Harolds Story
The semi-tractor & trailer eased into the truck stop parking lot. The truck slowed to a stop, and the air brakes hissed. A group of curious drivers gathered around the trailer, amazed at what they saw. The twisted wreckage of a truck tractor was sprawled across the length of the trailer. It had been crushed and ripped apart by a horrendous collision. One driver said the words that all of the other drivers were thinking. “One thing’s for sure; that driver didn’t make it.”
It was four days before Christmas, 1987. I was making my third run of the night, driving a Kenworth 18-wheeler hauling fertilizer from the manufacturing plant in Plant City, Florida, to the shipping warehouse in Tampa. To maximize efficiency, each truck was loaded to a gross weight of 79,800 pounds. The beams from my headlights danced on the road in front of me; gospel music streamed from the radio speakers. I had been a believer in Jesus for years, but many of those years I had spent wandering, away from the love and grace; the sense of awe and wonder that a relationship with my Creator offered.
About a year before that night, I had renewed my relationship with Jesus. This year had been good. I had been learning to love God again. Life had meaning and purpose. I loved God, and I knew He loved me. As I approached the intersection, I saw the headlights moving toward the stop sign. I had the right-of-way. The white sedan was moving slowly, about 15 miles per hour. “The driver is slowing to a stop...” was the thought that blipped across the screen of my mind. I looked ahead, past the intersection.
A flash of white caught my attention. The car that had been “slowing to a stop” was crossing the intersection right in front of me! Instantly, I jumped on the brake pedal, pushing it to the floor. The white car was disappearing under- neath my hood! My mind at once raced with a thousand thoughts: “What is my truck doing? Where will I hit the car?
Can I avoid the accident? What traffic is coming? Anything next to me on the road? Why won’t this truck stop faster?”
Instinctively, I pulled the wheel to the left, trying to avoid impacting the car squarely in the passenger door. The passenger would have taken a direct hit, had I not swerved to the left. My truck jerked and shuddered as the right front corner of the Kenworth crashed into the right rear quarter panel of the white car. I felt the rear drive tires break loose from the pavement. “Got to get off the road, got to stop this truck!” The thoughts flashed through my mind; but something was wrong. The momentum of the truck was pushing it forward. It was not responding to my turn of the wheel. I was headed for the ditch on the side of the road. It was almost like slow motion, as I saw the power pole loom in front of me. The tractor cab exploded into pieced as it crashed into the power pole. Then, darkness. It was 10:35 PM.
A Grim Discovery
The alarm at the Plant City fire station rang. A serious accident had occurred at the intersection of State Route 39 and Sam Allen Road. When the rescue squad arrived on the scene, they saw a huge bulk hopper trailer on its side; fertilizer spread over the road and in piles in the ditch. Part of a power pole dangled precariously over the wreckage, having been split into three pieces. The tractor, still attached to the trailer, was Lying upside down beyond the ditch. The cab had been nearly sheared off. The forward drive axle of the tractor lay in the ditch, half buried in fertilizer. The driver’s seat lay on the ground, empty. The paramedics saw the soles of a pair of boots underneath the wreckage of the cab. They worked quickly to cut the laces and take off the boots and socks. They felt for a pulse....nothing. Again they tried. no use. They
began to put their equipment away. Andy S. was watching TV and monitoring his police/ fire scanner. Andy was a truck driver for the company I was driving for, and a volunteer fireman for the Plant City Fire Department. Highway 39 and Sam Allen road was just a couple of miles down the road, so Andy jumped into his truck and drove to the scene. The paramedics were loading their equipment back into their truck when Andy arrived. Andy immediately recognized the trailer, and knew who was driving the truck that night. “I know that driver!” Andy shouted to the paramedics. “It’s too late.” was the reply.
“It can’t be too late!” Andy rushed to where the shoes lay on the ground. He fell to the ground, driving his face into the blackness underneath the wreckage.
“Ron! This is Andy! Can you hear me?” Silence.
“Ron! This is Andy! Can you hear me?” Nothing....
“He can’t be dead! Ron! This is Andy! Can you hear me?”
It sounded like an echo in the back of my pounding head. “... Andy can you hear me?" Panic washed over me like a tidal wave as I regained consciousness. I saw my arm lying in front of me. I moved my shoulder slightly, but my arm didn’t move. I thought, “I hope that arm is still attached to this shoulder!” My neck was arched back, my head clamped between one of the tractor’s frame rails and an air tank. I felt a tremendous pressure pushing down on my shoulders, and I felt like a knife was stabbing me in the back. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to shift my legs to squirm out from under the truck but it was no use. My body was face down, pressed into the dirt by the weight of the seven-ton tractor. A sixty-five gallon fuel tank on the side of the tractor had ruptured. I was drenched in diesel fuel. Fuel was in my mouth and my eyes as well as in my stomach and lungs. My lungs were burning, and I had excruciating pain in my shoulder, arm and ribs. I was trying to vomit and cough but I couldn’t get my breath. I was crushed beneath the truck. Finally I managed to gasp, “Get me out!”
I heard voices, shouting. Through my blurred vision, as I tried to blink my eyes that were filled with fuel and dirt, I saw light flashing through the crevasses of the wreckage. I couldn’t breathe! I had to get out! I gasped for air, but the weight of the truck was compressing my chest. Suddenly I realized. I was probably going to die underneath that truck! “Lord! Help me!” I screamed in my mind. I gulped for air, struggling to breathe.
People were shouting to me. “Ron! Hang on, man! We’re going to get you out of there!” Someone shoved an air mask underneath the wreckage trying to get to my mouth. They got it as far as my elbow. My mind was racing. I was going to die...couldn’t breathe. suffocating. Suddenly, my mind began reciting Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters; He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me...You are with me ” I
relaxed; peace washed over me, cleansing my soul of the panic that had overwhelmed me. God was with me. I sensed His presence so strongly that I felt I could almost touch Him with my hand. My God, My Father, My Savior was there with me. If I died, I knew He would walk with me over that sweet threshold into our heavenly home. If I lived, I knew He would be there with me. Either way, it would be all right, because He was there with me. I rested in His comforting presence.
“I’m ready to go with You, Lord.” The thought gently floated through my mind. “If You want me to go with You, please take care of my wife. Please take care of her” I relaxed, ready to take that step. All fear was gone. Peace flowed over me....
“Ron, if you can hear me, move your foot!” shouted a voice from above. I shifted my ankle. “OK, Ron, good job! We’re going to get you out of there!”
I heard sirens getting louder as other emergency vehicles began to arrive. More shouting. An air compressor roared to life. Lights flashed. I heard the pitch of a shovel being shoved into the dirt beside me.
“Let’s get that jack under the frame right here! OK! Easy...easy!” The air compressor motor strained. I felt the metal on top of me twisting. Pain shot through my head between my temples as the frame rail and air tank that gripped my head began to squeeze together. “My head! My head!” I gurgled with the little air I could summon from my lungs.
“Whoa! Stop!” The Incident Commander directed the operation. The pain was still intense in my head, but the metal stopped twisting. “We can’t use the jacks right now. Keep digging that trench next to him. Get up in there and see if you can see what’s got his head in there!”
An Urge To Pray
At home, my wife, was making Christmas presents. It was eleven PM, and she was watching a television special on the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, a condition that robs a person of their memory and ability to reason. Following an urge in her heart, my wife prayed for me. “Lord, if Ron is ever in an accident, please protect his head. How hard it must be for a person to lose their ability to walk or move about...but your mind! Oh Lord, please protect Ron’s mind!” Little did she know how timely her offering of prayer was.
The sound of a helicopter distracted my attention. It was getting closer and louder. I could feel air moving under the truck as the helicopter touched down. More voices. Movement in the wreckage above me. The shovels kept digging beside me. I drifted in and out of consciousness. Voices kept talking to me, disturbing the rest I so desperately wanted. The stench of diesel fuel was nauseating. My lungs were burning. I couldn’t breathe. My stomach was retching, trying to expel the diesel fuel I had swallowed. The sharp pain in my back was turning to a deep painful ache that spread across my back and shoulders. I couldn’t move to free myself from its sharp point. I felt the shovels working further up next to me. Now they were by my elbows, now my shoulder. They were digging a trench next to me, almost underneath me.
Suddenly, I felt some movement by my head. The pressure was easing. I summoned my strength and tried to pull my head free. No use. I felt the pressure ease a little more. The pain was intense as I tried to pull my head free.
In another place, completely unaware of the trauma that was unfolding, and unknown to me, my wife was praying for me. God heard and answered her prayer.
“OK...slide that board in there...” One more painful twist of my head and it jerked loose. My head fell a couple of inches to the ground. Someone slid my feet over; then my whole body slid down the side of the freshly dug trench on to a waiting body board. I felt myself being slid out from under the wreckage. I took a full breath of air...only to begin coughing uncontrollably. A chorus of whoops and yells rose from the team of rescue workers.
I was transported by Hillsborough County Sheriff’s heli copter to the Tampa General Hospital Trauma Center. I had a broken arm, dislocated shoulder, collapsed lung and three broken ribs. I also had serious contusions of the lungs and heart and a serious head injury. I spent two days in intensive care and five days in the cardiac care unit before being discharged. My arm required two surgeries and over two years to repair.
Peace At Death’s Door
When I was at death’s door, ready to take that step, only one thing in my life really mattered. It wasn’t how much money I had or what toys I had collected. It wasn’t my position in the company or my social status. It wasn’t the groups I was associated with, the friends I had, or even the church I belonged to. It all boils down to one thing when we stand at that threshold, and we all will stand there. No Exceptions. And chances are, you’ll find yourself there when you least expect it.
The one thing that really mattered when I found myself at that doorstep was my relationship with my Maker – God. No one else was there. Just me and Him. I had peace at that moment because I had accepted God’s gift of salvation. You see, the Bible says that all of us have sinned and have fallen short of God’s perfection (Romans 3:23), and because of our sin, we have chosen separation from God’s love and truth. That is called death (Romans 6:23) No one can stand in God’s presence unless they are perfect as God is. Without God’s perfection, they will spend eternity in the life after physical death separated from God forever, tormented by the wages of their guilt and sin in the blackness and fire of Hell. So we are in a horrible fix! We are sinners, to be sure; and even the best things we can do fall far short of God’s perfect standard. The Bible says in the book of Isaiah 64:6 that all of our righteousness, our best attempts at doing good things, are like filthy rags when compared to God’s standard of perfection! So we couldn’t work our way to Heaven, even if we wanted to. It would be like trying to work to condition yourself in an attempt to jump across the Grand Canyon! Our at tempts to reach God’s perfection by our own efforts are pathetic, at best.
So what are we to do, if no one can reach Heaven?
The Bible says in John 3:16 that “God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes on Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.” God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to live a life of perfection on this earth, thus Jesus had no sin of His own. But Jesus, in His infinite love for you and me, took upon Himself our sin when He died on the cross as the Sacrifice for our sin. The Bible says in Isaiah 53:5,6 that “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, every one of us, to our own way. But the Lord has laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity (sin, guilt) of us all.” Again, in Romans 5:8, the Bible says that “God showed His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” After Jesus died, God raised Him from the dead, proving once and for all time that Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins was accepted by God and now Jesus reigns in Heaven, having removed the sting of death and the grave.
So, how can we have God’s gift of life through Jesus’ death and resurrection? The Bible says in Romans 10:9,10 “That if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord (God’s Son) and believe in your heart that God raised Him (Jesus) from the dead (having died a sacrifice for your sin), you will be saved. For with your heart you believe unto righteousness, and with your mouth, you confess unto salvation. In other words, if you believe that you’re a sinner, and believe that Jesus is who He says He is, God’s Son, and that He died in your place to pay for your sin. You are free from the ultimate penalty of sin - eternal death in Hell. You become a new creation in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17). Old things, like sinful desires and lifestyles begin to change and become new desires and a new life begins. You become a new child of God.
Life finally has meaning and purpose. You begin to understand that God created you to be a reflection of His love and grace to this poor, sick world we live in. Your purpose is to spread the good news of God’s love and saving grace to those who are lost. There is no higher purpose for our lives than to reflect the love and grace that our dear Father God pours into our lives when we humble ourselves before Him, confess our sinfulness, repent of our sin, and cling by faith to Jesus’ death on the cross as our birthright to Heaven, our bridge to God.
Will You Be Ready?
How about it.? Aren’t you tired of chasing your dreams and fantasies, only to find more emptiness and thirst for some- thing real? Jesus said “He who comes to Me will never thirst again.” Don’t you want to finally understand your real purpose in life? When it all comes down to that final moment, it will be you and God – no one else. Will you find the open arms of someone you know and love, or will you come to the horrifying realization that you and your maker are, and will be forever strangers?
We invite you to experience what God can do for you! Jesus died on the cross for you so that you could spend eternity with Him. He knows your every care and problem. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” Matthew 11:28
Pray this prayer with me right now? “Lord, I know I’m a sinner and need your forgiveness. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust you as Lord and Savior. In Jesus name, Amen”