Scariest Night of My Life

As many of you know, Sunday night Justin and Reagan were in a wreck in Tennessee. They were on the way to church services. I'd stayed behind because I wasn't feeling too well. A few minutes after they left Justin called me, I'll give you what I remember of it. Me: hello? Justin: she's ok. Me: Hello? ...nothing, I thought maybe he'd pocket dialed me or something and was at the church building already. Me: JUSTIN...HELLO? Justin: Reagan's ok. Me: What?(at this point I'm noticing that something is wrong in his voice and he doesn't sound so good) Justin: We had a wreck. Me:WHAT!? Justin: Reagan's ok. Me: What? Justin: Reagan's ok. Me: What about you?! Justin: My back hurts really bad. Me: Where are you? He tells me and I tell him I will get my brother to bring me out there. I can't really remember what all else was said from that point on because I was freaking out. I got off the phone with him to call my step-dad and mom who were also traveling on that same road on the way to church, but I couldn't get them. Turns out they showed up at the wreck about the same time we got off the phone. When we got there several cars had stopped to help and first responders were on the scene. This is what I saw.

Not something pleasant to see. They had Justin sitting in my mom's car to stay warm. He was in a neck brace(which freaked me out even more) and were checking him out. I got in the car and told him I was there. I talked to him for a minute to make sure he seemed like he was going to be somewhat ok and found out where they had Reagan. He asked me to go check on her because everyone was with him. Some people that go to church with Mom had put her in their van to keep her warm. The poor little thing was screaming her head off and did not look happy at all. I just held her hand and tried to calm her down by talking to her because I wasn't allowed to take her out of her car seat yet. I stayed in the van with her having no idea what was going on with Justin. I was doing pretty well at keeping it together and trying to call people but there was no cell service out there. I told Justin later that God definitely must have helped him with the cell signal so he could call 911 and me because I couldn't get a signal for anything. The little boy that was in the van kept looking at the car and saying, "That looks really bad doesn't it?" I just kept saying, "Yes, it does." and tried not to loose it or look at the car too much. I really wanted to know what was going on but didn't want to leave Reagan screaming alone with the kids in the van so I yelled through the window at my mom to find out. They eventually came and looked Reagan over and said they thought she was ok, but that I should get her checked at the hospital just in case. They took Justin by ambulance and we followed a few minutes later in Mom's car. When I finally got to go back and see him he was on a board all strapped down and had an iv. It was really scary to see him like that. Turns out nothing serious was wrong so they let him go pretty quickly with some pain meds. Reagan was checked out at the hospital and everything was fine.

Here's kind of a break down of what Justin said happened. Reagan was crying in the back so Justin had looked up in the mirror trying to check on her. He felt himself go off the road.

The red lines are where the car left the road. Notice that the drivers side tires were literally hanging off the edge at one point. Where the yellow circle is he hit a mound that shot him back out into the road. The green line shows where he shot back out in the road then the car kicked out and went straight off it. That night I never got too close to the car so I thought it was just in a ditch. But this is what I saw the next day when we went out there.

The ledge is where the back tires were resting. The bank is where the front end impacted. You can see an impression in it from the front of the car. I had a hard time after I saw that they were actually stretched across a creek that was about 15 feet below them. After the car wrecked Justin said it was silent. He sat there for a second and then Reagan started screaming her head off so he knew she was somewhat ok. He tried to open his door but couldn't so he kicked it open. He realized that there was no ground below him so he literally climbed the side of the car to get onto the road. He opened the backdoor and tried to reach Reagan but his back would seize up and he couldn't move. He called 911 and some people showed up. A man helped him get Reagan out. To reach her Justin had to hold the man's belt while he leaned out to get her. I think it was after that when he called me.

The next day we also went to see the car and get all of our things out of it. This is what we saw there.

Those are roots from the bank stuck in the front of the car. The car is most likely totaled. We are just waiting for the official word so we can start working on getting another car and all that. Justin's dad let us borrow a car for the time being. We stayed at Mom's until Wednesday when we came back to Alabama. Justin is doing fine. He's still in a lot of pain though. He has pain and bruises from the seat belt catching him and a lot of back pain. I think what hurts him the most is his chest. Every time he coughs, hiccups, or burps it hurts him pretty badly. Reagan was perfectly fine. She had a few scratches on her knees that look like she did them herself. Maybe she grabbed them when they wrecked or she could have done it afterwards when she was so upset. Either way I am so thankful that they are alive and well. If the car had gone off a few feet over they could have flipped and ended up in the creek. I don't even want to think about that though. There have been MANY prayers of thanks since that night. It really was the scariest night of my life, but I am so thankful that everything is ok.

Hopefully soon I will have happier posts for you about all the fun things we did over Christmas in TN!