In my last Miracles blog post, I talked about my dad surviving his two massive heart attacks. That wasn’t the only miracle that happened at that time. That weekend my two girls, ages 21 and 16, and their friend went to go to a concert in Billings, Montana. They chose that location – a 9-hour drive – in order to save a couple hundred dollars on the same concert here. It had the added benefit of adventure at this location as well, since they had never been to Montana. The concert was set for Saturday evening so they left Friday night, checked into the hotel, and had a fantastic time at the concert the next evening.

When they got back to the hotel, they found that the hotel was broken into. There was glass everywhere. They had a very bad feeling about staying so they made the decision to just come home. They called me and let me know what their plan was – they were coming home and would trade off driving so that they could be safe. I didn’t really like the plan and encouraged them to find a different hotel but I think the break-in really freaked them out and they wanted to leave.

At 4:30 in the morning, I received a phone call from my oldest daughter. She said they had hit a deer. She said they were all safe and told me the story of what had happened. She was really trying to stay calm but was struggling. They were about an hour south of Bozeman, traveling on a winding mountain highway. On this particular stretch, they had a steep dropoff on one side. As they were coming out of a curve, they noticed a deer in the road but they were too close to it to avoid hitting it without putting themselves in more danger with the dropoff. They had no cell service and being the middle of the night, they were pretty much alone on the road.

The car was still running so they hobbled along the road for 10 minutes until they reached a gas station, which was closed. This was when they called me. At this point, they didn’t know what to do. I advised them to call 911 so that they could have a police officer make sure they were ok and advise them on what to do with the car. The nearest police officer was in Bozeman, an hour away. Unfortunately, when he got there he wasn’t much help, but he did confirm that the radiator was still attached and that the car seemed to be running OK. Given that bit of information, I told them to go ahead and slowly drive it to Pocatello, where my sister and I would meet them and then I would finish driving the car home. My sister would follow to make sure we weren’t stranded. It may not have been the best advice but it worked!

The car made it all the way home – it was a long drive because we had to take it really slow. I kept praying that the hood wouldn’t blow off and hit the windshield. There were all kinds of warning lights flashing but the oil and temperature gauges held steady. We were so so glad to be home! We had our mechanic come out and see if he thought it would be totaled or not – he pretty much gave it 50/50 just based on what he could see on the surface. We went ahead and took it to the body shop to see about getting it fixed. When we went back the next day to see about the evaluation, the lady said, “I want to show you something.” She then showed us the car and pointed out several things. While the radiator was still attached, it was just barely there. Worse, she pointed out the battery. She said she didn’t even know how the car ran at all since the battery exploded upon impact. There was battery acid all over the engine. She said the car should not have functioned at all. And it drove 8 hours to get us home.

So crazy. Do I believe in miracles? Absolutely.

And by the way, the car was totaled, much to my daughter’s despair. She really loved that car. I’m just grateful it made it home and that nobody was hurt.