Throughout the week we shared life stories with each other, exuding strength by painting a church and building a reconciliation room, and weakness by weeping for all the beautiful, hungry people that we could not feed. We worked, played and prayed together, and as usual, by trip’s end, we didn't want it to be over. So at the airport, some of us “college kids” from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel made plans to head down to southern Indiana the following weekend to go camping with our new friends.
The next weekend arrived and we met our friends with hugs and laughter, tents and coolers in tow. We headed for Hindostan Falls to set up camp. That night, we talked and laughed around the fire — it was like we had known each other all our lives. When morning came, five of us decided to go swimming at “Old Man Johnson's” pond.
Now, us “city folk” were not at all used to the small town life of Loogootee, Indiana. For one thing, we had more people in our high school than they had in their whole town. We weren't used to dirt, gravel roads, or being out in the middle of nowhere. But this was an adventure, and so we followed along with expectations of new experiences. We piled into a four-wheeler and a regular car and drove 15 miles out of town. At a certain point we turned off the paved road and drove another few miles before finally parking and taking the last half-mile on foot, bringing along a radio, towels and a cooler.
When came upon the pond, it felt like we were stepping into a fairy tale. It was a stunningly beautiful, deep blue pond with cattails and a dock. We dove into the warm water, and after swimming for a while stretched out on the soft grass. Opening the cooler to grab a soda or water, I found instead only beer cans and a jug of vodka and Tang.
“Why’d you guys bring this? It's Sunday morning!” I said.
“We’re gonna have some fun,” our friend Chris replied.
I knew I wasn't going to drink, since there was the drive home and then Mass that night. But everyone else dove into the refreshments with great gusto. My friend Megan kept drinking from the jug of vodka and Tang. I told her several times that she’d had enough, but she didn't listen. After a while she was so drunk that she couldn't stand up. Chris had had quite a few beers as well, and it wasn’t long before I got fed up with them both.
“Ok, it's time to head back for Mass,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” they said.
I was packing up the car, when I noticed Megan climbing onto the four-wheeler. I yelled, “Chris! Get her off of there. She can't hold on!”
“Naw, she'll be fine,” he said. “I'll go slow.”
“No! You get her off of there right now!”
He didn't listen to me. He just drove off, yelling that he’d be careful. I said a quick prayer for their safety, and the rest of us finished packing the car. Later on I learned that they had stopped and we had passed them. We were driving down the dirt road at about 45 mph when I noticed Chris coming up fast in my rear view mirror. He was laughing and swerving all over the road.
“Chris, slow down!” I yelled out the window.
I figured he wanted to pass me, so I inched as far over to the right as possible, painfully aware of the deep ditches on either side of the road. I knew that he didn't have enough room. Just as he was passing me, it seemed everything downshifted into slow motion.
I recall seeing his front left tire catching the ditch, and then the vehicle flipping end-over-end. In a rush of panic, I concluded both were dead. They slid in the ditch about 50 feet and came to a stop with the four-wheeler on top of them. My friends Danny and Nathan sprang out of our car before it had completely stopped. Then I ran toward Megan, praying the whole time, “Oh God, please help them! Oh, God, please help me!”
(Look for Part Two of Beth Reger’s story in tomorrow’s Touched by Grace.)
