eMail #1 - June 9th, 2000

Many of you know Jill was involved in a car accident this morning.  I thought I'd pass on to you the facts and what I know so far.  I apologize for the length.

First off, both she, the girls and our unborn baby are fine.  That's the first and foremost thing.

Jill left this morning to go to her 37 week OB appointment.  She was running a little behind.  An interesting note: as they were leaving our neighborhood, Lydia (our 2.5 yr old) said "We were in a car accident".  Jill told her that's not what we should talk about - rather that God would keep us safe on our journey.  As it turns out, they were both right.  Just south of Carnation, the town closest to us, Jill was approaching a curve in the road at between 50 & 55 mph.  She was going to call her OB to tell them she was running late.  Her tire slipped off the right side of the road just as she was going around the corner.  She compensated, but on the slick road swerved into the oncoming lane.  Interesting note: even though there were lots of cars on 203 that day, at THAT moment, there were none in the oncoming lane - or Jill would've been killed.   She swerved back to her lane, but the van went right over the embankment.

The big Astro van rolled twice, it appears, slid on its drivers side and slammed into a tree.  The slide tore up the drivers side very badly and Jill's long blonde hair was pulled back.  When the car stopped, her head was at an awkward angle, her hair stuck between the van and the ground.  The first person on the scene was an OB nurse for Swedish Hospital, late for her shift.  She rushed down and found the girls crying and Jill non-responsive.

She got Jill to respond and a teenage boy climbed into the van to repeat Jill's weak words.  The first person, Karen I think, got some men to cut the straps on the girls car seats and got them out.  There was a lot of blood. Other's lifted the van enough to pull Jill's hair out - she was willing to have them cut it off.  Karen brought the girls to her car where she had some coloring books so they wouldn't have to watch the extraction.

It took 45 minutes to extract Jill.  She was in labor.  They had to peel the top of the van off of her.  It's actually a good thing its an older van without air bags.  Her seat bent her forward and the steering wheel was pushed into her belly - an air bag might've damaged her more.  They took polaroids - the van is really destroyed.  Interesting note: we were going to move Maranda's car seat into the back bench to make room for the infant car seat - the back section of the van was completely destroyed and she would've been critically wounded or worse had she been back there.  One funny thing - we've spent so much money trying to get that Van to keep running and after the accident, guess what - it was still running.  Jill had to physically turn the engine off.  It's probably the only thing left of any value.

Jill was life-flighted to the hospital in one helicopter, the girls in another.  Lydia was much more injured than Maranda.  So many friends rallied - I have many of you on this list to thank!  Our pastor rushed over to the Hospital and got a hold of my project leader who found me in Anchorage and found the next flight out for me!  Our friends the Castro's and the Martin's dropped everything and came to the Hospital as well.

Everyone had a nice round of X-rays and Cat-scans.  Jill was transported to another Hospital because of her contractions - they eventually subsided.

Here is the current status of each person:

Jill: At UW Hospital tonight for observation.  She's pretty banged up.  Her left leg is kind-of chewed up, her left arm is bruised with minor lacerations, her left shoulder has numerous large bruises and abrasions, her left side has "rug-burn" type markings and the left side of her head, above her ear, has a long shallow abrasion.  The back of neck hurts (understandably!).  She has minor nicks and cuts from the large amount of glass.  She's obviously very sore.

The Baby: is fine.  The labor stopped after transport and she's back to her regularly scheduled Braxton-Hicks contractions.  Good thing - she's not really dilated at all.  Heartbeat at a nice 150-165 clip.  Funny thing: many of you know both our girls inherited the Reasoner-large-head syndrome (and no comments about whether it's thick skulls or large brains!).  Well, they ultra-sounded our little one and the entire body measures out at 37 weeks - except the head - it's already at 40 weeks.  So another one.

Maranda: shoulder wounds from the car seat straps, minor head bruises, quite a nasty bite on the tongue.  More emotional instability than physical.  She was hanging in the air above her unconscious mother and bleeding sister for what must of seemed like ages.  She's really sad the van is all busted up. Otherwise fine.  Mrs. Flickinger came over and spent the evening with her and she likes Mrs. Flickinger.

Lydia: Her entire right side of her face is a bruise.  Her right eye is swollen about 50%.  She has a concussion and a major cut on the left side of her head in roughly an "X" shape with 15 stitches.  A large car seat strap abrasion on her neck and minor lacerations and bruises on her left arm. The Castro's took her back to the Hospital after they got back here because Lydia began throwing up yellow nasty-bile and blood.  I left Jill so she could sleep (thanks Julie M for staying with her so long!) and went to Evergreen.  Lydia was SO glad to see me (I've been in Anchorage for the last couple days).  She just wanted to hug and tell me all about it.  She's home now resting in bed.  She fell asleep almost as soon as we left the Hospital.

Neither girl has eaten anything significant since this morning.

We are convinced that God had a hand in this - too many "Interesting Notes" about things - most of which I didn't bother telling.  This could've been so much worse.  Thank you all for your continued prayers.

Phil