Have Faith: You Can Survive An Accident

By FIREBALL TIM | Special to the Palisadian-Post

The other morning, my wife and I were robustly awoken by a thumping crash sound outside our window. As we live just above PCH, I looked into the darkness to see sparks flying across the highway. But in that early morning blackness, I couldn’t make out much of anything else.

The week prior, our street was being paved and workers were busy getting the job done, forcing us to park one of our cars (our son’s car) down on PCH on this particular night. As I ran down the street at 4 a.m. to see what had happened in the accident, I suddenly realized that we had parked the car there the night before. And as I rounded onto PCH, I came upon a pretty horrific sight.

A Chevy Pickup had drifted across the highway, jumped the curb, hit a telephone poll (snapping it in four pieces), landing back down on the street and went head-on into my son’s Jeep. But, to my surprise, after seeing the devastation and crushed cars, the sole driver was standing by his truck, trying eagerly to dial 911 with not a scratch on him.

Obviously, this was a day to practice gratitude. For the next two hours, the fire, rescue, police, helicopters and ambulance did their job with precision. Even Southern California Edison had a new working pole in place within three hours, and Malibu Towing had towed our Jeep away after cleaning up the entire mess.

But all the while, I kept asking myself, why? Why didn’t this man get hurt as I’ve seen so many others? Why, when given the opportunity to put our car down the street, did we decide to park it on PCH at the exact spot where this would happen?

Well, after a couple days of contemplation, you begin to see the great symphony of the universe at work … and that there are no accidents. Now, not knowing the man’s story, I can only tell you our own and that my son’s car had begun to break down: looking at a $4,000 fix for my son who was in Atlanta working on a film. The day before, he was just offered a massive job to work on the new “Godzilla,” wrapping the current “Black Panther” from Marvel. So he’s been alleviated of the bill of fixing his car, can cancel his insurance and we don’t have to watch the car for the nine months. Interesting.

But that contemplation is small compared to this one thing: As I spoke with the young man who caused the crash, I observed the airbags in his truck having deployed.

Had they not, he most certainly would not be standing there with me. There have been many arguments about airbags not deploying recently. And although, in the cases where they did not, it’s important to remember that we as people strive to do our best in creating products and services that keep people safe.

No one wants to create a faulty product on purpose. And although not perfect in many cases, I was grateful that in this case, the boy was saved.

Faith is a big issue in society. Faith that you can drive on the roads and believe that no one wants to crash into you. Faith that you can get on a plane and actually arrive at your destination. We make a lot of assumptions based on faith and get angry when something goes wrong. But it isn’t the situation that affects our lives, but actually how we look at it. This, is everything.

So regardless of what’s happening in your life, remember what Shakespeare said: “Nothing is really good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” If you see a situation as bad, it becomes bad. If you see it as an opportunity to grow, then you’ll grow. But it’s a choice, so choose wisely.

That … and don’t park on PCH if you don’t have to, people. Want to actually see what happened? Head to fireballtim.com and watch Episode 575!