On Brushes With Death and the Experience Gained From It

What I Learned From My Recent Brush With Death

by Minister Paul J. Bern

For anyone who may have missed my announcement this past Tuesday May 21^st, I was in a very bad car accident on the morning of Friday May 17^th. Indeed, I am quite fortunate to be able to sit and type this today, 8 days later. I had just gotten a gig as a Lyft driver. I don't own a vehicle as of right now, so I was driving a rental, a Hyundai Sonata. It was Friday 8AM, and I had just received my first pick-up of the day. Lucky for me, it was close by too, or so I thought. So I accepted the call on Lyft's Android app, but soon after my phone rings. It's my passenger, and he's telling me I just passed him. This makes no sense, since Lyft's 'app' had just given his address as 399 Joseph Lowery Blvd. (Atlanta), and I was in the 500 block with the addresses going downward while driving northbound.

So I turned right, followed by another, and then all I needed was to make a left, and my passenger would be just a couple hundred feet down the street on my left. When I got to that intersection, however, I found traffic backed up and the intersection was blocked. Joseph Lowery Blvd., which runs north to south, has 3 lanes of traffic at that intersection. There are 2 lanes going northbound and 1 going southbound. I had been traveling north, but I was facing west as I was trying to turn left. There was a stalled MARTA (Atlanta public transit) bus that had broken down at the top of the hill that Lowery Boulevard runs up and down. The stalled bus was the reason for the traffic jam, so I waited for roughly a minute or so until I got a break in the traffic. A car stopped in the curb lane to let me pull out. After about another 30 seconds, the last northbound vehicle in the center lane also had to stop because the traffic jam that had resulted from the stalled transit bus.

So at that point, both lanes are backing up. After making sure both northbound lanes were stopped, I remember taking a long look at the single lane on the southbound side, but there was no one going that way at all. All the stalled traffic was headed northbound, so I slowly and cautiously began to inch my way into the intersection. The next thing I remember is the air bags going off and an enormous impact. I found out a few agonizing minutes later that I had collided with a 30-foot Isuzu box truck (or, it had collided with my car, depending on your point of view). Strangely enough, all the cars in the northbound queue of stopped vehicles that I had seen were sedans and SUV's of various sizes. There were no trucks, yet I remember hearing the voice of someone saying, “He pulled out in front of me”.

It wasn't until I was being loaded into the ambulance that I saw the truck that hit me, which was resting on the wrong side of the road. I remember wondering to myself why the truck driver parked way over there. I spent the next 3 days in Atlanta's Grady Memorial hospital's intensive care unit. I had an abrasion on top of my head with an embolism, which is the medical term for bleeding on the brain. I also had 2 broken ribs and a rather nasty injury to my left knee, which had a collision with the car's dashboard. I texted some friends the following day, explaining what had happened, and asking them to go back to the intersection where the accident occurred and check for skid marks. There were none at all – I have the photo's to prove it. Which also proves that the truck driver never touched his brakes. He never sounded his horn either. Meaning, he was passing on the wrong side of the double yellow line that divides that street. No wonder I never saw the truck coming! He was going around 2 lanes of stopped traffic. Which implies that the truck driver lied to the police officer, and that he did all this for the insurance money. Here in Atlanta, it's called “crash for cash”. Atlanta, Georgia, you see, has the dubious distinction of being the insurance fraud capitol of the world. As in globally.

Now my dear readers, allow me to apply a Biblical lesson to all the things that have happened to me this past week. I go out of my way to show a lot of mercy and extend a lot of gratitude. The church I attend (haven't planted one yet, but I'm working on that), and where I play keyboards (I've been a lifelong musician) is mostly Black. There's one Latino guy, Jose, who is married to one of the Black ladies, and they're expecting their first child later this year. There's also myself, and I'm the only Caucasian guy there who happens to be one of the musicians. I devote all my time there to being gentle and loving to all the little Black kids and their parents, showing them the same unconditional love they show me. It's all about equality, mutual respect, and having the love of Christ. It's all about being merciful while refraining from passing judgment.

Matthew chapter 5 and verse 7 says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.” Ten years of being a part of the Prayer of Faith COGIC church (Atlanta, Ga. 30318) while extending mercy at every turn to everyone willing to receive it, and look how God repaid me! He spared my life when I should have died. Then, two days after I was released from Grady hospital's ICU, I found out that Lyft is going to allow me to continue, and so I will soon be able to start driving another rental sometime after this weekend's holiday. So Lyft is going to give me a do-over of my first day on the job – which had been Friday the 17^th of May – after I complete some paperwork. See how easy life can be?

So in closing, we are to never, ever take our lives or the lives of others for granted. The apostle James wrote of this very thing in chapter 4 of his letter to the early Church, and I quote: “13) Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' 14) Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15) Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.' 16) As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17) If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” (James 4, verses 13-17)

So does this passage mean I was in sin by not expecting to get hurt my first day on my new job? Probably not, but it is a sin to think we can go and do whatever we want, whenever we want it, however we want, and never be impeded. God can stop us in our tracks, or allow us to be stopped by some force or other person(s), whenever He thinks it's best. I don't know why I had the brush with death that I experienced 9 days ago. I do know that I have a far greater appreciation for the life I have, as well as the God who directs me....