The phone call EVERYONE dreads!

Billy Gregory

This is my daughter's car following a head on collision in March, 2010. No one was injured. Seatbelts were in use.

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I was working and traveling back from Frankfort via the Bluegrass Parkway when IT happened. My cell phone rang ... not an unusual occurrence. I feel as if I spend half of my day on the phone, so when it rings I typically sigh (or blow hard in frustration that I have to answer it again!), look at the caller ID and then answer it jovially as if this call was the first of the day.

I remember that I didn't recognize the number. When I answered, a very familiar voice, shaken and distraught, said, "Daddy, I need you ... I've had a wreck!" Immediately I went into Trooper mode, asking ... “Is anyone hurt? Were others involved? Where are you? Is the roadway blocked? Did you call 911?” My daughter, crying uncontrollably, was able to answer the questions and I assured her that she would be OK and that I was on my way.

The next 30 minutes seemed like an eternity. We typically don't believe things until we see them, so I needed to lay eyes on my daughter to make sure that she was OK. Needless to say, I was shocked at the carnage I saw when I arrived at the scene of the collision. This was a full-blown head-on collision.

My daughter had been attempting to turn right into a private drive on a hillcrest and pulled directly into the path of another vehicle that was hidden by the hill. The vehicles collided just off center to the driver side front of both vehicles. The other vehicle bounced off of my daughter’s vehicle and collided with a stone mailbox that did additional damage.

I learned that there were three passengers in the other vehicle - a mother and her two children, both in the back seat, properly restrained in child seats. In 19 years of law enforcement I have seen far less result in the loss of life. These people were scared but had survived this collision without injury.

I was thankful that all of the safety features in both vehicles worked. I was thankful that the seat belt (the primary safety mechanism) did its job, that the airbags (the supplemental safety mechanism) deployed, that the child restraint seats were installed properly and the children were restrained properly. All of these things working together, as they are designed to do, saved lives.

I am amazed as I drive through town on any given day to see people refusing to buckle up. I don't get it. The simplest task that could mean the difference between life and death is overlooked or purposely ignored.

In 2010, 759 people lost their lives on Kentucky roadways. 592 of those lives lost were in motor vehicles and 318 (53 percent) of those fatalities were not wearing seat belts.

Most of us think it won't happen to us ... that we won't get THAT phone call or that we won't be involved in THAT collision. The law says buckle up. It's plain and simple and it saves lives. Make sure that you have a fighting chance to survive when IT happens and that the phone call you make is like the one I got!