CyberScryber's Scrybes
• Jan. 8, 2006 - Walking A New Cliff
This is by my 17 y/o daughter;
Amber Jean Fritz
Who would have taken the time to think about where life was going and what could happen? Well for sure I wasn't. I know I wasn't.
I broke up with a my boyfriend about a year ago. He was a good Christain, but by that time I didn't want anything to do with him or God. I started dating a good friend. Everything was going great. Sure, I had my everyday problems, but that never stopped me. I wanted to live and party hard. My boyfriend's not a Christian, nor are most of my friends. I found myself slipping away from God, thinking to myself maybe He's just a cruel person playing with germs and playing the role of God to us. Maybe we made Him up so we wouldn't feel lonely. I asked for a sign to prove He was there. I never knew what lay ahead of me.
On the Fourth of July we came home from camping in Bend, Oregon with my boyfriend, my boyfriend's friend and I, along with my family and family friends. When we got home we wanted to light off some fireworks, but we didn't have any. My boyfriend said he still had some at his house. My parents let me go, but with worry because it was the Fourth.
We made it to my boyfriend's house and started making "bombs," crushing firework powder and duct taping it like crazy. 10PM rolled around and we realized it was getting late so we headed out. We took the back roads to my house, which was all gravel. My boyfriend stopped so his friend could lock the hubs in so the back end of his Ranger wouldn't slide around as much. We turned off the music and started driving. I noticed his friend didn't have his seat belt on. I didn't say anything, because I knew I had no right to tell him to put it on. I didn't have mine on, but I was in the middle. Deep down, I still wanted it on.
After about two minutes of driving we started talking about his truck sliding around in the gravel. We were only going 20 MPH at the most when there were no corners. My boyfriend was saying that if his truck's back end slid out when he was going over 30, he'd lose control.
The windows were rolled down and we were enjoying a nice breeze. I started thinking about my seat belt again as we talked about losing control. Then we turned the corner and just like that, we lost control of the back end. I think my boyfriend was trying not to hit the bank, so he turned the wheel. We shot straight to the cliff on the side of the road. He turned to the right just to catch the back tire on the edge. I felt the brakes lock up and we slid a good 5 feet. I felt us stop, but it was to late. The back end slid off. Then I was being tossed around in the cab like a helpless bug in a jar.
I threw my hands up so I wouldn't crush my head on the roof of the cab. I felt my body being crushed, and my ribs slowly caving in. I couldn't breathe, and all I could think was "Oh God please forgive me!" I thought I was dying and it would never end. I felt helpless, and I was. It felt like a dream, a horrible painful, loud, long nightmare. We hit a tree and it stopped us. I sat there shaking, seeing nothing but dust and the glare from the headlights on the broken window.
My boyfriend started screaming and that's when I realized we had flipped. I was so shaken up, and he scared me so much, because he was screaming so loud and I thought he was hurt. I looked over at his friend and he was jumping out of the window. I got out, afraid that if I moved a muscle it would start rolling again. My boyfriend was the last to get out. I kept asking if he was ok and if his friend was ok, and they were. I did a body check on myself. I knew I was in shock because I couldn't feel a thing. I fell to the ground, wanting to cry, asking God why He would do this to us.
As we we climbed up the steep drop-off, I was talking to God, still asking why. When we got to the top and on the road, the lights on his truck were still on. My boyfriend fell to the ground on his back in the middle of the road, screaming. (It wasn't really his truck, it was his dad's truck.) I knew he was in shock, so I dropped to my knees and hugged him and told him we were all ok and it was going to be ok.
I got him out of the road and we started walking, trying to get a signal from his cell phone. About three minutes later, a truck drove up and we waved them down. They were the nicest people. They gave us a blanket and flash light and let us use their cell phone. My boyfriend's friend called my boyfriend's parents who made the call to my parents and so on. He was the calmest one and he kept me calm. I knew I had to be calm for my boyfriend. I couldn't freak out because I was his girlfriend and I'd make him feel even worse.
My dad came and picked me up and had us sit in his truck. I was so glad to be alive. My boyfriend's dad came and picked him and his friend up. On the way home I realized that it was a hard warning from God. It was the sign I had asked for. He had everything set just right so that if there was any little different move I might have made I wouldn't be here.
We rolled twice. We flipped in the air landing on all fours but we were going down hill sideways and that's what caused us to roll again. I could have sworn we rolled three times but it was only twice. It felt like it was never going to end. My boyfriend's friend said I was starting to go out the window and he caught me. My boyfriend watched us roll helplessly praying we would stop rolling. I still remember the sounds of everything being crushed, my boyfriend screaming and the trees hitting us on the way down, along with the flash of lights from the headlights.
We rolled between two trees, and if the back end or the front had hit either one of those trees it would have turned us around and we would have kept rolling, and me and his friend would have been thrown out of the truck. If it hadn't flipped in the air the first time, we wouldn't have flipped over two boulders which would have hit the cab and crushed us all. The air bag didn't go off. It comes out the steering wheel and all the way across to the passenger side. If that had gone off, it would have crushed me and pushed me out the back window.
There was a hole in the cab right above my head. Both sides of the truck were trashed. The window was broken on both sides but not the middle. The middle of the cab was perfect. Untouched. I was cut on both my knees from the shifter, and probably had whiplash, and a few cuts on my finger from getting up the hill. I also have a few scratches right under my eye and a little one over my eyebrow. My clothes were also untouched. My boyfriend had a little glass in his teeth and that was it. As for his friend, he didn't even get a scratch.
The next day we pulled the truck out and it still ran, but it was destroyed. My boyfriend's dad and mine could not believe we had on no seat belts, the windows rolled down, flipped it twice, was caught by a tree, didn't get thrown out, no one had broken anything in their body, we lived, and walked away 30 seconds after it was all said and done.
My dad says I saved those boys by crying God's name. I feel saved again. I'm looking at this as a new walk up the cliff. From now on, I'm going to trust God and hopefully become closer again and trust my feelings. I wanted my seat belt on, I should have asked my boyfriend to pull over and let me find it and I pray that this turns my boyfriend's and friend's relationship with God around and they start believing in him. I can only pray for now.
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• Jan. 8, 2006 - <i>Untitled Comment</i>
~*~*~*~
On behalf of Amber, thank you so much. I wish Amber were here right now so I could show her your comments. Unfortunately, she isn't, we are still having "problems" with her (for more details, come back to read the upcoming "Prodigal Child" post). We are hoping to get the situation remedied soon. Love conquers all!
Corinna
Edited by cyberscryber on Jan. 13, 2006 at 8:50 AM