Our Extraordinary Miracle
By
Mildred Eslick Garner
At about nine o’clock on the evening of May 19, 1999, I was with my daughter, Beverley Holzkamper, in her 1997 Dodge Caravan. We were traveling north on Oklahoma highway 59, near Watts, Oklahoma. We were communicating about the realities of our spiritual connection with the Lord as we crossed the Illinois River Bridge. Immediately after crossing the bridge we came around a slight curve in the road. We were traveling about sixty miles per hour.
We were about to meet an oncoming 1993 Ford Festiva, though at that time we could not see anything except the headlights, We also observed the cab lights on a tractor-trailer rig coming behind the car. About two seconds before we met the car, the driver of the rig decided to pass the small car so that the three vehicles were abreast in the highway at the exact same time.
As the truck advanced toward us Beverley braked and turned her van slightly to her right less than a second before the truck hit her rearview mirror. She did not have time to move her wheels off of the pavement and would have wrecked her car if she had.
As far as we could observe in the darkness the trucker went full speed ahead without slowing down after he passed us,
We continued on our way home praising and worshipping the Lord for a miracle that neither of us could explain. Yet we were anxious to know if the driver of the other car had come through the ordeal as fortunate as we had.
As soon as I arrived home I called my sister, Billie Hammers, who lives in Watts, to share our miracle and to tell her my concern for the other people that were involved. She glorified Yahweh with me and promised to let me know if she heard anything concerning the welfare of the passengers in the other car, which she did within minutes after we had ended our telephone conversation. When the telephone rang almost immediately, I was surprised to hear Billie exclaim excitedly, “Sis, do you still want to know who was driving the other car? She never waited for my affirmation, but quickly informed me that when her daughter Ellen and son-in-law Jesse Galvan arrived home with their two grandchildren, she met them outside with the news of our miracle and told them I did not know what had happened to the occupants of the other vehicle, but that I was deeply concerned. Ellen quickly replied, “I do, it was us.” This added information expanded the miracle far beyond what we had previously comprehended.
Ellen, the driver in the right lane going south, was unaware of the trucker’s decision to pass her and did not have time to pull her car over to her right, but held her position out of shock, which was the middle of her lane. However she did brake when she realized he was going around her car, she said she did it in an effort to prevent the 18-wheeler from catching her car under its back wheels as he whipped the rig back into the lane in front of her.
Ellen says she was also traveling at the speed limit. Both she and her husband affirmed that the trucker, who had just come off the hill, was traveling at near eighty miles an hour. After the trucker’s near death maneuver, Ellen sped up and attempted to follow him to get his tag number, but quickly lost sight of the rig, even though she quickly accelerated back up to the speed limit.
I am at a loss to explain by human calculation how the trucker went between the two automobiles at his high rate of speed, as the highway near the Illinois River Bridge is a skimpy two lanes. Both lanes together measure 24 ft. 8 in. wide and there are no shoulders on either side at that particular spot.
Ellen and Jesse testified that their car never left the center of their lane, and I know for sure the back wheels of the van that I was in had moved over only inches if any, by the time the truck was even with us. He passed us so swiftly that neither Beverley nor I had comprehended the full impact of what had happened until he had disappeared out of our sight. Neither of us had time to utter a sound other than she softly spoke the phrase, “Oh Lord.”
We checked her rearview mirror when we got home, the paint was scratched on the back, but the glass was not broken. Ellen’s car survived without making contact with the rig.
I asked my son-in-law, Henry Harless, who is an ex-truck driver that was raised in that particular vicinity what he estimated our chances of survival of the ordeal was without divine intervention his reply was, “Zilch.”
Since this unbelievable miracle happened I have walked in a spirit of awe and at frequent intervals I get goose pimples and cold chills run up and down my spine.
That the truck passed us on the pavement there is no doubt, and that our van and the other car stayed on the paved surface throughout the ordeal there is no doubt. The question that runs through my mind continually is, did the Lord shrink the truck, or widen the pavement to perform our life-saving miracle?
I am truly humbled by the knowledge that the Master of the universe felt concern enough for six souls of humble birth to give us such an outstanding deliverance. Not only did he rescue me, but also he spared the life of my darling daughter, Beverley Garner Holzkamper, my niece, Ellen Hammers Galvan and her husband Jesse, my nephew, and their little granddaughters, Shelby and Rebecca. I shall never forget to praise him for His goodness to us. He is alive!