Head on Collision with a School Bus

A couple years ago, my friend Nick Mancino (pictured below) had a head-on collision with a school bus (pictured left) and survived to tell about it. Here's his unbelievable story:

"One afternoon on January 2, 2008, I was in Windham, NH, driving my Fedex truck, which was a box truck. I took a right hand turn onto a side road, got distracted and slammed head-on into a school bus. When we hit, it tore the box right off the truck. Snow came dumping down from the top of the bus onto me. I remember seeing debris flying all over the cab. Shattered glass showered all over me. My eyes were open during impact, as I was fully aware that I hit something not knowing what it was at the time.

When I came to a stop, the cab of my truck was completely gone. The only thing that was intact was the seat I was sitting in. The rest of the vehicle was destroyed. My immediate concern was for the children in the bus. 27 children escaped injury. There are no seat belts on school buses. I was so glad to hear that none of them were hurt. It was a miracle. This could have been a deadly accident. The news broadcasts said I was in serious condition, but I wasn't. As it was, I escaped with only minor injuries and walked away with the Lord’s protection.

If I could have seen in the spiritual realm that day I know that I would have seen angels with their wings mantled over my truck and the school bus, as a bird of prey mantles over its quarry. If you have ever seen birds do this, once the prey is subdued, the bird usually 'mantles', spreading its wings out and over the prey. Mantling shields the prey from theft by other birds. That's what I imagine the angels must have done to protect me and the passengers on that bus.

I spoke to the lieutenant of the fire department a few days later and he said that in all his years of service he had never seen an accident of this magnitude on a secondary road. He said that usually you see accidents like this on interstates. I could have gone home to be with the Lord that day. I guess in one sense you can say that I died that day. My life will never be the same. My identity is in HIM, and now I take life one day at a time!"

You can still find the original news story of Nick's accident online. It has some excellent close up video footage of the accident scene. In that footage and in the photo above, you can see that the only thing left to the passenger cabin of Nick's truck was the seat he was sitting in. He came very close to death that day. What an incredible testimony of God's protection!

I'm reminded of the passage in God's Word that says: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.' " (Jam 4:13-15). We all need to be reminded once in a while how precious and brief our lives are. And we need to live for the Lord very day, knowing that it's only if He wills that we will live another day.

Attribution notice: Scripture quotation taken from the NASB.

Author's Note: Also see Angelic Encounters, as well as the other articles on the Home page of this blog. 

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"

Head on Collision with Highway Overpass Abutment

This is an amazing testimony from my friend Dan Kelley (pictured below). He recently shared it with me and I was so blessed by it that I would like to share it with others. He said:

"I used to haul US mail for the post office in a semi tractor-trailer. My runs were each around eight hours round trip late at night, beginning around midnight. Around 11 PM on October 14, 1998, I left Nashua, NH with a load of mail. As I was traveling north on the Route 3 Everette Turnpike in Merrimack, I fell asleep at the wheel. I woke up and saw that I was about to collide with the guardrail. But when I jerked the steering wheel, the truck careened across two lanes and I took out seventy feet of guardrail before smashing head-on into the abutments supporting an overpass road above the turnpike. I never had a chance to touch the brakes, so I hit the pillars at 65 miles per hour. I completely took out the first pillar and cracked the second one, coming to a stop under the overpass. The rear window of my cab blew out and I had shattered glass all over me.

I panicked because my seat belt was stuck and I couldn’t open my door. As I turned my head to the left and looked out the driver’s side window, a man standing next to my truck told me to calm down. I did calm down and finally got my seat belt to release. I climbed out through the broken window in the rear of the cab. I went and lay down on the embankment on the side of the road and fell asleep. I woke up as the paramedics were checking me. When the State Trooper asked me what happened, I told him I didn’t know. I said, 'You might want to ask the man that was there when it happened. He would probably know better than me.' The trooper replied, 'There was no one at the scene when it happened.' So I know that was one great big angel that spoke to me and God sent him to protect me.

I had been driving a new truck and it was completely demolished. The motor came completely out of the truck. The tires and both fuel tanks came off as well. The police did not want to move my trailer, because it was the only thing holding up the overpass. My only injuries were a bad cut to my thumb and I hurt my knee. The paramedics could not believe it. They said they have never seen anyone in an accident like this with such light injuries. It was a true miracle. I spent a night in the hospital and when they released me with my clothes in a bag, the clothes reeked of diesel fuel. That’s because I had been lying in a pool of fuel on the side of the road. I’m sure that if anyone had been at the scene of the accident, they would have pulled me out of that spot to a safer place.

Through this accident, I discovered I had sleep apnea and was able to seek treatment for that. I also discovered that truck driving was not God’s calling for my life. So I returned to plumbing, where I experience much more of His peace and satisfaction. It also started me on a journey in which I gave my life to Jesus Christ six years later in December 2004. "

When I think of Dan's story, I am completely amazed by the powerful protection of God that he experienced. I'm reminded of the passage in God's Word that says, "For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your ways." (Psa 91:11). If you have ever seen how they build those highway overpass abutments, they are built solid. You can find photos of this online like this one. And you'll see that these are made from concrete reinforced with steel rebar. For Dan's truck to completely take out the first abutment and crack the second one, the amount of force with which he struck them had to be enormous. I'm picturing those videos of crash test dummies when the test car slams into the wall, except that Dan did not have air bags. I'm surprised that the truck did not go up in flames. Accidents like this are quite often fatal. And the fact that Dan walked away from this alive with only light injuries is evidence that a real miracle happened. I have no doubt that the "man" he saw, who told him to calm down, was the angel of God that saved his life that night.

*The photo is not from this same accident, but a similar one.

 Attribution notice: Scripture quotation taken from the NASB. 

Author's Note: Also see Angelic Encounters, as well as the other articles on the Home page of this blog.

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"