Once again, He saved my life

It's been unbelievable. To be honest, I didn't really want to write about this. The accident was 2 weeks ago, and the memory of it is still fresh on my mind. I'm glad that Taryn has no memory of it. It'll be the hardest thing for me to recover from mentally and physically. However, I've never had so much faith and trust in the Father. I will tell you exactly what happened...

On Sunday the 22nd Taryn and I had gone to speak to a little country church of some of our fellow team members that are going to be joining us in Spain. We had about an hour travel back to the Learning Center where we'd been staying. Of course we had been having a good time, singing with Mariah Carry when a car in the right lane started to move over into me. I remember Taryn's gasp and I swerved over into the median and back, losing what control I had of the Trailblazer. This part I blacked-out for as we went head-on into a tree ready to flip as the roof was smashed in, and then tail spun the passenger side into more trees. I woke up when the car came to a halt finding myself thinking we had just had a small fender bender. Unaware of my own condition yet, I looked over at Taryn sitting on the edge of her seat, her upper body draped over her window. I said her name expecting her to sit up, but as she didn't I found myself panicking, screaming for her to wake up over and over again. I tried to move toward her to hold her up, but then realized I was completely immobilized. The dashboard was in the floor and the roof that was over my head was inches in front of my face. My arm was through where the windshield was and pinned between the roof and the radio. That elbow in my side and the console on my other, my diaphragm was being crushed leaving me no room to breath more than short quick breaths. I screamed, "Taryn, I can't move! I can't get to you, wake up!". Those were the worst moments of my life. I thought she was dead, and that I had killed her. I didn't know what to do with myself but scream and cry.

It seemed like 10 min had gone by before some on-lookers could get to us. I could hear them on the front side of the car talking about my arm, and how much I was bleeding out because I had an arterial vein that had been severed. Some were attending Taryn trying to get her to respond. After about 15 min of being trapped and screaming that I couldn't breath, I yelled at one man to try to lay back my seat to relieve some of the pressure on my diaphragm. Slowly and carefully he leaned the seat back allowing me to breath with more ease. Taryn woke up, but was not responding to any questions as she looked around very puzzled about what was going on. I had begun to grow faint from the blood loss, and a little chilled. The medical team arrived about that time. Taryn had begun talking, not making much sense, and asked if she was having a bad dream. I chose not to respond, hoping that she would stay calm. She recognized that her legs were hurting, which I was thankful to hear, and I told her "That's good! That means you can feel your legs." She responded with an ok. She tried several times to untrap her legs and they told her to quit trying, but she wasn't hearing them. I told her, "Taryn, stop trying to move them, let them help you!" she again responded with an ok and sat back. It was so reassuring to have her respond and listen to me. Finally, after nearly half an hour, they lifted the roof a couple inches allowing me to slowly pull my arm out so that they could wrap it in efforts to keep pressure on the bleeding. All this while I am going through shock. It seemed so unreal that this was really happening.

The fire department finally arrived and cut down some trees so that they would be able to get to Taryn's door. They cut it out with the jaws of life, but right before they pulled Taryn out I felt her squeeze my hand. With some pain, I was grateful to know that she was recognizing that I was next to her and the situation we were in. As they had her on the ground, I heard her respond saying that she had an older brother named Darren. I had some assurance before we were separated that she was fine. She was med-flighted away after about 35 min of being trapped. I heard Maurice (the firefighter with me) and others talking about cutting the roof off and the danger that I would be in for it. I was pushing for them not to; telling them I could walk out. Maurice told me, "If you could see the condition of the car, then you would know that you can't". They made a decision I was thankful for to just cut the doors and middle bar off. I had been stabilized with a neck brace as they laid and strapped me into a stretcher and took me to the ambulance to wait for the med flight. I was able to give the officer my father's phone number so he could be contacted and could call Taryn's parents and the IMB.

The med flight was loud and painful and they were pressing a sonogram into my broken ribs and checking my vitals. As I arrived in the hospital and they shredded my clothes to check out my injuries I felt the Lord's peace telling me everything was ok, and that Taryn was ok. The one thought that the Spirit kept bringing to my mind was, "God already knew this was going to happen, while you were here, and ready to serve him overseas. He isn't surprised, so trust him." Before getting cleaned up they took me to xrays where I had a conversation with a former preacher who opened up to me about being separated from his wife. I was able to share with him the power of the restoration God offers, and how much he loves him and more than anything would want to restore his relationship with his wife if he would be willing to turn from the destruction of his life that he was invested in. It wasn't my own words that I was speaking, but the words that I heard myself saying had come from the Spirit. After some IMB family had arrived my Mormon doctor got an earful of praise and talk about our Father from me (all this while he was pressure washing the glass out of my arms). He told me the xrays showed a fractured wrist. So all I walked away with were 21 stitches and broken wrist in the left arm, a scratched up and sprained left hand, a few broken ribs and the awful memory of what was nearly an hour of being trapped. Taryn has a broken bone in each shin, a broken jaw, tailbone, and a badly sprained ankle. We are healing.

I can't even begin to describe how the Spirit has been so evident and close to me during this time. There have been several more that have heard about the power by which God saved mine and Taryn's lives, inside and out. A few days after the accident I got to see pictures of the vehicle that we were in. Maybe I'll post one on here too. You'll see.... there's no possible reason that we should have survived. Except that several years ago when I was fifteen, and I heard the Lord call on me to GO, he promised me that I, and my family would be protected. He kept his promise, and with about a months delay, I'll be in Spain sharing this very story with people who need to hear how faithful my God is to the promises he makes. As I was in that med flight I remember thanking God that we were alive, and that he was keeping Taryn safe as I saw the sunset over the horizon. It was an absolutely beautiful day.