First of all, after leaving Central NY a hour late due to last minute packing and a low tire issue, we actually made good time heading out to Illinois.

I drove for 3-4 hours and took time to reflect on my life and my Brother.

Finally ate something substantial this week around 2PM.

No issues until almost 7PM.

I've already posted this to Facebook, but my Mom and I were almost killed in a multiple vehicle accident just across the Indiana border from Ohio.

https://www.facebook.com/robert.g.vantine


We are okay, the car is okay, and no one was seriously hurt.

It rained heavily and then the sun came out, with really bad glare forming in the water coming up of vehicles in front of us. We were hands free talking with a friend back in NY when everything happened and I can only imagine her horror at what she was hearing from us.

Anyway my Mom was driving and went to check the rearview mirror to check how everybody was distancing behind us. She said, "The rainbow's behind us."

Fortunately I was still looking forward and the glare disappeared. Before us the front door big rig locked up the brakes. I yelled, "WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA!" and I think I reached over to yank the steering wheel because when we stopped on the shoulder my hand was by the wheel up from my lap.

In the side mirror I saw a red pickup rushing right at us, at the last moment it went offroad into the wet grass and the momentum carried it back up onto the road in front of us, threading the needle between red cab tractor and a stopped big rig in front of him.

Suddenly a yellow cab big rig came by us in the now vacated right lane, brakes locked and swerving to left to avoid red cab rig. Driver threaded the needle, missing another rig in left lane and the red rig by roughly 96-99%, but his right front/side clipped the left back at speed.

We were in front of at least 5-6 big rigs and I turned quickly to see if more were gonna plow into us. A green cab rig managed to stop behind us. Another rig was beside him and another on the left shoulder. Traffic behind us managed to safely stop with no further accidents.

After yelling to our friend we had to go, at some point in taking in all these events, I hopped out after everything stopped to go check on the drivers. I had no idea how much of the rigs hit each other, so I was expecting the worst.

I ran around our car and the back of the yellow rig between the other rigs. By the time I got up there, others were assisting him out of the cab and then off to the left shoulder. After seeing what they were doing I watched the yellow cab for signs of fire. This was somewhere between 6:55 and 7:00 PM according to our car clock and phones.

WIth ten minutes cops and emergency response showed up.

I wrote up more details on my Facebook page, along with posting pics and videos.

We were there for over two hours. Traffic was backed up for several miles behind us.

When we finally got going. almost two miles down the road we discovered skidmarks where some other vehicle had gone off the right side where it dropped off about 20 feet. We believe that was the incident ahead that caused our incident. I didn't see anything to indicate a vehicle actually went over, but someone may have gotten loose on the wet roads and there was some swerving and heavy chain reaction braking.

Through the entire two hours, traffic on the opposite side was slowly coming by in a single lane. We thought they were slowing down to be cautious due to the emergency response vehicle on the Eastbound side, but they probably at that point were doing the whole 'pull over' routine.




Then we drove about another two miles and started seeing more emergency vehicles on the other side.

And more.

And more.

And more.

Then we saw the reason. A burned out big rig on the left shoulder, debris everywehere, and one of those tow behind shorter trailers spread over the lanes. As we finally got passed all of that, we saw traffic on that side backed up for miles.

Long story short, we are both okay, the car is okay, no one else was seriously hurt (on our side), and we finally got to Illinois much, much after poor construction detours in Indianapolis (why take us on a detour of 70 when it ends with the ramp closed due to construction) got us lost further North that expected. My habit of randomly looking up cities on Google when I am bored helped us figure out landmarks (there's a loop around, the Speedway is here and the Colts are here) and get us back South to the correct road. Now I know where the Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium are exactly. (seen the stadium before, but from the lower loop).

Just wanted to say thank to every single one of you for your thoughts and prayers through all of this, before this trip. We never no exactly how prayer helps, but I absolutely believe that every single action and reaction of everyone's lives put us all in the position to be in the right place at the right time at the right moment for everyone to be where and when they were at that time for everyone to survive. Thank you and I love all of you for it...


All I could think about after was it would have been one Hell of a story to tell my Brother...

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Very glad you're okay, and I hope things start going more smoothly for you and your family while you're dealing with your loss.

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Man, you and your family are going through some difficult times. Stay strong, DJ!

I wanted to check in agaon. It's been awile and work has keep me distracted, even though I worked with my Brother there fpr years.

I haven't slept well in weeks. Maybe three nights I've gotten more than 5 hours of continuous sleep.

I've watched several movies this week (the new Midway, Knives Out, Welcome to Marwen), only to momentarily forget and start to make a mental note to remind my Brother to check it out.

Oh...yeah. Can't do that anymore...

Then I found out some disturbing info about the second accident down the road from our close encounter. Four fatalities. Four kids ages 6-15. Dad was pulled from the car by a passerbyer. Truck driver speeding in a construction zone, intoxicated, ran into the back of their car and pushed them into another truck. Car catches on fire, trapping them inside.

I found this out a few days ago. Went back and looked at the video I took on my phone as we went by. What I thought was the burned out truck was part of the car with tarps over it.

Now I know why there were tarps. I'm sorry for their loss. An entire family of children, a future generation, gone due to some callous, selfish a-hole that shouldn't have been behind the wheel of a big rig in the first place.

https://fox59.com/news/multiple-fatalit ... qX8UN9sO_s

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 5Wi_Rqnt4A

This set me off again...

Tonight my Mom got home after visiting family in Western PA. Went to unpack the car and found bags and bags of my Brother's DVDs and blu rays, tools, paints, Dremels, compressor and air brushes, chalk for weathering, childhood books, etc, etc, etc...

Lost it again. I knew some stuff was coming, but when you think you're making headway and it suddenly hits you that you haven't, that's rough. That's really rough.

I have a friend from school, she has been an absolute blessing to me. She's checked in with me almost every day, even though she has things going on in her life.

Another Classmate stopped by to visit on Sunday. We sat on the porch in the breeze for over 90 minutes talking.

Called another Classmate on Tuesday to see how she is doing. She lost her business, her home, and her husband in a few short months and has publically mentioned she is depressed. Reached out to her to tell her I didn't want her doing anything rash, to check in with her, to talk, and try and lift her spirits. We talked for over a hour, about life and recent events. She assured me, promised me, swore to me she would never do anything rash. She thanked me for reaching out.

Another Classmate and his sister lost their Father the Wednesday night before my Mom and I left for Illinois. He passed in his arms and they were still working on him as they took the stretcher out. I reached out to both of them several times. I chatted with her the other day to see how she was holding up. We've responded to each other posts on Facebook, trying to be positive and supportive.

All in all, 2020 hasn't been a good year. Too many deaths, too much stress. Too much loss.

Please hug your kids tonight for me. Reach out to family members and talk, even if they are ones you don't always get along with.

Value the people that got your back and make sure they know how grateful you are for what they have done.

Let's try and make the rest of 2020 not suck...

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