An Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer is giving praise to God after surviving a horrific accident in March.
Trooper Gary Sanders was in his cruiser when another driver slammed into his vehicle. The impact was so strong that it sent Sanders’ cruiser into a vehicle he had just pulled over before the crash.
Trooper Sanders critical injuries included multiple broken bones and major internal injuries. He experienced many surgeries and painful physical therapy.
“Looking at it, I should have died,” Sanders cried.
Now, with the support of his family and community and faith in God, he is already walking.
Sanders said it’s a miracle that he was alive.
“If you want to use the term miracle, yes. I just say God’s not finished with me yet,” Sanders told NewsChannel 4.
He is re-learning every day tasks like walking but he says he’s making great progress.
“I know I can get back there eventually. It’s just going to take time,” Trooper Sanders said. “I just got the will to survive. I’m not a quitter. Quit is not in my vocabulary.”
Officials in Philadelphia are attempting to find the cause of a train crash Tuesday night that left 7 people dead and more than 200 injured.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said that seven cars of the Amtrak train bound for New York jumped the tracks and that over 200 people are in area hospitals. Eight victims are in critical condition.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the train was going 100 miles per hour at the time it jumped the tracks at a curve, more than twice the speed limit for that portion of track. Investigators are focusing on that excessive speed as the cause of the derailment.
That belief was backed by an Amtrak official who told a conference call that excessive speed was a focus of the investigation.
Mayor Nutter said the “black box” data recorder of the train has been recovered and is in the hands of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The President issued a statement sharing his shock about the accident.
“Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the derailment,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of those we lost last night, and to the many passengers who today begin their long road to recovery.”
Witnesses say the crash was very violent with people being thrown around the rail cars. Andrew Brenner told the WSJ that seats were ripped from the floor.
“I got thrown like a penny,” said Mr. Brenner, who said he weighs 250 pounds. “That is how violent this was.”
Over 200 people attending an Easter concert in Florida were stunned when a car smashed through the side of the church building leaving 21 injured.
Second Haitian Baptist Church was preparing for their final Easter event of the day around 8 p.m. Sunday when a car slammed through the brick outer wall of the building and rammed through several rows of pews before coming to a stop.
Fort Myers police say the car’s driver claimed the brakes in the vehicle failed as she was trying to find a place to park for the event. Officials are calling the incident “an unfortunate traffic accident.”
The congregation was seated and waiting for the concert to begin when the car came through the wall. Members of the church manually lifted the vehicle and then used car jacks to lift the car off people who were trapped beneath it.
Lee Memorial Health Systems reported 18 people were taken to area hospitals and none required surgery.
A transportation expert says that Monday’s accident involving a Chicago Transit Authority train at O’Hare International Airport could have caused multiple deaths and injuries if it had happened later in the day.
The train was driven by a sleepy operator who investigators suspect fell asleep at the controls. The train crashed through a barrier, over a platform and then rocketed up an escalator before coming to a stop.
DePaul University professor Joseph Schwieterman said that it was “a miracle that nobody died.”
“A train running up a (crowded) escalator could have been a worst case scenario,” Schwieterman told Fox News. “When pedestrians are hit by a train, it is usual fatal.”
He also said that while many of the passengers suffered injuries, they were lucky that the train jumped the tracks instead of crashing into a concrete barrier at the end of the platform.
“That was a lucky break,” he said. “A train hitting a wall at … high speed could easily have been fatal for many.”
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
A new research study from Columbia University shows that fatal car accidents involving marijuana have tripled in the last ten years.
One of the co-authors of the study, Dr. Guohua Li, said that currently one in nine drivers involved in fatal crashes would test positive for marijuana.
“If this trend continues, in five or six years non-alcohol drugs will overtake alcohol to become the most common substance involved in deaths related to impaired driving,” Dr. Li said.
The study comes on the heels of states such as Colorado legalizing marijuana for use by the public. Alcohol related traffic fatalities held steady at 40 percent throughout the decade but drug related deaths climbed from 16 percent in 1999 to 28 percent in 2010. The scientists fear more legalization could continue to drive up the rate of drug related crashes.
“If a driver is under the influence of alcohol, their risk of a fatal crash is 13 times higher than the risk of the driver who is not under the influence of alcohol,” Li told Breitbart. “But if the driver is under the influence of both alcohol and marijuana, their risk increases to 24 times that of a sober person.”
Global evangelist and Southern California pastor Bayless Conley was critically injured in a boating accident on Catalina Island Monday night.
Conley has undergone surgery that his doctors termed as “successful.” He remains in critical condition along with one of the other passengers on the boat. A third person suffered minor injuries.
Local emergency staff says Conley and the others were on a boat that crashed full speed into The Isthmus near Two Harbors on Catalina Island. The report did not say who was piloting the craft or where the victims were on the boat at the time of the accident.
“Please join us as we pray and trust God for a full and speedy recovery for Pastor Bayless and his friends,” Cottonwood Church said in a statement. The church asked for people to pray for comfort for them and their families at this time.
A post on his television ministry’s website said Conley was responsive to doctors but that “the next 24-48 hours are critical” for his recovery.
