So Grateful for Angels Watching Over My Family! 8-16-10

Thursday, the day I gave birth to baby #3, my sister Michelle flew in to be with me at the hospital. She had been up early cause she sent her first son, Austin, 19, on a mission. He had to be at the airport in Salt Lake City @ 6 am. Once she returned home, she was so emotional that her husband told her to go pack cause he was sending her to California. He didn't want her to sit at home and be sad. So they went right back to the airport to hop on a 1 pm flight. She got to the hospital in Glendora around 5:30 pm. She stayed with me till Ryan came back to pick her up after picking up Naomi and Heidi from Nanna and Pappi Rossiters. Around 8:15 pm they walked in, and left with Michelle around 9. As they walked out I had the thought, " what if something happened to them and this was the last good bye?" But through this pregnancy I've learned to put frightening thoughts like this away cause it only causes anxiety to set in and I over analyze them. So I said a little prayer that we'd all be safe and went to sleep with my sweet newborn baby girl.

Around 7 a.m. I received a call from home. Naomi was on the other end and went right into telling me that there was an accident on the freeway last night. Of course my first thought was, "oh great they had to sit in traffic forever before getting home last night!" But then she proceeded to tell me that someone hit them and that they all had rashes on their necks and that someone was going to have to buy us a new car. I wasn't convinced that Ryan wasn't playing a joke on me, so I asked Naomi to let me speak to him. He confirmed her story. Right at the 210 and 605 interchange, a huge pack of "bullet bikes" were getting onto the 210 from the 605. Ryan looked over and said, "hey, look at all those bikes." Then before anyone could react, the car to their right came rushing at them. It ran into the right rear end of the car, causing our van to spin backward toward the fast lane, hit the center divider and stop facing the on coming traffic. The other car went the opposite direction and hit the wall on the right side of the freeway.

A man in a large SUV stopped just behind them in the fast lane and got out to rush up and ask if everyone was o.k. Everyone in our car was in shock. The girls were crying, holding their necks. Michelle couldn't talk. Ryan turned calmly to the girls to see if they were o.k. and did his best to calm them and assure them they were alright.

Of course, the ambulance and police came quickly and the freeway had to be shut down for 45 minutes cause the man who hit our car and went off the right, didn't turn off his car and it started on fire. Once that was under control, our van was backed off the freeway to the Old Spaghetti Factory where Ron and Barbara met them to clean out my car and drive everyone home. At this point it was about 11:30 pm.

The pictures above show the damage done to our new 2010 van. One of the police men explained to Michelle that the Toyota Sienna's have the highest crash ratings. Now I know why.

Ryan took me Friday afternoon, after picking me and our new baby up from the hospital, to see the van at the junk yard. I wasn't sure if I wanted to see it, but needed to get a better feel for what they had been through. After assessing and taking pictures, I was so amazed that everyone in our car was able to walk away with minor injuries. You would think that the engine would have been shoved up into Michelle's legs, but the whole inside of the car is still in tact, not considering the deployed air bags. None of the windows shattered, and all four wheels were still in place. I thought for sure they would be lopsided due to the spinning and hitting the wall. I'm so happy I just had the wheels rotated so there would be a better grip on the road.

On Friday night, when I was up by myself feeding our little new spirit, I sat thinking how different that night could have been. I could be sitting alone in my bed with my family absent! Someone or all of my family could have been seriously injured and in the hospital, or not on this earth at all. I was so grateful for the angels that watched over my family this night and kept them safe from harm and devastation on a late evening, after a long day for everyone involved.