My Eighth Year Brings Angel #2

It was during my 8^th year and we were at the end of our assignment in Germany.  My mom was coming home from her bowling league.  She was sitting at a stop light, with her friend Sheila in the car ahead of her.

In the meantime, my brothers and I were being watched by a family friend in the same apartment building we lived in.  On this particular afternoon, I remember looking out the window for my mother.  It was getting late and I specifically remember feeling very anxious with this funny feeling at the pit of my stomach.  It was almost as if I knew something had happened.  I remember praying to God that she get home safely.  I was really into praying during this stage of my life, mainly because I had formed this irrational fear of death.   My intuition would prove to be true.  Suddenly I saw my mom’s Vega enter the parking lot being pulled by a tow truck. The back end was practically sitting in the front seat.

 

My mom's Vega in front of our apartment building

 

Seatbelts were very new to vehicles at the time and she wasn’t wearing hers…yet.  For some reason, something in her head kept telling her to put it on.  So, she took a second and clicked in her lap belt.  The vehicle that hit her was a garbage truck and behind the wheel was a man under the influence of alcohol.  My mom’s head was severely thrown into the steering wheel.  The innards of her chin were — for lack of a better word — hanging out, and she needed several stitches.

Later, when she found an English speaking doctor, she was told that she was lucky she had her lap belt on.  Apparently, because the man was so drunk, he didn’t understand what he had hit.  His reaction was to back up and drive forward again and again into my mom’s car.  Had mom not had on her belt, she would have been thrown out of the vehicle by way of the windshield and would have been crushed between her car and the car in front of her.

My Mom

 

My mom said the scene was ridiculous.  The language barrier was exasperating.  Passersby, the police, the ambulance driver – none of them spoke a word of English.  Can you imagine her frustration?  I guess the blood flowing freely from her face wasn’t enough to get help immediately.  It would have been funny, had she not been injured and frightened.  Finally, an ambulance arrived and she was loaded into it (which, by the way, was manned by only the driver, no attendant).  The ambulance driver was driving erratically, turning back to my mom and back at the road, swerving all over the place.  My mom’s friend (the one in the car in front of her) and my mom were begging him to slow down.  I guess the sight of her chin guts upset him and he was in a bit of a hurry to get her some help.  Gray’s Anatomy it was not.

I like to believe that while I was praying for my mom’s safety, an angel whispered in her ear to put her seat belt on.  After all, an angel came through for us once before, why not again?