I heard the
siren, three hundred yards away, over on the interstate highway.
"Must be a wreck," I thought, then went back to work on my
houseboat. Minutes later the phone rang. Barbara soon came running
out to me with the phone. The police were calling. Corey and his
family were involved in a wreck. Three in the car, one ejected. Come
to the emergency room. Just the bare facts.
We arrived at
the emergency room well ahead of the ambulance. We were anxiously
awaiting when the ambulance showed up. Caylie came out first, just a
baby, strapped tightly to a board, and screaming her head off. She
looked around, within her limited field of vision, and saw Barbara
and me. She stopped screaming, and smiled at us. We have never seen
a smile quite so beautiful. Christi came next. She was also strapped
down, but seemed alert, responsive, and, everything considered,
remarkably calm. Corey was not in the ambulance.
He arrived
moments later in a car. When he got out, he was beyond emotional. Way
beyond that. As best he could, he was telling us he was driving
behind Christi, in his car. A wheel had came off a trailer they were
about to pass, hit her car in front, and the car did end over end
flips, at least 12 rolls, then another flip, landing upside down. He
reached through the broken back window, cutting his arm, and got
Caylie out, but could not get Christi out. He was too racked by
emotion to tell us more. Well, I knew Corey was totally distraught,
probably in shock, far too upset for me to buy into all that. Nobody
could have survived what he had just described to us.
It was
determined that Caylie and Christi had only scratches and bruises, no
broken bones, and as far as they could tell, no internal injuries,
but Christi had a concussion, and both were cut up by flying objects
in the car. Corey settled down enough that we began to get the whole
story.
The family was
driving home from church, driving both cars because Christi had early
choir practice. They both stopped at Western Sizzlin', at mile marker
seventy- three of I-30. Being Easter Sunday, it was closed, so they
and their friends decided to drive on down to Wendy's, at exit
seventy eight. Corey buckled Caylie into her infant seat, strapped in
the middle of the back seat. Starting to his car, for some reason, he
stopped, turned around, went back to Caylie, and tightened up all the
straps really good. Corey followed Christi in his car.
Approaching
mile marker seventy-four, Christi started to pass a pickup pulling a
horse trailer. A wheel came off the trailer, hit the front of the
car. That broke the car's front axle, starting the series of end over
end flips and rolls, ending upside down in the median, with one last
end over end flip, right beside mile marker seventy four.
.
Corey pulled up
behind. Later, a friend who happened to be nearby described the
horrible sounds of anguish from Corey as he rushed to the car. Caylie
was hanging upside down. The only way he could get to her was
through the broken back window, which he did, cutting his arm. When
Caylie emerged, he checked her over as quickly as he could, passed
her off to a stranger standing beside him, saying, "Don't leave
my sight with this baby," and rushed to Christi. As he tried to
get her out, a fire started. A man from the interstate showed up with
a fire extinguisher, and put it out. Christi was hanging upside down,
and he could not get her out. About that time, the ambulance and
police arrived. They had trouble getting her out, having to use the
Jaws of Life.
Once Christi was
out, and being strapped to a board, a paramedic tried to get Corey on
a stretcher.
Corey was bleeding
more than anyone there, and the paramedic would just not believe he
had not been in the car, and ejected.
Christi, not
one to get unduly excited, later described her thought processes as
the wreck progressed. "Well, that's one more flip, and I'm still
alive!" The car was a
mess. Completely flattened on top, except for the two places where a
human could have possibly survived. They just happened to match the
two places where Christi and Caylie were. The paramedics
working the wreck said that upon arrival, they had no expectations of
finding anybody alive, much less a four month old baby. They added
that the car seat straps were so loose, one more roll and she would
have flown. Good thing Corey had just tightened them up.
I went to the
site the next day. Car parts were strewn along the road. From the
location of the first car part thrown off, to the final destination
of the wrecked car, one hundred yards. Twelve rolls and three flips?
You be the judge. Our family dodged two major bullets that day. We are always
being told, wear your seat belts, all the time, most accidents are
within one mile of home. Well, my family has been in seven accidents,
mostly minor, none fatal. How many within one mile of home, as the
crow flies? Five. For your own safety, please do as I say, but in all
honesty, not necessarily as I do. I hate being hypocritical.
Caylie, early
on, assumed the role of seat belt enforcer in our family. Nobody is
perfect, but I sure haven't found any flaws in her yet. At eighteen,
she just got her first car, right after returning from the mission
fields of Jamaica. God, it seems, had his reasons for sparing this
girl.
If you live
near Arkadelphia, judge this story for yourselves. The car came to
rest even with mile marker seventy-four. The first car part thrown
off was even with the brown sign just south of it.
This story had
been in my head nearly eighteen years. It automatically replays, in
living color, every time I drive by those two signs. I now know the
story very well. I needed no notes to write this.
My son in law,
Mickey, a paramedic, described a roll over wreck they worked. A man
was dead, but no marks were found on his body. Finally, a mark that
looked just like the top of a coke bottle top was found on his
temple. Every loose, even modestly heavy object becomes a deadly
missile in a rollover wreck.
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