Crash Photos

I struggle a little with posting this, because I don't want to seem macabre.  Since no one got hurt though, please look at them as a testimony to God's grace, holding us in His hand even as everything seemed out of control.  We are so aware of the many, many ways that this could have been infinitely worse- including the fact that no other vehicles were involved.


So, here goes.  
I don't have any pictures from the scene, no camera handy.  Some were taken though, by a passerby using his phone.  They are probably on Facebook somewhere with the heading - "Can you believe a family of 6 walked away from this unhurt?!"  Picture, if you will, our truck lying on the driver's side with the hood against the guardrail.  The camper trailer was lying on its side as well, across the highway, which was two lanes wide.  There were several close calls as cars came up and almost drove straight into it, until we turned our headlights back on.  (Someone helping us had turned off the engine which was still running and thought the lights would blind motorists, so turned them off.  Bad idea.) We got some flares going after that but it was the scariest part for the kids as we were sitting on the grass watching that!  One stopped on a dime in front of it and another went past it in the grass at the last second!  I prayed sooo loud for those few moments!


After everything was righted and towed they swept up all of our belongings from the road, along with the glass and the rearview mirror and extenders from the driver's side, which had been sheared off.  They put it all into the cover from the propane tanks.  (The tanks were tossed into the median in case they were leaking).  This is what you could see on the highway 18 hours later:

Nothing.
We found a broken plate, which was in the back of the truck with some cupcakes on it, a tomatillo, and a wad of silly bands (of course!)  
Because of God's grace none of the items in the back of the truck walloped DS in the head, not even a cupcake.  We had the plate, some apples and other stuff from a farmer's market, a case of water and a stroller in there. 
When we came to a stop he said, "Mom, the window's broken."  
Yup.  Lots of things are broken.
But no one is hurt.

None of that glass hurt him and he had no road rash.
This is what that bottom side looked like:  

 

You can see from the scratch patterns that the truck slid in two directions, although I guess the vertical ones might be from when they righted it and it scraped along the guardrail.  The guardrail blocked part of the sunroof but we still managed to squeeze out.  DH went straight to check the fuel lines and I had to get each older kid out one by one before I could get to the little one.  They had changed into their pajamas, but the little ones still had shoes on so no one was hurt walking over the glass.  What a bizarre feeling, letting my 3 year old out of a seat that had her dangling from the "top" of the car, then walking her over to the sunroof and handing her to a stranger.  You can see her car seat in the window.  I can not even imagine now how I was walking around inside the truck in that condition.

The only thing I took out of the car with me was my purse, because I could smell gas and thought it would be inconvenient if it all went up in smoke.  Later one of the men who stopped went back for my phone which had slipped out of the pocket.

What gets me is the other side of the truck.

Look at this:

If you look about halfway down the edge of the camper, you can see the imprint of where the tire of the truck hit the camper.  The top edge of the camper has to be what dented the truck door (which will not open).  Yet none of us remembers hearing or feeling this impact.  It had to have happened when we jackknifed.  And the camper had to have been turned almost all the way over on that side at the time, yet it landed on its other side at the end.  So, that's about a 175 degree flop over.  I do not know when there was time for this to have happened!!
All in all, the truck looks good, and the roof didn't crush.  It makes a good argument for getting another truck instead of a minivan, since it held up so well in this.  It kept us all safe.

But the camper did flop to the other side, which now looks like this:

The slide out had popped out partway.  Every cabinet on the inside popped open and dumped its contents onto this side, so that food, books and clothes were in the street.  Not a scrap was left in the cupboards.  Silverware was behind the couch and a can of cocoa powder over the window.  What a mess!  There's also a storage compartment on that side so Todd's toolbox was shattered and contents all over the road too.  But we had taken every item of value to the house in NY the week before, so none of this was too important.

This last picture was taken after we sorted it all out.  See how the fridge is sort of popping out from the wall?  it didn't come open, which probably saved a huge mess!  I can not imagine the noise of all of this, but I did hear the sound of the camper crashing after our truck had stopped.  I had a second to wonder whether it was going to stay upright before *Bang*!  it landed.  What a feeling.  My printer was under the dining area seat in a compartment with, off all things, a pumpkin.  The pumpkin was wrapped in a sleeping bag (don't ask).  Neither the pumpkin nor the printer appears any worse for the wear, but I can't test the printer because were out of black ink and it won't speak to me.  So the jury is out on that one.

I few closing thoughts.  First, a reminder of what all this looked like last month:

And this, just to brighten your thoughts:

Maybe soon I will get back to blogging about school.  Funny, a few weeks ago I wanted something more out of the ordinary than school stuff to blog about...