"When you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.” - Joseph Smith
Halloween has surpassed New Years Eve for the number of drunks on the road. It's always seemed to me that Halloween was mainly for kids, but now adults have turned it into a night to go out and be stupid. (Maybe it's always been that way and I was just too out of touch to notice) The roads all across northern Utah were filled with drunks last night - in fact the first DUI in our county on Halloween was at 10:30am.
Just after midnight we got a call of a car driving the wrong way on the freeway. It was in a neighboring county when it was first called in. Another Deputy and I headed west to the county line to intercept it if it came into our county. Dispatch kept updating us as to it's location and Highway Patrol Troopers came out of the city and headed our way.
I was expecting to hear of a head-on collision any second as we raced westward at over 100mph. As I approached an interstate overpass, and headed up the small rise, I felt the most peaceful, clear thought come into my mind.... "the last update over the radio placed the car 5 miles ahead of you. At your rate of closure that car will be a few seconds ahead of you. You need to start thinking about that"
We raced up and over the bridge with a curve a few hundred yards ahead. I started searching ahead of me for the car. Because of the curve, it was difficult to tell if oncoming traffic was in the appropriate lane. A cable barrier separates the westbound and eastbound lanes. A couple seconds later my headlights illuminated enough of the cable barrier to see that one set of headlights was on my side of the barrier.
The car came around the curve straight at me. We were head to head - and it showed no sign of slowing. I locked up my breaks and swerved to the right just as the oncoming car flashed by and continued east in the westbound lanes. The other Deputy was a couple seconds behind be and he ditched to the right to avoid hitting me.
We both did a u-turn and quickly caught up to the vehicle. I made a radio call updating dispatch to our location and pursuit of the car. I looked down at my speed and it was exactly 100mph and the car showed no sign of stopping. A couple more seconds passed and the car began to slow and pull over to the right - but still slightly in the travel lane of oncoming traffic. The other Deputy and I jumped out of our vehicles, guns out, and approached the car. The female driver was extremely intoxicated and thought she was in Wyoming. After taking the keys out of her car, I moved down to warn on-coming traffic to move over. The Troopers arrived and handled the DUI investigation and then took her to jail.
Explaining my experience here seems to make it seem like it all occurred in a slow, methodical way. It did not. This whole thing happened in a matter of seconds.
I believe God warned me and "pure intelligence" flowed into my mind. He gave me a few seconds of knowing the danger was just over the hill - even though I had not seen it yet - to prepare myself. Those few seconds of warning made all the difference.
Additional note: My purpose in writing this post, and all the others in this blog, is not to make myself out to be some spiritual giant or make it seem like I'm some perfect person. I AM NOT - not even close. My list of faults is so long I can't even see the end of it. Yet, even with all those faults, God still knows who I am and looks out for me. And if He does it for me, then He does it for you. This is my way of publically acknowledging Him and what He does for me. It's all Him, it's not me.
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