IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND

On the rainy morning of October 6, 2010 I was up early to walk around 5a.m. and saw that my daughter, Vanessa, had left a message. I called her back and don't even remember what the original conversaton was about. I got on my rain gear and went out to walk in the rain (which I really enjoy). At approximately 5:15 I got another call from Vanessa. She said, "Daddy, I've been in a bad car accident. I'm okay, but I think my hand is broken and they are taking me in an ambulance."

That was the scariest call I have ever gotten from one of my children and could have been the worst call of my life if anyone but my daughter herself had been making the call. I finished my walk and got showered and went on to the office in Talega, where I started looking for flights to Morgantown for my wife, Vera. About 8am I got a call from Vanessa's department chairman telling me that she had rolled her Tahoe on the wet interstate highway 4 times and landed right-side-up with only a broken hand and severe abrasions of the back of her hand and badly shaken. As the morning went on I received more information.

Vanessa had been driving on a rainy road on the way to work. As she neared her exit and was about ready to go over the last little hill before the exit to WVU, she heard her phone ring and reached to answer it. By the time she looked back up she had cleared the top of the hill to see that all the traffic was stopped dead in the exiting right lane. She swerved to the left to miss the backed up cars and then was heading for the median (which in WVA is a deep ditch) and then cut her wheel back to the right to try to stay out of the ditch. The sudden turn caused the Tahoe to roll down the freeway on the driver's side first and then over 3 more times landing on all four wheels.

To survive that accident took an act of God, a lot of Irish luck and the roll bar which Tahoes have above and behind the front seats. Seeing the photo of her car in the towing garage and then seeing her car in person days later was a life changing experience. Most of the windows had been blown out, the front windshield shattered and the passenger side severely crunched down (lucky no passenger). Her door was wedged into the jam and hand to be removed with Jaws of Life before they could get her out.

I was so shocked by the event that it took about 4 hours before I really began to consider that her call at 5am could have been the last call I ever received from her, and later that evening when I was looking for a photo of her to send to friends with the pictures from the day, I realized that I could have been looking for photos of her to do her memorial service.

She is now doing much better and the hand is healing slowly but nicely. We found another Tahoe to put her back in the same kind of car that saved her life. We are now all driving very carefully and cautiously and have all pledged that ""driving" will be the only thing we do when

driving.

It only takes a second to lose one's life. No phone call is that important!!!!!