The Day Everything Changed 11.25.11

We headed up to the mountain (Buck Creek) for our annual Christmas tree hunt. In attendance this year was: Tim, me, Jonathan, Hannah, Jason, Timmy, Jenica, Aaron, Adam, Kayla, John Hall, Noah, Kayla's cousin and her boyfriend and son, Jeremiah, Brooklin, Jake, Deann, Natalie, Kaitlin, and Big Mike met us up there. We even brought Tanner, Tucker, and Daisy! Neither Lindsey nor Amy were with us as they both were doing their after Thanksgiving shopping. Everything started out just like it always has. We met up at the ranger station in Enumclaw to get our permits. Then we headed up to Buck Creek where we set up our "camp". We had our fire going, hot dogs roasting, music playing. We had our easy-ups and lawn chairs. After playing in the snow for a while and eating, some of the group headed out to get trees leaving Hannah, me, and Jason at "camp" with the little ones (Natalie, Brooklin, Noah, and Kaitlin). They also left John Hall's truck, John's truck, and Adam's truck. After a couple hours, Kaitlin started getting a little restless so I started texting Deann and Tim asking if they were heading back any time soon. Then John Hall came back and took Noah for a little drive to get him to sleep. About this time my phone battery died. The next thing was we got a call from Tim on Jason's phone saying Jeremiah had fallen and they were calling an ambulance. We had really bad cell reception so that's about all we knew. Then Tim called again and told us to start packing the vehicles because it was going to be getting dark and we would need to be getting out of there once the ambulance arrived. He wanted us to meet out by the road to guide the ambulance in to where they were. We had no idea where they were but thankfully John did so he left Noah with us and went to meet them. By this time we understood that it was worse than we first thought (again, really BAD reception on the phone) and were trying to hold ourselves together for the sake of the children. We started just throwing stuff into the beds of the trucks...chairs, food, bags, clothing, firewood, easy-ups... all while watching the four kids/babies, and three dogs! Due to the bad phone reception and the confusion of everything we did not go to where Tim had intended us to go but it all worked out all right. We drove the two trucks out to 410 and waited there. There was a state patrol officer who put out flares and waited with us while all the aid cars arrived. In the meantime, here's what happened: The group left to get trees. They drove up higher and saw trees up on a cliff. Jeremiah, Timmy, and Jonathan climbed up the cliff to get a tree. Jeremiah cut down his tree and pushed it down off the cliff where it landed on a small ledge. Jeremiah went to that ledge and pushed it down the rest of the way. Then he sat down onto the ledge and pushed himself down off it and fell roughly 40 feet landing on his back at Jenica's feet. Everyone quickly gathered to where he was. He was moaning and groaning and they all were trying to keep his calm and not moving. Tim immediately called 911 and told them they needed a helicopter. The Lord was so good to us in that a park ranger was the first on the scene and he radioed to send a helicopter. They airlifted Jeremiah to Harborview in Seattle. We were out at the road still waiting and we heard the sound of the helicopter taking off then we saw it fly away. The state patrol guy with us told us it was about a 15 minute ride all the way to Harborview! Shortly after that, everyone else started making their way out to the road. Timmy and Jenica took Natalie, Kaitlin, and Brooklin back to Jake and Deann's and all the rest of us started heading toward Seattle. Tim, Jason, Jonathan, Hannah, and I stopped at Grandma's to drop off Daisy and we also had to stop and get gas. At the gas station I finally had reception so I immediately called Pastor Frank to get Jeremiah on the prayer chain. When we got to our house to drop Jason off at his car we realized we didn't have a house key! Again, God was in control of this setback....I had left the front door unlocked! I can count on one hand the number of times I have done that! NOT very many! We gathered up a few things and headed up to the hospital. When we got there, most everyone was there waiting to hear news. A couple more ways God was in control of this whole situation in the seemingly minor details. Amy had not gone with us as she had been shopping with her sister. When she got the call about Jeremiah, she was with her sister who then drove her to the hospital and she didn't have to drive there by herself. Lindsey also was shopping and Kevin went and picked her up to meet us there. As we would get tidbits of info from the doctors, Kevin helped interpret for us "non medical" people so we could understand a bit better what was happening. At some point pretty late Adam and Kayla took Jonathan and Hannah home so they could go to bed and we got home around 2:00 am after Jerry had come out of surgery. Thus began the long weeks of recovery and rehabilitation.