Angels on a Fishing Trip

I’ve always been fearful of Alzheimer’s Disease. Nothing seems so cruel to me as a disease that takes not just your life, but your very memory of having lived it.

But memories are funny things, and who’s to know if they’ll lean more towards bitter than sweet. So maybe, for some, not remembering is the kindness in Alzheimer’s cruelty. Only our Lord knows for sure.

Me though, I cherish my memories, including all the bad ones. Each serves as a visceral steppingstone to today, where I sit beautifully connected to the God I once knew not well at all, and see, no…remember… His presence, His concern, His love for me through them all.

This is the memory of the day I wasn’t supposed to die.

It was late August of 1978. My boyfriend and I had watched movies with my sister and her husband until well after midnight. Getting ready to head home to Jamestown, a small Yosemite foothill community, I borrowed a jacket from my sister, in case it got chilly as we drove with the top down on our sporty MG Midget.

With our German Shepard tucked away behind the seats, and a promise to drive safe and take good care of my sister's brand new, tags-just-cut-off, jacket, we said our goodbyes and motored off into a mostly quiet night.

Late summer in Central California can be downright delicious. Stifling hot weather yields to a comfortable warmth, harsh arid winds acquiesce into cooler gentler breezes. Driving out of the bigger city into the rolling hills rich with fertile farmland, grazing cattle, and a sky so expansive and full of twinkling stars, it was a moment you knew you had to remember, a memory you had to capture, because that feeling, that acute awareness of truly divine perfection, does not happen often!

Well, I’m here to tell you that no one can screw up God’s perfection better than His think-we-know-it-all, never-quite-satisfied children.

So, when my boyfriend suggested we “open this thing up” at 3 in the morning on a virtually empty country highway, of course, I said, “let’s go for it!”

Now we’re really cruising; top down, the wind blowing through our hair, the Eagles greatest hits playing in the tape deck (yes, it was THAT long ago), and topping out at 110 miles per hour. It was exhilarating, freeing, fabulous…until it wasn’t.

There are not many occasions to thank God for our vices, but this was one of them. As I was bent over, reaching into my purse for a cigarette, I have no memory of the accident itself. I’m thankful for that, because it was at that precise moment, with me curled into a fetal position, when we rounded the slightest of curves in the road, that our back passenger tire blew and our car, still traveling at 110 miles per hour, skyrocketed off the opposite side of the road and down a very steep embankment.

My boyfriend, Jim, was ejected when our front tires hit the curb. The force of the impact was so great, the rubber was peeled away, and the rims forged deep grooves in the curb that remain to this day. Because our stupidity knew no bounds, and neither of us was wearing seat belts, Jim told me his exit from the vehicle was more like a stuntman being shot out of a cannon; straight over the windshield, arching into a less than graceful diver’s stance, and landing, most thankfully, on a soft patch of grass at the bottom of the embankment. He didn’t come away unscathed, but rather looked like the loser in a boxing match. Cut and bloody mouth and hands, but no cracked head, no broken bones. I was not so fortunate.

Jim found me unconscious at the bottom of the embankment. It took him more than a few minutes to convince me that we had wrecked the car. My brain could not wrap itself around this information. I was just in the car; I was just getting a cigarette…surely, I would remember if we had gotten into an accident!

The fog in my brain was slowly lifting, as the pain in my body was settling in at an alarming rate and waking me to the fact that there truly was something wrong. Something WAS different about my situation. The stars that were once ahead of me were now directly above me, and why was I laying on my back, in the rocks and the grass? Why was I looking up at trees?!

But it wasn’t until our dog came limping up the hill and laid beside me, nose scraped and bloody, as if he were trying to nuzzle his way through a screen door, that it hit me, really hit me. This, whatever it was, was bad…really bad!

Jim and I both knew I was severely hurt, and going nowhere on my own. It was later surmised, based on the shattered and scattered pieces and parts of our beautiful little convertible, I had been trapped in the car for at least a couple of end-over-ends…and then unceremoniously dumped out on top of the only pile of slag rock on the embankment! So, it was up to Jim to find help, and quickly.

We were miles from the nearest phone booth, so getting help meant leaving me alone on the side of the embankment, in the dead of night, with shock setting in and only our dog to give me warmth and comfort. Even knowing that I was in bad shape, I begged him not to leave me. I was pretty sure I was going to die, and I did not want to die alone.

It was with both determination, and pure anguish, that he looked at me one last time before turning to make the uphill climb to the highway. Jim had not even lifted his second foot when beautiful voices from above called out to us, asking if help was needed.

Miraculously, two very early morning travelers had come around the curve and had, Hallelujah, Praise God and Amen, noticed a large dust cloud rising over the embankment, and stopped to investigate.

I remember being surprised they came down the hill so prepared, with bottled water and a blanket, and I remember feeling safe. Not saved yet, but in competent, safe hands.

Tzar, our dog was not feeling as hospitable to the newcomers as I was. Finely tuned to my current precarious state, as dogs tend to be, Tzar was in full protection mode and he was not letting strangers near me. Jim was barely able to restrain our massive friend as he was lunging to protect his mama!

Though not surprised, I was grateful…as were the three men facing this fierce snarling beast…when, in my weakened state, I whispered to the champion at my side, “Tzar, mom is hurt bad and please, you have to let these men help me, or I may not make it.” I didn’t speak dog then, and I don’t speak dog now, but Tzar understood me that night, and the change in his demeanor was instant. Oh, he still did not trust these men, but he trusted me, and he let them in to care for me.

Quickly assessing I was the more injured of the two, but that shock was settling in on both me and Jim, they moved with comforting dispatch. The doctors believe it was the shock, but in the first hours after the accident, I could feel nothing from the waist down. My upper body was wrecked though, and the pain was coursing through me like a freight train. That I had no difficulty feeling.

Realizing I could have a back injury and couldn’t be moved up the hill and transported to the hospital safely, one of our rescuers sprinted up the hill and drove off to call for an ambulance.

Time is a funny thing which, when not passing dutifully and faithfully along, either drags by interminably slow or rushes past you like a gust of wind. That night, time did none of those things. It just stood still. My internal clocked stopped ticking. Realistically, I know it was at least 45 minutes to an hour before the ambulance showed up; logistically, it had to have been that long. But I was lost in timelessness, and it seemed just a blink of the eye between the sprint for help and its arrival.

I thank the Lord for that blessing, as I did not feel fear. And I thank the Lord for the rescuer who stayed behind. Though I recall feeling frustrated by his constant barrage of questions, and so tired that I just wanted him to stop so I could sleep, a very deep sleep, I understood the lovingkindness of his incessant inquiries. He was doing everything he could to keep me from losing consciousness, as I was growing weaker and colder by the moment.

Once the ambulance arrived, I became “the victim”; apparently you do not transition from car accident victim to patient until you’re admitted to the hospital. As the victim, I was now the property of the EMT’s and in their benevolent dictatorship, they pushed my rescuers off to the side, who were at last glance, as the ambulance doors were closing, talking to the Highway Patrol.

I knew the EMT’s feared losing me; through the flurry of activity, their worried faces hovered over me in the back of the ambulance, and their anxiety-laden conversation with the ER staff at the hospital confirmed the worst. Accident victim with possible spinal injuries, unable to find a pulse or detect a blood pressure reading. In my delicious delirious state, I remember thinking, “then I must be dead and that’s why I’m drifting away.” And I was, drifting to a place where I had not either the energy or the even the desire to fight for survival. I could not tell you where I was drifting off to, but it felt good to drift. No weight, no worry, no burden…just drifting away.

Pleasant.

Pleasantness which ended abruptly when the ambulance slid up to the emergency room and I was jolted back into reality and back into pain. The doors flew open and my gurney was unceremoniously pulled out and wheeled into the trauma room already waiting for me. The glaring lights, the searing pain, and intravenous fluids all combined to bring me back into my reality, the one that still seemed fairly critical.

Still unable to feel anything below my waist, the only definitive complaint I could give the trauma team was that I was freezing and certain at least my left arm was broken. It seemed to be the only part of my body communicating with my brain, and it was singing a pain opera!

A portable x-ray machine was wheeled in to rule out spinal injury or other broken bones. Once the x-rays came back, with nothing major broken or any sign of internal bleeding, I was unstrapped from the backboard I had been a prisoner to, and transfer to the even harder, colder procedure room table. To call it a bed would be wildly generous.

Quick as a blink, out came a pair of surgical scissors which sliced with practiced precision right

up the middle of one arm of my sister’s brand new jacket, and in the flash of an eye, the other arm was similarly dispatched. Oh, she was going to be mad!

I had had zero time to react on the jacket, but when the nurse zeroed in on my favorite Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans, now dirty and bloodied, worn for years to a soft buttery smoothness, and perfectly contoured to my unique shape, well, of course, I protested. What little strength I had left went into convincing her they could just slide my jeans off…no need to cut them. Levi Strauss himself would have been proud to know that, though both my shins had been so mangled by rocks as to require stitches in each leg, the 501’s came through unscathed. Not even a broken stitch to lead to an inevitable hole.

It really kind of wowed us all. Shoot, I even managed to get the bloodstains out of those jeans. Imagine the marketing strategy around that! The car – flat as a pancake. The girl – hanging on by a thread. The jeans – untouched and bloodstain free. Priceless!

I’m not sure why the trauma team started their examination with my feet and legs. Possibly because I was still not sensing any feeling in them. But when they moved up and examined my head and found the ever-expanding pool of blood beneath it, the source of my coldness became apparent (by this time I must have had 5 or 6 blankets on me). I was losing copious amounts of blood through a large gash on the back of my head. The finding of this injury threw the already high-octane team into overdrive, and I was being frantically prepped, for what I didn’t even understand at the time. I was pretty woozy and pretty scared.

Jim had finally made it to the hospital, and my last memory is of the nurse asking him if we were married, and if not, who my next of kin was. I panicked, sure I was going to die, so before I lost all consciousness, I made Jim swear to not give the hospital the information or to call and tell my parents anything. Jim made me that promise and, unfortunately, didn’t have the common sense to break that promise! 

Of course, he should have called my parents. Oh my, what trouble we both got in for that! It’s been over 40 years since that night, but I still feel sick to my stomach thinking about my mom getting that call, and sicker still thinking that she didn’t. I could have died, and wanted to protect her from that, but had no right to. Even though my motive was out of pure love for her, I denied my mother the right to be with the child she gave birth to as she lay close to death. Had I died without her knowing, without her there, I believe she would have endured a greater loss than just my death. I can’t put words around the loss she would have felt, but I know it to be true.

I’m not sure how I managed to also convince them to not cut off the pink blouse I was wearing, another well-worn favorite of mine, but I still had it on when I awoke several days later. My re-entry into the world of the conscious was unpleasant and met with disbelief. Not disbelief on my part, no. I went straight from being, well, nowhere I can remember, to declaring that I just peed the bed!

The nurse that happened to be in my room startled at my proclamation. First, happy that I was awake and talking, and then reassuring me that, as I was catheterized, I could not possibly have peed myself. I was probably just feeling the sensation of going. But I know wet when I feel it and, it took some convincing to get her to check. I’ll never forget the embarrassed chuckle when she said “well, I guess you did pee the bed!”

Cleaned and dried, I drifted away again, and in and out of consciousness for the next three days. When I awoke for good, I felt like I was hit by a second ton of bricks when Jim told me during our first visit he kept my promise, and that my parents still did not know I had been in an accident. It was, by far and to this day, one of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever had to make.

I was extended God’s grace that day, though I didn’t recognize it at the time; the tongue lashing I so richly deserved did come, but not that day, not for a long time to come. What came was what should have been expected, my mom and dad full of love and concern, ready to help in any way they could. And even though I’d hurt her so, my mom showed up with the only thing she could think of that might make me feel better, make me feel her love for me. Her homemade tapioca pudding. It was classic mom. It was perfect.

After I was released, it came as a great sadness to learn our rescuers’ names were never recorded in the accident report. I guess as they were not technically involved, nor did they witness the accident, it was not required. But Jim had got to talk to them a little, and he told me they were on their way fishing when they found us.

I do not believe in coincidence, fate, kismet or karma. I wasn’t saved by luck; I was saved by God.

The lateness of the evening, the remoteness of the location, and the precise timing to witness the only evidence of anything amiss, a dust cloud that would have quickly disappeared; gone with it hope of survival.

No, I do not believe in randomness; I believe in a sovereign God and divinely orchestrated encounters. I believe it wasn’t my day to die.

I was in the hospital for nearly two weeks. I hobbled out with two broken toes, stitches in my legs and head, and soft tissue injuries to my back, neck, and shoulders that kept me bent over like a hunchback for years afterward. Recovery was long, hard, and always painful, and the back injuries I sustained have worsened over the last forty plus years.

And when I’m an even older woman, moving slower and back to being hunched over, I’ll still Praise His Name for sending His Angels on a Fishing Trip!