When You Need to Bench Lift a Ford Fiesta

I recently gave a sermon at our community of faith, Trinity Christian Fellowship. While preparing a talk on strength, I remembered this family story and wrote my cousin for details. I post this today with the family's permission.

The morning was a slushy November day in northern Wisconsin. 

My Uncle David had my three cousins – his children -  in the car. The girls, Connie and Colleen (ages 6 and 8) had fought over shotgun so they were both in the front seat. Their five-year-old brother, Brian, was standing between the front seats of the Ford Fiesta pretending to drive the car with a steering wheel game he held in his hands

It was a typical week day.

  Uncle David had been up since 4:30, had finished the farm chores, showered, eaten breakfast with the family and hustled everyone out the door at 7:30 so the girls could get to school on time and Brian could go hang out at his grandmother’s house while both of his parents worked at the Post Office – my uncle as a rural letter carrier and my aunt as a clerk. When Uncle David didn’t show up to work on time, my Aunt Linda said she just “knew” something was wrong. A call, in this time before cell phones, confirmed the family had not yet arrived at Grandma's.

David and the kids were driving on County Road A

– a road known and named for its curves: Curry’s Corner. …S curves…Dead Man’s Curve. They were heading into town. A local woman was heading out. She lost control of her vehicle when she came off a series of curves. Uncle David headed for the ditch. 

Right before impact, he said, “I can’t go any further. Hang on. We’re gonna get hit.”

The family vehicle was t-boned on the drivers’ side.

The car flew and rolled, ending up roof down in the ditch. The ditches along County Road A could be classified as seasonal creeks because every spring and fall they filled with water – from a few inches to a few feet. The area had recently had rain, a snowy mix and a slight freeze. The ditch had eighteen inches of water in it. 

Right before the weather hit, the County had brush hogged the ditches – cutting the brush and letting it fall – so the ditch was lined with stubble akin to thousands of sharpened sticks.

During the crash

, the spare tire came loose from its compartment, passed over the back seat, over the passenger seat and out the passenger window. It sheared the rear seat back completely off and knocked the passenger seat back out of place. Since none of the kids were buckled up, the girls were tossed toward the driver’s side of the car, a situation, although not recommended, saved the girls' lives.

Uncle David took the brunt of his daughters flying into him. He hit his head so hard, the post of the car frame where he hit pushed out several inches. He suffered a large laceration above his left eye and a concussion.  In the words of Colleen, the oldest, “The gear shift suffered greatly from my hard head and my sister’s leg finished it off. I had a really big goose egg and concussion and she had quite the bruise." 

Brian had no visible marks. He apparently followed the tire right out the car.

When the car stopped, Uncle David said it was the strangest quiet. 

Something you can’t really explain.  You have to experience.  He looked at his daughters, realized they were breathing and decided he’d better get out and get help.  The door wouldn’t open so he rolled “up” the window since the car was upside down. When he put his hands out of the car to climb out the window, his left hand rested on a boot.  

He thought “Man, these are pretty nice boots.  Why would there be such a nice pair of boots lying in the ditch?”

Life isn’t like the movies, my Uncle said.

You don’t get flashbacks in the middle of a crisis. You don’t get scenes of your life flashing before your eyes. You get God and He gives you adrenaline and strength like Samson. All at once, Uncle David realized Brian wasn’t in the car, the boots were his and the ditch was full of water.

You see, earlier in the year, a young couple had been out bar hopping and took a corner too fast. The lady flew out the car and the car rolled onto her. She drowned in the ditch about three miles down the road from this spot while her significant other lay unconscious in the car. If there was a flashback, it was to that and with his right hand Uncle David lifted the car over three feet into the air so he could pull Brian out with his left.

The Ford Fiesta weighed over 1700 pounds, thirteen times Uncle David’s body weight.

A kid walking to school came up on the accident

right about the time Uncle David climbed out. He saw the whole thing. He ran to the nearest house. He called police and in a frantic voice explained that “this guy lifted the car over his head and pulled a kid out from under it!I saw it with my own eyes!"

Later when he questioned, Uncle David didn’t immediately remember doing it. If that school boy hadn’t seen the event, the story might have been lost.

The family was taken to ER. When they got there, it was so full that they kept on stretchers in the hall.  There had been over 40 accidents that morning. Uncle David was in a gown and supposed to be on a stretcher but he kept running between the three kids. The nurses finally gave up telling him to stay put and just checked him where he stood – keeping watch over his family. My cousin said, “I’ve heard people talk about how they almost lost it all, but that day my parents nearly lost everything and you could see every emotion that goes with that on their faces.”

My cousin, Colleen, continued, “God was there that day

. I don’t believe in coincidences. If we’d have been buckled up, we most likely wouldn’t have survived. That said, we survived a major rollover basically unscathed without wearing seatbelts.   If the County hadn’t brush hogged, Brian probably would have been crushed or drowned. The stubble combined with the mud in the ditch kept the car from landing full weight on him. If that young lady hadn’t died earlier in the year, my dad may not have been so “quick on his feet.” If that kid hadn’t missed the bus and been forced to walk to school…if the other driver hadn’t been driving a compact…

and Dad, a man who has passed out at the sight of blood

every day before and every day since, kept his composure and was given Godly strength to do the remarkable."

Today

on your own journey of faith,

if you find yourself needing to bench lift a car

because you are lying brush hogged in a ditch,

I pray you are also given

out-of-nowhere, God-inspired strength.

Miracles still happen.