Wear Your Spiritual Seat Belt - One Destroyed Car

I am sure it was a surreal moment for Princess Five to be staring into the drivers seat of the car that she rolled. 

We took a drive to where Princess Five's car was towed after the accident and she said that "By far, my favorite reaction was the tow truck driver whose jaw dropped when I walked in and he said, "You shouldn't be alive..."" 

We got to the tow  place after calling ahead and were VERY frustrated when we had to wait an hour in the hot sun for the owner to call his son and tell him what to charge us. 

There was no place to sit, no air conditioning, no swamp cooler, and just one big hot mess! When I found out that the bill to tow my car FIVE miles was nearly $400 including a storage fee of $80 for less that 48 hours, I was TRULY upset. Especially after having to wait for such a long time. 

There was an administrative fee, a weekend fee, an extra man fee etc. They said it took an hour and 20 minutes to pick it up and tow it the five miles to town. When the salvage guy showed up, he got the car on his truck in 4 minutes by himself! Scam for sure!!!


I was trying not to be upset but it was difficult as Princess Four was so weak and being in the hot sun took it out of her. 

My mood increased so much when we pulled her guitar out of the back seat. When they picked up all her stuff, someone put the heavy suitcase on top of the guitar after picking it up out of the dirt and sagebrush. We were VERY grateful for all those who spent the time to help her and pick up all her stuff scattered the 200 feet as things flew out all over the site.

We thought there was NO way that the guitar would survive as it was in a soft sided guitar backpack/ case. There was sage brush in the ripped back pocket and her wallet was in the front pocket and there was SO much dust in the pockets and we still can't believe there wasn't something wrong with it. Hopefully it will still hold a tune when she can play it again. 

When she saw the car, Princess just squatted facing the drivers seat staring for several minutes. I didn't say anything to her as I could see she was trying to make sense of the entire thing in her head but I don't know that she will ever be able to. 

I could see she was trying to grasp how she was still alive. We all took a few minutes to compose as it was SO unbelievable that she survived, let alone came out with such minor injuries compared to what should have been! 

If you look at the floor mat on top of the car in one of the pictures, you can see clearly how crunched the drivers side roof was, it looks like someone did a big Karate chop right where her head was. 

You can see by these "inside" pictures that the roof was really low and we folded both seats down so it looks like there is room for her head but when the seat is up, it is touching the crushed roof. She should NOT have been "OK."

It was SO hot that when we left there after waiting for an hour or more, we were out of water and I felt like I was having a stroke, my face was beet red and I was dripping sweat as I made the girls sit in the car with the air conditioning as I didn't want Princess Five to faint! 

We had to stop in town to get some ice water as we were all super hot so I got them ice cream and I drank a gallon of ice water so we could cool down before taking the long drive home.

My favorite part of the day was when I looked through the window of the car for the first time on the drivers side and what was the first thing that gleemed back at me? Yep, a penny!!!

God was letting me know to "Trust in Him" even with this! Of course we had to get that penny as TRULY GOD IS GREAT and I really try to trust in Him. I know I am going to fail at times but He really is over all and HE saved Princess from what should have been certain death or major damage! 

The Accident - The Hospital and Her Injuries

Princess was on the phone with Princess Four until she hit the dead zone so the call ended at 4:06 p.m. Princess drove a few more miles before the accident so it was about 4:12.

(She remembers none of this part) God in his mercy had a family see the dust cloud her car made flipping and they stopped to help her. 
 
The mother sat and talked to Princess for 20 minutes or so until her husband and son went to get help. I guess Princess was awake enough to talk but doesn't remember any of this. The woman coaches dance and she talked to Princess about dance and kept her awake until EMS could come. 

She was cut out of the car and carried by EMS and the woman's son to the ambulance. She should have gone to a bigger city hospital as that is where they usually take them from that area and our small town hospital isn't all that equipped for major trauma. 
 
However, they knew where she was from and chose to transport her to our hospital. The nurses were not sure why this major accident victim ended up in our ER but I am grateful for it so I didn't have to drive 2 hours to be there for her. I was able to arrive just after she did. 
 
It was at 5:04 and I had a migraine and had been lying down but knew she should be home so I had just gotten up and was going to call her and if she didn't answer, I was going to drive to the "dead zone" and see if she had broken down or something. 

Just then, I got a call from an unknown number. They asked if I was Princess Fives mother. They identified themselves as EMS and told me that Princess had been in an accident and they were transporting her to the hospital. It took about four or five sentences to let me know she was talking and alert. I kind of wish they would have said, "Princess is OK but has been in an accident."

I got another call not a minute later from the hospital asking if they could treat her. I of course was in tears at the "accident" portion of the last call and quickly called Princess One asking her to contact everyone and ask them to pray for Princess Five.  

I kept giving gratitude on the drive to the hospital that I got the "she's alive" call rather than police at my door. 

When I walked in, they ushered me to her in a full backboard, cervical collar and completely immobilized and an oxygen mask on her mouth. Basically, the only thing I could see clearly was her eyes. She wasn't crying. I then looked through the mask and she was smiling. I couldn't speak for a second but said, "Of course you are smiling!" The EMT's then told me that she kept thanking everyone and was one of the most polite people they had transported. 
 
She was in pain in several places but until they knew her injuries, they couldn't give her anything for pain. They were having a hard time getting IV's in. They only ever ended up with one very sluggish one. 

With every cat-scan being read, they said, "No breaks" and would take off more of her immobilization. Soon, she was down to "no breaks!" and they took it all off. It is about this point I look at Princess and she has a tear in the corner of her eye. I ask if she is in pain and the tears just start streaming down her face. She said, "No, they are "happy tears" I am alive!"

No stitches and no breaks. There was glass shards all over the floor, her and we changed out the sheet on the ER table three times due to twigs, dirt and glass. There was glass down her shirt, in her shoes, hair, and every time she moved, there was glass. I took a picture of the wheelchair when she went to get her chest x-ray as it had glass shards on it.    
 
She had a partially detached and collapsed lung and one Dr. wanted to put in a chest tube. Another suggested taking an xray, waiting 24 hours and taking another to see the change. I had several people give me their opinion and the majority said, "no tube" so we opted for that. The only time she has a problem, is during the xray as she has to inflate them all the way and blow out all the way. She nearly fainted both times.
 
Two men from my church were there to give someone in the ER a blessing of healing and I asked if they could give her a blessing as well. I KNOW God is real. Usually, day two and three after trauma is when all the dark, black and blue marks come up. The swelling is at it's worst. Since the moment they gave her that blessing, he injuries stopped progressing and started to heal.  
 
None of her bruises went black or dark purple, what you see is the worst of it. Her left eye was swelling up at the time and by morning, I couldn't believe how much it had gone down and we never put ice or anything else on any of the bruises or injuries until after she was released from the ER and booked into the hospital.  

When we were taking off her glass filled clothes to put on her gown, her left shoulder popped and she screamed. I notified them that it popped twice and for some reason, none of the Dr.'s in the ER did anything with it or about it or ordered any tests. When they were discharging her, I told them she couldn't move her arm and was guarding it and I was worried about it being bumped and causing pain etc so I asked them to give her a sling and immobilize it. Within seconds of that being on, she relaxed in her shoulders and said she felt much better. They said to follow up with an ortho specialist after a few days. 

She hasn't been able to move it much and I have been rubbing Lavender, frankincense, and a muscle rub cream on her arm, shoulder and back every night and she has been doing range of motion as she can. Still, after four full days, she can't move her arm from her side at all in any direction. We called the Ortho Specialist and got some x-rays today and will meet with him tomorrow. 

I will update you as we know and there are some other miracle stories I will share later. The ER nurse went home after that shift at 6ish and her neighbor pulls up and said, "We saw an accident" and told her about how they helped my daughter and gave the nurse the pictures I put in the first post! Can you believe that the nurse's neighbor was the person who helped my daughter and gave us our first glimpse of the car! What are the odds of that? 
 
God truly is in charge and sends his angels where they are needed, when they are needed and I am SO grateful for the angels on earth and those in heaven that helped my daughter survive this!            

The Accident - How it Happened and What She Remembers

I, for some reason, have had a difficult time sitting down to write the details of the day she crashed. Instead of going back and writing about it, I just continued from when I got home in my journal and I am so tired by the time I get to sit that writing about it overwhelms me. 
 
I thought perhaps if I could write down one aspect of the crash, that maybe it wouldn't be so overwhelming but it truly is. I have so much going on that sitting to focus on the terrible stuff isn't something I want to do. 
 
I share all the good things and blessings rather than what actually happened so I really just need to write it down. Today, I will focus on the accident itself and then tomorrow share what happened at the hospital etc. 


She had just gotten off a major interstate coming home from a youth camp for a week. She took a nap at her sisters and then headed home. She was five miles off the interstate and had just gotten off the phone with Princess Four. 

About three miles off the interstate, there is a little cross where ten years ago, two of Princess Two's classmates died and one of my neighbors was a survivor of that crash. 
 
Just over two miles past that, Princess left the road. She remembers turning in the little town off the interstate and then there is five miles of nothing but flashes of the accident. I thought perhaps being at the scene may bring back some of her memory of the accident but it didn't. 
 
She has flashes that she thought she should have stopped to put on some music. She was just inside "the dead zone" as we all call it, where there is about 30 minutes of no cell service and no radio stations. 
 
That is why I always have a talk tape with me so that I can keep my mind alert while driving there as it can be boring alone. 

She has some remembrance of swerving, seeing a fence and then seeing the top of the car in her face and then someone talking about cutting her out of the car and that is all she remembers. 
 
It is a miracle that she didn't crash at night. She was so far from the road that if she crashed at night, no one would have seen her car. There were no signs at the road where she left the road, there was only snapped fencing where she went through but as you can see by the pictures, because she was "flying" the sage brush is intact. We knew exactly where she left due to the report and we couldn't find it until we were nearly crawling searching.
 
I had to really search for each touch down point because there were no signs of a car going through, just a few feet of "touch down" then 20-45 feet of nothing but untouched sage brush and then a few feet of broken glass, plastic parts etc. 
 
The first glass picture is the first "touch down spot" and was the rear window. The second glass picture was her drivers side window. I knew she hit her elbow out the window and hit her head on a sage brush but until I saw the little wrist band from her teen conference laying on the dirt next to her window and seeing a smashed sage brush that probably saved her life smashed next to it, it really didn't sink in just how lucky / blessed she is to be alive. The wreck pulled that band right off her wrist on the side impact that took out that window. 
 
The picture with my shadow is me standing where her can landed looking back at Princess Four standing on the road, and the bottom picture is me standing at her "car" looking back at my car that is in the exact spot where her car left the road. The Officer that investigated estimated 200 feet from the road.   
 
I counted four touch down sites before she hit the landing spot. If it had been at night or someone hadn't seen the dust cloud and she had landed upside down, I don't think she would have been seen as she was so far off the road and in the heat of the day, you can barely see my car on the road! 
 
The top picture is of them carrying her to the road from the crash site. I will share a wonderful story about that tomorrow. 

GOD is GOOD!         

Wear Your Seat Belt - Scare Your Kids

Truly, if I could erase this year from my life, I think I would do it. I want a do-over! Did you ever play that game as a child where you would say, "Do over!"?

Today was EXTREMELY draining for me. I was going to post about the accident, or the hospital, or the car, or where she had her accident. It is 4:30 a.m. and we spent the day driving to the tow company, $400 dollars later (since I don't want to claim it on my insurance) they charged me $320 for towing the car 5 miles! $80 storage fee for less than 48 hours. Then, they made us wait in the 100 degree heat for the owner to tell us how much it was to get our car out for an hour!!! No air-conditioning or swamp cooler. I was BEET red and dripping by the time we left. We were out of water, sweaty and VERY frustrated by the time we left.

However, that was all overshadowed by the stop at the accident scene! I will share a video and pictures about that another day as I am truly emotionally and physically exhausted and the weight of her pain, worry for her shoulder she is unable to move, the medical cost, loss of car, getting her sister ready for her mission and still having all my mom's estate stuff and other things for her I am working on......

I just want to gather my family around me and take a beach filled vacation where I don't have to drive anywhere, pack anything for anyone, buy food and plan menu's, and just sleep for days! I am fully aware that is NOT going to happen so I think I would settle for one nights sleep where finances, health issues, family issues or a headache didn't interrupt my slumber!

I shared with Princess Five that I thought she should share a video of how wearing her seat belt saved her life in hopes it would inspire her friends and others to wear theirs. When we stopped at the accident scene today, I was hiking the distance to the crash site and I guess they made this lovely vine to suggest that others wear their seat belt.

I didn't see it until late this evening after her visitors had left and I had rubbed some lavender, frankincense and wintergreen oils on her shoulder, back and neck, situated her in bed, washed three loads of sage, glass and dirt filled bags, clothes and guitar cases and put away all the items we recovered from the car crash.

Hopefully the video will inspire at least one person to wear their seat-belt. The first pictures are her eye at the ER. The second is 24 hours after the accident and the third is 48 hours after the accident.

I am SO grateful that she still has eyes to see along with all her other body parts. She still can't move her shoulder and I am a bit worried about her eyes as she is already quite blind so I will call tomorrow on getting someone to check them.

I am SO grateful to have her sweet gentle being home and safe and I felt physically sick walking the trail of her car today as the further I got from the road, the more I knew she really shouldn't have survived! God in his greatness gave me the best blessing any mother could ask for! I am blessed! 

Wearing a Seat Belt Can Save Your Life - Angels Watching Over Her

Princess Five had an accident this weekend. I have had about 3 hours sleep in 2 days. She is alive and has no life threatening injuries. 

The tender mercies of GOD are abundant in our lives! I will post more and share the details but I have been sitting at the computer for an hour and hadn't typed a work because I keep falling asleep.  

Angels are real! No one can make me believe any different! Princess Five, by all reports for everyone involved, should be dead or seriously injured yet she was released today and has not one broken bone and not one cut that was large enough to stitch! 

The top picture is her car from the highway on zoom, the second picture is her car from the road she was driving on. She flew 200 feet from the road. The third picture is her being carried from the car to the road by some EMT's, Sherriff's, and some kind travelers on the road. I will share more tomorrow.

She does have some injuries but we are still investigating the seriousness. She has a lung that is half collapsed but at this point they are not going to put in a chest tube to inflate it as the leak isn't growing quickly enough to warrant an invasive procedure. 
 
She has some other issues but needs to see some specialist so we will share with you more tomorrow but please say a prayer of gratitude with us for the mercies of God allowing his angels to intervene and spare Princess Five's life.

Double Rainbow STOCK Certificate Kind of Day

As you know, if you follow this blog, my life has not been my own for a VERY long time now. If I am not taking care of my mother or her stuff this year, I have been dealing with kids and grand-kids. 

I haven't done much in my yard, my health, the parasites, friends, etc because I am SO busy with my mother before she died and now her estate and always her "stuff." 

She has so many papers and pictures it will take me years to get caught up on it if I ever do finish it. I feel sorry for my girls as I haven't done my own stuff or theirs due to the urgency of getting my mothers stuff out of storage etc.  

Here is a link that talks about the different things involved in documenting things with links to many of my posts on the things I have done to organizing my mothers "stuff." 

So, this past few months I have spent probably two weeks total of my life 24 hours a day working on these stocks and bonds. I have contacted each family member and visited with them about addresses they may remember or if they have any documents linking thing. 
 
Just this week, I spent probably 12 hours just sorting through the scans on the computer that I did a few years back looking for any proof of addresses that may link to proving that we "own" the money linked to these stocks.  

I talked to the state involved a month or so ago asking what I would need to "prove" that we are the owners of the money and they said you need to document that you are linked to the address. Well, my grandparents never lived in the "said state" so they wouldn't be able to link to an address for that state and I kept focusing on their addresses but told the state that I thought the address was actually the oil company main address. 

They told me I needed birth certificates, death certificates, wills, obituaries, family links, stock certificates and proof of any addresses we could find. 

These certificates date back as old as the 1930's through 1980 so finding dates, addresses, originals etc has been daunting and my printer has decided it has had enough after 11 years and I have to hand feed one sheet of paper about six times to get a copy or print something. 

I was REALLY struggling trying to connect the dots and organize the addresses, certificates and "proof" of everything in an organized way and then link it to the different states and certificate and stocks. Also, Finding contact people for stocks from the 1930's has proven very time consuming. 
 
However, I had had it today and my eyes are wigging out looking at a computer for five days straight now. My hips and lower back ache to the point of me not sleeping and taking pills and putting on ointments to be able to move due to sitting so much. 

BUT, the good news is that I finally was able to search the "Sundance Oil Company to a parent company in the said state and I FOUND THE ADDRESS linked to the money and stock and my grandfathers name!!!! 
 
There is over $9000 in that one account and I have LOTS of stocks and certificates to look up and not only that, I "felt" like I should look up my grandmothers married names as she married twice after my grandfather died and I found money for her in several spots and for one of her husbands who has also passed away! So, even thought I am exhausted, I wanted to share the blessing of the day. 

When I was so tired and struggling and NOTHING was working out after hours online, I went out to get the mail and what did God do for me? DOUBLE RAINBOW! He is SO good to me. It was like he was telling me to "keep on going" and "Trust in Him" as rainbows are a sign from God and to have two right as I walked out my front door was BEAUTIFUL!

And, in the end, He did it! I was able to for sure link the funds to the address and now will be able to collect that and the other money I found and I was able to find contact information for all but two of the stocks! I don't know that they are worth anything but at least I have a number to call finally for each! 

So, I wanted to share that blessing and that it is 4:30 a.m. and I am so looking forward to sleep and hope that this part of my mom's estate will be over soon and after talking to the leaders of each family, I think they agreed to my suggestion to purchase a nice scanner with a quick processor with some of the funds and have a huge family reunion with the other funds! So, Yahoo for that! Lets hope the other stocks pay out as well!