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Friday, April 15, 2011

A Harrowing yet blessful experience



It's been a hectic couple of weeks. At the end of my last post, I had mentioned the septic and plumbing woes and the passing of a friend after her long ordeal with cancer and I had planned on giving life her a tribute here with blessings towards her final journey. And then life happened, unfortunately I didn't even make it to her wake.

DH's heart condition warranted a pacemaker defibrillator and luckily he's had one for 6 years. This current one is actually his second one since the batteries don't last forever and the first only had the pacing done but this one has the defibrillator too, otherwise known as the Cadillac. Well, the day of my friend's wake we had to go into town to pick up our daughter at the Eye Doctors since her eyes were dilated and we were going to drive her, the grandchildren and her vehicle home. On the way DH lost consciousness and while going 55 phm. We went off the road at a most inconvenient spot. The place where this happened had only a 5' span width of flat terrain before a steep embankment and a little roaring brook laying just at the bottom of the slope.

I know God or perhaps my friend was watching out for us. We all escaped without injury. While I noticed he seemed distracted and I called out his name to alert him of the direction of the car without any corrective responses of the driving direction, I glanced over and thought he was dead. We do know sudden cardiac death is a possibility, thus the defibrillator he was totally out, head bobbing with the roughness of the terrain by now.
By the time I looked back towards the road, we were on the right side of the guard rails on the right side of the road.
With the center console in the middle of our Suburu, I grabbed the wheel to try to pick out the best placement scenario while perhaps travelling at 50mph now.

Adrenaline pumping it's amazing how much detail I can remember, Thinking oh... no- The brook, if we go there we'll all drown, can I drive this on the right side of the guard rails?
No..... the land ledge starts getting skimpier and we'll then go towards said brook, the alternative, drive the car over the guardrails to get on safer ground, a nearly impossible tasks but the only course of action left.
A car was approaching from the other direction so don't over compensate was mentally noted.

Oh my....look at her face!
With a gratitude heart and soul that is what we did. Thankfully there was not another car coming from our rear so I was able to steer the car until we coasted to a stop. Just near the end of our coast I somehow knew that DH was now alert. I was yelling to him PUT ON THE BRAKES, PUT ON THE BRAKES!
He of course remembers none of it and actually has a bit of retrograde amnesia of the time spent just before the event took place.



We landed safely. Dh was brought to the ER via ambulance and hospitalized for a couple of days followed up with several appointments since to alter the settings, medications, and continue to set him up for Cardiac rehab (that was in the works before any of this since it's a followup of care after his mild heart attack last fall). On our way home, I brought him to the place where the accident was. My son and the trooper both thought that it was amazing nobody was hurt and that I was able to react so quickly and correctly to avert the worst possible disasters. The state trooper actually said we should get on our knees and pray. That he's never witnessed that and it was a miracle the guardrails allowed me to drive over them to get back on the road.



So, with heartfelt gratitude of the miracles of this cardiac event we are extremely grateful. Realising that all of us could have perished, besides another family on the road could have been seriously hurt with a head on collision and so many other tragedies were averted I feel like we observed our miracle. Thank you Lord for watching out over us. The car of course is damaged but that is just a little bit of inconvenience. Cars can be easily repaired or replaced.

Jane

3 comments:

Carol said...

Oh, Jane, what a harrowing experience. I'm so glad things turned out the way they did--a miracle indeed! My parents had an almost identical thing happen last summer--my 83 year old mother had to grab the wheel and steer their car to safety. I do believe in miracles!

KathyE said...

I'm so glad you had such quick reaction and presence of mind to steer you and your family away from danger. It pays to have friends in heaven looking out for you.

KathyE said...

I'm so glad you had the presence of mind to steer your family away from danger. It is nice to have a friend in heaven looking out for you.