Joyriding into a miracle

By: Freya Mandes

The rain had been lashing down for the last four hours, and the wind was still howling through the trees. Loose soil had washed down all over the roads, hiding the potholes, and there were broken twigs and branches everywhere. “There is no way in hell I’m driving in that weather,” I told my friends.

So as soon as it all died down, we all piled into my car, ready to make our way home. It was pitch black outside so I was driving slower than usual. We were relaxed, talking excitedly about what we would do once we got home, when it happened.

It happened slowly at first, like nothing out of the ordinary. I felt the tyres give way a little and a thought flashed through my mind, “Yeah, I can handle this, I’ve skidded before. Just keep calm.” It was all very different seconds later, when the skidding continued and my car spun violently out of control, landing with a loud thud inside a muddy ditch.

When stuff like this happens, you react in one of two ways – either total shock, or total autopilot. To this day, I’m still not quite sure which I felt. All I remember was realizing that my engine was still running and that my car still worked. I threw my gear into reverse, hoping I would be able to pull myself out but no such luck. We were deep in a ditch, stuck on a dark on a rural road (isn’t that how every serial killer movie begins?).

“Never mind,” I thought to myself, “There’s no use sitting in the car and fretting, I just have to get out to survey the damage and then figure out what to do next.” Killing the engine, I clambered over to the passenger seat (the driver’s door was stuck) and jumped out, straight into knee-deep mud. I began to walk around to inspect the damage, an exercise that soon proved to be futile because the entire front of my car was submerged, so any damage was hidden.

You know when you walk into really soft mud and get stuck? Then try to pull yourself out but you can’t without leaving your shoe behind, because there’s a strong vacuum in its place? Well, in my case, that ‘mud’ was the ditch and that ‘shoe’ was my car. There was no way it was going to come out without the almighty (hydraulic!) forces of a tow truck. It was then that relief that everyone was unharmed gave way to panic – it was 2am in a tiny rural town, so what tow truck service would still be available?

I was a split second away from walking in the dark to try and find some help, when out of nowhere a motorbike showed up. Two teenage boys were out on a joyride and had decided to turn down our deserted road (yes, at 2am!). Excitedly, we flagged them down, ignoring all the horror stories we had heard about rapists and murderers scouting for their next victims.

After explaining what had happened, we asked them, without much hope, if they knew of any tow truck operators. As luck would have it, they immediately answered yes, their neighbor was a tow truck operator and yes, he operates 24 hours a day. After exchanging phone numbers with us, they left to call on their neighbor, promising to return as quickly as they could.

Flash forward half an hour later, when my car was pulled soaking wet out of the ditch. A closer inspection of my vehicle showed that aside from a dented fender, and a dented passenger door, not much else was wrong. The engine was still running and all the electricals were good to go. The estimated damage? Approximately US$500.

In a small rural town where most go to bed at 10pm, where did those boys come from? Why did they choose to turn down our road? How is it they had a tow truck operator as a neighbor? Why wasn’t my car more badly damaged, considering the scale of the accident? All these questions, I believe, can only be answered by Dorje Shugden. I firmly believe that it was Dorje Shugden who cushioned my car during the impact, then spurred those boys on to take that joyride and encourage them to turn down our road for without them, perhaps my friends and I would have been stuck on that road for a much longer time!