Spirit Daily

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Angel story of the week:

'Mysterious Stranger' Offers Assistance To Teenager At Site Of A Terrible Crash (2 Stories)

By Michael H. Brown

First story

Do you believe in a angels? We certainly do. Through the years we have seen them in action any number of times. Do angels hover over entire families?

When there is prayer, there is that much more protection. I believe this was the case with a special niece of mine named Lauren Miller, who "miraculously" survived a car crash two weeks ago.

Lauren, 17, was driving in a dark rural area near Buffalo, New York, on the way to see a friend when her car collided with another. They slammed head-on (hers was a Ford Escort, the other car an SUV), and when the emergency medical technician (EMT) arrived, he fully expected that they were ready to pry loose a dead body. "He was sure he was pulling out a dead body due to the magnitude of this wreck," says  Lauren's mother, Jeannine, who is my sister, and who was called at home at precisely 10:43 p.m. by a woman -- as it turns out, a mysterious woman -- who was at the scene and comforting Lauren.

 

Many are those who believe that angels present themselves in human form in critical situations. This is one reason why the Bible admonishes us to treat strangers well.

 

"Little did I know this was an angel story while in it," says my sister, who works as an administrator at a local university, "but after a few days of trying to find out who this woman was, and piecing Lauren's encounter with ours... no doubt.

 

The woman had started out by calmly saying, "I am with your daughter, she has been in an accident and she asked that I call you." Of course, this was all via cell phone.

 

"I asked her her name, but can't recall what she said," recalls Lauren's mom. "I then asked many questions regarding the accident, including whether she had seen it.

 

"She said, no: she said was driving by and stopped by to help my daughter. She asked if I wanted to talk to Lauren and put her on. Lauren did talk to me and stated she was okay (little did I know she didn't recall that), but that made me feel more relieved that she was okay.  The woman explained that Lauren was indeed hurt quite badly. Her one leg was clearly broken and they were not sure if there are any other broken bones, but she should be okay."

 

As in so many such accounts, the woman was possessed of a nearly preternatural calm, and just the right balance -- describing it as a serious event but with the clear reassurance that all would be well.

 

She spoke to Jeannine as emergency rescuers removed Lauren -- who had terrible upper body pain from the impact of the air bag and whose left leg was badly broken, the bone piercing through the skin in a compound fracture and her knee cap damaged.

 

"I asked the woman if I could have her number in case I lost her and she said, 'you won't be able to reach me, but I will be sure I don't lose you and if I do, I will call you  back.' I asked where the accident was and she stated that she wasn't sure since she wasn't from around here (she then asked someone and gave me the details).

 

 

"She further stated that she would stay with Lauren as long as she needed her and until she was in the ambulance. I mentioned to her that I needed to go get dressed but asked that she stay on the line. She graciously said that she would stay on the phone as long as I needed her." She then spoke to Jeannine's husband Kevin.

 

All the while, she was comforting Lauren and held her leg as they tried to get her broken, floppy leg out of the wreck. Later, Lauren would cry at the thought of the comforting woman -- not sure, however, if the woman had been "real."

"During the time we spoke with this woman, I asked pointed medical questions that she asked the emergency medical technician, and I heard the discussion in the background along with ambulances)," recounts my sister. "The EMT answered her best he could and she relayed the message to me. 

 

"She had the most direct, honest, but calming way about her. Lauren was screaming in the background while I was on the phone with the woman and when this upset me, again, the woman said, 'I am right here, her leg hurts her and they are beginning to remove her from the car... she is okay.'

 

"Needless to say I desperately wanted to be with Lauren. This woman stated that she would be there with Lauren and that I needed to get to the hospital; she felt that if by the time I drove to the accident scene, she wouldn't be there."

 

The woman was gone once Lauren got into the ambulance.

 

Long story short: hours later, when the EMT -- who also had stayed every moment with Lauren -- came out to meet them, he proceeded to say that they were very lucky parents.

 

"It was beginning to sink in that this was much worse than I expected. I then asked him if he knew the kind woman that helped Lauren at the scene and was with her in her car and he looked strangely at me and said...'There was no woman with her,' and I said, yes... she was asking you questions and talking to me on the phone... and he said again.. 'there was no woman with her.'

"Later, I thought that maybe we could get her number off of our caller ID so we could call her to thank her. I can't express how much it meant to me to have this 'person' with Lauren during this time. I needed to thank her! 

 

"Anyway, Alyssa [another daughter] wrote down the number. Kevin called it and the people on the other end stated that he didn't know what we were talking about and no one from this number was in this area (it was an Albany, New York, number). 

 

"Kevin then came home to see if the number taken was written down incorrectly and when he looked for it [on the phone memory], it was no longer there -- yet numbers only delete when we delete them. None of us had deleted any numbers."

 

originally published as Lauren

Role Of Angels Seems To Be Especially Intense In Crises Involving Automobiles

Second story

An article we carried two weeks ago on a mysterious stranger appearing at the scene of a wreck [story above] elicited a number of similar accounts, leading to the distinct impression that while they show up in all kinds of situations, they are especially prevalent at accidents.

Perhaps we should say that they have a special presence in all kinds of troublesome automotive situations.

Some are more dramatic than others. "Three years ago, my friend and I were in a severe motorcycle accident in the Everglades of Florida," writes Alexandra J. Waldron of Albany, New York. "We were hit head-on at 80 miles per hour by a vehicle that pulled into our lane to pass an RV.  Although I was wearing a helmet, I sustained a base-line skull fracture, a broken femur, a torn patella tendon, and the loss of my kneecap."

But it could have been worse -- much worse -- and if not for a mystery man, it would have been.

"My friend, who lost four inches of his right femur, sustained an open book pelvic fracture, a crushed knee, wrist, and elbow with massive internal bleeding, was conscious for the entire event, and landed in the middle of the road," explains Alexandra.

"He saw an oncoming truck that didn't seem to notice him in the road, and then suddenly there was a man running across the road waving the truck down.  When my friend looked around for the man who had flagged down the truck, there was no one in sight. 

"We're both convinced it was an angel -- and for my part, I think both our guardian angels were with us that day because although our injuries were severe, neither of us had any brain or neurological injuries, in spite of a combined impact force of 145 miles per hour." 

"My daughter, Jina, was driving her car early in the morning on the way to work in Niagara Falls, New York," says a viewer who is now in Merritt Island, Florida. "It was winter, but the roads were completely clear when she hit some 'black ice' and the car spun out of control, slamming into a tree. The car was totaled and she was hurt (serious head laceration).   

"She knows she blacked out for only a moment, and woke to see a very kindly man at the window of her car.  He told her not to worry and that he was getting the firemen right there to help her (there was a fire station nearby).  She had a slight concussion and needed emergency-room treatment -- stitches and so forth -- but later on when she called to thank the firemen, she asked if they knew the name of the man who alerted themThey told her there was no man; they came because they heard the crash."

Interesting, is it not, how angels coordinate matters?

In a state of panic, in semi-consciousness, it seems, we get an actual glimpse of them!

Joe Lerza of Lexington, Kentucky, had the same experience trying to track down a mysterious helper when he lived in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Stranded on a busy road after his car had jerked with a small explosion -- the car losing all its oil -- he and his father were in danger of being hit by the onrush of traffic.

But suddenly a younger man of about thirty appeared on the scene, gave them a ride home -- and when asked his name and where he worked, said he was an "off-duty EMT" (emergency medical technician) and mentioned the place where he worked.

Both Joe and his father heard the name and the station house.

"A couple days later I called his station house and asked to speak with him, so I could thank him again," says Joseph. "The man at the other end said there was no one there by that name. I said that there must be some mistake, and could he please ask someone else if that man was there. He said, 'Sir, I have worked here for many years. There has never been anyone here by that name."

And of course it isn't just accidents with vehicles.

When Sheila Torres of San Jose, California, belonged to a religious order, she was told about an incident in which her mother superior, at a cemetery to visit the grave of a deceased chaplain, turned her ankle and fell.

"The sister with her was a small woman and in no way would be able to lift Mother or even get her to a standing position," says Sheila.

"Immediately, there was a 'gentleman' who lifted Mother up as if she weighed nothing. He carried her to the car and placed her gently onto the car seat.  The nuns thanked the 'gentleman' and started to drive off.  They only went a few feet, but decided they wanted to get the man's name and address. Sister looked back into the rear view mirror to back up, but noticed the man was not there; he had been there just a few seconds prior. The sister got out of the car and looked out over the cemetery grounds and could see no one."

Cari Donaldson was doing an internship through Michigan State University when her car skidded off the road one snowy night and out of anyone's sight and down a small hill in the blizzard-like conditions.

"I was stuck.  I couldn't see anything, I had no cell phone, and no hopes of pushing myself back up to the road," she relates to us. "There'd been no one around me when I skidded, and the snow was so blinding I had little chance of anyone seeing me or my car. 
 
"As I sat there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do, there came a tap at my window. I looked up, and saw a man standing by my car."

Usually Cari was very wary of strangers. But she immediately thought it was her angel. Despite the snow, there was not a flake on him.

"I rolled the window down a bit, and the man smiled, and said, 'Looks like you're in a bit of trouble. I can push you out if you want.'  I gratefully accepted, not thinking of the physical implications of what he was saying. 

"Next thing I knew, in less than one minute, he'd pushed my car up the hill and back onto the road.  I was shaking with gratitude. I started driving, but very slowly, to let him catch up to me so I could try to express with a simple wave and smile my inexpressible thanks -- but no car ever approached. There was no exit for miles, and I was literally driving five miles an hour, so he could catch up to me. But no other car materialized."

Last but hardly least is the account from Bernadette Kearney, a journalist who works for the British Broadcasting Company in England and found herself pulling over at a "layby" near a place called The Malvern Hills when her car overheated.

In this case, the "stranger" was there to prevent a serious accident.

There had been no one there when she arrived, it seems and Bernadette was in a mad dash to make a radio show. As she tells it:

"My thoughts were that I was going to attempt to get to work and drive the car even though it was over-heating. I opened the bonnet, was filling a bottle with cool water, and I turned round to see a man standing there and he asked me if I was okay.

"I brushed off the enquiry, thinking I could cope fine and just said:  'yes.. it's okay, my engine's a bit hot and I'm going to cool it down.'

"This man was really calm. He was totally bald, really tall, and really serene.. But also very gentle. He watched me take the water over to my car and attempt to pour it in the water container in the engine.

"The thing just fizzed and spat and steamed. He said to me, 'Listen, if you attempt to drive this car further you're going to put yourself at risk... Do not drive this car.'

"I then panicked and said I couldn't miss my radio show or be late for work.. I needed to get there. He told me, calmly, to ring a garage where I go to get my car serviced and ask them to come up and get me and bring with them another car.

"I have never done this in my life… the thought would not occur to me. Well, I tried and tried to phone and could not get a signal from where we were, high up the hills.

"The man then asked me if I could pass him the phone. He made a call and asked for a number. He rang the number and passed the phone to me.. It was the garage that I usually use to get the car fixed… they said they would be right up and bring with them a spare car to enable me to continue on to work. I came off the phone and I looked at the kind stranger and I did actually say to him 'I think you must be an angel disguised as a human because I was in real need of help.'

"He smiled and said he'd wait till the rescue truck came with the spare car. When the garage people arrived, about twenty minutes later, the kind stranger left.

"The garage man told me that the radiator was leaking and that a head gasket had blown and that if I'd continued the car could have  caught fire.

"We swapped cars and I continued to work (where I often share my faith) and that evening I decided to check the numbers that the kind stranger had called…

"It showed all my calls for that day on my mobile phone… but not the two that were made that afternoon as I was saved from danger. I will never forget the kind stranger. He had a beautiful face and a deep smile and I believe he was an angel."

03/23/06 

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