Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Two Weeks Ago

Two weeks ago tonight something pretty terrible but pretty miraculous happened. I was in my hometown for work and started to head back to the town where I live following church that Wednesday night. When I was about 10 miles out of town I got one of the worst phone calls you can get. It was my dad telling me that he and my mom had had a bad accident and that I needed to come back. Fortunately I could hear them both talking so I knew they were relatively okay.

I drove as safely and quickly as I could about 20 minutes back to where they were and came upon this:


That used to be a 2000 Honda Accord. There wasn't much left of it after they hit a pickup truck that my dad never saw. They were driving home on the interstate and ran up on the back of a pickup truck. We have yet to piece together all of the story but the truck was apparently traveling very slowly with either no tail lights or at best black out tail lights that looked like this:


Here is a better picture of the truck that they hit and another picture of their car (these pictures were taken the next day at the junk yard):


Anyways, back to that night... my parents were both taken via ambulance to the hospital and we spent the next five hours or so in the ER. Dad was released with only bumps and soreness but mom was kept for the next few days. She had a broken sternum (breast bone) and two broken ribs. She also has a herniated disc in her neck... but it doesn't hurt and they aren't even sure whether or not it might have been there prior to the accident.

The whole incident was terrible and scary but my parents were so lucky. All of their injuries were from their seat belts and the airbags. That in and of itself was a miracle. While they are still sore and mom won't be completely healed for at least three months, it could have been SOOO much worse.

Fortunately I was able to drop everything and stay in town for the next few days to try and help take care of things. I've been playing a bit of catch up ever since and I haven't had much time to blog but I feel very lucky to still have my parents here.

Just wanted to share with all of my "blog friends" and let you know why I had been MIA. I am still getting caught up and getting ready for a little vacation next week but hopefully I will be able to check in a little more.

4 comments:

Amberly said...

We are very thankful your parents weren't hurt any worse than they were. And they are very blessed to have a daughter who took such good care of them! Love you all!

Anonymous said...

I am so glad it wasn't worse! I hope your mom will heal even faster than expected. What a scare!

lizard queen said...

Kerri,
Oh my gosh, how scary! It is so good to hear that your parents are ok and escaped really serious injury.

That does look like paint on the tail lights....what the heck??

I can only imagine how relieved you feel. I wish your parents continued recovery, mentally and physically.

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness. I'm glad you were close enough to go back and I hope your mom heals up quickly!