A Close Call

The boys and I had a bit of a close call a couple of weeks ago.

It started out like any other day, with me trying to keep the boys quiet while Anthony finished work and the boys making as much noise as they possibly could. I made breakfast for the boys and as I sat down and picked up a slice of toast, Lachlan stopped me and said "Mummy! A prayer! A prayer!" 

If you have ever talked to Lachlan, you know that his words often sound like other words, so I had to make sure he was saying what I thought he was saying. "Are you saying you want to pray?"

"Yes! A prayer! A prayer!"

This isn't THAT strange a request from him, I mean, we usually pray before meals anyway, but this was the first time he had ever actually asked to say the prayer, let alone reminded me to pray, so I was a little surprised. I helped him say a prayer, and as always we asked Heavenly Father to keep us safe as we went on our walk and throughout the day. Little did I know how significant this moment would be.

We finished our breakfast and got ready for the day. Anthony helped me get the kids and the stroller down the stairs and the boys and I went off to enjoy our walk, while Anthony ran some errands of his own.

Now you have to understand, our stroller is BIG. Not only that, its BRIGHT! I purposely chose a bright colored stroller so that it would be easy to spot.

These pictures weren't taken on the day, but seriously... you can't miss this stroller!

Anyway, so a few minutes into our walk, we were on the busy, main road that our apartment complex is on. We stopped before crossing over one of the side streets. I am a touch paranoid when it comes to my kid's safety, so I am overcautious when crossing roads. There was a car stopped, waiting to turn onto the main road, but being that it was 9am, the traffic was pretty heavy. He was stopped pretty far back from the road and the traffic wasn't letting up. Being that there was no break in the traffic for him to turn, I determined that it was safe and started to cross the road. When I got about a third of the way across the road, I saw out of the corner of my eye that he had accelerated! Without even a second to react, I started running backwards and pulling the stroller with me. The seconds that followed seemed to slow down and I watched as this guy accelerated at a dangerous speed and hit my stroller! Thankfully, because I moved so fast and because of the backwards motion, the car only clipped the front point of the stroller and the kids barely felt a jolt, but I literally saw my life flash before my eyes! I saw the exact moment that the driver realised that we were there, literally the second that his car impacted with the stroller. 

Realising that my kids could have just been killed, I freaked out. I checked that they were okay and then the crazy mama bear came out of me and I started screaming and waving an arm in the air at him. He sat there for about a minute and then finally got out of his car. 

I kid you not, he insisted that he didn't see me or my stroller! You know, that giant, bright teal stroller? Yeah, he totally missed it.

I asked how he could have possibly missed it and pointed out that it was not only a rather cumbersome stroller, but it was bright freaking teal! 

He went on to tell me that he didn't look. He said "I didn't see you because I didn't look. I forgot to look".

Forgot to look. He almost killed my kids because he FORGOT TO LOOK!

At this point, I was still yelling at him, I asked how if he even had a driver's license and if he did, how could he possibly forget to check if it was safe to turn onto a busy freaking road?

What he said next was the real kicker: "I forgot to look because i was watching that other boy..."

(The "other boy" was a grown man that was walking towards us from the other direction when this all happened). Yes, you read that right, this man almost took the lives of my two beautiful boys because he was too busy watching someone walk down the street!

I kept yelling, "how could you be so distracted... What the hell?... You could have killed my kids... What is wrong with you?..." It was like I wasn't in my own body, I could see myself yelling at him and was telling myself to stop. This poor man was so distressed by the situation and I was letting the crazy mama bear take over!

I took a breath and pointed out the fact that there was no break in the traffic and that it wouldn't have been safe for him to go, even if we weren't there.

This was the intersection. The car was stopped a couple feet back from the line on the left. I was at roughly about the third line on the crossing when I noticed him accelerating.

Now that I had stopped yelling, he asked if the boys were okay, I said that thankfully, they were and he turned to Lachlan and said "Are you hurt?"

Lachlan's face lit up at the fact that the man was talking to him and he excitedly said "YEAH!" and laughed. Of course the guy paled so I reassured him that they were perfectly fine. 

He started apologising and showed me a picture of his daughter on his phone and said that he would never mean to hurt my kids, he has a daughter of his own. 

We once again checked and double checked that the kids were okay and that the stroller wasn't damaged and he offered up his information in case I needed anything. I was still furious and totally shaken up, but felt horrible for yelling at him the way that I did. By now, all I could bring myself to say to him was "You know what you need to do, you need to go home, kiss your daughter and hold her tight, because if we hadn't been here to stop you from turning onto that road, you could have been killed". 

And with that, I walked off. I couldn't stand there a moment longer, I was holding back tears and just had to get out of there.

All day, all I could think about was how bad it could have gone. If I hadn't reacted as quickly as I had and pulled the stroller back, he would have t-boned the stroller on the side that Kennen was on. At the rate he was accelerating, he would have killed Ken and most likely, the impact would have thrown the stroller into the traffic. If we hadn't been there, he would have driven right into the traffic and caused a major accident, which could have killed himself and people in other cars too.

Then I realised, I shouldn't be dwelling on what could have happened, but be thankful that it went down the way it did.

I have no doubt that we were right where we were meant to be at that very moment and that our Heavenly Father was protecting us. I truly believe that Lachlan was prompted to remind me to pray that morning for a reason and that that little prayer made all the difference. 

I am so thankful that everything went down the way it did. I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for protecting me and my sweet boys that day and I am thankful for that little prayer that we said together that morning and for my testimony being strengthened by everything that happened that day.

This sweet lady was across the road at the bus stop and watched the whole thing happen. After I walked off, she shouted out to me to ask if I was okay and later that day, when the boys and I were walking to the store, we happened to walk past her again. She stopped us and asked how we were and said that she couldn't believe how fast he accelerated and that she didn't understand why he was driving so fast into traffic. She said that her heart stopped when it happened and she still didn't know how we got away!