Here’s wishing you a very happy and safe Fourth of July. Our family considers this one of our greatest national holidays. Because it is so important I feel compelled to tell you of the worst Fourth of July I have ever experienced.

Back in the days before our hospital had ER doctors the physicians on staff took turns covering it. This Fourth found me on call. Mary and I had been invited to celebrate with friends who lived less than five minutes from the hospital. Since that was closer than our home, I felt safe going to the celebration.

Just as our host began to take the goodies off the grill the phone rang and the nurse asked me to come as fast as I could.

What I found, when I arrived, made me wish I had remained a construction worker. A mother, her sister, and her mother was taking her two school girls to the lake in her pickup. All five of them were grossly overweight. Mom was driving and the girls were sitting Auntie’s and Grandma’s laps.  None were in seat belts.

Good-driving Mother was stopped at a stop sign waiting for a car to pass when a drunk driver came down the hill across from her pick-up, ran the stop sign and plowed, full speed, head on into her truck. The two women passengers were trussed forward crushing the girls between them and the dashboard.

Both girls suffered multiple injuries, fractured ribs, ruptured livers, one girl’s aorta was severed. The other’s stomach burst sending its contents throughout her abdominal cavity and onto the dash. The first girl died before she was brought in to the hospital. The other died a few minutes later.

I cannot imagine how any of those three women will ever recover from this loss.

I returned to the party told Mary I had to go home but she could stay and ride home with one of the other guest. She read the look on my face and, like the wonderful, supporting wife she has always been, chose to go home with me.

I wish this was the only horrific case I ever saw due to none-use of a seat belt, but there is another just as bad. This family had left the big city early in the morning to visit grandparents in our little town. Because of the early hour three young kids were allowed to sleep lying in the back of a station wagon.

As in the first case, a driver came through a stop sign and hit the rear corner of the car and threw all the kids out. One of the girls hit the edge of the stop sign and was severed in to two pieces. No description is needed.

I could go on with more horrendous accidents, but I’m sure you all have had enough. Please say a prayer for these families.

My prayer for everyone who travels this weekend is to make no exception to the seat belt law. Not this weekend or ever!

Have a great celebration, and enjoy your friends and family!