Whew! That was close!

Butler Courthouse

When I started the blog, my idea was to keep a running record of our travel adventures. This was to help us remember all the details and share our experiences with family and close friends. We haven’t been traveling much in 2024 for many reasons, a few health things and some debate about where to go next.

We did head to Texas for a week for Bob to complete some training as a Corvette show judge and ate some awesome Tex/Mex food, but no great adventures. I went to Bremerton Washington for two weeks to visit my brother Ron, SIL Sharon and my incredible nephew David and niece Chrissy. Chrissy always reminds me to enjoy life as it comes, a skill I continue to try to emulate. (Not easy for a type A control freak)

Our annual trek to Carlisle PA is something I have blogged about before, and I didn’t intend to add anything this time. But then. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The purpose of the trip to Carlisle is to attend the Corvette show, which happens late in August each year. Bob likes to wander through the many displays of old and new car parts, looking for treasure, and loves the opportunity to see what Corvette has in store for the future. I tend to hang out in whatever rental or hotel we can find (book as soon as possible the year before or you won’t find anything within 30 miles). This year was a bit of a challenge as the Airbnb that we usually get, for $83 night, cancelled us a few weeks before the event. The owner told me they had sold the house, and it was no longer listed, so I was afraid we might not be able to find a place. I checked each day and finally found a room in the Carlisle House B&B.

Any rental or hotel in Carlisle raises their rates during the Carlisle car shows. Can’t blame them, the events are very popular and there is money to be made. So we went from $83 per night to $240 per night, but we had stayed at the Carlisle House in the past. In fact, when I first decided to go back to school to get my BSN, we rented a room at this B&B and I began my Biology class by stringing various fruits to make DNA chains and sending the pictures in for credit.

But before we went to Carlisle, we made a stop in Butler Pennsylvania, to visit Kenny, Jamie and our grandkids, Cameron and Brandon, who live in Chicora Pa, about 20 minutes north of Butler. Earlier this year, Bob and I decided that the storage unit we rented to keep our overflow of ‘treasures’ was becoming too expensive. And Kenny and Jamie had just bought their first house, which included a barn like storage unit that Bob promptly talked them into letting him use. Since all the ‘treasures’ Bob has accumulated over many years will belong to Kenny someday, this seemed like a good solution to cutting an expense. So after  considerable difficulty (which I won’t go into) we managed to clean out the unit in Norfolk and move everything to Chicora. The final move happened with a hired moving company, arriving late at night, and the goods were summarily dumped on pallets with no rhyme or reason, and Bob wanted to spend several days organizing.

We decided to take Penny, who gets around 32 miles per gallon on trips, rather than Shadowfax, who gets about 8. We had a reservation at a Marriott in Butler that we’ve stayed in before. The trip up was uneventful, Bob and Kenny reorganized the ‘treasures’ and we had a nice dinner at Rachel’s Roadhouse, where Brandon works while he attends Butler Community College. The next day, our last before making our way to Carlisle, we went to McKees Rocks to visit Cameron, who works in marketing and lives with friends and two happy canines in a cute house there. It’s about an hour from Butler, and it was a very nice day for the drive.

On our way home, we learned that Brandon, who was out with some friends was in a car behind us. I was driving (I love driving Penny) and we were about 20 minutes from the restaurant we had picked for dinner. I will let the video speak for itself.

In retrospect, I really did not react in any way to the disaster unfolding before me. By the time I realized the danger we were in, we had driven through it. It appeared as though the two vehicles involved parted like the Red Sea. Had I turned the wheel in any way to avoid it, I think we would have been in big trouble. One vehicle was a truck, loaded with lumber, and the other was a mid-size SUV, either of which would have been a big problem for fiberglass Penny, even as Bob says she has a sturdy aluminum cage surrounding us. Because the scene was instantly strewn with broken glass, car parts and lumber, I was sure that Penny would be banged up and probably with two flat front tires.

After pulling over, our first thought was for the driver of the SUV, which had run off the road and into a field. All the air bags had deployed, and the woman driver who was wearing her seat belt, was unconscious. Bob shut off the car, and while others called 911, I monitored her pulse and breathing, trying to assure her we were getting help. Her phone was under her feet on the floor, so we used the facial recognition function to find her husband in her contacts and let him know what had happened. He was working about an hour away, and told us that she had been just a few miles from getting home where this accident occurred. Another young lady came over to help and wanted to try to move the driver, but we nixed that plan. I was very concerned about the position of the driver’s neck, and it was pretty clear that aside from the airbag and seatbelt contusions, she had broken her lower leg in the crash.

The fire department, police and an ambulance arrived, and they cut through doors and other metal to get the driver out. Her son and his girlfriend arrived, shocked and terrified. The truck driver had gone about a quarter mile from the scene before pulling off the road, and both vehicles were badly damaged, but the truck driver didn’t have any serious injuries.   

A very nice thing about Penny is that she records everything as we drive. I never remember this, and since I usually talk out loud to myself as I drive, I just hope no one will ever play back my trips. But in this case it was a great thing. It turned out that the owner of the truck involved in the crash belonged to another driver in a truck just ahead of him. He was pretty convinced that the lady in the SUV was at fault, but our video showed that the truck driver was in the wrong lane and hit the SUV going pretty fast. Distracted, I guess. We were able to provide the video to the police, the family of the SUV driver, and the owner of the truck.

What truly struck me, as we played the video over and over for the police, is not only that I never reacted other than to decelerate, but as I pulled over, I heard a voice say ‘Jesus Christ!’ Everyone thinks that was me, but I don’t think so. That was my mother’s favorite exclamation when something went surprisingly wrong, and it sure sounded like her. She passed away in 2013, and I am pretty sure she was doing the driving. In a near miracle, Penny sustained virtually no damage at all. Bob said he saw what might be a few scratches on her undercarriage, but those could have been from anything.

As you might imagine, we have looked at the video countless times, mostly to marvel at how lucky we were. The next day, Bob was able to find the accident report online and the SUV driver had been transported to the hospital under Advanced Life Support protocol, and I do fear that her neck may have been broken. But we scanned the Butler obituaries for the following week and didn’t see her name, so I hope modern medicine was able to put her back together.

Our visit to Carlisle was like any other, but we were both exceptionally cautious drivers, and I, at least, suffered from some PTSD whenever anyone got close to us. Bob enjoyed perusing car parts, we got to see some beautiful cars, drove in the Corvette parade, and made it home safely.

Things like this remind me how life can change in a second. Our thoughts continue to be hopeful for the SUV driver, and grateful for whatever good fortune was with us. Brandon, who also stopped, said he thought we had also been hit, and said a prayer for us, which I’m sure helped. I guess it just wasn’t our time yet.