Close Call...

In the winter it can be much harder to find good days to take Papa for a drive. Fortunately, Wednesday, March 13th was such a day. After lots of rain, we had two clear days for flooding to dry up a bit so we could get out on some of those roads Papa loves to drive over. 

I picked him up in the morning and we drove Hwy 460 to Frenchburg, Kentucky. Then we picked up Hwy 36 to go through Owingsville. My intent was to take Hwy 36 to Hwy 11 outside of Sharpsburg and follow it back to Hwy 460 and then home. By the time we got to Owingsville, I knew I needed to get on back to Georgetown in time for Papa's lunch. The best way to do that was to get on I-64 at Owingsville and head on back. It would still be between 45 minutes to an hour to make that drive on the Interstates. We only went a mile or so and there was this traffic back up. Emergency vehicles were coming up behind us and clearly there was a problem.

Clearly we were on the scene not long after this accident. I could see a place just ahead on our left with a cross over to traffic going the other way but I was not quite there yet. After a bit we saw that traffic was trickling through one car or truck at a time. We decided to wait it out. We could see emergency personnel going down the hill to the right and back up. That is a very steep hill so that was no small task.

Finally we moved enough to slowly get past the accident. We could see huge, deep tire tracks from the opposite side where an on-coming semi crossed the median and clearly went down that hill on the right. I saw the top of the trailer which was torn and mangled. This was not a good sign. 

That night I heard on the news that a semi-truck crossed the median and hit another pick-up truck as it went down that hill. People had died. They shut down I-64 at that spot and made drivers take a detour around the site as they investigated the scene to determine what happened to cause the driver of the semi to cross the median. The load he was carrying had to be taken from the trailer of his rig before they could try and move the rig off the hill.

We were blessed in our timing on this one. Having a wreck is a major concern of mine whenever I take to the road for any reason. I always say a prayer before I go on a drive. This time we were late enough to not be a part of this wreck in our driving time. But we were early enough that we could get past the wreck and I got Papa back to find his lunch in his room waiting for him. The only detour would have been a much longer drive from that point in Owingsville. I am grateful for the opportunity to pray and for continued answers to those prayers as I try to get Papa out and about a bit. My heart goes out to the people in this awful wreck and their families.