It's been an interesting 24 hours. Yesterday, American Fork's Marching Band went to a competition at Idaho State University in Pocatello. Christian texted us to let us know that they had swept their division. We were thrilled for him and went about our business, expecting him home in a few hours.
A little after 7:00 pm, as Dean and I came home from walking the dogs, we received a text from Christian. "The bus ahead of us just went off the road and tipped." Thus began a long, dramatic evening with us waiting for bits and pieces of information as it arrived and worrying for Christian. The bus driver of one of the buses had blacked out. The woodwinds instructor, Heather Christensen, jumped up and tried to steer the bus. She was thrown from the bus and killed. But amazingly, and they are crediting her with this, other than bumps and bruises, none of the 50 students on the bus were injured. No other fatalities, no broken bones. A highway patrolman told the band director at the hospital that he was amazed. "Someone was watching over your kids," he said.
I do believe someone was watching over them. I do believe Heather's selflessness helped. I'm just grateful they are all well. At a tribute at the high school tonight to Heather, Mr. Miller, the band director, commented on the fact that the kids have dedicated this year's performance to veterans who fought for and some even died for this country. He felt perhaps, last night, some of those same people were looking out for those kids on the bus. Someone was. And thank God for that.
The kids are performing Tuesday evening at BYU. The performance will be dedicated to Heather.
It's Christmas Eve!
9 years ago
3 comments:
oh Blythe!!! I didn't realize this was Christian's school, his band - how scary for you! I am so glad that he was on a different bus, and that as you say - that bus was obviously being watched over. Certainly makes us all stop and realize our mortality...so glad everyone else is ok!!
Blythe, we read about this in our newspaper today and immediately thought of your son. What a terrible accident. We're glad that Christian was safe.
Glad Christian was safe! I didn't realize that your kids went to AF, so I didn't even think of him when I heard of the accident. Such a sad thing to have happen.
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