#327 Tanglewood /Ben's car crash/Thanksgiving

We went on to Tanglewood park to visit with family for thanksgiving. We checked in from November 17 till December 2. We had a nice visit with all the family at Cheryl’s house.

It would have been a normal Thanksgiving but Ben our son was in a near-fatal car crash.

Here is the email I sent out to the family.

Hi all; Randall and India here, I wanted to send out a message. I knew this was like a mass email list so in my haste I'm just replying to the beach weekend because I wasn't exactly sure how to copy and paste everybody's email into a group.

Saturday night Ben called from the hospital in Raleigh and said that he had been in a really bad car accident.

He was sitting still at an intersection and someone hit him in the rear at full speed with a truck sending him and his car all the way across the median into the other side of the road.

He was taken to WakeMed in an ambulance and his car is most likely totaled

He reports that he is okay and they released him last night.

He's got about 12 Staples in the top of his head and I'm pretty sure he's got a mild concussion.

I'm going to ride up tomorrow and see about helping him solve some of the details and getting a rental car. He did not have collision insurance but we're kind of hoping the other people are insured properly and will pay for all of his issues.

I mentioned to him it might not be a bad idea to talk to a lawyer.

I just wanted to let everybody know and considering the reality of it all, we're just glad that he was just mildly injured.

With a few other variables, it could have been fatal.

Nobody wants that phone call so we are Beyond grateful.

If people want to check in with him his email as obvious but he does have a new phone number.

Mom and Dad are relieved but I just thought it would be best to let people know.

We'll see everybody Thursday.

I don’t why it was okay to go to Augusta so near the car crash but my notes say I went on the 26th.

I spoke to Nick about a trailer and all the gear that I had that I was going to donate and I told them that halfway would be Augusta. We all agreed on November 26th and ended up being the longest day ever. I went from where we were staying at Tanglewood to Liberty to pick up the trailer and I was going to meet Marcus and them at 1 in the afternoon at Cracker Barrel in Augusta. That meant I started like 6 a.m. and got on down the road. I don't know exactly how it happened but I ended up kind of on the National Forest Road for a good bit of the trip instead of the interstate. I finally got there and transferred the trailer and all that and had a nice lunch. I then headed back which means then I got to go back through Columbia from Augusta and there was a big traffic jam in Columbia for an hour. When I got to Charlotte there was another traffic jam for about an hour or so. You just keep on trying and after I got on the other side of Charlotte I ended up at Tanglewood by 8pm or so. I looked at it and it was a 14 hours non-stop all day long event.