March 7, 2013
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The MOST improbable thing I ever saw.
Read or Post Comments Sunday, May 08, 2011The most IM-probable thing I ever saw
The MOST improbable thing I ever saw happen was this:
I was standing in the driveway of a certain woman’s house on a cold and snowy Sunday morning. Her two year old son was on a sled beneath her foot. The driveway was slightly sloped, so this woman held the sled beneath her foot to keep it in place and prevent it from sliding away. She was about to load her two kids, and their sleds, in the car and take them to a park with a hill for sled riding….
that’s the opening scene…. It had snowed heavily during the night, and it was still early, with virtually no cars passing in the street….
The woman shifted her feet. She removed the foot holding the sled, and went to replace it with her other foot. But she missed the sled as it moved away from her. She reached out with her foot to stop it, but missed. I reached to grab the sled, but it escaped me. We could only stand and watch, helplessly, as the sled drifted away down the driveway, toward the empty street.
At that very moment a car came slowly into view on the snow covered street. It seemed incredible that we were about to watch the death of her child – in slow motion before our very eyes.
The driver of the car never saw the sled coming out of the driveway. The sled passed directly beneath the moving car, behind the front-right wheel, and disappeared from our view.
We could only gasp, and wait for the car to pass by. That second-and-a-half were the slowest, longest, seconds I have ever experienced.
We couldn’t even scream for that second. When we did scream, the driver applied the brakes and came to a short skid in the snow, and got out of the car.
The child and sled were in a jumble in the snow covered street.
We rushed down the driveway and observed the child sit up in the street – completely unhurt!
The rear of the sled was bent, slightly. The car’s back left wheel had run over the very end of the sled’s runner. The sled had passed perfectly through the moving car – entering behind the front right wheel, and exiting in front of the left rear wheel. The car’s left rear wheel had barely clipped the end of the sled and tumbled it and the boy harmlessly into the snowy street.
I was completely stunned. How could this event have occurred so perfectly timed? * ** ** **
Here is what must have occurred: The car must have left its point of origin at EXACTLY the precise moment (having as its destination a location that would pass by the driveway!) which would create this rendezvous with the sled. A split second earlier – or later! – and the boy would have been killed. 3 or 4 seconds difference, and it would be a NON-event.
Was the driver delayed en route? Did the driver pause a second ANYWHERE for any reason prior? To light or extinguish a cigarette? To adjust a seatbelt? To clean snow from a side view mirror? We do not know.
The SLED had to have left its point of origin – beneath the mother’s foot – at EXACTLY the precise microsecond to create this IMPROBABLE nexus. Not only that, the length of the driveway, as well as the journey of the car, had to be precisely arranged by what the ancients called “FATE” to save the life of the child. If the driveway were a foot shorter, the kid was road kill. Or a foot longer.
The SLOPE of the driveway had to be exactly as it was so as to cause the sled to drift away from the mother at the exact rate of speed to prevent her, and I, from restraining its voyage into the street, and arrive beneath the wheels PRECISELY when it did.
Is this a miracle? Was the life of the child “miraculously” saved?
Nothing contravened the laws of physics. But what about the laws of probability? Certainly the odds that something like this could occur must be orders of magnitude greater than winning the Mega lottery….yet someone always wins it, sooner or later. The odds that a flower is growing in a yard on a sunny day may even be more extreme. everything may be a miracle. Life itself may defy the laws of probability that it exists….
But I consider this event of the sled to be a miracle, as mysterious as anything I have ever seen. Can you top that? Probably you can !
