How Divine Intervention Saved My Life 3 Years Ago (And How I Prepare To Pay It Forward)

I don't consider myself an overly religious person, I have always had a strong Catholic faith and have always thought there was some truth to Divine intervention and that belief became solidified for me on November 9th, 2015.

I am going to share with you a personal story that has strengthened my belief that all things happen for a reason and there are some things we have no control over no matter how hard we fight the universe.

Have you ever had a day where you are continually paddling upstream? Nothing goes as planned and the harder you fight it seems to have little to no effect on the outcome? I had one of those days three years ago that changed my belief in Divine intervention, made me appreciate just how precious life is and hopefully prepared me to save someone else's life at some point down the line.

November 9th, 2015 started like most days in what we call the "Fall Rush" for paving contractors. It usually begins between 4-5 am and consists of trying to execute as much work as possible to stay on schedule while working around constraints that you have no control over all while daylight savings time cuts your work days shorter.

For this particular day, I had crews working on two separate projects in North Jersey, I was running around completing estimates and had also promised a client we would crack seal a large crack he felt could create a trip and fall for a woman wearing high heels.  

As the day wore on, a concrete delivery was delayed, and the asphalt plant was excessively busy which was going to create an issue getting the asphalt crew to the shopping center to crack seal before dark. I always have a set of work clothes in the back seat of my truck for these type of emergencies. Recognizing the crack sealing was something I could do alone easily and wanting to keep my promise to my client I headed north up the New Jersey Turnpike to Iselin NJ to meet the asphalt crew, grab the crack sealing trailer and head to the shopping center on Route 18 in East Brunswick.  

As I arrive on site, before cleaning the crack out our procedure is to start the crack sealing melter to begin to melt the hot pour sealant. Before the equipment leaves in the morning, the crew makes sure it is operating as intended. That morning like all mornings they did- and the diesel engine and burner fired up as expected. I go to start the engine, and it won't start. No worries, I decided to clean the crack out and circle back ten minutes later to start a re-light. Engine still will not start. At this point, as I am on a busy retail shopping center I mumble a few four-letter words under my breath so no one can hear them and decide to try to start the engine again... it won't start. I go through the same troubleshooting checklist I give the crew... no luck... the Crafco SS-125 we have had little to no issues with will not fire up. Our on-call mobile mechanic is fifteen minutes away, so I tow the machine over to the site he is on working on another one of his client's machines. He goes through the entire startup sequence, troubleshooting checklist, etc and the unit will not fire up. As we are both dumbfounded looking at each other, we are both at a loss for answers. There is absolutely no conceivable reason for the unit not to fire up. I tow the unit back to the job site to pick up the cones with the assumption I am going to have to haul it back to our Delaware office in New Castle to have our other mechanic service it. For whatever reason (I am familiar with the definition of insanity) I decide to try to start it one more time before admitting defeat and picking up the cones and calling the client to reschedule when to unit fires right up with no issues. Diesel engine starts, diesel burner kicks on, and 45 minutes later I am sealing the 200 linear foot crack and 30 minutes after that I am entering the New Jersey Turnpike at interchange 9 to begin the trek back south to our office in New Castle Delaware.

As soon as I start heading south, my GPS live traffic option tries to detour me at Interchange 5 alerting me that Interchange 2 is closed to take 5 to avoid the large backup.

At the time I lived in Woolwich Twp NJ which is Interchange 2 of the New Jersey Turnpike. I called my Wife to see why the Turnpike was closed. She had told me all she knew was there was an unfortunate accident on the Southbound side just passed the exit. Next call I made was to my friend who was a New Jersey State Trooper and patrolled that section of the pike.  He told me he was onsite and it was one of the most horrific accidents he had seen with two people who were trapped in a rear-ended car that had burned to death beyond recognition. He was waiting for the ME to arrive to pronounce them deceased so they could begin the accident investigation and remove the bodies from the wreckage.  

As I am pulled over resetting my GPS, I look up the accident on NJ 101.5's website. I noticed the accident time of 5:25 PM, and as I start to do the math in my head, I realize had I not had the equipment issue that cost me the downtime that I would have been traveling through that location at the same time of the accident. At this point, I have chills going down my spine.

What infuriated me, even more, was when I arrived at my office in Delaware. I looked up the accident again to see updates hoping to see something positive, and it is one Tweet after another with people posting pictures and video from the northbound side of the car engulfed in flames. The deceased loved ones are sitting watching a live video of their son, brother, cousin, a friend being burned alive and not a single person stopped to try to extinguish the fire or help. As I saw that video, I thought of my wife and two daughters watching the same video, and it could have been me they were watching being burned alive. We have a procedure for our work trucks that I follow every day that they are fueled on the way back to the yard. I had a full tank of gas, was towing a trailer with hot flammable material with a propane bottle in the back of the truck bed. If it were my truck that was rear-ended in the same accident, I would have been burned alive.  

The next thought going through my mind was "what if I was behind the car that rear-ended the car that caught fire? I wouldn't have had any way to help because I didn't have a fire extinguisher..."

I have two pickup trucks I drive for work and several other vehicles. The first thing I did after the accident was bought slide in toolboxes for the truck bodies that can hold a large fire extinguisher.  I drive 40,000-60,000 miles a year- mostly highway miles throughout four states.

If you are a contractor reading this post, I cannot encourage you enough to have a fire extinguisher in your toolbox at all times. The fate of someone else's life could be in your hands.

Since I moved up to Central Jersey in September, I do not pass mile marker 12.6 as often as I did when I worked from our Delaware office full time for the past five years. I just passed by there today, and one thing is always a constant reminder of the lives lost three years ago, and that is the spalled and discolored concrete jersey barrier wall.

Each time I pass there I say a prayer for the families of the two people who died there. I pray for them to have comfort and faith after losing their loved ones as none of us have the answer as to why or when our time is up. I don't ever pray to thank God it was not me there at that precise time of the accident. I don't feel it is proper to thank him for sparing my life while two other people lost theirs. What I do ask for is the opportunity to help save someone else's life in a similar circumstance if it should ever present itself again as I now have a fire extinguisher in my truck box and if I were onsite following that accident, I would have done everything in my power to help save their lives.