AMAZING STORY
Simple Mistake Results in Car Crushing Driver
By Audra Smith Haney
The 700 Club
CBN.com -“I couldn’t breathe at all,” Rachel Kelley said. “I knew in that moment, ‘I’m going to die in my own driveway, while my family’s inside the house.’”
In May 2009, Rachel Kelley was preparing to celebrate Mother’s Day. She had just given birth to her second child, two months earlier. On a normal afternoon, she drove to town to buy her own mother a gift. When she returned home, her life flashed before her eyes.
“Our driveway’s on this side of the house and it’s a little bit sloped,” Rachel said. “and just being in a hurry, you know, rushing around all the time, and I didn’t put the car into park. And so I got out and it kept rolling.”
In a matter of seconds, Rachel’s upper body was crushed between her still rolling car and her husband’s vehicle.
“All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe,” Rachel said. “And, it was almost like with every breath that I took, the car would like just small centimeters; just take that much more of like my lung capacity. I just knew in that moment that I was suffocating. I was basically, I think, the only thing keeping the cars from just totally colliding, or I was the only thing keeping my car from just going on into the street.”
Because of the way she was positioned, Rachel could reach the steering wheel.
“A voice came into my head, and I know that that was just the Lord: ‘Lay on the horn.’ It was that clear.”
Rachel’s husband, Michael, was watching the children and ran outside when he heard the horn.
“To see my wife suffocating like that,” Michael said, “right before my eyes, and knowing that, ‘okay, it’s my responsibility to get this car off of her or I’ll lose her.’”
Because of the downhill angle of the car, Michael was unable to move it in his own strength. In desperation, he prayed for help to arrive.
“‘God, You’ve given me a wonderful wife and two wonderful kids, you know, don’t take her away from me right now.’ Michael said. “I just knew that was the time for her to go.”
At the same time, Keith Strafford heard the chaos from down the street.
“I heard someone start yelling, ‘help!’” Keith said. “It looked pretty bad because—I saw how the cars were sitting, you know, just kind of wedged in there together. Just the look on her face and just like, ‘you got to get this thing off of me, you know, I could die.’”
Rachel also cried out to God for help. “You know all these things can go through your mind in a matter of moments. ‘Oh Lord, You’ve got to help me. You have to save me. This can’t be the way I’m going to go .I have to be here to raise my children. I have to be here to be a wife to Michael,’” Rachel said.
More help arrived just seconds later, through a couple who happened to take a different route home that day. The four were able to move the car together. Paramedics arrived shortly after and took Rachel to a local hospital. Because she had thousands of pounds of pressure on her upper torso for several minutes, Rachel’s doctor decided to life-flight her to Vanderbilt University, in case of major liver damage and internal bleeding.
“In that moment as I was being wheeled out into the helicopter I thought, ‘I don’t know if I’ll see my husband and kids again. But, I know that God is here with me. He’s here in this helicopter with me,’” Rachel said. “I knew that I was saved. I knew that the Holy Spirit was guiding me. I knew that Jesus was with me. If I don’t end up coming back, I thought, ‘I know where I’m going.’”
As news of Rachel’s accident spread, people all over the country started praying for her survival and healing. “The body of Christ coming together to help other people, really encouraged us,” Michael said.
Rachel was kept overnight in Vanderbilt’s Intensive Trauma Unit. After running a battery of tests, doctors were shocked to discover that Rachel didn’t have a single broken bone, trauma to her upper torso or lungs, or any internal bleeding. She was released the next morning without needing surgery or any further treatments.
“The power of prayer and people lifting her up in prayer,” Michael said, “I know that’s why she walked away from Vanderbilt hospital; healed. Truly healed.”
“I think it really boosts your faith that God really does work all things together for your good,” Rachel said. “He worked things from all sorts of different angles that day.”
Today, Rachel is still healthy and the couple now has four children. They say the incident helps them be thankful for each day God gives them and to live for what’s important.
“I think it is just so easy to just get caught up in complaining in day-to-day routine activities, maybe especially for stay at home moms or any kind of mom that is just worn out,” Rachel said. “I saw how quick you can go, and it can be at any moment. It can happen in the blink of an eye. It’s absolutely the most important thing in life is, where you’ll spend your eternity.”
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