Highway Angel

While in college, I was travelling home from Dallas to Houston, after having picked up my sister for the summer holidays. Usually I travelled by myself but this time I had also invited a friend to make the journey with me. Anyway, it was night time and raining and we were travelling at 65mph when a motorist behind started tailgating me with his lights on high beam. He obviously wanted me to move over to the next right hand lane, which was for slower traffic. I indicated to move into the slower lane, and as I was starting to make the turn, the motorist behind me suddenly also turned into the right hand lane. This caused me to have to veer back into the left lane. I over adjusted and ended up driving off the tarmac onto the grass median separating the southbound and northbound highways.

Since I was travelling at a high speed and the grass was damp from the rain, the car started skidding. I remember panicking and thinking that we were going to die, because the car was beginning to skid out of control, when I heard a voice from my friend which said "Calm down everything will be okay". In that split second a great calm came over me and I remembered what my dad had told me when he was teaching me how to drive. "Always steer into the direction you are skidding". I did this and was able to bring the car to a halt, but only after we had skidded across three lanes of highway! We were heading southbound to Houston but when we came to a stop the car was facing northbound towards Dallas.

The amazing thing was that we missed all the concrete barriers and signs etc that were on the median. We cleared three lanes of traffic with out hitting anyone on a very busy highway, and we came out alive! We were sitting in the car for a minute or so when a convoy of 18-wheelers sped by us. All three of us could not believe our luck. When we headed back to Houston, not three minutes had gone by when the song with the words " From a distance God is watching you" by Bette Midler started playing on the radio. Years later when I talk to my friend about the incident he does not recall saying to me "Stay calm everything's going to be alright," because he truly believed that we were going to die that day. His whole life had flashed before his eyes. I truly believe it was my Guardian Angel that saved us that day.

Nigel Chicksen

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