“Where are you?” can be such a loaded question. Something you often don’t think about as you are driving along an interstate. If you are anything like me, your focus is on where you are coming from and where you going. No thought to where you are at any given moment in between.

Over the weekend, we traveled from the Tampa area to Mobile, Alabama and back. It was the trip back that this question became essential.

It was raining.

Not just any old rain, but the really hard downpours that can be hard to drive in.

We were headed back on I-10 and, in the rush to get home, we were travelling at or slightly above the posted 70 mph speed limit.

Unfortunately, so was the girl in the car ahead of us…

when she decided to call her mom to talk while on her way back to college in Tallahassee…

Talking on a cell phone while traveling at 70 mph in the dark is never a good idea

In the driving rain???

She lost control…hydroplaned…and crashed into the woods down the side of a steep embankment!

 

My husband pulled over immediately and Matthew 16, Jacob 14, and I ran for the car as I dialed 911.

The boys got to the car first and found that she seemed okay and was on the phone with 911 herself. The 911 operator could not locate us with her GPS. She asked about exits I had recently passed. I had no idea because I was using the phone GPS program and did not pay attention to where we were. Only to where I was going.

We were in a GPS dead spot.

I could not get any local info on my phone. She had another service provider…same problem…

Another motorist saw my husband pulled over with the car doors open and they stopped…no GPS on a third carrier either!

911 sent an ambulance in the general area and it arrived within 5 minutes.

Thank goodness, she wasn’t hurt..at all…not a scratch…just scared

She was LUCKY!   We were far enough back to not be hit…close enough to see it happen

The car that was next to her a few moments before, had sped up to fully pass her.

Her car did not roll…

Even though she was surrounded by trees, she did not hit any of them…

ALL of the glass was broken in her car, but she was untouched by the flying glass..

The outcome of this could have been so much worse.

The reason that the ambulance arrived so quickly  was that it was on the way to an accident that we saw a few miles back on the opposite side of the road when they were diverted.

Had the outcome been any different, help may have been seriously delayed. Simply because I had no idea where we were!

You can bet that I will pay more attention to exit signs from now on! NEVER AGAIN WILL I BE CLUELESS WHEN A 911 OPERATOR ASKS

Where are you?