Arranged by God

Arranged by God

 Gordon Sims

Recently, my wife Terri and I were driving on a rural Florida forest road exploring, miles from civilization, enjoying the views of nature. Suddenly we came up behind a group of five motorcycles. Being bikers ourselves, we decided not to pass the group and followed them at a safe distance. While going around a curve, the last biker in the group drifted off the road into the grass, and the bike immediately flipped over 2 or 3 times. I braked fast, pulled off the road, and ran over to the crashed bike. However, I could not find the rider. Looking around, I saw the motorcyclist - unconscious, face up in the shallow water of the roadway drainage creek. Without any hesitation, I went through knee-deep water to reach the man. and held his head above the water. The other motorcyclists did not see the crash and continued riding away. We knew it was going to be up to us help the man.  Terri called 911 to let them know we needed help – out here in the middle of nowhere! Luckily, the dispatchers knew precisely where we were by the cell phone’s GPS. I said a quick prayer that this man would be all right.

While waiting, we decided not to move the rider out of the water fearing possible neck injury. Slowly Bill started to come back into a semi-conscious state of awareness.  He was having a difficult time breathing as he tried to sit up. We helped him out of the water onto the bank of the creek and laid him back down. The Fire Rescue and a Deputy Sheriff officer arrived after about 15-20 minutes and took over his emergency care.  About the same time, the other bikers returned to find their friend. 

Amazingly, out of the ten people at the scene, including the Deputy Sheriff, we discovered not a single person had cell phone service! How was Terri able to make the emergency call to 911?!  How incredibly remarkable!!  God had us there for a reason. 

Terri and I came away from this experience, once again realizing that God guides us, protects us, and uses us.