A short time ago I was visiting friends in Orlando, Florida. One morning we decided to make a quick drive to Tampa - about 90 minutes on Interstate 4. As we were getting in the car to leave, a friend noticed a nickel on the ground. He swiped it up and joked about how rich it would make him. We all laughed for a few seconds and finally got in the car. We never thought that the nickel would save our lives.
Interstate 4 has three lanes in each direction. Traffic during this time of day was generally manageable and speeds would easily hit the 70 mph speed limit. We kept in the middle lane - we didn't want to speed in the left lane and we didn't want to go too slow in the right lane. Suddenly the left lane came to a stop.
"There's gonna be an accident," we all said in unison.
A minivan in the left lane slammed on its brakes, barely missing the car in front of it. A truck behind the minivan wasn't as fortunate; it slammed its brakes and turned hard to the left to miss the minivan in front of it. It ended up clipping the far left bumper of the minivan. This caused the minivan to shoot across the middle lane - literally right in front of us as we drove by - and into the far right lane. As soon as it made it to the right lane, it was broadsided by a tractor trailer. As we drove by I could see the face of the poor woman driving the minivan. Luckily the tractor trailer hit the back half of it. We didn't see any other passengers and no child seats.
If the nickel was not found then we wouldn't have paused to laugh for a couple of seconds. If the nickel was not found then the minivan would have collided with us and pushed us into the right lane where we would have been broad-sided. Our car would have been crushed.
The chains of events that occur around us, however small, are all important.
Wow--freaky story! It does make you wonder what impact seemingly meaningless events are having in our day-to-day lives.
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