By the Grace Of GOD

Yesterday, we got the call that is every parents worst nightmare come true. Justin has been in a car accident and he is being transported to the hospital with possible head injuries.

I thought that I would blog this almost tragic event so that all of our friends and family would know that all is well and also so they can see the severity of the accident.

Justin ended up with a laceration on the back of his head and a mild concussion. He is home and safe, but this morning he is very sore and his head is throbbing. But by all accounts he will recover just fine.

Saturday afternoon, Justin hit a patch of black ice and lost control of his car, he tried to get a hold of it but he over corrected. The car then went in to full 360's and went over an embankment, finally slamming the rear of the car into a concrete retaining wall flipping the car around to end up facing the wall. As you can see from the pictures, the rear end of the car has been pushed up into the front seat. This is actually what caused the laceration on the back of his head. A lady that saw the entire accident stopped, called 911 and stayed with him, we later found out that she is an EMT. Again the grace of GOD. Another act of fate to share, his dad and step mom were on their way to Columbus and passed the accident, not knowing for sure that it was Justin. Shawn had his wife call Justin's cell to see if he would answer. When they didn't get an answer, Shawn turned around and went back, walking up to the car he realized that it was his son. He immediately called me. And, freak out and very scared, I carefully drove home to get J. Thank goodness that he was on third shift and was sleeping. We jumped in the truck and headed to Bellefontaine's hospital.

Once at the hospital, I found out that he had lost consciousness and couldn't really remember anything about the accident or even what day it was or where he was going. Very scary. Once they took the restraints off of his head he was able to wake up more and talk. It was time for them to draw blood and he hates needles so I tried to take his mind off of it by talking to him about the accident. He said that he can remember bits and pieces of it up until the point where he hit the wall. So this was a good sign. The doctor let us know that he may have some short term memory loss for a little while, but that is normal with a head injury.

They ran all sorts of tests on him and determined that he needed to be transferred to a larger hospital that has the ability to handle a head trauma observation overnight. So he was taken by ambulance to Miami Valley Hospital close to our home. J and I followed. On the way there, I called the lady that stayed with him and thanked her from the bottom of my heart and let her know that we believe that she is truly a guardian angel. She let me know that she saw the whole accident and that he had just over corrected, and that she had held his head steady until the ambulance got there because he was initially unconscious and when he came to, he was trying to flip his head around to look, probably out of shock of what had just happened to him.

Once we arrived at MVH, they ran more extensive tests and took more x-rays and cat scans. After a couple of hours all the tests were in and it was decided that he could be released to go home. We were so thrilled and so was Justin, all he kept saying was that he was hungry and wanted Waffle House...ugh....we told him that we didn't think that was a good idea...you understand if you've ever eaten there.

On our way home, I let Justin know just how lucky he was to have walked away from this almost tragic accident. I told him that someone was defiantly looking out for him, he then replied to me that he believes that it was his Uncle Mike. For those who don't know, in exactly 7 days from Justin's accident it will be 13 years ago that my brother Mike was fatally injured in a car accident on a day not much different than yesterday. So in Justin's heart he knows that his Uncle Mike was keeping him safe.

On that note, We would like to say thank you to all of you that said prayers and had our family in your thoughts yesterday. Believe in the power of prayer and guardian angels.

Please take care of you and your families during the holidays and always. Hug your children and let them know that you love them with all of your soul.