On Friday June 25, 2004

I was in a nearly fatal car accident this is my account of what happened

that day to as much as I can recollect.

Between 7am and 7:45 am we (youth leaders and staff) were just about finished loading the bus with the student’s luggage. I along with a friend was preparing to sit on the chartered bus and that is when I was told to go and sit in the cargo van that a youth intern was assigned to drive because at that current moment a student was in the passenger seat of the cargo van. I then got out of my seat on the bus and moved my things and sat in the passenger seat of the cargo van. We then shipped out and were on our way to Sacramento, CA.

About a half hour out of the church (International Church of Las Vegas) and having tried a couple of times to make conversation I decided to lay my head back and rest as I usually do on these trips. I woke up about an hour later as we were entering Baker, CA. I sat up and tried to make conversation again but there was really nothing to talk about as we were just getting to the outskirts of Baker, CA it seemed that he (the driver) was doing fine so I laid my head back to rest again.

It was not less then 5 minutes later when I heard the warning bumps on the side of the road. At that moment I shot up and said “Hey you alright there bro.” But at that exact moment the van was already in the middle median of the road which is just sand and dirt and shrubbery. The van fishtailed back and forth for about 10 to 25 seconds then I felt pressure on the breaks and the van flipped a full 180 landed and rolled a number of times at which I have no recollection. When the van finally stopped the van had landed on the driver’s side. As I regained consciousness I saw that I was hanging from my seat belt in the passenger’s seat bleeding profusely from my forehead and left arm a couple of minutes passed by maybe only 1 or 2 minutes and as I was trying to calm the driver down and figure out a way to get out of the overturned van without further injuring myself or Bob. A couple of families came by and stated that we wait until they get their work gloves on so that they could get us out of the van through the windshield and that they had already called an ambulance and it was on it’s way. The two men then got there gloves and began pulling open the windshield and safely guided the driver and myself out side of the van.

Then one of the men had me sit down with my back against the roof of the van and took a towel and began to put pressure on my head to stop the bleeding and then the man’s wife took a t-shirt and tied it around the laceration on my left forearm. It was then that I asked them to call my home first but no one picked up, that is when I had them call the church the church receptionist picked up the phone and immediately notified my family and the senior executive pastors at the International Church of Las Vegas.

The paramedics arrived shortly after the phone call was made to the church. They strapped me to the plastic board and put a neck brace on my neck and began doing there normal “trauma” procedures to check if I had been worst injured then they put me in the ambulance and told me to just relax and that it would take about an hour to an hour in a half depending on traffic to get to the Barstow Community Hospital in Barstow, CA.

Once at the Barstow Community Hospital they took me to get x-rayed which took about a half hour just to wait for the room to be free for my turn then they x-rayed me for about an hour then I was transferred to the CT unit to get my cat scan on my head that took about a half hour then finally back to the emergency room. It took about 2 hours before the doctor came back to finally look at my wounds and lacerations. Then he went off to who knows where but in the mean time I was given a very large dose of a pain killer medication because I was in so much pain that it was hard for me to even move my fingers without feeling something. I was able to finally get in touch with my family and some friends made the trip from Las Vegas to Barstow Community Hospital to see me which was a big help emotionally due to not being close to home.

A few hours later my family finally made it to Barstow CommunityHospital to pick me up and we made the long journey back home to Las Vegas, NV. In all I spent close to 4 or 5 in a half hours at Barstow Community Hospital not counting the hour it took to get to Barstow Community Hospital from the site of the accident.

Today I am physically 100 ack to my usual self and my short-term memory is slowly regaining strength. God is good!

Attached is the only picture I believe left of the accident?