“The (California Highway Patrol) told me that we had an angel holding back the side of the car that took the impact,” pastor Chuck Wysong wrote in a letter to his congregation on the church’s web page. “He said that with the force of the impact, one or all of us should be dead.”
Also injured in the accident, suffering cuts and bruises, were junior high pastor Chip Hart, senior high pastor Donnie Hinshaw, and Melanie Knapp, a volunteer. All were treated at a local hospital and released.
The four were returning from a staff retreat outside of Lincoln, California, when their Ford Expedition was struck around 3:30 p.m., according to Rhonda Hinshaw, Donnie’s wife. The vehicle was traveling on a country road and had stopped to make a turn, she says, when a Ford Explorer came over a hill and struck the rear driver’s side area of the Expedition.
Wysong was in the front passenger seat, Hart was seated behind the driver, and Hinshaw was in the back passenger seat. The front airbags deployed, and Wysong was reportedly struggling with his hearing in one ear due to the impact of the bag, according to Hinshaw.
The impact caused less damage than normally would be expected. The patrol officer told the four that normally the Explorer would have crushed at least two feet into the side of Expedition, which was pushed in only six inches.
Neither the driver of the Explorer nor her young daughter suffered serious injuries. To read more of Wysong’s letter, visit Bayside Covenant.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
