We were the lucky winners of a vacation with my parents this year. I picked the lucky box off the window seal on Christmas Day. Josh and I needed to "clear" our schedule, and then we were told where we were going. Charleston, SC, Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, and Hilton Head, SC.
It took a lot of planning, and a lot of sacrifice from a lot of people that were watching our kids for 8 days to make this work. We are so grateful for them.
We took a Red Eye on Friday night April 29. We landed in Charleston, SC on Saturday morning at about 9:30. We rented a car, and started on our way to Atlanta for the Laser Light Show at Stone Ridge Mountain that evening. We had a few things we wanted to do around Atlanta that day, so we were anxious to get there. We were hungry of course and stopped to eat before too long. We got back on the highway but we were going a longer route because we wanted to drive my Augusta ~ where the Masters Golf Tournament is held.
My dad was driving about 45-50 on the 2-lane highway in a more rural area where the cross traffic to each little town has a stop sign. We were all awake and talking and my mom sitting in the front seat says "Paul, he's not stopping" and we all looked to our left and a man in a red truck ~ on his cel phone ~ has passed through the stop sign, passing the other lane of traffic (where there were luckily no cars) and is headed into our lane. For us to avoid T-Bone~ing him at 50 mph, my dad slams on his brakes and swerves to the right. I see the man barely miss the back of our car ~ where I am sitting ~ and we are headed off the road straight for the metal highway signs, and stop sign. The signs were straight in line with my dad and I, and I really just thought "This is it!!! We will hit these signs straight on." No one was screaming, my dad was talking, but calm, but my mom, Josh and I didn't say a word.
Some how....we missed those signs!! Our front left bumper hit them, and we just side swiped them, knocking off the side mirror. What a blessing. However, we are still traveling probably 40 mph off the side of the road. We immediately went into and out of a ditch ~airborne ~ for about 15 feet and landed about 30 feet from the entrance to the grove of trees. Can you picture the tree lined highways of South Carolina? They are HUGE trees, and since we didn't crash before, we thought we would for sure now. I had my hands over my face...I remember thinking so calmly in my head "please just make this car stop!!!" I knew my dad was driving, but I was also completely aware that we were not in control of this. I just wanted the car to stop. So I didn't actually see the trees I just knew they were there, but I do remember feeling the car make a hard right hand turn. And then I remember going back into the ditch and out again. Finally the car stopped. I was alive, so was everyone else. We paused for a brief second and the man that caused all of this was at the side of the road next to us. (but in his car)
At the time he was asking us if we were all ok, Josh jumps out of the car to go look at his license plate. My dad told him we were all alive at least and the man DID pull over to the side of the road behind us. We took a quick survey of us before we got out of the car, and only my mom was hurt. It was her back. She didn't want an ambulance, but was pretty sore trying to get out of the car. Josh called 911 and I called the car rental place. We were 2 hours from Charleston, and about 1 hour from Columbia. The rental place of course had never had this happen before, so it took some negotiating, and finally the Columbia agency was sending 2 people, and 2 cars to our location to bring us a new rental car. O ~ya did I mention that the car was pretty totaled? Front and back bumbers, cracked radiator and engine, just lots of damage. The tow truck place was also called.
If took nearly an hour for the Highway Patrol to get there. Apparently there was only 2 officers on duty covering 2 counties, and they were on the way opposite side....and there had already been 4 accidents that morning. However, when he did finally arrive, my dad and the other gentleman got out of their cars and came to him. The officer asked what happened and the other man said, "It was all me, I was on my phone and didn't see them." I will never forget those words, and I pray that I or anyone I know will never have to say those words to an officer. It took nearly 3 hours from start to finish to get things taken care of. My dad and Josh hitched a ride in the tow-truck and my mom and I hitched a ride in the police car to the tow truck shop to finish waiting for the rental car to come. (also the only time I plan on riding in a police car) and after we transferred all of our luggage and things into the new car, we were on our way again.
It would be an understatement to say we were all a little "jumpy" in the car. It was really quite crazy. It puts a lot of things in perspective, and we really just talked about the accident for quite a long time. Each of our "takes" on what we remember, and what was going through our heads. We know that there was more than just my dad driving the car, there was too many things that went "our way" in this situation. We were blessed, really blessed, we know that, and are forever grateful.
We made it into Atlanta, we arrived at the Laser Light Show about 45 minutes before it began, and it was nice to sit on the grass and relax for awhile. We were tired, exhausted, and made it to our hotel that night. We all fell asleep pretty quick. We were hoping mom would sleep good. That was going to be the BIG factor in the rest of our vacation.
You can see the path we took!!
Cracked engine and radiator.
Just how lucky we were to only side swipe these signs.
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