In today's witness, I am reading a Facebook message from a mother who got the call no parent ever wants to get. A call from a police deputy saying there had been an accident. This witness is about the miraculous way her son was found and a bit of his journey up until now. God is so good! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Today I will read a Facebook message from a mom whose son was in an accident. I do not know this family personally. One of my Big Life sisters does, and so she asked for prayers on our mentoring page and kept us updated. There were so many people praying for this young man. This mom’s name is Megan, and she got that phone call that no one wants to receive. That phone call where the sheriff says those four words that change your life forever, “There’s been an accident.” I will probably do another Witness Wednesday on this family later, as there have been so many miracles going on. God has definitely been showing off for this boy and His family. Today’s miracle is about how he was discovered and how if it weren’t for his phone, he wouldn’t be alive today. It’s crazy to me that God even works through cell phones. I will let her explain what happened.
If there is one thing that I want people to know about Creighton’s accident, it is about the importance of having crash detection on your phone. We can say with great certainty that, without crash detection, my son wouldn’t be alive today.
On June 30th, my 17-year-old son was in a rollover accident while driving back to town to go to work. He was driving on a quiet, rural highway in the dark hours of the morning when the accident happened. I got the call a little after 6:00 am from the Sumner County Deputy. The first thing she asked me when I answered the phone was to identify which person in my home drove a red truck. After I told her it was my son Creighton, she said, “You need to get to St. Francis Hospital as soon as possible. He’s been in a rollover accident.” That was the longest 25-minute drive of my life, not knowing what condition he would be in when I got there, only going off the knowledge that I had to identify him, meaning he wasn’t consciously able to tell them who he was on the scene.
When we got to the hospital, we were met at the ER doors by a chaplain. He told us that Creighton was alive (and I finally exhaled for the first time since my phone rang that morning) but that he was in critical condition and they were working on him in the Trauma ICU. He walked us to a room to wait for more information while his medical team worked to stabilize him.
While we were waiting for an update, I was contacted by a Sheriff who was on the scene, letting me know that his team of responders were all thinking of us. Desperate for any sort of information, I had my brother-in-law call him to ask about the details of the accident. He told us that the call came in at 5:18 that morning. He detailed for us their assessment of the scene. They believe Creighton’s car swerved off the road into an embankment, causing his truck to become airborne, rolling end over end when it came back down and ejecting him from the vehicle at some point in the collision. His body was found about 60 feet from his truck. He told us that Creighton was extremely hypoxic when the responders got to him, and he had to be intubated in the field. Over the next few hours, he remained in contact with us. We gave him updates, and he sent us pictures of the truck. We eventually asked the sheriff who called in the accident. He said, “Your son’s phone called 911. He has crash detection on his phone. It detected the accident and called us. When he didn’t respond to us, we dispatched to his location.” We were told that, with where he was in the ditch, it would’ve been difficult for anyone driving by to see him. When they arrived on the scene, the sun was just now coming up. There was little to no traffic and no good samaritans that had found him yet. He was alone and barely alive. Had his phone not had crash detection on it, Creighton wouldn’t still be here.
His injuries are extensive, and he has a long road to recovery. Once he is more stable and off the ventilator, we will travel with him to Madonna Rehab in Nebraska, where he will spend a couple of months in rehabilitation for his brain and spinal cord injuries. We have a positive outlook for his recovery, and he’s already shown us how much of a fighter he is. As heart-wrenching as it is to watch your child fight for their life, I am indescribably thankful that he still gets the chance to fight.
Please share his story and make others aware of the benefits of having crash detection on your phone. Newer versions of the iPhone (I was told it is iPhone 14 and newer) have this feature built into the phone. There are also apps, like Life360, where you can pay a small fee every month to add crash detection to all of your family’s phones. I hope you never need to use it, but if you or your loved one were ever to have an accident, I can promise you will be forever grateful for how quickly they are able to get help.
Wow, what a story. Thank the good Lord above that he had crash detection on his phone. Not only was it an option, but it was turned on. God is so good. This accident happened on June 30th, and I saw on the Facebook page that Creighton is now home! Praise God! The Facebook post that says he is home was from September 27th. So, almost 3 months later, he finally gets to come home. There were so many moments of uncertainty if that day would ever come—so many times when it was one step forward and 3 steps back. However, thanks be to God, Megan has all five of her children under the same roof again! It doesn’t look the same as it did before the accident, but she said having them all under the same roof will be something she never takes for granted again! If you want to read more about this young man’s journey, there is a Facebook page with all the posts about him. If you put in the search bar #creightonstrong, you will see all the posts. I am grateful to the mom for sharing her story. Who knows how many other children she can save by informing parents about crash detection? It was not something I had ever heard of before. Thank you to Megan for sharing this story, and thank you to Jenni, who shared it with the Big Life family so we could all cover this family in prayers. You can certainly see God’s fingerprints all over this situation.