He put a big red bag beside me and told the others to bring the board. Her body was on a flat spot, but her legs were in the ditch. I was standing over her with one foot in the ditch and one on top of the culvert. Dustin and I pulled her all the way out of the ditch, and then he relieved me.
She was still breathing when I ran to the house and found Colleen with her arms around Janine. A fireman was putting bandages on her feet. She was a fifth grader at Walnut Hill School. She gave me her great grandmother’s phone number, and I called her. The woman in the ditch was her daughter. I told her it was dire, but Janine was alright.
At the road, the firemen were putting the woman in the ambulance, and the Sheriff’s Office was there, getting names, taking measurements, and writing an accident report. The road was completely shut down. The wrecker was on the way. The mangled vehicle, useless now, was clearly visible in the morning light and a sure sign of tragedy. Glass was everywhere, and tools, and car parts. Levi and I walked down the road following the SUVs path in the ditch. There is a slight curve in the road, unnoticeable unless you look hard, and the SUV straightened the curve and drove off the road. In the ditch, a crater of mud and water remained where the top of the SUV had momentarily buried itself, only to roll through and land upright. Tracks in the grass revealed where it left the road between my neighbor’s driveway and mine. The woman had been thrown out of the truck through the windshield when it rolled. She was taking Janine to her mother’s house before work, and her mother would take her to school later. Janine was asleep on the back seat without a seat belt. Something happened along the way, a distraction, an animal in the road, or sleepiness; we’ll never know for sure, but the little truck went off the road to the right. The woman tried to recover, but she overcorrected, and the truck tripped over itself in the ditch. When it stopped, it was facing the wrong way, and Janine was jarred awake. She crawled out through a window to find her grandmother lying in the ditch.
The crash woke Levi up that morning, but he didn’t know what it was. He had fifteen minutes left to sleep but couldn’t, so he let the dog out. She barked hystericalIy at the road. When he looked outside, he saw Janine at the end of the driveway by the road, crying. She was walking through broken glass barefooted. He went and got her and brought her inside. If he wouldn’t have found her that something worse could have happened.
Janine’s great grandparents and aunt and uncle arrived just after the ambulance left. Her great grandmother broke down in tears. Janine was pleased to see them, but Colleen didn’t want to let her go. If she had it her way, Janine would be with us still.
The family rushed to the hospital. Levi and I went inside to clean up. When we came back out, the wrecker was loading up the SUV, and the firemen were back. They stopped to tell us the woman didn’t make it. We expected it, but it hurt all the same. We raked up a pile of glass, plastic, and car parts. Levi set the mailbox back in its hole. The wrecker loaded the SUV and took it away. The firemen and deputies left. Traffic returned to normal, and Levi and I went to work.
Unless you were there that morning, you would never know that a woman fought for her life in the ditch in front of my house during the early morning hours while her granddaughter mourned for her and wondered why the tragedy happened. It was a brief reminder that life is fragile and circumstances can change in seconds without warning, but it’s also a reminder that life is precious and God is merciful.
