We had a small amount of snow Wednesday night on top of ice. It took Joe 2 hours 15 minutes to get to work(this is the route I usually take too). Before I got on the highway I spoke to 2 friends who travel on 270 every morning also. They told me traffic was totally not moving so I decided to take the Alton bridge instead. There wasn't any traffic and the roads were not too bad until i crossed into Missouri and turned onto Lindberg. Right away I could tell that this four lane road had been left completely untreated. I drove as cautiously as possible allowing plenty of stopping distance etc. I noticed this red car behind me who seemed to be following my lead. We travel a mile or two, white knuckling it all the way. We were literally driving on a continuous sheet of ice. As I was in the right hand lane the red car mysteriously all of a sudden decided to pass me. He was on my left side and just as he was completely parallel to me he started to fish tail on the ice. Immediately I knew he and I were in trouble. His car turned toward mine and the front of his car was positioned as if it was one side i\of a triangle and my front end was the base. Remember , we were both on ice!! Out of nowhere, I started saying "Jesus protect me" over and over! I gripped the wheel and pumped my brakes but of course nothing was happening except I kept sliding! The man's car turned completely in front of my car still literally only about a foot in front of me( we were still not touching). His car then turned toward me as I was still saying "Jesus protect me." We were hood to hood sliding toward each other when all of a sudden his car shot away from mine as if some force pushed us apart. We both went off the side of the road right into a revene that was almost like a 100 yd driveway. His car went backwards down the "driveway" and mine followed him still facing forward. He went down about 30 feet and I went about 10 feet. My heart was in my throat and I completely felt the presence of God and/or angels! There was no way we made it through that without crashing into each other! When the fire and police arrived they discovered zero injures but two vehicles completely off the road. They called a tow truck for both of us thinking at first that it would not be possible to get our cars out without one. But, after waiting a while the officer said he wanted to try to drive me out and with a lot of forward and backwards and turning back and forth I was up on the ice covered shoulder again. My car was fine my heart still hurt!
While waiting for the police to arrive I took a few pics of the other car in reference to the road. If we had started sliding just ten feet further on Lindberg we would have went off the road and encountered a 20 foot slope/dropoff. I am not sure I would have survived to tell the story. If I had died at least my last words on this earth would have been great ones to end my life with. It was not my time and no matter what others may think I know that I was in the presence of God especially when our cars pushed away from each other when we were sliding on ice towards each other! I guess I needed God to prove to me that when I need him he is there but he will decide when the time is right to intervene!
Multiple times everyday since then I have thought about my experience and it both makes me happy and scares me! Happy because I felt Gods presence and scared because I could have died or been severely injured and my boys would be without me! I am so glad Thursday was not my day!
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