http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...ID=200991030004

When Paula O'Neal's boss, photographer Neil Johnson, got back to the office with photos from First United Methodist Church's steeple crushing a local man's car on Common Street late Thursday, she was just about to head home but just had to see the pictures of a near-miracle.

There, from Johnson's unique vantage on the truncated steeple tower high atop the church, could be seen pieces of the huge broken steeple, and in the middle of them a brand-new, squashed Lexus, its driver rushed to the hospital.

"Neil said 'Come see this, you won't believe this, I can't believe the guy is still alive,'" and we were like 'My God,' how he wasn't decapitated, paralyzed, whatever, I don't know. God. Angels. Whatever you want to believe."

It wasn't until she got home and received a call from her sister Judy Williams that she learned the driver of the car was her brother-in-law, Williams' husband Michael, a well-known local graphic artist.

"I didn't know it at the time," O'Neal said a few hours later after a night spent slowly driving through rain-swollen streets after high winds and tornadoes lashed the area, including the one that toppled the church tower onto her brother-in-law's car. "It was so surreal."

Still, she thinks the fact that Michael Williams is alive and emerged as unscathed as he did from the accident strikes her as nothing less than miraculous.

"Well the good news, if there is any, is that the broken fingers were on his left hand, which is good," she said, since Williams is an artist and makes his living with those hands. "He does have one fingertip that he's going to lose on his right hand."

She said he "has no internal injuries that we are aware of. No head injuries. He remembers everything. And he's in a lot of pain, of course."

She doesn't think he'll be able to have any visitors aside from family the next few days. In addition to the finger injuries, he has a broken ankle and a broken and dislocated right wrist.

She said Judy Williams, a local advertising company owner, was in New Orleans but was driving up to Shreveport and should arrive tonight.

"She has talked to Michael," O'Neal said. "Again, he's in a lot of pain, but he's alive and we are just grateful for that."

She said people should keep the family in their prayers and understand that Michael Williams, known for his sense of humor, will adjust to his injuries.

"We're kidding about it in the family how his new nickname is 'Steeplechaser,'" she said. "Once he's recovered enough, he's going to find the humor in this."

Mods, please move this to blah,blah,blah. This has nothing to do with politics.

Mods on the brain.

Maybe it should go under Religion and Philosophy. Y'know, 'cause it was a church steeple and some people are calling it a miracle that he survived.

Or better yet, let's have the mods put it in Science and Technology cause a consensus of global warming experts agree that all severe weather is related to man-made global warming.

I would, but that fascist HB fired me for no reason.

:lol:

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

;)

A time to laugh at Pepsi :rofl: