In a blink of an eye . . .

Life can and does change that quickly.  John and I were headed down to Klamath Falls to do some sightseeing and shopping on Friday.  I had the handheld gps out as we wanted to do some geocaching as we went along.  I told John that there was a geocache about a mile up the road and when I looked up, we were on the shoulder of the northbound lane. I asked John what was wrong and got no response.  I quickly realized that we were in grave danger.  I was imploring/pleading with John to stop but soon we were crossing back over the lanes heading south on the shoulder (how we missed a row of mailboxes I don't know).  In sheer terror I was screaming at him to stop.  We then crossed back over the lanes and down in to a field where we were running over brush, being bounced all around, having bushes and trees whacking the truck.  I knew we were going to die and thought of our dear daughter.  I then heard a voice in my head say "turn off the ignition" and I did.  Divine intervention - I believe so. Thankfully, bless fully we soon came to a stop.  

In a panic, I kept crying out  . . . John, John and Oh my God and the like.  I started looking for my phone to call 911.  John turned and looked at me with absolutely no look of recognition.  I asked him what was wrong, was he having a heart attack, what?  He looked back towards the windshield.  The next thing I knew he was out of the truck looking at things.  Two guys that had been working on the house across the street heard the truck going through the field and were right there when I got out of the truck (they also pulled back up the barbed wire fencing we plowed over).  I'm no where close to having any composure and there the three of them are talking and working together to pull brush and limbs (2-3" diameters) from out under the truck, looking to see if the truck was leaking any fluids, if the frame was broken - anything that would keep the truck was being driven. Thank God for the Ranch Hand Grill Guard.  We bought the grill guard as we were fearful of hitting a deer.  Most likely it saved the front of the truck and our seven radiators from being destroyed and kept branches and limbs from hitting the windshield.

No visable damage to the truck was seen other than cosmetic damage with lots of scratches, a cracked right dually fender, broken front hubcaps, and our Pace Edwards bedcover was broken.  The guys helped get the truck out of the field and said they wanted me to drive up and down the road for a bit to make sure the truck was drivable.  While I wasn't particularly eager to drive, I knew that John wasn't getting behind the wheel again. The truck drove fine and we thanked the unnamed angels for their assistance.

Miraculously, we had missed a telephone pole by a few feet and we stopped about three feet before a deep wide ditch.  Had we landed in that ditch, we would have flipped and who knows what would have happened.  Highway 97 is a busy route with lots of truck traffic.  That we crossed the two lanes three times when there were no other vehicles on the road is nothing short of a miracle.

It was a tough drive down to Klamath Falls for me.  I was as shaken to the core as one could be but I knew we had to get to Klamath Falls.  As we headed south to Klamath Falls, we talked about taking John to the hospital.  We knew he had to have had a seizure and knew that it would require a lot of medical tests.  He wanted to be in Sacramento with our family and our old family doctor.  As he was himself again, I couldn't argue with that too much.

We took the truck down to the Ford dealer in Klamath Falls.  They put the truck up on the rack and confirmed that there was nothing structurally wrong with the truck; only cosmetic damage.  They told us we were so lucky to be in this big truck because anything else would have left us severely injured or dead.  John has no recollection of the event other than a sense of bouncing while on the other hand, I got the full terror of it for 15 to 20 seconds (seemed like a lifetime).

Saturday afternoon we made the decision to leave Sunday morning before a storm rolled in. I'm so thankful that I had driven the truck and trailer.  I was getting nervous about driving in the mountains.  John assured me that he would coach me so I put my big girl panties on as there were no other choices.  As with so many things in life that we make bigger than they are, the mountains were not as intimidating once I was driving through and over them.  My darling John coached me wonderfully (we do work well together) and I got us safely to Sacramento.  What a relief.  The lesson here is that both partners need to know how to drive the rig period.  Stuff sometimes happens.  If you aren't occasionally driving your rig, what are you going to do in a situation like this?  Who would you call that could drive your rig as more people don't know how to drive big rigs than do.  I implore you: be prepared.

We had always agreed that when one of us couldn't/wouldn't drive we would be done with full-timing.  We had been discussing the possibility of coming off the road in the future but now the decision has been made for us.  Our travels will have to be done differently.  John will need to be tested as to what caused the seizure and most importantly, he will never drive again.  Nor does he want to as he feels terrible that I experienced the trauma while he was no memory other than seeing the resulting aftermath.  John also wouldn't want to be responsible for injuring or killing anyone by his driving.  

We feel so blessed and thankful that neither one of us were injured and that we still have time here on earth.  John will be tested and treated, the truck will be repaired (that's why we have insurance), and we are staying in a mobile home community were we feel safe.  We felt so blessed before but even more so now.  Life is good.

Sorry this is so long.

Hugs to all.